A narcissistic man's father has nothing to do with you, nor does how they treated the man you fell for.
Somewhere along the way you got caught up in it all and became the person who ended up paying for everything he did to his son, and now you're being punished in these 7 different ways.
This isn't small; it's the opposite, and it is so unfair that you have to bear the brunt of it all. For the narcissistic man, the wound they carry comes from deep humiliation over the years, and feeling as though he was never enough.
Here you are, carrying all that weight.
Weight that was never yours to hold in the first place. You didn't create the wound, you didn't deepen it, and yet somehow you're the one bleeding for it.
1 His father's coldness becomes your punishment
Why is what happened to him a problem that you have to take on?
Sure, it's nice to be there for people who have gone through struggles, but when you are punished for a time in his life that you were nowhere near present for, you have to try to see how wrong and unfair that is. There was you, trying to be warm.
He came home from work, and you were keen to know how his day was. Whenever he has bad days, you make sure you let him know that you're there, and you're ready and willing to do what it takes to help him or make his life easier.
You know what happens? That warmth, it starts to transition into something he hates and resents. You would notice the change in temperature as his mood ran cold, and he pulled away. Why? What did you do to deserve this?
I will tell you why, but I want you to know that you did nothing to deserve it. The reason is:
He had a narcissistic father who likely gave him nothing resembling warmth growing up. You offer it, and to him, it's like you're offering something he's never really heard of, let alone experienced.
Your warmth is a reminder of everything he didn't receive as a child, and he is angry with you for showing him that it exists. He pushes you away, and you feel no better off in the end.
The problem here is that victims can end up seemingly walking on eggshells. They never really know what's right or wrong, only that they have to watch for moods and behavior in order to try to guess. He doesn't trust you.
He doesn't trust that your intentions are good and honest.
A woman told me once that her partner would go silent for days after she cooked him his favourite meal. Kindness felt like a trap to him.
2 If you're confident, you remind him of what he wasn't permitted to feel
All those times he tried to act confident, be confident, and build it, he was torn down, mocked, criticized and dismissed. It wasn't allowed under the roof of a narcissistic father, especially for the children who really feel that abuse coming through.
I find it troubling that any child gets knocked back in this way, and how anything good they try to do is downplayed in such a manner. It makes me sad then, that this somehow becomes the fault of a person who was not involved in any way.
See also 6 Things Narcissists Secretly Fear After Hurting A Good WomanBack then, he will have attempted to build on a confident foundation, and he was told:
Who do you think you are? You are not ready for this. I'm surprised you think you've got what it takes. You think you're so much better than everyone else, don't you? Don't get too big for your boots!
That voice is his, but it was born from that of his father's. Every word, every tone, every prompt will be taught and passed down, and it will affect you the longer you stay, and the longer he cannot see what he's doing.
Sound familiar? You start dimming yourself in tiny ways, wearing less colour, laughing less loudly, shrinking a bit at a time so he doesn't feel threatened.
3 If you disagree, it automatically turns into a power struggle
That power struggle comes from a time where he was made to feel like he had to fight for any of it as a child.
Powerlessness is usually the result of that, and that includes things like being overruled, dismissed, or silenced during times where he should've been loved and listened to. He vowed he would never feel like that ever again, but then you disagreed with him once, and it all came flooding back.
You were calm about it, and you had a kind tone that you distinctly remember not being loud or cold sounding. That didn't make a difference, he still got triggered, and he still made everything about you trying to gain power and control.
Only now, he feels as though he is in a situation where he can fight back, because his father's voice is not dominating the entire house. The reality is, you weren't even disagreeing. It was just a conversation, and not the battle he took it to be.
He doesn't have to win, because you aren't setting up a competition.
And yet there he is, arms folded, jaw tight, ready for a fight that only exists inside his own head. You're just trying to talk.
If only he knew that he didn't have to merely 'survive' around you the way he's making you 'survive' around him.
4 Whatever you need the most is held back
I'm talking about anything that you might need in your relationship. One day, it might be his approval, even just slightly. Or to be validated in something you went through.
Anything, even as simple as, "You did really well, I'm proud of you." That can be all it takes to know that he's interested, and you're connected. Unfortunately, you're asking for that from the very person whose own father never gave it to him.
It was rare, if at all, it'd happen and you are receiving the same kind of emotive rations he got because it's all he knows, and all he's willing to offer.
That means you as the good person pushes to work harder for that love because you want something that's meaningful. You don't want to give up, and you find your purpose in trying to fix what his father broke in him.
Sadly, all that does for you is make you shrink and try to play a role that you were never destined to play. He watches you, by the way. He knows what you're doing, and why you're doing it.
The problem is, he doesn't care enough, and that's where you end up stuck in a loop; a cycle that blows hot and cold, and where no two days are ever consistent.
You reach for a crumb of praise, he pulls his hand back. You stop reaching, he suddenly notices. That's the trap, and he sets it daily.
5 His anger is a sign of all those feelings he was never allowed to have
Feelings aren't allowed if you are raised in a house with a narcissistic father. They're frowned upon and seen as equally weak as they are inconvenient. It was dangerous to cry, and dangerous to be vulnerable and sad. Toughen up! That's what he would've heard a lot of.
Quit your whining before I give you something to whine about! That was it. Stiff upper lip. Carry on and continue. Now it's all coming out to you, and you're taking it all on as if it's still happening now. It is.
It's happening before your eyes, and this time it's you hearing those sad phrases, and not him. That's how things get passed down, and how people never learn that what they went through was not how any child should've been treated.
So when he snaps over a spilled drink or a wrong tone, it isn't really about you. It's about a small boy who was never allowed to cry.
6 He punishes you for the softness he can't accept in himself
Softness in him got beaten out early. Tears, tenderness, any hint of gentleness was labelled as weak, girly, pathetic. So he built a wall around it, and now here you are, being soft in front of him, and he can't stand it. When you cry, he rolls his eyes.
When you talk about your feelings, he goes cold. When you want a hug for no reason other than wanting one, he stiffens up like you've asked him for a kidney.
Why? Because your softness reflects his own back at him, and he can't face it. He buried that part of himself a long time ago, and you're out here walking around with yours on full display. It irritates him. It shames him.
And rather than sit with any of that, he punishes you for it. He'll mock the way you cry. He'll call you dramatic. He'll say things like, "You're always so emotional," as if feeling things is a character flaw. It isn't.
It's the part of him he was never allowed to keep.
See also The Narcissist Gets Sick on Day Two of Your Vacation, and It's Never Random7 Your happy childhood becomes evidence against you
If you grew up loved, if your parents actually showed up, if birthdays were warm and dinners were normal, he will hold that against you. You didn't know it at first.
You'd mention something small, a memory of your dad teaching you to drive, or your mum still calling every Sunday, and you'd see his face shift. Something closes off. Suddenly your good childhood is a stick he beats you with. "Must be nice," he says, in that flat tone.
Or, "You don't understand what real life is." As if the fact that you weren't broken makes you shallow, spoiled, naive. It doesn't. It just means you were lucky in a way he wasn't, and instead of being glad for you, he resents you for it.
He wants you to feel guilty for being okay. Some men will even twist it further, telling you that your softness is proof you've had it too easy, and that you couldn't possibly love him properly because you don't know what pain is. You do. You're living it now.
