Money isn’t just notes and coins to a narcissist; it is true power. They hold it over everybody they meet in some way, and the more you know them, the more they will do that.
When it comes to inheritance, a narcissist isn’t willing to hand over anything willingly. There is no grace at the end of their life, just a weapon they make sure they load nice and early, carrying it throughout their miserable life.
They know what they’re doing, and it’s about time you, as their child, know about it.
1 “You know what’ll happen if I get upset.”
What better way to open up this topic than with a moderate to severe threat of financial severance?! That’s what narcissists do, and if you have a toxic parent, they will not hesitate to remind you that any wrong move you make in their eyes constitutes cutting you off.
Naturally, you’ll want to comply, right? You can’t think of anything worse than not getting your share of inheritance when the time comes, all because you didn’t do as they asked. It was so preventable! So you stick to the rules, and your narcissistic parent remains in full control until the day they die.
Bad luck for you, because as much as they want it to sound like a little joke, they’re being serious, so they put you on a leash to avoid you walking too far off course.
It’s a hard one to get your head around, isn’t it? As a parent myself, I can’t imagine ever putting that out to my child, but then again, my character is nowhere near that of a narcissist’s, so it wouldn’t happen anyway.
Still, if this is something you yourself have experienced, you’ll know how much power that statement really has over you.
2 It’s competition time!
Setting you up with your siblings to compete with each other goes without saying. The narcissistic parent’s inheritance will be made to feel as though it’s constantly up for grabs.
One week, you’re the star child doing no wrong, the next, you’re hung out to dry and your brother or sister is the golden child. It’ll be whatever your parent feels like making it, but this is how siblings end up falling out, and how the narcissistic parent keeps the game flowing in their favor.
Nobody ever really knows where they stand, and it’s that confusion that leaves you constantly waiting for signs from your parent to let you know what they think about you. Until then, you try your hardest to be good. You do anything to appear loyal. You prove yourself time and time again because that’s what you think needs to be done in order to stay in their good books.
Let me tell you something, those good books don’t exist. It’s only ever, “Good enough for right now until I decide you don’t belong there.”
See also 5 Creepy Things Every Narcissist Hides Somewhere in Their HouseI don’t know anybody who has benefitted from living and being raised this way. It’s awful to have a parent who sees you all as pawns in their game rather than people, kids, that are family.
This will go on and on until the very last day of your narcissistic parent’s life, which of course ends up affecting you all that time, too.
3 Those rules that constantly change
Rules under the roof of a narcissist’s house will always change. They don’t believe in a stable, secure and loving home because to them, that’s boring. Narcissists are always looking for ways to dramatize each moment and create a new dynamic where someone falls out with someone else.
For you, you could be doing everything right, and then one day, the rules will change and you will not be able to fix a single ‘mistake’ the narcissistic parent tells you that you’re making.
You do everything right, and you call once a week like clockwork. You’re there for every single family meal, and you make sure you say and do all the things that get the good grades from your narc parent, but one day, the rules change.
Those goalposts you’ve been shooting between have moved, and now everything feels off sync. You then hear about your cousin who you barely see being talked about in the will. They’ll get this, and all your life you were told you would.
Then there’s that charity the narcissist wants to donate to; the one you’ve never heard them talk about before.
You wonder why all this is happening, and the simple answer is that you stopped performing for them the way they wanted you to. They shook you up and replaced you with other things they’d rather spend their inheritance on.
It works so well for the narcissist because they want you to feel financially anxious so that everything is rooted in it, from your self-worth to how much you chase their love until the day they die. Everything about what it means to receive love from that parent is your main life’s focus.
Sad doesn’t even begin to cover it, right?
4 I don’t care what the narcissist says, it isn’t love
Don’t believe any of it. Love doesn’t exist in a narcissist’s world, the only thing they love is the idea of themselves. They hate you, but they need you, and so they love what you offer them. The same applies for any narcissistic parent, and they will want you to show up and prove your love in the form of responsibility to them.
I want to make sure everyone’s taken care of. I worked hard for this money and it’s up to me where it goes when I’m gone.
The narcissist might mean what they say, but it still counts as abuse if used against you. Real love doesn’t have anything attached to it; no terms or conditions. If you have loving, warm parents, they won’t use money to punish you for having a simple opinion or belief. If you don’t visit enough, they won’t use their inheritance as a weapon, and if you were to disagree with them, that won’t make them take away 10% of what they’re leaving you.
For a narcissist, inheritance is never really about the money, it’s only ever about the one thing they love:
Control.
Only now they can hold it over you every single day.
5 Right to the very end…
And this is the part people can struggle to sit with because it is a lifetime. Narcissistic parents will use this fight and toxic logic right until the very end, which means for as long as they’re alive, you’re being used as a pawn in their inheritance game.
You don’t feel safe, you don’t feel appreciated, and you worry that one wrong move will result in you losing everything.
See also THIS is What Makes NarcissistsThat’s how you’re programmed to comply over your life. Be there for that parent, and all will be well. Neglect them even once, and you’ll know about it.
Even after they’re gone, these people can still find a way to get to you with an unpleasant shock of being omitted from their will.
You have been warned.
