I wanted to add that my mother never gave me one penny for college tuition, and cried poverty whenever I asked, which was a blatant lie. Also, when she collected on me, I was not her dependent and was living away from home.

Money has always been an emotive and volatile issue for my parents. My dad is strange, he will spend very little on my kids n grandkids, then pay a silly amount on something for himself. Finding out he's borderline/ narc has made this easier to deal with. He expects me to be like this too, with my kids. One day I rang him to tell him about my lovely busy day with my children, how I had visited my two older ones (one near, one not so near, and then we had a quick bite to eat before driving the youngest back to uni. His one word answer was;

'Petrol.'

Not ,'Oh how lovely for you, seeing all your family.... etc.

He interprets everything in terms of its cost. Depressing.

Thanks for the insight, and yes, I suppose money would be part of the Narcissistic web, being an important aspect of life. I guess your Dad tallies up expenses instead of seeing the important picture. I am angry that when I confront my mother now as a middle aged person with a grown son of my own, she still tells me she had to hide money info from me "for my own good". I guess some things never change.

My NM cried poverty when I asked about going to college in my high school years. She said they (EF and her) didn't have enough money to pay for my tuition, but they had enough to pay for my younger brother. Her thinking was my brother would need to support a family and I would probably get married and not work, anyway.. :( I ended up having to secure my own financing to attend college.

I think my NM was paranoid about me knowing about their finances. Several years ago, my MIL showed my husband and I where she kept her financial and insurance documents, as well as her will, for when the time came to retrieve them. I later asked my mom where her papers were, and she immediately became agitated and told me I would have to find them over her dead body, because she wasn't going to tell me. Okay then.

You mention you had a N mother. Has she passed? If so, were you able to finally get whatever money was left?

No, she is still alive, but it may be that in my mind, she is in the past tense because I have seen through her.

Thank you for sharing your story. I think the reason your mother became agitated with your request is that, unlike your MIL, who seems to be a normal person, your narcissistic mother, like my own, views money as power and control, without which she would feel desperately weak. To her (and it would be the same with my own mother) you were envisioning her death, and after her "power". Narcissism, I believe, is born of weakness. Strong and healthy people do not need to play power games.

my dad has always been so close about money. Not sure what will happen in the future. Hubby's parents are much more normal about it. I think for my dad, money equals worth, equals identity. I know he will never be any different about it. It's ironic because he used to complain that my grandma wouldn't ever talk about money and wills, because she couldn't bear to. Although my parents were different in that they talked at length about their wills when they were both living (mum passed on last year), to the extent where I would tell them to change the record, it did little more than make me and my siblings feel uncomfortable. These days dad will mention inheritance, in a way that sort of uses it as a weapon. I'll never do that to my children. He's told GC where the paperwork is lol xx

Yes, inheritance as weapon has been used here, too, and I think it fits in with the N trait of wanting power and control. Sort of a defensive strategy, too.

I just want to find some support here...

I was told by my mom that she changed her testament and left everything for me for being such a good daughter, she told me this 6 years previous to her death due to a terminal kidney disease...
The testament said equal parts with my 4 siblings...
I dont know if she just lied to me so I could take more care of her or if my sister hide the last testament because the lawyer says the file is lost and it is the last testament.


I feel stupid, I loved her but she was super demanding my whole life, I felt guilty for he giving me the house that I was tolerating lots of demands...

Whyyyy to lie like this???

Money was a big source of arguments in our house growing up. My parents always made out they had none but my bro and I now know that wasn't strictly true. As we got older money was given to us to 'help us out' but we had to be grateful and were constantly reminded of exactly how much and how generous our parents were. My bro and I have both been struggling financially recently due to events brought on by our parents behaviour and we were led to believe they couldn't help out. Then at Xmas we discovered they'd been giving large amounts of money to young people they keep 'adopting' in coffee shops - replacemeant sons and daughters who see our parents as saints. I'm doing everything I can now to cut financial ties with them as I see it as their biggest control of choice. All I've ever wanted is to be independent and now I've accepted who my parents are I have been able to recognise how they have engineered it so I am anything but independent. This was the final straw for me but my brother is only just starting to see the truth and he feels deeply betrayed.

Some are typical but thing with N mothers is they can be individually different on other things. My uninvolved narcissist father never helped me through my life. He was divorced and kept all his money for himself and I struggled with poverty . He would sometimes say things like "I've lost a stone cos I left my wallet at home " and other things like that he lead a luxurious lifestyle and it hurt that he never helped us out . This didn't change when I got older. I worked doing shift work and would have to walk home late at night and always worried about my rent getting paid and bills as my work was low paid. It hurt my dad was a millionaire and I had to constantly worry about my finances. I think it's a power control thing. My N mother was generous with money though which would make it difficult for me to feel bad about her. She more was not interested in me and ignored me or tolerated me while being heavily involved with her own interests. It's different depending on person but it can fall under the narcissist trait of lacking empathy .

Also once when I went to live with him for a short time when I was 15 my mother was reviving child benefits or tax credits and gave him the book. When I came back to my mother he kept that book and the few belonging I had left despite being wealthy . So we were unable to claim any more of my top up for my food and stuff and also found out when his mother died she left me a very expensive ring which to this day I never got either .

When my parents divorced my mother got child support for us. An old friend gave me back some letters written when I was 16 and I was saying that my mom told me she resented having to spend money on Christmas presents for us and I hadn't received a birthday gift 3 weeks past my birthday. When my parents were together the ample money my father made was spent on having a beautiful home (mom's prize) but I remember being mortified about going to school in cheap, ugly clothes. I started college but since I had to do it on loans I dropped out and went to work.

As an adult, my h and I borrowed money from my father to buy our first house. He made me sign all kinds of papers because he was scared in case anything happened to him I wouldn't return the money to his WIFE, who had plenty of her own. After his death, he didn't leave me so much as a toothbrush - it all went to her.

My mother's mother left each of us $1000 and was very proud to be able to do that. But when she died, my mother didn't spend on having a service for her (no service!!!) and didn't give us anything. When I wanted my grandmother's old sofa she charged me for it. Now I am giving thousands a year to help support her but my sister is actually keeping her in her house so I am getting off cheap.

The hurt and bitterness I feel is not about the money - it's about the lack of love.

Trust me, money was the source of problems for my NM. I'm an only child, but I was treated like a step. Money went to her needs and likes while I got thrift store clothes or hand me downs from my cousins. My narc mom even drove us to homelessness and forced my dad and I to live off of bread while she ate out with friends and spent our reserved money on her "ceramics business". I weighed 94 lbs and was forced to work for the post office to pay for my narc because she had two heart attacks and quit her job because they "bullied" her. She was the sole income.

She's only offered me a $20 wedding in a very bad neighborhood trailer park, after she took $6,000 from my Fiance to save our house during her heart attack stint. She still expects me to drive up and see her, buy her things, and pay for gas while she keeps all her income from settlements. I have medical debt she refuses to help with, even after saying she would pay it with her settlement money from one of three former jobs she's sued.