CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - Q&A: Narcissist In The Family

Episode Date: June 20, 2024

This week, Whitney answers questions from listeners who are dealing with narcissists in their family and discusses how to set proper boundaries. The first caller’s question deals with a narcissist brother-in-law changing the family dynamic. The second caller recently discovered that her father was a narcissist and her mother the enabler and is questioning a situation she feels was unsafe for her son. When is the right time to set boundaries with your parents and how do you approach it? Have a question for Whitney? Call Home at 866-225-5466.  Click here to get “Toxic Positivity” on paperback.  Join Whitney’s Family Cycle Breakers Club for further support and discussion on family dynamics at CallingHome.co. Follow the Calling Home community on Instagram or TikTok.  Follow Whitney Goodman on Instagram or TikTok.  The Calling Home podcast is not engaged in providing therapy services, mental health advice or other medical advice or services, is not a substitute for advice from a qualified healthcare provider, and does not create any therapist-patient or other treatment relationship between you and Calling Home or Whitney Goodman. For more information on this, please see Calling Home’s Terms of Service. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you're with Amex Platinum, you get access to exclusive dining experiences and an annual travel credit. So the best tapas in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex.ca. Hey, everyone, happy Thursday, and welcome back to the calling home podcast. This is our Q&A episode where I answer real caller questions and tell them what I think about the issue

that they are having with their family. As a reminder, if you have any questions for me, you can always leave me a voicemail at 866-225-466. All right, let's hear you. All right, let's hear from our first caller. I'm curious to know what your thoughts are, or if you'd be interested in talking about a family dynamic with a narcissist in the family. My brother-in-law, I think, is a narcissist. He's really emotionally abusive,

and I don't know if he's physically abusive with my sister, but he's completely changed our family dynamic. He's ruined our family dynamic. He's been in my family for 10 years now. So I was wondering if you have any thoughts or opinions or if you'd be interested in talking about that. Yeah, so I have an episode coming out on July 23rd with Dr. Romney, and she is an expert on narcissism. And in this interview, we talk about the role that narcissistic individuals can play in a family. I think the dynamic you're bringing up, you know, is that this is not a person that has been in your family of origin.

for the entire time. This is a person that was brought into the family, which I think could make it extremely difficult when that's an in-law or a partner of someone that you are related to. And a lot of the time, what happens in these dynamics is that the family may notice the bad behavior or the hurtful behavior before the person's partner does. So I'm imagining, you know, if you have a brother-in-law who you think meets criteria for narcissistic personality disorder or exhibits like high levels of narcissistic traits. And your sister is with that person. You might feel like she is being harmed, hurt, belittled whatever by this person or that it's not a safe relationship or certainly not the relationship you'd like her to be in. And so that can create

a ton of tension, right? Between the member of the family of origin and all the other people and then her partner. And so when this happens, I think it's really important to navigate this carefully so that you do not further isolate or push away your family member because they feel like you are not on their side or you're not supporting them. People who are in relationships with someone who exhibits narcissism are more likely to be isolated from the people that care about them, more likely to be told that their family members don't love them, things like that, that I think it's very important to consistently show up and give that person like the space, an agency to make their own decisions. And if and when they're ready to leave the relationship or to come to you for help,

you want to make sure that you're the person that they call, right? And that they feel safe enough coming to you. We do have a resource on the website that is specifically for, parents, but I think it could really apply to anyone. And it's a script about how to have a conversation with your adult child when you don't like their partner or when you're concerned about their relationship, particularly if that relationship is abusive. That is getting added to the website the second week in July. So I would definitely look out for that script or go check it out it's under our in-laws module. And I think that can be helpful as well. Thank you so much for calling in. Hit pause on whatever you're listening to and hit play on your next adventure. This fall

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Order now. Alcohol and select markets. Product availability may vary by Regency app for details. Hi, Whitney. My name is Elizabeth, and I have been in a year long issue with my parents. There was a situation where my father put my son in kind of a situation that I didn't feel great about and concerned about his safety. It's a wild twist of stories and basically figured out my through therapy, found that my father is a narcissist and come to terms with that in my childhood. And my mother is definitely the enabler. And I'm trying to to figure out how to put up boundaries while having emotionally immature parents.

And my question for you is, how do you put in the work and know you're ready? How do you know if and when the right time is to have the conversation? My husband is always asking, what are your boundaries with your mom? What are your boundaries with your dad? What do you want it to look like? How do you see you the next couple years? and he's really helpful on having a conversation but when I get to what I want, it's blank because I can't even

believe I'm in the situation and trying to make a decision of whether to stay or go. I'm definitely in a trauma piece because this happened to me when I was nine years old. My parents decided to leave my dad's side of the family. And now I'm sitting here faced with the same situation and similar situation. And my mom is not supportive even though she was the one that did this

20 plus years ago. Just looking for some tips and tricks, I guess, as a person that's trying to do right by her family and try to get my mind in the right place to make decisions. Thank you so much for calling in, and I want to highlight that you're in a really difficult position here. And I understand your spouse's desire to, like, have you make a decision, but I also think that must be incredibly difficult for you and feel kind of like a lot of pressure, like, this decision is a big, a big one and also might feel very final for you. What I will say about, you know, if you have experience and feel that your parents are emotionally immature, they've

been abusive in the past, there's narcissistic traits that are clearly coming through, you really have to operate as if you're the only one that can uphold the boundaries and make the decisions in this relationship because having a conversation with someone about boundaries and going low contact or no contact who cannot actually have that conversation is usually a dead end. And so that's why I think you have to focus on what do I want to say for me? What do I want to do that works best for me and my family? Whether they respond well or not, what can I uphold in this situation? And what actually seems. feasible. I can tell, I think, by the way you're speaking, that it feels like the decision

you make is not going to be taken very well by them and you might feel like they're going to push back or even cut you off. It can feel very threatening in that way. And so if that's something that you're thinking about, it's worth considering, like, why does it feel so risky to have a conversation with my parents? Why do I feel very, like, emotionally vulnerable about having a conversation or setting boundaries and that feeling can often tell you a lot about your fears and what you think might go wrong in this situation. So just to kind of recap for anyone that's dealing with this, I think it's important to come back to like, what do I need to do to be safe? What boundaries can I uphold if my parents do nothing differently? What do I

want to say or do for myself, regardless of how they respond. And like, what is the best and safest way for me to communicate that information? Not everybody can do that in person or in a letter on a phone call. Like, you have to figure out what's the best way for you to communicate that. And then I think it's always important to note that, like, this doesn't have to be permanent. And for some people it is and it has to be and that's what feels good for them and for others it feels good to say like I just can't have a relationship with my parents or my parent right now with the way that things are in this state and if they change and if we work together and if something happens or when my children are older or whatever it is we can reevaluate this again if that gives you

some kind of like sense of safety or like there's still hope and it keeps you feeling good about the situation, that's okay to also think that. I think both can be true and you kind of have to find what resonates most with you and what's going to help you like grieve this loss and and also keep yourself afloat during it. Thank you so much to everyone that called in this week and asked questions. I love being able to help you with these family situations and hopefully help you find a way to better navigate them with your adult family relationships. You can always call and leave me a voicemail and I may pick your question for an upcoming Thursday episode of the Calling Home podcast. Just call 866-225-5-4-66 and leave me a voicemail. I do. these episodes every Thursday. And I love being able to get to help each and every one of you with your family relationships. If you're ready to work on your adult family relationships outside of this podcast and take what you've learned to the next level, we do have the

calling home community. You can join us for weekly groups and watch videos, take courses, get access to worksheets and more. And those groups are run by me so we can actually meet. and you just need to go to www. com and join the Family Cycle Breakers Club. Thanks, and I will see you all on Tuesday for another episode. The Calling Home Podcast is not engaged in providing therapy services, mental health advice, or other medical advice or services.

It is not a substitute for advice from a qualified health care provider and does not create any therapist patient or other treatment relationship between you and Calling Home or Whitney Goodman. For more information on this, please see Calling Holmes Terms of Service linked in the show notes below.