How I met his Narcissistic Mother …

4 min readMar 28, 2024

Meet the mother and recognize the red flags to save you years emotional abuse, confusion, and therapy. You are not alone with your experience. Sharing stories of narcissism to create awareness and to educate for your mental health towards healing yourself.

Please note that narcissism is a personality trait on a spectrum and I am not diagnosing anyone with a disorder. Learning how to deal with toxic people and understanding why they come into your life is imperative to learn and move on.

This is my story.

The second time I met my narcissistic ex´s mother, she scooted over next to me on the kitchen bench, grasped my hand tighly, put her face too close to mine for comfort, and stared intensely into my eyes while telling me:

“I know what my son needs. He needs a wife who takes care of him. A woman that bears his children. Are you going to quit your job and take care of my son?”

I was stunned.

(The narcissistic stare I experienced in this incident would haunt me for years to come. It was what both of them used for intentional manipulation.)

I told her that I am not planning on quitting my job anytime soon and that we will discuss family and marriage at an appropriate time further into the relationship.

Her eyes turned even more stern, penetrating me deeply, her voice clear and deep:

“You need to stop working working to be his wife and take care of his family…”

Now, I was spooked!

When my new partner returned back to the house, I asked to speak with him immediately in his room about what had just happened.

(Yes, he still had a room in his childhood home that probably looked exactly like when he was 12. He was 40 years old when I met him.)

I confronted him with what his mother had told me and asked him if this is what he wanted: a trophy wife like his mother and his sister. Women who submit to their husband´s needs and cook dinner in Gucci heels, keeping the kids at bay when the provider returns home from a day of hard work.

And why does his mother talk to me in this way the second time I meet her?

He laughed it off saying that his mom was crazy and that I shouldn´t worry. He doesn´t want a trophy wife but spend more time together before making any decisions on marriage and children, giving me his promise that he loved me and wants to be with me forever. Essentially, his successful first attempt at narcissistic future faking …

I urged him to give it a really good thought overnight. The next day, he still confirmed that I shouldn´t worry about his mother saying these things. And then he said something that should become my own anthem for dealing with him and his mother for years to come.

He said: “She probably meant well and you just misunderstood and overreacted!”

Puzzled by this but also compliant and wanting to please his mother that welcomed me in her house and the whole incident was simply swept under the perfectly white and fluffy rug in the picture perfect living room.

And I probably overreacted and misunderstood, right?

I should have left right then and there but I didn´t. I was curiously intrigued by the intense dynamics within this family that was so different than my own. He painted a future together for me to believe in. And obviously the fact that they had perfectly white, fluffy carpet in the living room.

Fast forward seven years and in a mysterious incident, his parent´s place burnt to the ground, and he moved back in with his parents, taking care of her, shutting me out completely. No closure, no talk, no reasoning. He just went back to his mother and began his smear campaign leaving our relationship in utter chaos and me in insane emotional turmoil.

Here are some words of advice.

When it comes to the narcissistic mothers of narcissistic son´s, they have all the power to make your life a living hell over time:

they will dominate your relationship and get involved in all kind of ways.
they make you feel inadequate and never good enough for their son.
they will find ways to compete with you over her son´s sympathy and attention.
if she is a covert narcissist she will do this slowly overtime and get her son back.

Finding yourself in a narcissistic mother/son entanglement?

Here is what you can do to protect yourself: