Gaining Strength,
Until I read your post, I never encountered another ACON who reacted to their mother the way my husband did. Well, unless you count his siblings too. Both of his parents fully qualify as Ns. My husband's mother is a pathological liar, and her children apparently learned early not to believe a word she said. My husband's attitude was always, "oh that's just mother," which I found completely confusing, being an adult child of a narcissistic mother myself ... I couldn't understand how he could write her off so completely (although I was completely envious of his ability!). His father though was another story. He really has had a hard time standing up to his dad. Somehow though with both of his parents, from an early age my husband understood the concept of Limited Contact. When we were younger I felt so bad for them that he never called. For awhile I would call my mother in law once a week out of feeling bad for her because my husband didn't call. I finally figured out what a pathological liar she is and that simply having a phone call with her was an opportunity for her to lie about what I said to sisters in law etc.
Now all the siblings and their spouses communicate directly with one another. When we were younger the N MIL kept drama going by stirring up trouble between us. We are all in our late 30s and late 40s and finally figured out that we needed to just TALK TO EACH OTHER.
I find it very very curious that out of four kids, none of them appear to be narcissistic. My husband was the Golden Child and it was as hard on him as it was on the Un-golden children. If the Golden Child has any sense, he/she knows that he has one foot over "the cliff" and the other foot on a banana peel with the N parents. All it takes is for him to screw up. And of course everybody screws up. When he was in his 20s, my husband had to deal with a lot of guilt and remorse for the way he treated his siblings when he was a teen. He said he was so intolerant and well, basically N. But he matured out of that.
Occasionally, to be brutally honest, I can see some N problems with my husband. But this is not really WHO he is. One time I told him he was being "mean" about something and he absolutely went ballistic. Apparently the word "mean" is a trigger word for him. I never encountered that side of him (either before or since). When I say ballistic I don't mean abusive or anything, he just got really angry. Generally speaking, he just has a lot of self-confidence, but he also has the capacity to reflect and to see when he's been wrong. Sometimes it takes longer than I would like, but he does reflect on his own behavior.
After reading your post, GS, I realize that the family dynamics when BOTH parents are Ns are 'way different than when there's only N. Not necessarily better or worse, because in the one-N families the other parent probably is just as dysfunctional just in a different way. But in two-N families, maybe it's a choice between "sick" and "deathly ill" parents. Kids might learn to choose sick over deathly ill. But now I hear you saying, GS, that eventually you realize that the "merely sick" parent is not trustworthy either! And since you've put all your eggs in that basket, so to speak, it is particularly nasty to have to face that truth.
