Ns and Money

[Ales2]

What are the differences between Narcissists and regular old selfish, greedy people? Does anyone have any ideas? 

I recently came to the conclusion that my NMother put up with/allowed my father not to write/have a will because, ultimately, she'd be sole beneficiary. When you do a will, its begs the question, what about the kids? She never really cared about anyone but herself, which is the reason our family did not have a will. She just explained it away as "Dad;'s wishes". Total BULLSHIT.  And, since she has used money to control us in the past (our college choices, choice of mate, living situation etc) she wants to maintain that control as much as she can.  I know there are times when she follows the type of conventional wisdom a financial adviser (like Suze Orman, who I mostly can't stand btw) would say, there are many instances when her issues with money center around scarcity and being demeaning, belittling and controlling. It also extends to how she spends money on herself, how she hoards money and how she talks about what she "can't afford".  In talking about what she cant afford, she is sending the message that she is poor, but its actually quite the reverse. 

Anybody have any thought on this stuff?  Does anyone have a NM who seems to only "help" financially when you are in crisis to maintain control and remind you of your failures? Anyone have a parent who has believed enough in you to invest in your business while still allowing you to make your own decisions? Or were you goaded into believeing they were helping only to find when you failed they blamed you? Kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy?

[Sealynx]

Money is just another form of N feed. I could write a book on the subject of N parent financing. My parents taught us zero about managing money and only stepped in to bail us out when a little help earlier would have allowed us to prosper. They financed many projects for other but never put aside a cent to invest in either of us. Now that my father is dead and my mother can barely hear she still refuses to give me power of attorney to help with her affairs. She wastes tons of money buying junk and then says she has none. I could go on and on....
S

[Ales2]

Sealynx - ouch. I can relate to investing in others instead of your kids. In my sphere, its not so much that she chose to invest in us, but she demeans us, while comparing us to others who families invested in them, yet never praises or appreciates when we have done well independently.

With my Nm I really sense her money issues center around a need to control us - she mistakenly thinks it will keep us around, when it has just the opposite effect, we see her cruelty and it propels us to stay, far, far away.!

[English]

My NM spends money on herself like crazy because she values being rich, which she is not.  10 years ago she had $500,000 that she inherited.  That was enough to live on for the rest of her life comfortably, not rich but OK.  Well she went through it so that now she has nothing. She went on cruises, bought clothes and  expensive jewelry.  I don't know what else.  Now she's on only social security which pays very little. She still spends whatever she does get on  thiings she doesn't need to buy.  She still plans on buying expensive Christmas gifts.  She's actually going to sell a ring she has to do this.  She still THINKS she's rich, she just doesn't have any money.  Huh? 

I suggested to her to sell her antiques which are just gathering dust, but she said no; she likes them.  (Read-they make me feel important).  I'm just worried that I'm going to have to start buying her food or medicine.  I don't want to give her ANY money.  She made her bed, now she can lie in it.  Or she can sell the antiques.  Or her expensive jewelry. 

NM doesn't try to control us with money.  She just wants the world to see how generous she is at birthdays and Christmas.  She wants the world to know how rich she is.

[Twoapenny]

Hi Ales,

My mum's feelings and issues around money are one of the things that I first started to notice about her and felt uncomfortable with.

When we were kids my dad went bust and we lost our house.  We moved into a council place that was stuffed full of my mum's antiques and had crystal chandaliers in it.  My mum talked constantly about how skint we were, how hard she had to work, how we couldn't afford anything etc.  I got a part time job at 13 so that I could buy myself clothes, make up etc and worked three jobs when I left school so that I could buy my first car.  It was only years later that I wondered why my mum never sold any of her antiques or jewellery when we were so broke and had to go without so much.  She and my step-dad really prospered financially through other relatives dying and leaving money in their will.  They were mortgage free by 50 and my mum took early retirement.  They've travelled the world (to the point that my mum informed me they were going to stop going abroad because they found it really boring) and have six, yes, that's right, six vehicles parked out the front of their house.  None of that money ever filtered down to any of the children or the grandchildren.

Over the years my mum has helped me out financially but it was always thrown back in my face at some point so I stopped accepting it.  She always bought my boy loads of presents and spent a fortune on him, but it came with strings and I ended up saying no to that too.  I honestly think the only thing she really does care about is money and what it can buy her.  One of my earliest memories is of my dad taking some of her antiques to sell them.  She went out to his car with an axe and threatened to smash the car to pieces if he didn't put the ornaments back in the house.  Several years later she sat there the first time my step-dad assaulted me and didn't bat an eye lid.  You can see where her priorities lie.

I know people who are very frugal but they still make sure their children get what they need.  I also know plenty of those sort of people who never buy a round in a pub, but their children are well taken care of.  I think there is a big difference between people who are careful with their cash to the point of being miserly and people who use it as another way of controlling and intimidating you.

[Ales2]

English:

NM doesn't try to control us with money.  She just wants the world to see how generous she is at birthdays and Christmas.  She wants the world to know how rich she is.

This quote surprises me. Isn't she busy controlling her image of wealth and how others see her? She uses the money to achieve that - isn't it the same thing? Isn't that Nism at its worst?  The spending spree bolstered her "rich" image but left nothing for financial security.

My Nm is the opposite, plays 1/2 poverty and 1/2 status quo to keep secret what she has. But how she lives and what she has is so upside down, thats what makes it pathological. I know some of this is because she was a WW2 baby and her family lost everything, but its still dysfunctional.  She's 72 now, talk about living in the past!

Thanks for everybody's input - I'm looking forward to more!

[nolongeraslave]

YES..I don't know where to start. To even put N's twisted relationship with money would be a headache.

Let's just say she's done everything that's mentioned in this thread. 

[Sealynx]

When I look at myself today I always have nagging doubts about spending money because of all the criticism i received regarding my "wants" in childhood. I realize that most of what I heard growing up about spending habits was due to the fact that they didn't want to spend money on us and resented when we wanted anything they didn't have as children. I think this is the opposite of what most people who felt lack in childhood do with their kids.

For a long time I'd found myself buy lots of cheap little things instead of the major items I wanted. I was spending the same amount of money but it was as if buying the real quality item would result in some sort of disaster.

[English]

Ales,
As I think back she did control me with money one way.  I was not allowed an allowance, and they would not buy me clothes once I stopped growing at 12.  They decided to give me $10/month for clothes.  I was not allowed a job or a car.  So I had no way to get money.  I had none of the teenage things: records, clothes, posters on the wall, decorations in my room.  The only music I had was the clock radio.

Now she tries to control me through the things she buys me, like "When can you come over. I have something for you?"

Even now I only buy at discount stores. I feel I don't deserve things bought at mall stores.  I still don't listen much to music.   I do read.  They never bought me any books; I read their books.  As a child i was reading Lord of the Rings and science fiction as this was the only kind they had that was not too hard.  So as a kid, they controlled me by not buying me things, not allowing me to do things.

[sKePTiKal]

Does anyone have a NM who seems to only "help" financially when you are in crisis to maintain control and remind you of your failures?

Hi Ales, this question struck a chord with me - but it's because I've been the mom asked to help (or offering to help) over & over again as my D's have lived from "crisis" to "crisis". I wasn't well-off, and only just able to see that I might be able to retire "comfortably", if we were very, very careful about our spending, at the time. It seemed "wrong" to be bailing them out repeatedly - but I felt much, much worse about not bailing them out; as if I were abandoning them.

My Nm did the same for me, that's where I learned the behavior I guess - and I never questioned it. In the course of therapy, tho', I did question it and how it sent the hidden message of "you're not able to get yourself out of the mess you made" and "here, I'll do it for you, again - even though I can't really afford it" which left me in the "suffering martyr" role - just like my mom. Offering to help seemed to indicate I had no confidence in my D's ability to take care of themselves - which wasn't really what I felt/thought. That situation has improved, but it's taken time and still has some way to go. It's sort of a co-dependent cycle... a refusal to let the D's go, separate from the child-parent relationship, and become independent grownups.

But that feeling of abandoning them... that opened up a whole rat's nest of work that eventually got me to a breakthrough of sorts. I was emotionally abandoned by my mom... and the only way she knew how to communicate "caring" to me - was through things; OBJECTS. To this day, objects - material things - represent emotions for her. But she doesn't recognize that people themselves feel emotions (only she does, but she offloads those emotions onto "things" to contain or represent them, fearing to feel, I guess). And people are more objects to her, than the things are. Her things are more important to her than people or relationships. She is currently alternating between trying to give me all her "things" (and in a magical-thinking way, accept her emotional projections as a real part of me, too) and asking me to give things back that she sent me without my consent.

To me, this is more a Borderline trait, than N... but then, sometimes the results were the same: even if I told her NO, I don't want such & such... she would send it anyway completely ignoring that basic boundary and my right to it. OH and if I can't find some object or "don't know where it is"... it sends her into a complete angry tizzy. If I say, no I don't want "that" or don't have room for anything else (which is true)... she responds as if I'm rejecting HER... because in her mind, her things ARE her.

Maybe that's an attempt to control; I am not sure. What I felt/feel... is that she wants me to be her, as a perfect mirror-image. And if I slip up - and show my real SELF - instead... then of course, there's "something wrong with me".

Any of that help or ring a bell?

[sKePTiKal]

Bring on the books, CB... I'm far from being an expert!

[lupine]

yes, books please!

[Ami]

 I am JUST seeing (with the heart )what an N is. I have written  many things that my M did but I never could feel what it felt like. I am starting to see the enormity of  growing up with an NM .
Thanks for the thread Ales. There were so many wonderful responses !                              xxxooo    Ami

 

[CB123]

The book that spoke to me the most is by Liz Perle: Money, A Memoir: Women, Emotions and Cash.

Probably every book isnt for everyone.  I find Suze Orman incredibly annoying to read or listen to.  BUT I like her in small doses--she really makes some very good points.  I will read her occassionally.

I dont like books that major on how to get rich quick, etc.  I am really not interested in being rich, just unencumbered by preoccupation with money.  But I think that is probably Perle's whole point....

CB

[bearwithme]

Oh what a great thread!  I have so much emotion about my NM and money at the moment that I am taken back by the mention of this thread and how Ales2 talks about it so close my own heart.

At this time, my NM just came into a significant amount of money.  She is 69 years old and could afford to do several things in life, i.e., number 1: start a college fund for her only granddaughter (my 2 year old sweetie) which my NM said she would do ages ago and also help my brother who is struggling immensely with life.  But she has decided to spruce up her condo and tomorrow, can you believe tomorrow, receives 9 new windows, 8 new plantation shutters, new bedroom doors with hinges and knobs, new sliding glass doors and new flooring throughout her 1400 square foot condo.  I'm happy for her.  She gets to indulge and improve her living quarters.  On her last visit to our little house that we rent, she never mentioned the money for my daughter and didn't bring any for her to start a college account but bragged about her dream to go to Israel and that she was going to fulfill her life long dream to go to Israel. WTF???  She never mentioned this to me my entire life but now she's going to spend $7,000 on this trip!!  Yes, I know, it's not NM's job to do sport my daughter with money but this is what she mentioned and said she wanted to but what she's actually saying is this:  Oh, I have something that you want Bear, beg for it won't you, I have something that you need and I want you to ask me so that I can hold it over your head..."

What makes me sick is this:  My NM actually thinks that if she were to give my daughter (her only granddaughter) money for a college fund or for whatever, NM thinks that she would be helping me out in some twisted way and this she doesn't want to do!  Sad.  So sad.  She does not see that I have nothing, nothing to do with her money for my child--it has NOTHING to do with me whatsoever, it is is for my child in her name and for her benefit, period.

I can't believe this thread.  How ironic that I'm going through some things right now with my NM and this "new money" and the similarities of all your stories.  I'm so glad to read them.

There is so much more to this new thing going on with my NM and her new money.  I will come back when I have time to "talk" about it.

Bear.