As a son of a narcissistic mother it can be very frustrating because the vast majority of the literature is focused on daughters of narcissistic mothers. While I understand that girls of narcissistic mothers face a whole range of complexities ranging from their mothers attempting to compete sexually with them, personal grooming, and "girl stuff" as sons of narcissitic mothers we also face our own range of complexities.
It may be possible that families need to be large enough or daughters in short enough supply for sons of narcissistic mothers to have the sort of serious wide ranging problems that daughters may have. I know in my (adopted) family there were four girls and three boys across a wide range of ages. The oldest girl was the first scapegoat (now dead) and then the third oldest girl was the second scapegoat, the youngest girl was the golden child but I as a son was also a scapegoat and I was adopted (perhaps to fill the role? who knows, gurg).
I know that other than the usual competition amongst siblings that the NM fostered and the outrageous double standard for the GC sister vis a vis the standard that everyone else faced, the single most infuriating form of sabotage my NM deployed was the constant attempts at destruction of my romantic relationships. This started when I was in my teens and getting into girls. I was a pretty charming good looking guy. So she stopped buying me clothes, or found "great" hand me downs from her friends teenage boys, declined to take me places to hang out with my friends, and pulled highly embarassing stunts when I was at my friends' houses (waking up my friends parents at 6am on a Sunday to come and pick me up because I didn't make my bed before I left comes to mind.)
As I got older and the relationships got more serious and intertwined, she would revel in the more comely women that I dated and voiciferously try to wedge in on the more beautiful ones. I recall bringing home this super petite hot girlfriend with long, curly thick black hair and great C cup chest and shortly after we arrived it was like I did not exist. I was met with that ever familiar cold glance that instructed me to shut up just because I was trying to get involved in the conversation. She would always bring up my ex girlfriends in front of whatever girl I was seeing at the time, ("Oh have you talked to Rachel lately? How is she doing? She was so pretty." - in front of a completely different girlfriend years and years later).
As I got older the sabotage became more blatant and destructive. I was engaged, and had been largely low contact with her and the EF but given the engagement and the time that had passed I figured that they had maybe had some time to grow up. Shortly after meeting my fiancee's mother at the engagement party, a quietly placed phone call was made by my NM to my fiancee's mother - about how she should be concerned for her daughter (my fiancee) because I was always such an angry child and that I was so prone to violence. After that relationship ended (due to unrelenting pressure from my fiancee's mother) she was quicker and quicker to play that card.
I recall having a truly magical relationship with this gorgeous blonde. She looked so hot in a bikini and my NM and EF lived on the beach. I brought her up there to have a trip out of town and that relationship turned from magic to fatal in a literal 12 hour period. The day we left their house, that girl was enraged, angry, screaming and yelling at me, and putting me in my place any chance she could. I never really heard what was said, but later on I realized that the NM destruction card was probably what happened. That relationship never recovered and I had to kick her out a few months later.
My current girlfriend, upon first meeting my NM was advised, "you should seriously reconsider living with him - think of the safety of your daughter" (she had a little girl from a previous relationship). Somewhat wise to these antics, she was pre-prepared. The bad mouthing of me never ended until I went NC with them. Every time I wasnt in the room or listening in on the phone call, these twisted daggers were hurled in my back - to my own girlfriend.
I can think of many other instances where that sort of thing may have been at play, just that I wasnt aware of them at the time because I didn't know to look. I mean, why would your "mother" try to get your own girlfriends to break up with you, it makes no effective sense.
I was always belittled in front of my girlfriends to my face by them. I would sit there and cook breakfast for everyone and then when the brunch gathering at my house came to a close, they would blatantly thank my girlfriend for cooking such a fine meal. When she would protest and point that we all watched me do all the cooking they would then say that she must have enabled me to make such a fine meal. In that particular instance it was eggs benedict, something my girlfriend had never even tried before. It was very insulting and awkward watching them try to concoct one rationale after another for thanking her, rather than me, for the meal. It was almost like they just HAD TO thank someone other than me for making a fine meal. In another instance, a previous girlfriend slept through all the perparations for a Christmas gathering because she was sick. When she got up, they praised her for doing such a fine job preparing the house for everyone. A similar story ensued.
On the employment front it was similar to the romantic one. I was told to "stick with McDonalds, it's your ace in the hole" when I was actually previously a sous chef and I was looking for better work prospects. When I got a job in investment banking by fluke, the importance of my role was belittled until I started raping the adviser in her branch's accounts (she was a bank manager at the time and they had a planner working for them) to the tune of $400,000 in accounts per month. Then she tried to hire me, offering me double. It was quite just deserves when I declined and said loyalty was more important to me than money.
Every job I ever had was cast off as some low level "not a real" job and nobody in the family, none of the siblings, ever thought that I had my act together. Sure I was the trainer for my entire province for the largest investment banking firm in the country and I spent all day providing training for investment managers across 14 different cities, but my siblings all thought that I was just being a braggart and exaggerating my role. Seeing as she was a bank manager and I worked in banking of course they would beleive her.
On that front, I guess as a male, son of a narcissistic mother, it was the belittling of my employment accomplishments that wounded me the most. Sure, I got kicked out at 17 and couldn't finish grade 12 because I had to get a job, and managed to scratch and claw my way into a job in investment banking - so there was no way she could take any credit for me working in her industry - but it was never treated that I was doing anything at all respectable, and my siblings always treated me as such.
Between attempts to sabotage my career and relationships, I guess those are the cornerstones of what most males see as the most important aspects of their lives. Not to sound superficial, but a smart, pretty girlfriend and a good paying job are hallmarks of success when you're a guy, along with having some great consumer electronics and maybe a nice car.
Of course I was never given opportunity to get my drivers' license, nor a job, when I lived with them (in a rural area that was debilitating), and ten years later I would be belittled for not having a car. Kind of hard to justify buying a car when you're working your backside off to support yourself and you dont have the license to be able to drive it. Not that I didnt have four different vehicles and three at one time - just nobody who could get in the car with me to give me some driving practice to pass the test, because they have to be over 25 here.
I have read reports of golden child boys. That was anything but the experience that I had. She never seemed to take much of a liking to any of the boys in that family. That however wasnt limited to us boys, like I said before there was one standard for the golden child sister and another standard for everyone else. It didnt seem gender specific. Although I dont doubt that it happens.
If there are any other sons of Narcissistic Mothers please do post here. After a while this may become a useful resource for sons of NMs who are looking for answers and keep turning up stuff for daughters of NMs. No offense to the ladies, but it can be very frustrating for us to keep finding female centric literature when there are likely a lot of us suffering with similar realities but unable to relate to thing like our mothers refusing to buy us a bra.
