Is One Parent a Narcissist and the Other an Enabler?
Written by Randi Fine, Narcissistic Personality Disorder Abuse Expert
To find out if you have a narcissistic parent and a parent who enables him or her, please answer yes or no to the following twenty questions:
- Did you grow up in a two parent home with one parent significantly more domineering than the other?
- Was one of your parents verbally abusive to the other parent and the other parent put up with it?
- Did your more passive parent put your abusive parent “on a pedestal,” or idolize him or her?”
- Did your more passive parent defend the abusive actions of the other parent?
- Did your more passive parent’s emotional and physical survival depend on his or her relationship with your more domineering parent?
- Did your parents argue all the time, your more domineering parent ragefully?
- Did you feel as if your parents were unusually enmeshed in each other’s lives?
- If your family was in a boat that was sinking, do you believe that your more passive parent would save his or her abusive spouse before saving the children?
- Did your more passive parent always lose the argument when he or she fought with your abusive parent?
- Did you feel as if you had no parent to advocate for you or your siblings?
- Was your more abusive parent jealous of your more passive parent’s attempts at having a relationship with any of his or her children?
- Did your more domineering parent bad mouth your other parent to you and/or your siblings?
- Did you always wish your more passive parent would stand up for his/her self against the abuse from your other parent?
- Do you have problems or issues with the concept of healthy love in adult relationships?
- Do you believe that chaos and drama is a normal part of romantic adult relationships?
- Do you believe that love is supposed to be painful?
- Did your parents present a picture perfect relationship to the outside world but a dysfunctional one behind closed doors?
- Did your abusive parent bully your passive parent into doing his or her dirty work, such as doling out punishment for things he/she never witnessed?
- Did your passive parent always believe what your abusive parent said; even when the children said the abusive parent was lying?
- Do you despise weakness in a romantic partner?
If you answered yes to five or more questions, it is highly likely your parents have/had a Narcissist/Enabler relationship. Once identified it is best for you to work on this issue in your personal life. The patterns of parenting and dynamics of a love relationships were improperly modeled for you in childhood and may be negatively impacting your romantic adult relationships.
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Thank you for such type of questionnaire.