Could your father be/ have been a low-grade narcissist?

[Couscous]

The video below dispelled any remaining fantasies I have had about my father. He was a typical Disneyland Dad and few months ago actually suggested that my siblings and I go to Disneyland as way to resolve our differences. 
 
I am curious to know how common this phenomenon is amongst members of this board.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JjUAzw5reZA

[eaglestar]

I watched the video and I know a few people who definitely fit into this category perfectly. One of my best friends is exactly like this. He is a super fun friend, loves Star Trek and many other things I also enjoy, and is great to talk to about the things we're both interested in. He is a father and husband, like me. I would never come to him for any kind of life advice or discussion (admittedly, I only have one friend I ever ask for advice and he's 75 years old, so he's more of a older-uncle-type friend...I don't know if it's common for men to go to their friends for advice--I have a few who come to me but it's pretty rare). Anyway, this friend of mine is not one to engage in serious discussion, can be pouty and a bit petulant when he doesn't get his way, and the thing that rang most true in the video is his incessant schemes to make it big. From the moment I met him he was always talking about his next big thing. He even convinced his mother to invest part of her retirement savings (and not a small amount!) in an effort to create an app that was supposed to revolutionize the way we use technology in business. The app never got off the ground. He goes from job to job, and it's always someone else's fault or the luck of the universe that the last one didn't work out. But he is a great friend! Fun to hang out with. He annoys my wife (and a lot of other people).
My sister-in-law's sister is solidly in this category. Every holiday gathering has some amount of drama thanks to her. She must be the center of attention in every setting. She takes endless pics of her kids and puts them on social media. She throws a massive childlike fit if she doesn't get her way about everything. She once uninvited my parents to my sister-in-law's house for Thanksgiving (it wasn't even HER house) because they would not give her money when her husband lost his job. They don't budget. Like... at all. They are constantly in some kind of financial trouble.

But honestly, my father definitely doesn't fit this category. He is super responsible, and was always about "work before play." He instilled a sense of conscientiousness in me that stays with me to this day. He was always the one to pick up the house when he came home from work. He would tell my brother and I that our family outings were not rights but privileges and that if things weren't done at home (homework, chores) then we simply wouldn't go. As an executive, he had to be extremely responsible and practical. Additionally, he's very ethical. He always said that if he hadn't gone into business he would have liked to be a high school
or university ethics teacher. He enjoys reading difficult ethics cases and thinking about how the law and religion tie into the answer. I don't think a narcissist would excel in any of these things or behave as responsibly as he has.
But the video was helpful for me to understand my friend better!

[Riv3rW0lf]

No, my father doesn't fit into this category. But I am now thinking my husband has those tendencies, which would make sense based on my own emotional issues and having had to be a parent from such a young age! However, I am fine with our relationship, he is a breeze compared to my uBPD mother. And even if he does sulk when he has to help, as long as he does it, and he always comes through, I am ok with it. Is there an even lower grade to low grade narcissism? Because he does give me empathy, when I really need it. And he is great with finances... But he does always seem to have a new project in mind that he won't pursue all the way, and he does feel like an overgrown teenager sometimes... Anyway !

Back to my father. No he doesn't fit at all in this category. My father was more of a masochist with abandonment issues. He was put in a religious boarding school and almost never saw his parents from the time he was 12. From what I was told, he had a very difficult relationship with his own father. When he was 24 I think, or around that age, his father fell asleep while driving, killing both his wife and daughter, resulting in my father losing all of his family but his brother. His brother developped so many issues that my father had to cut him out of his life in order to heal. It's like he spent the rest of his life trying to process this loss. He couldn't be alone and he tended to chose women with deep issues (my mother was one, but there were a lot more). When he had his first born (my brother), he started to work on himself, find his patterns and tried to change his own dynamics. Today, I am happy to say he is in a healthy relationship with an amazing woman (a psychologist), and he is, overall, good.

With him, it was always about being emotionally responsible for ourselves. He couldn't be there to help me figure out my emotions though, because he just couldn't do it even for himself. But he did pay for a psychotherapist for me once when I started to develop BPD tendancies myself, and had me attend self improvement seminars when I was a teenager. So in all his own emotional chaos, he never, ever, made ME feel responsible for HIS pain, and just tried to give me tools along the way so that I could support myself, because he certainly couldn't support me AND him.

So I basically had a broken father who showed me it is possible to become more than our pain. It wasn't easy though because I still lacked guidance from my parents and empathy, he just had none to give, even to himself, he was working on developing it... But in the end, he gave me a great exemple of growth and showed me it is possible to improve and heal. 

I blamed my father so much, because he was easy to blame. He didn't respond and always welcomed me back when I was low. He never accepted to be my persecutor. He never engaged in the victime triane I tried to initiate with him, following my mother example. He wasn't perfect, he often puts more importance on his relationship with crazy women than his children.. he couldn't be alone and it often felt like I was his sister more than a daughter, but he was enough to lift me from this horrible dynamic, so I am very grateful.

[Couscous]

That was a very encouraging story to read about your father Riverwolf, thank you so much for sharing that. It gives me hope that it is possible to undo some the damage that was done to me so that I don’t pass on my own trauma to my kids.

[Notwendy]

Couscous- while no parent is perfect, we can "break the cycle" by doing self work  It is a motivator for me to do this.

Interesting story about your father, Riv3rW0lf.

For my father, I think it was mainly co-dependency and enmeshment. People didn't know about BPD when my parents got married. My mother holds it together well in a superficial relationship and she's very charming. I think my father just fell in love with her. I don't know when the BPD behaviors emerged but I think those happened after they married. At that point, he tried to help her. He was empathetic to her emotional distress and probably felt the best thing to do was to appease her to relieve it.

There was a time when my father seemed to be more engaged with us, but by my teen age years, I could sense that he was stressed with the situation. He had to be able to work to support us and also be the parent. BPD mom's behavior was clearly disordered, and yet, we somehow had to act as if nothing was going on.

My mother has narcissistic tendencies and in his later years, it was hard to tell "who" was speaking- my parents seemed to say the same things. It's as if they were one person. So if he said something that sounded like a narcissist, I think it was more enmeshment with her.

I do believe that if someone is in a close, long term dysfunctional relationship and they enable it, that they too also have a level of dysfunction. However compared to my mother, my father seemed way less dysfunctional. However, our family dynamics were mainly driven by my mother's moods and so milder dysfunction would probably not have been noticeable.

[eaglestar]

That was a super inspiring story, Riverwolf!

I wonder... is it possible that my mother's own narrative about my father is the reason why he stays with her? They met in high school, fell in love, and he rescued her from an abusive relationship with her father by marrying her so she could move out and have someplace safe to be. They worked very hard together to become financially independent and succeeded after years of responsible decisions. They started with nothing and built a little empire. Despite how hard my father worked and how successful he was, my mother made him feel guilty about all the time he spent at work. She endlessly hounded him for being at work all the time, criticized his absence in from of my brother and me, and tried to foster in us discontent toward him. She succeeded in doing this in my brother, and for a time it worked on me as well, until I caught her wrath and became the Scapegoat when I questioned her logic. Anyway, fast forward to now, when my father had retired and still endures her endless criticism... he has come to believe her narrative that he was wrong for working so hard and that now he has to "give back" and "sacrifice" to make amends. He told me once that he views marriage as a sacrament and that sacraments require sacrifice. I don't disagree with him entirely, but I don't believe he should feel guilty for working as hard as he did and doing what he could to earn the money they now enjoy. If he has come to believe her narrative and feel guilty for it, does that equate to co-dependency? Or perhaps he just wants to have someone to rescue? That could be what he gets out of the relationship.
Sorry if I'm off topic here. It's just the first time that I've thought about this stuff and I wanted to see what others thought.

[Notwendy]

The idea that marriage is a sacrament, and requires sacrifice seems to have religious meaning to your father and so his ideas of sacrifice may be influenced by his particular religion.

I think in general, all religions regard marriage as a sacred vow, one that isn't broken except for in extreme situations and some don't allow it to be broken at all.

From working in ACA groups, I learned that our religious ideas are shaped by our parents in some ways. They may teach us the principles of their religion but the ideas about God that a child forms are influenced by our parents. If our parents are unforgiving and critical, we might grow up thinking God is like that. A part of ACA involves reshaping a concept of God that is different from a critical parent.

Without knowing much, it seems you father is a strong rescuer and has some co-dependent tendencies in that he is looking to your mother to gain forgiveness and validation rather than being able to give this to himself. And it also seems your mother isn't able to do this for him, except in rare circumstances. Intermittent reinforcement is very strong and so he keeps trying. Perhaps he also had critical parents who were hard to please? Perhaps this has influenced how he sees religion?

I agree with the idea that a marriage takes some sacrifice some times,  but when one sacrifices too much, that leads to resentment. Resentment isn't good for a relationship either. Sacrificing too much is co-dependency and people pleasing. Looks like your parents are in balance though- with each parent meeting a need by their behavior.

[Riv3rW0lf]

I was never in a romantic relationship with a BPD, but my father opened up about it recently. For his own perspective, it was about rescuing them. Most of the women he fell in love with exhibited some strong BPD characteristics and some were even dangerous. Those are the ones that made it in our house. The good, loving women he met never lasted with him, he just lost interest. He wanted to feel like he was needed, and he wanted to rescue. But in truth, I think he wanted to be rescued.

I believe that losing his family was so painful that he slowly became numb, and he started drinking (he was functional though). From my perspective, from having witnessing him deliberately choosing the most troubled women, I think he was trying to feel something, to relive something to purge it, if that makes sense.

From his nature as a person, part of me believe he felt guilty. He felt guilty that they died, that he wasn't there. He felt guilty that he could never save his own brother, that after so many years of trying, it has to end up in no contact for his own sanity. And this guilt... I believe he was punishing himself. But I am not him, this is just my own intuition from a witness position. I just noticed that .. he is aversed to any form of guilt, like he already bears too much of it.

I have, however, no idea how he got out of that loophole he was in. It had to do with a course he took about non violent communication where he learned to identify his needs and communicate them in a non violent way. He was never violent but it's like... Those women couldn't identify the source of their own emotions and would make him responsible for them, while on his own side, my father couldn't deal with his own emotions. By learning to dissociate what emotions were his girlfriend's versus what emotions were his, he was able to finally identify his own feelings and the reason for them.  His relationships with those women were all about learning to identify himself, in some sense...

And from my perspective, seeing what is happening to my stepfather... I do see the enmeshment too. It's as if, if you stay with a BPD person without working on yourself, you will lose yourself. you become an extension of them. And I think some people are sensible to that because they already have a low sense of self. It's a hit or miss though... With BPD, you either work on yourself and discover who you are, or you lose yourself completely.

I have no idea how true that is, again, this is just from a witness perspective, I am clearly missing a lot of puzzle pieces.

[Woolspinner2000]

Hi Couscous,

In the back of the book, Understanding the Borderline Mother, there is a section about the partners/spouses of a BPDm. Just curious if you have you ever seen those? Perhaps you will find some additonal help there.

Wools

[Couscous]

Wools, yes, I have read the descriptions in UTBM, but the King doesn’t really fit my father, although it is the closest match. The description of the emotionally immature father in The Emotionally Absent Mother book fit him to a tee.

[Woolspinner2000]

I would say that my ex was a 'covert' N which I wonder if that isn't like a low-grade N.  Sometimes when I think about my dad who was married to my uBPDm, I am never quite sure who he was. He was physically abusive to my mom, to us kids, to the animals on the farm, but as he grew older and after he divorced my mom, he changed and became much better.

Regardless of who they are/were or what category they fall/fell into, our dads had a great influence upon us, especially when they were married to an uBPD and didn't defend us. 

 
Wools

[Riv3rW0lf]

Wools, yes, I have read the descriptions in UTBM, but the King doesn’t really fit my father, although it is the closest match. The description of the emotionally immature father in The Emotionally Absent Mother book fit him to a tee.

What is the emotionally immature father like?

[Couscous]

From working in ACA groups, I learned that our religious ideas are shaped by our parents in some ways. They may teach us the principles of their religion but the ideas about God that a child forms are influenced by our parents. If our parents are unforgiving and critical, we might grow up thinking God is like that. A part of ACA involves reshaping a concept of God that is different from a critical parent.

Interestingly, part of my religious indoctrination included the message that to be a good Christian meant one had to self-sacrifice and think only of the needs of others, and that God would be very disappointed in you if you were not sacrificial enough. Jesus, others, then you, spells joy. Now I think that spells codependency.  

But that’s good that ACA addresses some of this. Incidentally, I have been rereading Toxic Parents, and in the chapter about alcoholic it says that when you’re dealing with addictive behaviors like codependency, therapy isn’t enough and that you need to go to a 12 Step Program too.

[Couscous]

Riverwolf, looks like I’m getting my books confused. My father fits the profile of the Passive Parent from the book Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parent.

They can show some empathy provided their children’s needs don’t get in the way of their own and can be fun loving, but offer little guidance. They may love you, but they can’t help you. The relationship can be a kind of emotional incest because the child is meeting the parent’s need for an admiring, attentive companion. When the going gets rough they can leave the family if they get a chance at a happier life.

[Riv3rW0lf]

Riverwolf, looks like I’m getting my books confused. My father fits the profile of the Passive Parent from the book Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parent.

They can show some empathy provided their children’s needs don’t get in the way of their own and can be fun loving, but offer little guidance. They may love you, but they can’t help you. The relationship can be a kind of emotional incest because the child is meeting the parent’s need for an admiring, attentive companion. When the going gets rough they can leave the family if they get a chance at a happier life.

Goodness, sounds like my father too ! This is kind of the overall care I got from him. Thanks for sharing this information !

[Notwendy]

Couscous, I think ACA and co-dependency 12 step groups have been helpful. I have done counseling too, but that didn't approach the co-dependency aspect like a 12 step group does.

I also think one has to do the steps with a sponsor. Just going to meetings scratches the surface. I feel grateful I had a "tough love" sponsor- she turned the mirror on me many times to point out my behavior, and it helped me to see what to work on.

The original Blue Book of AA was written by Christians and so it has a religious overtone but it's clear that when they say "God" it means "God of our understanding" and we have people of all religions in the group, including atheists, who adapt this language to their perspective. One aspect of the idea of "Higher Power" is to address control. Co dependent behavior is also controlling and fear based. We appease, caretake,  the other person in order to control their reactions. However, we are not their Higher Power, and their behavior is their decision. Ours is our decision. Another is to be able to forgive ourselves- there's a whole aspect of the steps to let go of our shame, and focus on what behaviors we can control.

The Red Book of ACA discusses religion in context of growing up in a dysfunctional family.  If the parents are abusive, they may also be religiously abusive- using religion in a harmful way. So for some, religion needs to be reframed without this.

Christianity is one people feel both committed to and also struggle with, because of the role model of Jesus' sacrifices, and "turning the other cheek" as examples. Since there are so many denominations and different ways to interpret the Bible, I think one would need to work with trained clergy to find a boundary between "being a good person" and co-dependency that works for them. One clue is that co-dependency is not good for a relationship- it strains the relationship. It also involves being dishonest - pretending something is a yes, when you really mean no, and also not being authentic in the relationship.

[Riv3rW0lf]

Jordan Peterson is a psychologist that sadly, got known for some things that are not at all within his main interests. He got pulled in the mud, but if you can get past what mainstream medias says about him, he offers, on YouTube, some lectures on Christianity and religion.  

I think his main field is in evolutive psychology, and so, he tries to find the meaning of the Bible stories through a psychological lense, because he believes those stories hold lots of truths about ourselves and how to behave in a way that will breed success, or at least, will make life and pain more bearable.

I am not trying to get the discussion away from the ACA, but I am wondering if he doesn't have an explanation for the "turning the other cheek" story.  

I personally found his lectures very inspiring and stabilizing.  They showed me a pathway when I was in the dark the first time I realized I had been emotionnally abused all my childhood and that nothing about it was normal. It's not religious, not really, it's more about who we are as humans.  And it's all about taking responsibility for ourselves and not being helpless.

Edit : he does ! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2VCfGc0rvA

[Riv3rW0lf]

The interviewer is not so good, but what I get from it is that it's more about using assertiveness to not escalate the fight, and bring it one step forward to peace, so that a real conversation can take place... to make the first hit about the attacker and not about the receiver, which apply very well to BPD.

Is it also how the ACA approaches it? I am not familiar with it, and am curious.

[Notwendy]

ACA doesn't interpret the Bible but encourages each person to find their own spiritual path as "God of our understanding". It considers how our parents influenced our concept of God as children, in addition to the critical messages we got as children and encourages us to re-examine them.

The very same act can be codependent or genuine. It's about motivation. Are we doing the act of kindness sincerely or out of fear of the person's response. We all agree to do things we sometimes don't want to do, but the idea is- are we willing to do it? Do we feel resentment about it?

For instance, we may not want to go to work but we want our paycheck. We may not want to change a stinky diaper but we do it because we love our children and want them to be clean and dry. We choose to do these things - we are willing to do them. This is not co-dependency. Doing something we don't want to do - doing too much for someone ( which becomes controlling) because we are afraid a BPD parent will be upset is more co-dependency.

The idea of the Higher Power helps the  address the "turn the other cheek" idea even if it doesn't address the Bible quote. First, we are all made in the image of God, and we have intrinsic value- each of us, equally, because of that. We are responsible to God for our actions and choices. If we mess up, we can make amends. When we try to control someone else- their feelings and choices- we are essentially trying to be God. They have their own God. This is not our place.

If someone harms us in some way, if we compromise our own authentic selves to become what someone else wants us to be- we are not being true to our God. Our God made us to be who we are, not what someone else wants us to be. Also, being inauthentic is being dishonest. We don't have to allow someone else to cause us harm.

When we don't have boundaries or defend ourselves- we are also diminishing the other person by allowing them to be a bad person so to speak.  If we are to appeal to the better side of the other person, then we need to not allow abusive behavior.

It doesn't address the turn the other cheek exactly, but that may be more about resentment. ACA doesn't present parents as terrible people but flawed like all of us, doing the best they can with what they know. So they "slapped you" so to speak- don't hold on to resentment, but one doesn't have to allow them to continue doing so.

[Riv3rW0lf]

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questio Notwendy, lots of wisdom there. Jordan Peterson, in his lectures, also mentions the importance of "sacrifices", or doing things we don't want to do, in order to "gain" in the future, even if the gain is just a feeling of peace for having done what we needed to do. I like the idea of being true to our God and not trying to become the God of someone else.

I find that when my uBPDm puts me in the rescuer position, part of me likes the illusion of control over her that it gives me, and as an adult I tend to repeat that in other relationships. I offer wisdom, sometimes too much, to people that request it, and part of me "expect" them to take it and agree. I do it with kindness, but part of me likes the illusion of power it gives me as well, like "I know better", and this is the part about myself that I don't like.

I am trying to step out of the rescuer role I was put in all my life now. It's harder than one might think, but I am thankful that I now, at the very least, can see part of my own shadow.

[Notwendy]

Yes, and as to the father question- the role of rescuer is also a "I'm the better person" role which might be a form of narcissism- the need to have someone to rescue so that one feels important.

For me though the rescuing was learned and also reinforced. I got approval from my father for "obeying mother" and also punished for upsetting her ( which was likely inevitable). I also think it was for security. I have been the scapegoat child but also useful to her. Mostly it has been to just feel loved by my parents, if that was possible. I don't think it is from my mother though- she is that disordered.

My mother also called me selfish, but I wasn't. So then I wanted to prove that I wasn't selfish. I also did a lot of people pleasing. This wasn't about ego, I had low self esteem.

12 steps helped me to stay aware of these tendencies, change the behaviors. I am not sure where my father was motivated to rescue my mother but he wasn't a rescuer to us kids. He did meet our material needs, spend time with us, and I believe he loved us, but I am grateful he also encouraged our independence. It was mainly my mother, but romantic relationships are different.

[Couscous]

Notwendy, thanks for sharing your experience with ACA. I actually attended one meeting the week before the pandemic hit. It’s good to know about the need for sponsor. I have also recently joined a Transactional Analysis therapy group which I sought out specifically to help me kick my rescuer habit as everyone in the group is well versed in drama triangle dynamics.

[Teabunny]

In reply to Couscous' original question, I don't know. My dad is codependent enabling of my uBPD mom.

He mostly ignores any update emails I send my parents and has mostly been absent from my life. His whole life he's focused on working hard at the same job he's always had, and getting promotions, but has a lifelong tendancy to complain about hating his job and relates to the Dilbert comics. He talks about suffering under my mother's abuse and says things like "I signed up for it" (by marriage) "I can't afford to divorce her so I'm stuck." When something bad happens it's someone else's fault. "See there that's just my bad luck." "Our family is cursed." He believes that the worst is going to happen and the world is full of bad people and experiences. When I asked if he could try a different career or change something about his life he never has wanted to try. He doesn't take care of his health, or have any friends. His priorities are: working and not upsetting mom. He talks about how much money he could get from selling old stuff if only people wouldn't cheat him. Usually the stuff isn't actually valuable. He gossips about who is upset or who in the family upset someone else. Having my husband there listening doesn't change his behavior. He seems to want me to comfort him, pity him, hate the world that's against him, be his therapist not his daughter. He makes promises but doesn't keep them. He doesn't seem concerned or interested in what's happening in my life even when it's been a year since we talked; it's right back to him venting about the same stuff. He always took care of our physical and medical needs but wasn't around much. He didn't yell or abuse me when I was a kid. He expressed love by buying gifts but after I grew up he doesn't do that anymore.

I don't know if this is narcissism or what, but have been trying to understand him better. I answered Maybe to your poll.

[Notwendy]

Teabunny- your father doesn't sound like a narcissist, but he does seem to think of himself as a victim. There's an emotional payoff to taking victim perspective in that a victim isn't responsible or accountable and so it avoids shame. I think that's part of why someone with BPD takes it.

However, victim perspective is also passive and it seems your father gets "stuck" because of it. Yet, change for anyone is hard to do. I also think living in the pattern of appeasing someone just becomes a way for them to fall back on when they are not wanting a major conflict. Appeasing brings a moment of peace for them.

The venting to you is putting you in rescuer position and gives him a way to express his feelings of frustration as he isn't able to do this with your mother. This is a triangle. He's not going to change, but you may consider not taking this on and saying "Dad, I love you but let's not discuss mom right now" and changing the topic or politely ending the conversation.

This gets into my 12 step experience- and Couscous, I am glad it was helpful. I feel fortunate to have had a sponsor who took my venting as an opportunity to "turn the mirror" on me. Venting helps us to feel better in the moment but it can also keep us stuck as it is victim perspective and puts the other person in the soothing, rescuer position. It's not that there isn't a place for that, we all sometimes need that kind of support. However she saw her job as to help me identify the behaviors I wanted to change so it was "tough love" from her.

Turning the mirror -changed venting into "what is your part in this drama"- and what can you do about changing that. We can't change another person, only ourselves so this was more effective to do that.

As to your dad though- you are neither his therapist or his sponsor- so making suggestions and trying to "help" isn't your role. You can be empathetic, but still not take on this role.

[Teabunny]

Notwendy, that's good to know that my dad may not be a narcissist, as I'd been confused about how that could be possible in his case. Your suggestion about choosing not to be his therapist is exactly what I had to do a couple weeks ago. I let him know that I would not be talking with him about who was upset with whom etc, but suggested other topics we could talk about. He didn't seem to mind and went on talking about other things right away. It was hard to set a boundary "in the moment" and I felt clumsy, but good practice.

[Notwendy]

It does feel uncomfortable to establish a boundary- we aren't used to doing that. But it gets better with practice

[beatricex]

Hi Couscous,
No Disneyland Dad (covert Narcissist) for me.  I do relate to everything in this video, however, it describes my oldest step daughter (not the BPD one) to a tee! 

She is very superficial, inappropriately sexual and flirtateous at all times including at work, I call it the "looking like a sexpot" look - you know the new cleavage shot and pouty lips on your Facebook every morning (and yes, need a new pic there daily, so all her older male coworkers can like her look), posts pictures of her kids to social media constantly.  Leggings with too much showing if you know what I mean with half shirts (to show off tramp stamp) or sleeve off the shoulder stripper look is the standard uniform, yet Strives to be recognized as Super mom.  Her oldest son is the mini adult (he's 9) already...woah, almost all of it fits!  Her new boyfriend is definetly in the "we are gonna get a bigger house and be Rich!" mindset.  Tall tales is definetly what we call it when they describe how things will just fall in their lap (they believe).  She is very pouty, sullen, immature and all those things, yes.   I don't know the new boyfriend well enough to know if this is just the honeymoon period they're in, if he's being sucked in by her charm or what.  Does he actually believe they're going to be millionaires in 4 years?  Don't know.  He does seem to be the responsible one.  Making sure the bills get paid and such.  Giving her what she requires (new house, all new furniture, gifts for her kids, etc).

When I got a promotion and raise at work, I bought a very practical used car, one that gets good gas mileage and was inexpensive.  Used but with a factory warranty still.  My step daughter's comment to her Dad, my husband, "why didn't b get a good new car, like an Audi or something?"  (her dream is to drive a new Audi)

It's everybody's job especially me with my codependent tendencies to make sure financially she's OK.  We have given her more money than I'm comfortable giving her, none of it a loan, all under duress.  She regularly has mini crises in her life.  After she's over them she expects us to forget about them as quickly as she has!  (new boyfriend, NEXT!)   How does he get along with your boys, though?  OK, well, we didn't much like the last one, so OK. She tends to want all the attention, yes, and she starts crap with women a lot.  She "hates" most women after being their best friend for awhile, me included now.  Extreme DUI and drug arrest and yes she called us from jail and we got her car out of impound, but "There's nothing wrong with a little partying!"  OK.  In the past we've cosigned on her apartment, slowing we're learning that's not going to work going forward.  She is afterall an Adult.  [mantra I keep saying to me]

Superficial describes her exactly!  But not vicious, just annoying, and I feel like she's challenged to tell the truth (and believes her own lies?).  But harmless, really.

*When the going gets rough they can leave the family if they get a chance at a happier life.*
And yes, she left her husband a few years back.  To pursue being happier. 

I do feel for anyone with this type of parent.  It must be extremely confusing.  Roles are reversed for sure.
b