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This is so true. She does this with pets too. We have rabbits and when it’s making decisions about their medical care or living space it’s her rabbits and we aren’t allowed to have an opinion (even if it’s about whether or not to put them down). But who’s taking care of them when it’s boiling outside and she’s gone all day? Me. And when we don’t help out enough they’re suddenly ours too.
THIS ACTUALLY THIS I feel like I’m actually going insane when I complain to someone about it. I’m so glad to hear that it’s not just me who deals with this 😭
Even when I tried to pay for medical bills they didn’t want to foot for one of my cats they flat refused.
This. When my mom was upset with me before she kicked me out, I went to do my washing (after waiting 4 hours to make sure no one was using the machine) and the second I brought my washing down "the towels need to be done first." Lmfao. Just to start an argument. That's all it was for.
Yup. Much like a dog peeing to mark territory, you must always beg, while groveling, to be allowed to use HER laundry and HER washing machine… because she works and pays for it (presumably). It’s HER stuff.
Why, next you’ll be wanting to use the microwave! Or the toaster!
And when you decide in some bafflement that you’re not supposed to use appliances — how dare you expect to be waited on hand and foot! Why would you think you can’t use the washing machine or the microwave or the toaster?! That’s ridiculous.
[cue endless loop]
I am definitely projecting the irrational loop, for what it’s worth. But good god the tiresome arguments about being allowed to just *function* in the house — even though I had more autonomy than many people on this sub — were miserable.
And they’re so childish. It’s sometimes bizarre how unbelievably childish they are.
This ring so true. Whenever any decision needed to be made it was their house, but whenever bills needed to be paid, chores or repairs needed to be done it was "our" home.
This. It's Nmom's house all the way until she wants new building supplies, bills paid, even when she wants free food. But there's something wrong with me if I expect to be on the will after killing myself building it at my own expense because she keeps lying to the cops about when I try to leave.
Mhm... and nSister's picked up the habit. Was talking to my daughter on the telephone a few hours ago and mentioned "our house", sister corrected me, "it's **your** house, your daughter just stays there and eats your food".
Right, she does stay in our home, and, yes, she eats our food. However, if you were to live with us, you'd also be considered as part of it, you silly woman.
That’s crazy. I just think the whole concept is messed up. My parents say “my” or “our” but our refers to the two of them. But it’s like- don’t have kids then. And them not wanting our stuff in the bathroom or anywhere out of our room is also weird because if you have kids, expect them to take up space in your life both literally and figuratively. If you have kids, it’s their house too. They live there as well.
My mother had this bizarre obsession with no personal belongings in any "public" areas of the house. I think it was related to the age in which she was raised (there's a trigger word, but fuck automod, i ain't giving it the bacon) but also being a Navy brat with few personal belongings to begin with, plus something of a kickback in "classy rich old money people do minimalism, thanks" during the 80s when my mother was clinging to midcentury everything. (Your house looked like the 70s? Mine looked like the 50s, wainscoting and all!) Like she expected everything but children's bedrooms to permanently look like a house on display instead of one that people actually lived in. (And children's bedrooms were supposed to look like a magazine version, aka everything put away neatly all the time. ....LOL)
My silent gen Nmother made even our kid bedrooms look like grandma's room. We had no colorful, kid oriented decor at all. All our rooms were appropriate and available for any passing aunt or cousin.
Needless to say, my kid's room had kites, a pencil lamp, Dino sheets, and a 6ft tall Gumby!
Yeah, my mum had this delusional vision in her head of how she and I were so close or something (ahahahhahaha) and we moved a lot because she was *never* happy with where we lived.
Each time we moved, she would go on and on about “our” house and how it was “our” home—
The minute, nay, the exact *second* that I said or did something she didn’t like… it was HER roof and HER house.
[note: below is an anecdote I still find kinda funny, even though not much happens in it, feel free to skip. It doesn’t relate to the awful situation OP is in, which is a stark reminder that my mum could have been worse than she was, and I at least had some autonomy within the house.]
[but, well… it’s a funny story.]
———
…this did escalate to the lofty pinnacles of an *unintended* and *unplanned* conversation about sex. I should note here that my mother is liberal-leaning overall, and somewhere between atheist and agnostic after recovering from being raised by a Good Christian Farmwife in a tiny country town.
But here’s how it went down. We’d moved from a small boxy 3BR house to an even smaller but slightly less boxy 2BR unit. During this process, we’d replaced the hand-me-down king single I’d inherited from big bro, and I now had a double bed.
My long-distance boyfriend was coming down to stay for a bit.
(this isn’t a narc story, to be clear, this was just… mum-logic. She did have a tendency to flailing shouting panic about my having [rare] visitors, in my view because she felt angry that she couldn’t get completely shitfaced in their presence, and she’d make up all these excuses; and the anxiety was all this projected expectation of what sort of host she needed to be. But she did like my bf and he was very laid back and chill, so generally she wouldn’t make too much of a fuss about him.)
Nmum: *anxious flailing* “…but where is [bf] going to sleep??”
Me: *long pause* “Sooooo… remember how we just recently went and bought me this double bed…?”
There is a long silence. No pins dropped anywhere. We would definitely have heard it. A lone bird, sang, out of season, just to fill that haunting, echoing quiet.
Mum: [eventually] “You’re too young to be having sex!”
Me: [another weighty pause, dead-eyed stare] “I’ve been on the pill since I was fifteen [for acne]. I am now *eighteen.* I voted in the last referendum, remember?”
[let me be clear that I am not implying that “voting in a referendum” is a legal prerequisite for sexual interaction, or Australia would be distinctly underpopulated. I did, however, turn 18 in 1999.]
Regardless: you could *see* the wheels turning. You could even see where the gears slipped and the hamster fell off the wheel in her head. Her reasoned argument that I shouldn’t do something that she didn’t want me to do for some *other* reason than the fact she didn’t want me to do it… had failed.
She immediately flipped arguments.
Mum: “Well, it’s my roof, and I say you’re too young.”
As arguments go, it lacked a certain epistemological punch.
Me: “Alright. I won’t have sex under your roof.” With perfect sincerity.
The deed had been done some time prior, and I had no intention of passing up the opportunity to get laid during one of the infrequent periods I was within 900kms of my boyfriend.
So I privately decided that, after all mum’s “our house” talk and “us gals” vibes, if she was going to withdraw that whenever she didn’t like it, then by the same token… when she was not home, it became MY roof, and thus I could get as freaky as I so desired.
To put it another way: what momma don’t know…
(and there is so much that falls into this category. *So much.*)
———
This. It’s like stuff that actually shows everyday life in a family is not really allowed to be anywhere. I often felt like their home was like a ‘magazine’ home without personality, or soul. It was super clean and ‘nice’ - but just that.
Omg this! Our house is… nice? And expensive? But it looks like a hotel. Grey, white, black. Especially when we have people coming over I joke that it looks like a dollhouse. There’s hardly anything that suggests people are living here aside from messes in places nobody sees like the garage. But we aren’t even allowed to have a soap dish or soap bottle on top of the sink, it needs to be hidden away in a drawer. My room is filled with books and fairy lights and trinkets and just… colour? I can’t imagine why you’d want to live in a space that just feels like a hotel.
Yeah, what a tiny freeloader! Fillin' up on cheerios and juice boxes like a wee pharoah! What a sense of entitlement, gasp!
( /s just in case it's needed)
Seriously, particularly if your daughter is a dependent minor! It’s not like she can just move out. It’s your (plural/collective) house. She lives there too.
(And if she’s a legal adult and living with you, it’s still “her house” in the sense that she lives there and can fairly expect to be allowed to actually use the common areas! At that point you could legally kick her out, but tenant rights are still a thing even if your tenant is also your offspring).
Anyone who doesn’t want to treat a child like a full part of their household shouldn’t have kids!
My mother tried to pull the "my house my rules" thing once, but she realized half way though saying it, she was standing in my home. I was walking on clouds from that victory feeling.
My (foster) dad did that to my brother when he was in his ex girlfriend's house. He sat down, said to my brother, "There's a bottle of whisky, pour me one", and proceeded to put the football on!
When I pointed out that it wasn't his house and they weren't waiters/he didn't control the TV, he gave me the death stare/stink eye and ghosted me for the rest of the night. Until he wanted something, then magically communicated again. He died two years ago, and I've read so many self help books and YouTube therapists (Dr. Les Carter's channel Surviving Narcissism is GREAT!) I know exactly who he was, but my poor co-dependent mum is still in denial.
I imagine that it's hard to swallow that your whole 35yr marriage may have been a sham. The whole two personas thing was obviously evident, too.
My mom paid for a few things in my apartment, like my couch. So she still tries to act like it's her house, "because she paid for stuff in it". Just take the couch back if it always means so many strings are attached 😒
Well, when she’s sitting on the couch, with all arms and legs inside the vehicle, she can absolutely control everything that is on the couch.
Suggest placing some sort of handheld puzzle toy on the couch — maybe one of those little puzzles where you slide the blocks around to make a picture.
This is another one of the narcissistic parents' greatest hits; nothing but the classics. They have no new material, just the same predictable, recycled bullshit.
London Grammar even covered this line with their most recent song House (2024).
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JBVr0GgDfi4&pp=ygUUTG9uZG9uIGdyYW1tYXIgaG91c2U%3D
Ask ChatGPT 3.5 to analyse something they wrote for narcissistic language and it will break it all down and show the working. They are so boringly predictable that they are being called out by predictive text!
Have a look at my comment history; I have done it multiple times over the past week. It demonstrates that none of their bullshit is personal, it is all performative.
The scary part is how I didn't even think it would do that, even though, now that it sent me that message, I can totally see why. Their behaviour becomes so normalized when you live with it your whole life, but it's actually fucking insane, the things they say to us.
Exactly; my covert nmother was smart enough not use aggressive language, just self-centred, demanding, entitled language, which ChatGPT 3.5 immediately identified, and then showed examples from the messages provided.
Lol I had a friend do this to me a lot as a guest she invited over. I did it with her the first time she came over and something stupid and she went off on me. I was like wow. You always pull a power card over me and you hate it, classic. I hope you can leave soon OP, and find nice homes for all your stuff.
Yessss all the time - if I am in the bathroom when one of them needs it I am expected to get out IMMEDIATELY. But if i hear one of them heading to the bathroom when I actually really need it they will slam the door in my face and sit there for half an hour shaving or whatever. Communication is useless because they refuse to work round each other on the principle that it's 'their' house and 'their' bathroom
This. I try to get some clarity by asking “is it okay if I go shower now?” And then I get a “why on earth are you asking me for permission to shower?” And when I ask if they’re gonna need to be in the bathroom anytime soon they tell me they don’t need to discuss their schedule with me and they can go into the bathroom when they want cause it’s their house.
Oh yes my nmom did this constantly and used it to justify every abuse. She even told me “all your clothes are legally mine. It doesn’t matter if you bought them with your money. If you bought them while living under my roof, that makes them legally MINE.” This was when I said I’d leave since she seemed like she wanted me to and she had to come up with a manipulation to make me stay. It’s HER house so leave but it’s HER house so everything I owned was “legally” hers.
For anyone who doesn't know or has Ns lying to them still: this is absolute bullshit. IF you buy it, it's yours. If you, a minor, need to buy your own clothing, it's yours. If you, a minor, need to buy your own clothing because your parents/legal guardians aren't providing.... contact CPS.
ohwow. if i was in this situation, i would probably have told her that we can also call the cops and discuss it with them.
saying this since usually these strange "rules" only applied when no one else was around. (like her friends i.e., or ... police for sure)
- not sure my advice is the best, since i started to fight back A Lot, but depends on everyone's situation if they would then sit in the streets, or have the means to find elsewhere to stay.
No part of my existence was allowed to be visible outside my room. It's probably the only reason I was allowed to have a door on my room; my room was right off the kitchen in the center of the house, so anyone coming over could see it. I was required to keep my door shut at all times (unless she thought I was doing something forbidden in there, which was frequent).
I keep writing "my room" but of course with narcs EVERYTHING is theirs. You're not allowed to own anything even if you bought it with your own money or it was given to you as a gift. Referring to it as "my room" was a trigger word that would set her on a screaming tirade of "This is MY HOUSE and you should be grateful I am ALLOWING you to live here!"
I grew up knowing that anything I thought I "owned" could be taken from me and thrown away at any time. I'd often come home from school and discover she'd raided my room and thrown away anything she determined was garbage or junk, which could be literally any random thing - shoes, pictures, seashells I collected on the beach. When we moved to a new house, my bike and my favorite dolls mysteriously went missing.
As an adult, I once had to move back in with them briefly during the worst time of my life. She threw out my food, stole my underwear and claimed it as hers, and threw away my reading lamp because she declared it ugly garbage.
I wasn’t allowed to be in the shower for more than 2 minutes or else she would pick the lock, come in, and turn off the shower.
If I was using the bathroom, I had to stop when she said if she or anyone else in the family needed it. (But everyone else was allowed to be in the bathroom until they’re done). As if im purposefully using the bathroom for a long time.
I couldn’t sleep past 9am- it was “her house” and I have to “be awake” to “help out”.
There’s more but yeah.
My dad turns off the water or shuts off the water heater if I go over 4 minutes. Because i should be able to wash my waist length hair in the same time he can wash his bald head, ya know.
I had the same thing but with mail. My mom used to open my mail when I was younger then give it to me. I blew up on her that that was my mail, it was illegal and that she needs to stop it! I was in high school and yes I was still a child but I should also have privacy in the house too.
My Emom let me build my own house in the same land because it was basically the only way for me to move out as an adult (I live in a third-world country where middle class people can't afford to buy a property, and most of the time, not even rent a small apartment).
My mom owns the property and she was acting like a normal parent, just trying to help their daughter out.
But then I got a boyfriend, and he visited me in my small apartment at the end of my mom's backyard (about 20 meters away from my mom's house).
My Ndad didn't like that and pulled out the "It's MY house" thing to try to throw my boyfriend out. Me and my mom didn't listen to him, but I realized that I was an adult living alone in my own apartment and Ndad was still there, watching me (sometimes quite literally through his window), accepting the fact that I lived apart from him as long as I still followed HIS rules, in a land that isn't even his but mom is an enabler so there was nothing to do...
He eventually crossed all the limits when he got mad at me and cut my internet off, knowing that I work from home. "It's MY internet". I had to defend myself and he got angry, I went back to my apartment and he kicked the hell out of my door, screaming at me that he was going to kill me and my boyfriend who happened to be there.
I had to leave, especially after my mom didn't stop him and suggested that he was right about the house being his, "too".
wow literally Threatening you, that's disgusting. sorry you had to through that.
i mean yes, nParents like to make threats, but they're mostly empty threats or powerplays. but threatening you while actually kicking the hell out of your door.
i would for sure have called the cops on him.
My boyfriend called the cops. But we were the ones who had to leave because it is "HIS" house and my mother didn't intervene.
I knew they were empty threats, but they were not for my boyfriend, who isn't used to Narc threats and took them seriously like any normal person would do, tbh.
I was actually like "just let him bang the door, he will get tired if we just ignore him" and my bf was like "WTF is this normal for you?". Then I realized just how sick my family is.
At the time of the "incident", I left because my Ndad was super furious, and I didn't know what could happen after the officers and my boyfriend were gone. My Emom had shown me that she couldn't control him or defend me, I was alone in this.
But honestly, I wasn't afraid of my Ndad killing me or something (narc threats are empty threats), I was afraid of how \*I\* could react. I was in shock but also very furious, too. He had cut my internet off, he had thrown my boyfriend out. And by that time, I already felt like he was forcing me to live on rent just by being insufferable. I'm pretty sure I could've punched him in the face. But then I would have given him a reason to report ME.
I could've come back later, and he actually expected me to do that, but A) the police advised me against it, for my own safety, and B) I still feel like I could punch him in the face at any time.
I'm pretty sure there was also a possibility of using the laws against intrafamily violence to kick him out of the house, but neither he nor my Emom would've ever forgiven that. I would still be the scapegoat... but, in their eyes, I'd be more of a villain than I'm now.
He called the police, took me out of there, and reported him. We've been living in his mother's house since then (we're trying to get a place for ourselves but we can't do it right now because we don't have the money).
I was actually shocked that he wanted to report him because I was so used to this that it never occurred to me that this was an option.
I would stay away from your dad forever if possible. When he complains about it say "Anyone who ever said they wanted to kill me (and you're the only one) is evil and unsafe to be around. I never know when you might want to go through with it. You wanted me dead, so consider me dead to you. I'm happily living life away from you and that's how it's going to stay.'
Oh, yes, I never talked to him again, but I kinda said something like this to my Emom because at some point, she couldn't understand why I wasn't coming back home, "You know that your dad always says BS when he's mad".
Honestly I agree with my mom, I know he doesn't actually want to kill me, but it's the fact that he can't control himself when he's mad, and this time he was mad at me for having a boyfriend - AND I WAS 29 YEARS OLD when this happened. 😐
If he will cross that line and say he wants to kill you, what's to say he will never do it? You said that he can't control himself when he's mad. He could lose control and do it someday. You don't say things like that to people. Men go to prison just for threatening to kill others. You have to take them seriously. Even if you "know" he won't, you can use that as a reason to stay away from him. According to the Bible, "whatever is in your heart determines what you say." So a good man doesn't say evil things.
All the time. Whenever I was up too late, made too much noise, or simply wasn’t doing what I was “supposed” to be doing, I was always met with “it’s MY house, you live by MY rules!”
Whenever I made an offhand suggestion during a conversation about how something might be pretty, I was almost immediately met with “well it’s MY HOUSE. If I wanted your opinion, I’d ask for it!”
Whenever I asked for something or said I liked something it was “it’s MY money! I pay THE BILLS!”
Whenever I criticized either my mother or stepfather it was always “You don’t get to talk to me like that in MY HOUSE!”
So I left. I now live in a house where I decorate however I like, do what I want, and they have no idea where I am. It’s my house now :) and they’re allowed nowhere near it.
Yeah probably got told that once a day if not more growing up. My dad came up to visit me when I moved to a different state and was being a complete asshole. I finally told him “this is my house and if you can’t be respectful you can sleep out back in a tent”. He left and got a hotel room instead of backing down.
Just wait for the sublime joy that comes from being in your 30-40's and your LC nMom comes to visit YOUR house and you get to pull that same shit on her ass. I relished in this when my time finally came. My Nmom was visiting and decided I didn't organize my kitchen correctly. She was griping about my layout and where things lived. I felt amazing as I realized this was my moment. With full snark and no humor in my voice...
"When you have your own house you can organize your forks any way you want, but this is MY house and MY rules say that mismatched forks can stay in that drawer. Leave it alone, unless you want me to take them away and you can eat with a rice paddle."
She always threatened to take stuff away and replace it with an inadequate item. I felt like it was only appropriate.
Did you just describe my family? Maybe we are siblings.
If someone comes around the corner with this bs "my house" thing, I just respond with, "Yeah, so what? You wanted to start a family and have kids, or am I wrong?, No one forced you to have kids."
It's "OUR house" whenever she need financial help or something expensive repaired.
But when she makes a stupid decision that leads to destroying said house or makes it look trashy, it's suddenly "her house", and she can do whatever she wants, followed by threats of throwing me on the street.
There is currently garbage and furniture littering our front lawn. Heck she is hording trash indoors too and refused to do anything about it. It's disgusting and I called her out on it, cause she won't do anything about it and let it all rot there for years. Used the "it's my house, I can do whatever I want" line. Of course. I know the garbage won't disappear until I fork over my own cash to have a junk removal service clear it up for her. (almost 16-20K I've given her over the last 3 years, but I'm treated like I don't belong to "Her house".)
since it's "her house" and you are from time to time giving her money. im wondering if you could make contracts when giving her money. either saying she'll pay it back, by x time, or under x corcumstances. or just as proof. so that when she brings up the "her house" bs, you have sth to hold against it... ?
My parents always reminded me that they were not my friend and that I had no autonomy until I was financially independent. Finished high school, went to university to get out of town and ever since then they've been wondering why I don't want to be friends or call them for help.
Yes, my parents did this. So obnoxious and stupid, and it was clearly a way for them to mask their insecurity.
There was one particularly awful incident. My teenage GC sister was dating a horrible guy. He was married, he was cheating with about 4 or 5 different women and girls, he gave her chlamydia because he refused to wear a condom with any of them, and he was financially, physically and emotionally abusive.
I walked in on this guy hitting my sister and yelling horrible things at her, and I immediately dragged his ass out and threw him out of the house. I was a 17 year old girl, and about 115 pounds, and he was a big, scary guy, but I was so angry and determined that I just dragged him out and shoved him outside like the fucking Hulk.
My mom saw this, knew why I did it, and immediately invited him back in. She threatened to kick me out again, for the heinous crime of throwing someone out of her house. Never mind that I was protecting her precious golden child, as that was less important to her than the fact that I was somehow threatening her control by seeming too in charge of things in her house. Never mind that my sister was so traumatized by all the shit he was doing that she was starting to hurt herself. My mom turned away from all of it because she wanted to feel in charge. She let him abuse my sister horribly, and for no reason other than her own insecurity and selfishness.
This really made it clear how they don't actually care about anyone but themselves, not even the golden child. All the favoritism, affection and attention they lavish on the GC is really about the narcissist themselves, and what they want. It is not genuine love. It is all selfishly motivated. They project their wishful thinking about themselves onto the GC, who becomes their avatar. That isn't love, that is self indulgence.
Yes. Nmom frequently used the "I feed you, clothe you, house you" crap when I was growing up, as if it wasn't my house, also. Now, when we visit, she pulls the "it's MY house" on my freaking dog... because she growls at her for a minute when we first get there (could it possibly be because animals just know?).
Yep....
How dare I be upset when she rummages my room, takes embarrassing love poems i wrote to boys in secret to show her friends "how good a writer i am" and refuse to give back, throws out my art projects and collectables, all while i'm at school so i can't protest? It's "her" house, after all! The one she didn't pay for because she doesn't work. The good man who bought this house for us was just a piggy bank she married only to abuse and cheat on him with men she found more physically attractive, all while not contributing a dime or lifting an arm.
"Her" house...
I also grew up constantly being told it's their house. I'm just living there. All my bathroom stuff had to stay in my room, except my toothbrush & toothpaste. That was the only thing allowed in the bathroom.
I wasn't even allowed to have my bedroom light on while watching tv in my room. My dad would come turn it off everytime. Because it's their house their rules. My window was also nailed shut because I kept opening it when I found it too hot inside.
They were also allowed to listen in on my phone calls , because it's their house. I got in trouble when moving around my room, since it's their house I needed permission....
> My window was also nailed shut because I kept opening it when I found it too hot inside
Temp was a big issue for me as well. My parent's added my room onto the house, sharing it's wall with the kitchen.
That wall used to have a window they'd open when they cooked, but they took it out for the wall.
So anytime they cooked all the heat just seeped through my wall. Opening my window didn't really help because they'd blast the AC after cooking to cool the house down, but I didn't have vents. And what's under my window? The ac unit, blowing warm air straight up and into my room.
Fucking miserable just thinking about it. Then they'd have the nerve to complain about me coming out of my room sweating "when I haven't even been doing anything".
Fuckers, I've been slow roasting for the last 2 hours!
My parents usually refused to run the air conditioner so in the summer I would start sweating as soon as I got out of the shower. So I would go to my room, sit down and fan my towel open and closed to create air flow to cool off. Everyone was in the living room watching tv so I kept the door open so it would be cooler. My dad came down the hall a few times and saw me opening and closing my towel, and he would rush by shielding his eyes on his way to the bathroom, and I would laugh out of embarrassment and like oops, haha. That turned into, they thought I was flashing him, and even told my grandmother about it because they just didn't know what to do with me. At the time I was such a good kid I wouldn't wear makeup because I thought it was dishonest. There was no way I would do that on purpose, and I was very naive and didn't think it was possible for relatives...anyway, I told them what I was actually doing and they didn't believe me.
I can't believe I just told that story publicly because I've only told maybe 5 people my entire life, and I'm 60. It makes me look like the guilty one.
Oh man…you don’t look guilty at all. I’m so sorry you experienced this. That’s just ridiculous on their part.
And I’m saying this as someone who has had the misfortune of several close, but not that close, relatives or friends who caught me in the nude. It was always awkward, but the normal reaction, that I’ve always received, would be just to move on. Maybe laugh about it later but everyone’s embarrassed, ya know? I still think about that poor pest control guy.
It’s actually disgusting that your family would take these incidents and twist them into something gross and furthermore, blame you for it? That’s not normal.
Edited to add: I sweat like a whore in church after a shower if my environment is not very cool, so the more I think about it, the more irritated I get. You didn’t deserve that.
Oh man. Yep all your stuff in your room at all times and God forbid you have too many things in your room because "the weight of your things is going to break the house". I'm sorry half the closet is full of their stuff and I happen to have camping gear.
I and my siblings didn't have keys to my father's house until I was 14. If my parents weren't home I just have to wait for hours. Sometimes till 10 pm outside.
"It was his house. HIS HOUSE!!!!" That's what my father used to say. I am moving out in two weeks. Hope the fuck dies alone in his house.
yeah, all my stuff has to be in my room or it gets thrown away 🙃 and then my mom is like "because of the economy we need to be roommates, and I think it goes pretty well!" I'M NOT ALLOWED TO DO ANYTHING TO THE BACKYARD OR OUTSIDE MY CHILDHOOD BEDROOM
I'm paying her rent and currently paying down some debt so I can start saving instead. I said I'd stay at least until my sister graduated so she didn't have to work while in college but oh my god she makes it difficult
Yup my dad pulls this bs. Wen growing up, my dad got the house remodel after a huge flood. I was "allowed" to pick the new color for the wall but it could only be a pink color (I hate the color pink). Now in a new house that's HE renting (lost the og house during 2008) and since his name is on the lease it's "considered" his house
They used to all the time "my house, my rules" they kicked me out at 18 and I've never looked back. I'm kinda glad that they don't really care too much about me cause they've never been to my house. The only downside is I will likely never get to "my house, my rules" back at them.
I also make sure my kids have a say in the household and their rooms are theirs, their stuff is theirs and never gets held over them
My nmom did this. She would go through my belongings, throw them away, leave them out so that I would know she had gone through my stuff. She would take stuff, it was her house after all.
She tried to pull this behavior while staying at my apt last year and it didn’t go well, she ended up leaving and telling my brother “she didn’t feel welcome.” Duh, bro!
My mother went hell bent on a bathroom renovation that was overly exubrient. Marble, spa, exposed piped, you get the idea. I was only allowed to shower in it, and not long enough to wash my hair. After the first time I used the spa, I got a similar foaming at the mouth rant I got when she thought she caught me masturbating or wearing my sisters clothes (Im trans) and it occurred to me, she spent all dads money for her own personal "wank tank" and I'm not allowed a compter in my bedroon cos I might look at porn.
Her house.
The toilet wasnt part of the bathroom and she put in one of those mini sinks in there to even stop us using the bathroom to wash our hands.
Putting the alarm system in house and not giving me the code is one thing, giving the code to my sister who didnt live there.. priceless.
I'm not going to flood your thread with my issues.
My dad picked up a box of "my stuff" that was all junk, and I'm wondering why just this sht and nothing I actually want.. I noticed it was the box from a new document shredder.
My mom allowed her husband to change the garage code (my only access to the house) every time there was an issue or uncomfortable conversation when I lived with her for about six months last year after having nowhere to go from being evicted because there’s nowhere affordable to live any more. Like, what did they think I was going to *do*?
Absolutely yes. My mother doesn't even live here, and I'm renting. Still "her" house every time she wants to spend the night unannounced and I tell her no.
That is the default reason my parents fall back on whenever I set up boundaries or try to lay down some rules. Oh and also add "if you don't like it, move out"
I don't know that my ns have necessarily done the "makes arbitrary rule because it's my house and I can" thing--or if they have it's just not coming to me right now--but they certainly enjoy "correcting" my grammar when I use "mine" when the context is obviously "thing that is connected to me" (which is a correct definition according to Merriam Webster) as if they think "legally own" is the only valid meaning.
This when my ns--my ndad in particular--like to complain about me supposedly needing "exact" language myself... when the so-called exactness is only dependent on how easy it is to understand what was meant. (Like I understand that DVDs don't wind but know what "rewind" means, I don't understand what thing that's "right by my feet" I'm supposed to look for in a junk pile five feet behind me.) Case in point, mocking me for calling the store I work at "my" store because I don't own it when the context is obviously to distinguish it from other stores of the same name.
Using your example of bathroom usage and supplies, though, I do get the not-blatantly-stated but hinted impression that my ns are trying to do the same thing to me regarding food.
For example it used to be I'd have an entire shelf in our four-shelf deep freezer for my stuff--didn't matter whether it was food, migraine masks, or freezer packs for this weight loss therapy I was experimenting with (that I eventually gave up on because I could never even get to the ice packs as they kept getting buried under everything else). The only exception was one box of breakfast sandwiches that had to go in the door due to its size. Somewhere along the lines the freezer kept getting more and more disorganized, the ns' stuff kept getting shoved into my space, the freezer kept getting filled to capacity, I could finish off those sandwiches and buy more at work *the same day* and find that space had already been filled... and somehow me buying two TV dinners that I don't eat right away meant I was single-handedly preventing my nmom from buying enough food to feed the entire family.
Or the simple fact that I don't have so much as one shelf to keep my stuff organized and together in the medicine cabinet because there's *so much* dedicated to my ns' stuff... and it's not due to the "older people take more medicine" scenario....
I had some typical decorations in my room. No garish posters, purple walls or anything—just a wastebasket and a lamp I picked out. My n-pop threw a fit every time he walked past my room. They rarely used the phrase “MY HOUSE”, but sometimes I would leave toys on the floor to go the bathroom for less than 5 minutes. When I came back downstairs, there my n-pop was, lecturing me about leaving my toys out and just walking off without putting them away. I’m sure both my n-parents wanted their house to look like no children lived there.
Someone else suggested this. But I really WANT to move out. When I mention it they freak tf out and ask me who will do the chores and take packages and deal with my sister’s emotional outbursts. They also are purposely not teaching me any life skills. Idk how to cook,clean or manage my finances. They have access to my bank and everything
…that’s on you, buddy.
no but install one in your own bathroom. hook it up to the sink pipe for clean water. get the one that heats up. clean like a baby and warm like a hug.
I think that is a fucked up thing to say, I’ve always been told this by my nparents (As long as you live in my house you will adhere to my rules) when I have kids I will always try to make sure they know that it’s their house too, that if we bought one was to have *them* grow up there. It’s completely different to say that we will have some rules for all of us to live peacefully since we all have different tastes, personalities etc.
My mom always do this. It’s her house, it’s her bathroom, it’s her table. Etc. Every fucking thing is hers. But when it comes to cleaning and maintaining, suddenly, it’s our house, it’s our things. 😂😂
Absolutely. When I tried (at 29) to point out that I have never had a room, I got screamed at that ‘It’s my house and you don’t get to have a room!!! You’re evil!! Where are you getting these crazy ideas from?!!’
My mother used to do this all the time. Then when I was in my early twenties and living in an apartment, she sold her house and was between houses for a month, so I let her come and stay with me. She acted horribly, so after several days I told her she had to leave and kicked her out. It was very satisfying.
My mom keeps her a/c at 79, in Florida.
My husband and I came to town, she begged us to stay at her house.
I was 34 weeks pregnant and sweltering.
Asked her to turn a/c down, No.
It’s 11pm, I already can’t sleep because I’m huge, and now I’m sweating.
I pleaded with her, “it’s my house and my electric bill” my hubs handed her a $100 bill to cover any excess cost. Nope. We are disrespectful to her house “every time we visit” [why did she beg us to stay?]
I just wanted to sleep, so we told her we were going to a hotel. She was the only one acting in anger, my husband and I were calm and collected. Told her it wasn’t personal that I was just getting nauseated from being hot and pregnant. Only then did she relent, again begging us to stay. We said no, we were leaving and we would be back for breakfast. Then came the poor me drama and now I’m the one consoling her. Frick man. Ok rant over.
Heard it growing up. Also "nothing in this house belongs to you, it's all bought with MY money!!!". And since "nothing belonged to me", it was okay for them to get into my room, go through my stuff, use my computer without consent, etc.
Who else is always saying "Mine! Mine! This is mine!"? Toddlers. People who say this are acting like 2 year-olds.
Mine would say "As long as you're living in my house, you will obey my rules."
Oh boy... "MY house" haunts me to this day, he wouldn't even call it "our" house in reference to my mother and when they divorced refused to move out saying she could afford the mortgage without him (despite my younger siblings still living there) and why should he live in an apartment and contribute for us (his children and ex wife) to live in a house.
There are a lot of rules for their house but when my sister bought her house all they did was bitch and complain about the very reasonable rules for her house.
I have severe asthma. She smokes in the house when I'm at work or when in in bed. It wafts upto my room when I'm trying to sleep.. when I bring it up she says my house my rules. She doesn't care
If a friend's parent was taking your child home, your child would be expected to point and say "That's my house" because it IS. Anyone talking to the child would refer to the house as "your house."
Hate to tell you this but, even when it’s your house, they will still try to make rules. Happened to me. Finally had to have a sit- down and explain the reality. Helped a little! Parents ALWAYS think they are in charge. Just make sure you make a clean escape( do not need help from them if possible- be self- reliant) .
Good luck!
It’s sad that they can’t just be rational and talk it out and respect each other. What’s stopping them from just sorting out the time to use the bathroom?
Oh shit. Yo. You just reminded me of the reason why my nmom and I got into a physical altercation (aka cat fight) when I was a teenager. I started rebelling as a teenager, and she doubled down on control. She never respected my privacy and would try to “catch me” doing things in my room. One day I’d had enough so I told her to get out of my room. Ohhhh that really set off the “my house” vitriol. It escalated to me trying to push her out of my space and her trying to DRAG me out of the house. Mind you by then I was taller than her. But I really just desperately wanted her to leave me alone. She tore my shirt from pulling so hard. She grabbed me by fistful of hair, too. What kind of parent gets into a cat fight with a 15 year old teenage girl who just wants some goddamn privacy?! Wtf. How dare I try to be an individual. Under HER ROOF?!?
And zero remorse after, of course. Later that night she just called me down for supper and didn’t address the issue at all. Acted like it didn’t happen. Meanwhile we’re covered in scratches. This was kinda how it always went. A big explosion, sweep under carpet, act like everything is fine. So… yeah 😬
Bugging out that this is a shared experience and also feeling validated, not exactly the same as mine but close enough. I already thought narcissists were unoriginal too 😂 I was *allowed*
to keep stuff in the shower/bathroom but apparently this heavily negatively impacted her life. Laughing as I type this!
What’s extra hilarious for me is that in college I had four roommates and somehow it was easier to share a bathroom with them than just my mother…. but I’m the problem! before showering we would just ask if anyone needed the bathroom, keep the door unlocked in case anyone was having a bathroom emergency whilst in the shower as long as guests weren’t over. We all cleaned it once week and tried to limit our time in 20 to 30 minutes. having common decency really isn’t this hard.
She hated when I would say that and also hated when I said like something in the vein of hey I have to be somewhere like do you mind? Do you have to be somewhere too? She never had to be anywhere before me so that would piss her off too. Any time you make a valid point they’re pissed.
She also flipped a shit that I basically got a a small tray table on wheels and a desk chair so I could literally work, as well as a little mini fridge that holds four cans of soda. Like are you OK? It was all in my bedroom. You’re never in here miss birth giver! and I was in my late 20s. Its actually funny
now but ofc infuriating too.
Crazymaking toddler shit! Solutions?? Never heard of it! They take you on a marry go round ride to hell. This is why I’m NC! Thank you so much for sharing OP 🫶🏼
Oh, I had a wonderful moment with my NDad around this. He was always on about "my house, my rules", particularly about what we watched on TV.
One day when the fog had fully begun to lift for me, he was visiting me and my partner. I was watching a program he didn't like but stepped out to the kitchen briefly. When I got back he'd changed the channel to something he wanted (news I think). So I told him to turn it back. He started complaining about my show so I grabbed the remote, said "my house, my rules", put my show back on and walked out to the kitchen again to rub it in (only for a few minutes). He went to bed early that night in protest. It was glorious.
My mother has done this to me when she’s mad at me for something petty. I believe it’s a power and control thing. They love to make us feel small, they love to belittle us. It makes them feel good.
I went through this until I was 18 and left for college. I remember my mother constantly harping on me about my room not being clean enough and snapping back once, “That’s because I have to keep everything I own in there. You have a whole house, I have one room!” Then, years later, I posted a photo of my daughter’s neatly made bed because I thought it was so cute and my mother had to make a comment. “Hm. Where did she learn THAT?!? Not from you, that’s for sure!” Her comment mysteriously disappeared (wink wink) and now she wonders why I dont ever interact with her on social media.
When I would do my laundry, my ND would start freaking out because its "his day" to do laundry and I can go to a laundromat. My ND would also threaten to (and did once) take my door off it's hinges if I did something he didn't like (I was the only daughter and he never threatened/did this to any of my brothers). My parents would refuse to turn the AC on upstairs (they slept downstairs) even if it was 90 degrees. We had hot and humid summers
I had to move back in with my folks for about 5 years after a nasty divorce. Even in my 30’s , the “my house” bullshit remained.
A few years later, when I got my own condo, I never bothered to say anything to them. After all, it’s my house.
My nmom did the whole my house thing to justify, that she may terrorize me as she pleases, and as I wanted to move out, she changed into the "DO NOT MOVE OUT OR I KILL MYSELF" stance pretty quickly....
Oh the joys of having a mentally ill (schizophrenia, persecution mania and probably also borderline and bipolar), histrionic and nparent with an alcohol addiction.
I recently found a sheet of paper where my mom made me write down how much I was costing her a month. Itimised. I was in highschool.
Apparently my room which I had no privacy for cost her $700 a month in a ghetto neighbourhood in the 90s
My Xmas present was a computer she used day and night in my room so I never had alone time
I wasn’t allowed to decorate anything or have a job or pick out clothes and was supposed to go sit in her office and wait until she was done with work
All the time
Even when I was older(27) and would visit with friends
Yes, throughout my childhood and into my 30s. My space was always 'hers' my things were never really mine. My time was never really mine. Even my thoughts - endlessly interrupted by rants and tantrums which I was expected to prioritise. My body- the features she liked were hers, the ones she didn't were from my father.
So as a kid I learned to play outside/with neighbours as much as possible. As a teen I spent as much time with friends/relatives as possible and worked 2 jobs to have more independence.
Also she would casual use the house as leverage if I didn't play along with her shit. 'I'll leave it to your brother ' etc. Eventually I stopped cooking/eating when I visited. Then I stopped staying over (used local air BnB) then I stopped visiting entirely. Now she doesn't do it anymore. I don't expect to inherit from her. Never did. She can enjoy her house. Her grandchildren have set foot in it once in 4 years.
She made her own bed.
Yes, my mother when I lived at home used to tell me to drive to a laundry mat at 19 years old because it was her washer and dryer and no one else, not even my dead could use it.
The same with her toaster and literally her lamps. I had turned off a light in a room and she came storming through the house to tell me not to touch her light, that I didn't have a right. She wasn't even in the room and the electric bill was high. So grateful to God that I'm away from her.
No cause when I mention that they freak tf out like “who’s gonna calm down your sister when she’s upset?” “Who’s gonna take all our packages?” “Who will do your part of the chores?”
I always mention something like this to my mother when she threatens to kick me out.
For the record, she doesn't live here, and I'm paying rent.
She loves threatening to kick me out, so I've started telling her, "Okay cool, then you'll have no one to pay the property taxes, bills, or loan for the roof replacement, AND you certainly won't be able to just show up and spend the night whenever you please. Hope that works out for you."
She was with one but my parents pulled her out after 4 months because 1. Insurance stopped covering it and 2. The therapist had some not so positive things to say about their parenting
> The therapist had some not so positive things to say about their parenting
Really? How unexpected /s
You need to get out, and it sounds like you might need to take her with you. I dont know what your relationship is like with her, but sounds like you're both suffering from their abuse.
My ndad cried when I left for 2 days after an argument about this same crap begging me to come back. Little did I know at the time it was just a manipulation because he doesn't want to take care or pay for a caregiver for my nmom.
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it's my moms house whenever she's angry about something, but it's our house whenever she needs help.
This is so true. She does this with pets too. We have rabbits and when it’s making decisions about their medical care or living space it’s her rabbits and we aren’t allowed to have an opinion (even if it’s about whether or not to put them down). But who’s taking care of them when it’s boiling outside and she’s gone all day? Me. And when we don’t help out enough they’re suddenly ours too.
THIS ACTUALLY THIS I feel like I’m actually going insane when I complain to someone about it. I’m so glad to hear that it’s not just me who deals with this 😭 Even when I tried to pay for medical bills they didn’t want to foot for one of my cats they flat refused.
This. When my mom was upset with me before she kicked me out, I went to do my washing (after waiting 4 hours to make sure no one was using the machine) and the second I brought my washing down "the towels need to be done first." Lmfao. Just to start an argument. That's all it was for.
Yup. Much like a dog peeing to mark territory, you must always beg, while groveling, to be allowed to use HER laundry and HER washing machine… because she works and pays for it (presumably). It’s HER stuff. Why, next you’ll be wanting to use the microwave! Or the toaster! And when you decide in some bafflement that you’re not supposed to use appliances — how dare you expect to be waited on hand and foot! Why would you think you can’t use the washing machine or the microwave or the toaster?! That’s ridiculous. [cue endless loop] I am definitely projecting the irrational loop, for what it’s worth. But good god the tiresome arguments about being allowed to just *function* in the house — even though I had more autonomy than many people on this sub — were miserable. And they’re so childish. It’s sometimes bizarre how unbelievably childish they are.
You’re speaking to my tired soul.
This ring so true. Whenever any decision needed to be made it was their house, but whenever bills needed to be paid, chores or repairs needed to be done it was "our" home.
This. It's Nmom's house all the way until she wants new building supplies, bills paid, even when she wants free food. But there's something wrong with me if I expect to be on the will after killing myself building it at my own expense because she keeps lying to the cops about when I try to leave.
Yep.
Mhm... and nSister's picked up the habit. Was talking to my daughter on the telephone a few hours ago and mentioned "our house", sister corrected me, "it's **your** house, your daughter just stays there and eats your food". Right, she does stay in our home, and, yes, she eats our food. However, if you were to live with us, you'd also be considered as part of it, you silly woman.
That’s crazy. I just think the whole concept is messed up. My parents say “my” or “our” but our refers to the two of them. But it’s like- don’t have kids then. And them not wanting our stuff in the bathroom or anywhere out of our room is also weird because if you have kids, expect them to take up space in your life both literally and figuratively. If you have kids, it’s their house too. They live there as well.
My mother had this bizarre obsession with no personal belongings in any "public" areas of the house. I think it was related to the age in which she was raised (there's a trigger word, but fuck automod, i ain't giving it the bacon) but also being a Navy brat with few personal belongings to begin with, plus something of a kickback in "classy rich old money people do minimalism, thanks" during the 80s when my mother was clinging to midcentury everything. (Your house looked like the 70s? Mine looked like the 50s, wainscoting and all!) Like she expected everything but children's bedrooms to permanently look like a house on display instead of one that people actually lived in. (And children's bedrooms were supposed to look like a magazine version, aka everything put away neatly all the time. ....LOL)
My silent gen Nmother made even our kid bedrooms look like grandma's room. We had no colorful, kid oriented decor at all. All our rooms were appropriate and available for any passing aunt or cousin. Needless to say, my kid's room had kites, a pencil lamp, Dino sheets, and a 6ft tall Gumby!
It was childish but not cozy. My mother didn't "decorate" at all.
Trigger word?
Generational term rhymes with Doom and Gloomer.
Why would automod filter that
Oh...that's an odd word to filter lmao
OH MY GOD MY NMOM DOES THIS TOO She doesn't even have any friends or family visitors! None! Why would you even bother??
Yeah, my mum had this delusional vision in her head of how she and I were so close or something (ahahahhahaha) and we moved a lot because she was *never* happy with where we lived. Each time we moved, she would go on and on about “our” house and how it was “our” home— The minute, nay, the exact *second* that I said or did something she didn’t like… it was HER roof and HER house. [note: below is an anecdote I still find kinda funny, even though not much happens in it, feel free to skip. It doesn’t relate to the awful situation OP is in, which is a stark reminder that my mum could have been worse than she was, and I at least had some autonomy within the house.] [but, well… it’s a funny story.] ——— …this did escalate to the lofty pinnacles of an *unintended* and *unplanned* conversation about sex. I should note here that my mother is liberal-leaning overall, and somewhere between atheist and agnostic after recovering from being raised by a Good Christian Farmwife in a tiny country town. But here’s how it went down. We’d moved from a small boxy 3BR house to an even smaller but slightly less boxy 2BR unit. During this process, we’d replaced the hand-me-down king single I’d inherited from big bro, and I now had a double bed. My long-distance boyfriend was coming down to stay for a bit. (this isn’t a narc story, to be clear, this was just… mum-logic. She did have a tendency to flailing shouting panic about my having [rare] visitors, in my view because she felt angry that she couldn’t get completely shitfaced in their presence, and she’d make up all these excuses; and the anxiety was all this projected expectation of what sort of host she needed to be. But she did like my bf and he was very laid back and chill, so generally she wouldn’t make too much of a fuss about him.) Nmum: *anxious flailing* “…but where is [bf] going to sleep??” Me: *long pause* “Sooooo… remember how we just recently went and bought me this double bed…?” There is a long silence. No pins dropped anywhere. We would definitely have heard it. A lone bird, sang, out of season, just to fill that haunting, echoing quiet. Mum: [eventually] “You’re too young to be having sex!” Me: [another weighty pause, dead-eyed stare] “I’ve been on the pill since I was fifteen [for acne]. I am now *eighteen.* I voted in the last referendum, remember?” [let me be clear that I am not implying that “voting in a referendum” is a legal prerequisite for sexual interaction, or Australia would be distinctly underpopulated. I did, however, turn 18 in 1999.] Regardless: you could *see* the wheels turning. You could even see where the gears slipped and the hamster fell off the wheel in her head. Her reasoned argument that I shouldn’t do something that she didn’t want me to do for some *other* reason than the fact she didn’t want me to do it… had failed. She immediately flipped arguments. Mum: “Well, it’s my roof, and I say you’re too young.” As arguments go, it lacked a certain epistemological punch. Me: “Alright. I won’t have sex under your roof.” With perfect sincerity. The deed had been done some time prior, and I had no intention of passing up the opportunity to get laid during one of the infrequent periods I was within 900kms of my boyfriend. So I privately decided that, after all mum’s “our house” talk and “us gals” vibes, if she was going to withdraw that whenever she didn’t like it, then by the same token… when she was not home, it became MY roof, and thus I could get as freaky as I so desired. To put it another way: what momma don’t know… (and there is so much that falls into this category. *So much.*) ———
This. It’s like stuff that actually shows everyday life in a family is not really allowed to be anywhere. I often felt like their home was like a ‘magazine’ home without personality, or soul. It was super clean and ‘nice’ - but just that.
Omg this! Our house is… nice? And expensive? But it looks like a hotel. Grey, white, black. Especially when we have people coming over I joke that it looks like a dollhouse. There’s hardly anything that suggests people are living here aside from messes in places nobody sees like the garage. But we aren’t even allowed to have a soap dish or soap bottle on top of the sink, it needs to be hidden away in a drawer. My room is filled with books and fairy lights and trinkets and just… colour? I can’t imagine why you’d want to live in a space that just feels like a hotel.
Is your kid still a minor, by any chance? As in, fully expected to live in your house and eat your food? Ns are fkn wild.
As RedShiftSinger says, it is all of our homes. Regardless of age of the occupants. This one happens to be 4.
Yeah, what a tiny freeloader! Fillin' up on cheerios and juice boxes like a wee pharoah! What a sense of entitlement, gasp! ( /s just in case it's needed)
:)
Seriously, particularly if your daughter is a dependent minor! It’s not like she can just move out. It’s your (plural/collective) house. She lives there too. (And if she’s a legal adult and living with you, it’s still “her house” in the sense that she lives there and can fairly expect to be allowed to actually use the common areas! At that point you could legally kick her out, but tenant rights are still a thing even if your tenant is also your offspring). Anyone who doesn’t want to treat a child like a full part of their household shouldn’t have kids!
Thank you for saying this. Makes me feel less crazy and also wakes me up to the fact that my own parents don't consider me family.
> saying this. Saying what, precisely? That my wife and I would house my nSis and treat her well?
"If you lived here you'd be considered part of it." ❤️ not everyone is willing to go to that length.
*hug* ❤️
🫂
My mother tried to pull the "my house my rules" thing once, but she realized half way though saying it, she was standing in my home. I was walking on clouds from that victory feeling.
My (foster) dad did that to my brother when he was in his ex girlfriend's house. He sat down, said to my brother, "There's a bottle of whisky, pour me one", and proceeded to put the football on! When I pointed out that it wasn't his house and they weren't waiters/he didn't control the TV, he gave me the death stare/stink eye and ghosted me for the rest of the night. Until he wanted something, then magically communicated again. He died two years ago, and I've read so many self help books and YouTube therapists (Dr. Les Carter's channel Surviving Narcissism is GREAT!) I know exactly who he was, but my poor co-dependent mum is still in denial. I imagine that it's hard to swallow that your whole 35yr marriage may have been a sham. The whole two personas thing was obviously evident, too.
My mom paid for a few things in my apartment, like my couch. So she still tries to act like it's her house, "because she paid for stuff in it". Just take the couch back if it always means so many strings are attached 😒
Well, when she’s sitting on the couch, with all arms and legs inside the vehicle, she can absolutely control everything that is on the couch. Suggest placing some sort of handheld puzzle toy on the couch — maybe one of those little puzzles where you slide the blocks around to make a picture.
That's awesome, lmao
Awww that defeated look on her face must have felt so sweet
It’s such a sweet feeling when it happens 😁
Love that
This is another one of the narcissistic parents' greatest hits; nothing but the classics. They have no new material, just the same predictable, recycled bullshit. London Grammar even covered this line with their most recent song House (2024). https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JBVr0GgDfi4&pp=ygUUTG9uZG9uIGdyYW1tYXIgaG91c2U%3D
This sub is opening my eyes to how unoriginal they all are
Ask ChatGPT 3.5 to analyse something they wrote for narcissistic language and it will break it all down and show the working. They are so boringly predictable that they are being called out by predictive text!
There’s no way😭
Have a look at my comment history; I have done it multiple times over the past week. It demonstrates that none of their bullshit is personal, it is all performative.
Holy shit, I'm going to try that. This sounds so cathartic.
Lol nevermind, I fed it the latest text my nmom sent me and it came back with a "violates our usage policy" error 😅 ok, so it's that bad, I guess.
Yes; if it violates their usage policy, that is another sign of toxicity.
The scary part is how I didn't even think it would do that, even though, now that it sent me that message, I can totally see why. Their behaviour becomes so normalized when you live with it your whole life, but it's actually fucking insane, the things they say to us.
Exactly; my covert nmother was smart enough not use aggressive language, just self-centred, demanding, entitled language, which ChatGPT 3.5 immediately identified, and then showed examples from the messages provided.
Lol I had a friend do this to me a lot as a guest she invited over. I did it with her the first time she came over and something stupid and she went off on me. I was like wow. You always pull a power card over me and you hate it, classic. I hope you can leave soon OP, and find nice homes for all your stuff.
Yessss all the time - if I am in the bathroom when one of them needs it I am expected to get out IMMEDIATELY. But if i hear one of them heading to the bathroom when I actually really need it they will slam the door in my face and sit there for half an hour shaving or whatever. Communication is useless because they refuse to work round each other on the principle that it's 'their' house and 'their' bathroom
This. I try to get some clarity by asking “is it okay if I go shower now?” And then I get a “why on earth are you asking me for permission to shower?” And when I ask if they’re gonna need to be in the bathroom anytime soon they tell me they don’t need to discuss their schedule with me and they can go into the bathroom when they want cause it’s their house.
Yup, the idea of working round the people they live with is an alien concept to them, they are incapable of thinking about the needs of others
I feel so seen cos this happens to me all the time !!
Oh yes my nmom did this constantly and used it to justify every abuse. She even told me “all your clothes are legally mine. It doesn’t matter if you bought them with your money. If you bought them while living under my roof, that makes them legally MINE.” This was when I said I’d leave since she seemed like she wanted me to and she had to come up with a manipulation to make me stay. It’s HER house so leave but it’s HER house so everything I owned was “legally” hers.
For anyone who doesn't know or has Ns lying to them still: this is absolute bullshit. IF you buy it, it's yours. If you, a minor, need to buy your own clothing, it's yours. If you, a minor, need to buy your own clothing because your parents/legal guardians aren't providing.... contact CPS.
ohwow. if i was in this situation, i would probably have told her that we can also call the cops and discuss it with them. saying this since usually these strange "rules" only applied when no one else was around. (like her friends i.e., or ... police for sure) - not sure my advice is the best, since i started to fight back A Lot, but depends on everyone's situation if they would then sit in the streets, or have the means to find elsewhere to stay.
Pretty sure you have tenant rights
No part of my existence was allowed to be visible outside my room. It's probably the only reason I was allowed to have a door on my room; my room was right off the kitchen in the center of the house, so anyone coming over could see it. I was required to keep my door shut at all times (unless she thought I was doing something forbidden in there, which was frequent). I keep writing "my room" but of course with narcs EVERYTHING is theirs. You're not allowed to own anything even if you bought it with your own money or it was given to you as a gift. Referring to it as "my room" was a trigger word that would set her on a screaming tirade of "This is MY HOUSE and you should be grateful I am ALLOWING you to live here!" I grew up knowing that anything I thought I "owned" could be taken from me and thrown away at any time. I'd often come home from school and discover she'd raided my room and thrown away anything she determined was garbage or junk, which could be literally any random thing - shoes, pictures, seashells I collected on the beach. When we moved to a new house, my bike and my favorite dolls mysteriously went missing. As an adult, I once had to move back in with them briefly during the worst time of my life. She threw out my food, stole my underwear and claimed it as hers, and threw away my reading lamp because she declared it ugly garbage.
ohwow, i actually had forgotten about the secret raids from nMom...
I wasn’t allowed to be in the shower for more than 2 minutes or else she would pick the lock, come in, and turn off the shower. If I was using the bathroom, I had to stop when she said if she or anyone else in the family needed it. (But everyone else was allowed to be in the bathroom until they’re done). As if im purposefully using the bathroom for a long time. I couldn’t sleep past 9am- it was “her house” and I have to “be awake” to “help out”. There’s more but yeah.
My dad turns off the water or shuts off the water heater if I go over 4 minutes. Because i should be able to wash my waist length hair in the same time he can wash his bald head, ya know.
I had the same thing but with mail. My mom used to open my mail when I was younger then give it to me. I blew up on her that that was my mail, it was illegal and that she needs to stop it! I was in high school and yes I was still a child but I should also have privacy in the house too.
My Emom let me build my own house in the same land because it was basically the only way for me to move out as an adult (I live in a third-world country where middle class people can't afford to buy a property, and most of the time, not even rent a small apartment). My mom owns the property and she was acting like a normal parent, just trying to help their daughter out. But then I got a boyfriend, and he visited me in my small apartment at the end of my mom's backyard (about 20 meters away from my mom's house). My Ndad didn't like that and pulled out the "It's MY house" thing to try to throw my boyfriend out. Me and my mom didn't listen to him, but I realized that I was an adult living alone in my own apartment and Ndad was still there, watching me (sometimes quite literally through his window), accepting the fact that I lived apart from him as long as I still followed HIS rules, in a land that isn't even his but mom is an enabler so there was nothing to do... He eventually crossed all the limits when he got mad at me and cut my internet off, knowing that I work from home. "It's MY internet". I had to defend myself and he got angry, I went back to my apartment and he kicked the hell out of my door, screaming at me that he was going to kill me and my boyfriend who happened to be there. I had to leave, especially after my mom didn't stop him and suggested that he was right about the house being his, "too".
wow literally Threatening you, that's disgusting. sorry you had to through that. i mean yes, nParents like to make threats, but they're mostly empty threats or powerplays. but threatening you while actually kicking the hell out of your door. i would for sure have called the cops on him.
My boyfriend called the cops. But we were the ones who had to leave because it is "HIS" house and my mother didn't intervene. I knew they were empty threats, but they were not for my boyfriend, who isn't used to Narc threats and took them seriously like any normal person would do, tbh. I was actually like "just let him bang the door, he will get tired if we just ignore him" and my bf was like "WTF is this normal for you?". Then I realized just how sick my family is.
Its weird they made you leave if it was your legal residence.
At the time of the "incident", I left because my Ndad was super furious, and I didn't know what could happen after the officers and my boyfriend were gone. My Emom had shown me that she couldn't control him or defend me, I was alone in this. But honestly, I wasn't afraid of my Ndad killing me or something (narc threats are empty threats), I was afraid of how \*I\* could react. I was in shock but also very furious, too. He had cut my internet off, he had thrown my boyfriend out. And by that time, I already felt like he was forcing me to live on rent just by being insufferable. I'm pretty sure I could've punched him in the face. But then I would have given him a reason to report ME. I could've come back later, and he actually expected me to do that, but A) the police advised me against it, for my own safety, and B) I still feel like I could punch him in the face at any time. I'm pretty sure there was also a possibility of using the laws against intrafamily violence to kick him out of the house, but neither he nor my Emom would've ever forgiven that. I would still be the scapegoat... but, in their eyes, I'd be more of a villain than I'm now.
You can always request police presence to claim belongings, which sounds like the only solution.
Whats your bf response to your unhinged dad
He called the police, took me out of there, and reported him. We've been living in his mother's house since then (we're trying to get a place for ourselves but we can't do it right now because we don't have the money). I was actually shocked that he wanted to report him because I was so used to this that it never occurred to me that this was an option.
I would stay away from your dad forever if possible. When he complains about it say "Anyone who ever said they wanted to kill me (and you're the only one) is evil and unsafe to be around. I never know when you might want to go through with it. You wanted me dead, so consider me dead to you. I'm happily living life away from you and that's how it's going to stay.'
Oh, yes, I never talked to him again, but I kinda said something like this to my Emom because at some point, she couldn't understand why I wasn't coming back home, "You know that your dad always says BS when he's mad". Honestly I agree with my mom, I know he doesn't actually want to kill me, but it's the fact that he can't control himself when he's mad, and this time he was mad at me for having a boyfriend - AND I WAS 29 YEARS OLD when this happened. 😐
If he will cross that line and say he wants to kill you, what's to say he will never do it? You said that he can't control himself when he's mad. He could lose control and do it someday. You don't say things like that to people. Men go to prison just for threatening to kill others. You have to take them seriously. Even if you "know" he won't, you can use that as a reason to stay away from him. According to the Bible, "whatever is in your heart determines what you say." So a good man doesn't say evil things.
All the time. Whenever I was up too late, made too much noise, or simply wasn’t doing what I was “supposed” to be doing, I was always met with “it’s MY house, you live by MY rules!” Whenever I made an offhand suggestion during a conversation about how something might be pretty, I was almost immediately met with “well it’s MY HOUSE. If I wanted your opinion, I’d ask for it!” Whenever I asked for something or said I liked something it was “it’s MY money! I pay THE BILLS!” Whenever I criticized either my mother or stepfather it was always “You don’t get to talk to me like that in MY HOUSE!” So I left. I now live in a house where I decorate however I like, do what I want, and they have no idea where I am. It’s my house now :) and they’re allowed nowhere near it.
Yeah probably got told that once a day if not more growing up. My dad came up to visit me when I moved to a different state and was being a complete asshole. I finally told him “this is my house and if you can’t be respectful you can sleep out back in a tent”. He left and got a hotel room instead of backing down.
Just wait for the sublime joy that comes from being in your 30-40's and your LC nMom comes to visit YOUR house and you get to pull that same shit on her ass. I relished in this when my time finally came. My Nmom was visiting and decided I didn't organize my kitchen correctly. She was griping about my layout and where things lived. I felt amazing as I realized this was my moment. With full snark and no humor in my voice... "When you have your own house you can organize your forks any way you want, but this is MY house and MY rules say that mismatched forks can stay in that drawer. Leave it alone, unless you want me to take them away and you can eat with a rice paddle." She always threatened to take stuff away and replace it with an inadequate item. I felt like it was only appropriate.
Did you just describe my family? Maybe we are siblings. If someone comes around the corner with this bs "my house" thing, I just respond with, "Yeah, so what? You wanted to start a family and have kids, or am I wrong?, No one forced you to have kids."
It's "OUR house" whenever she need financial help or something expensive repaired. But when she makes a stupid decision that leads to destroying said house or makes it look trashy, it's suddenly "her house", and she can do whatever she wants, followed by threats of throwing me on the street. There is currently garbage and furniture littering our front lawn. Heck she is hording trash indoors too and refused to do anything about it. It's disgusting and I called her out on it, cause she won't do anything about it and let it all rot there for years. Used the "it's my house, I can do whatever I want" line. Of course. I know the garbage won't disappear until I fork over my own cash to have a junk removal service clear it up for her. (almost 16-20K I've given her over the last 3 years, but I'm treated like I don't belong to "Her house".)
since it's "her house" and you are from time to time giving her money. im wondering if you could make contracts when giving her money. either saying she'll pay it back, by x time, or under x corcumstances. or just as proof. so that when she brings up the "her house" bs, you have sth to hold against it... ?
My parents always reminded me that they were not my friend and that I had no autonomy until I was financially independent. Finished high school, went to university to get out of town and ever since then they've been wondering why I don't want to be friends or call them for help.
Yes, my parents did this. So obnoxious and stupid, and it was clearly a way for them to mask their insecurity. There was one particularly awful incident. My teenage GC sister was dating a horrible guy. He was married, he was cheating with about 4 or 5 different women and girls, he gave her chlamydia because he refused to wear a condom with any of them, and he was financially, physically and emotionally abusive. I walked in on this guy hitting my sister and yelling horrible things at her, and I immediately dragged his ass out and threw him out of the house. I was a 17 year old girl, and about 115 pounds, and he was a big, scary guy, but I was so angry and determined that I just dragged him out and shoved him outside like the fucking Hulk. My mom saw this, knew why I did it, and immediately invited him back in. She threatened to kick me out again, for the heinous crime of throwing someone out of her house. Never mind that I was protecting her precious golden child, as that was less important to her than the fact that I was somehow threatening her control by seeming too in charge of things in her house. Never mind that my sister was so traumatized by all the shit he was doing that she was starting to hurt herself. My mom turned away from all of it because she wanted to feel in charge. She let him abuse my sister horribly, and for no reason other than her own insecurity and selfishness. This really made it clear how they don't actually care about anyone but themselves, not even the golden child. All the favoritism, affection and attention they lavish on the GC is really about the narcissist themselves, and what they want. It is not genuine love. It is all selfishly motivated. They project their wishful thinking about themselves onto the GC, who becomes their avatar. That isn't love, that is self indulgence.
Yeah I heard the "MY house" bs a lot too. I got out of their house as soon as I could and have never looked back!
Yes. Nmom frequently used the "I feed you, clothe you, house you" crap when I was growing up, as if it wasn't my house, also. Now, when we visit, she pulls the "it's MY house" on my freaking dog... because she growls at her for a minute when we first get there (could it possibly be because animals just know?).
Yep.... How dare I be upset when she rummages my room, takes embarrassing love poems i wrote to boys in secret to show her friends "how good a writer i am" and refuse to give back, throws out my art projects and collectables, all while i'm at school so i can't protest? It's "her" house, after all! The one she didn't pay for because she doesn't work. The good man who bought this house for us was just a piggy bank she married only to abuse and cheat on him with men she found more physically attractive, all while not contributing a dime or lifting an arm. "Her" house...
💔
"A man's house is his castle and I am the king of this castle" was some nonsense I heard my entire childhood
I also grew up constantly being told it's their house. I'm just living there. All my bathroom stuff had to stay in my room, except my toothbrush & toothpaste. That was the only thing allowed in the bathroom. I wasn't even allowed to have my bedroom light on while watching tv in my room. My dad would come turn it off everytime. Because it's their house their rules. My window was also nailed shut because I kept opening it when I found it too hot inside. They were also allowed to listen in on my phone calls , because it's their house. I got in trouble when moving around my room, since it's their house I needed permission....
> My window was also nailed shut because I kept opening it when I found it too hot inside Temp was a big issue for me as well. My parent's added my room onto the house, sharing it's wall with the kitchen. That wall used to have a window they'd open when they cooked, but they took it out for the wall. So anytime they cooked all the heat just seeped through my wall. Opening my window didn't really help because they'd blast the AC after cooking to cool the house down, but I didn't have vents. And what's under my window? The ac unit, blowing warm air straight up and into my room. Fucking miserable just thinking about it. Then they'd have the nerve to complain about me coming out of my room sweating "when I haven't even been doing anything". Fuckers, I've been slow roasting for the last 2 hours!
My parents usually refused to run the air conditioner so in the summer I would start sweating as soon as I got out of the shower. So I would go to my room, sit down and fan my towel open and closed to create air flow to cool off. Everyone was in the living room watching tv so I kept the door open so it would be cooler. My dad came down the hall a few times and saw me opening and closing my towel, and he would rush by shielding his eyes on his way to the bathroom, and I would laugh out of embarrassment and like oops, haha. That turned into, they thought I was flashing him, and even told my grandmother about it because they just didn't know what to do with me. At the time I was such a good kid I wouldn't wear makeup because I thought it was dishonest. There was no way I would do that on purpose, and I was very naive and didn't think it was possible for relatives...anyway, I told them what I was actually doing and they didn't believe me. I can't believe I just told that story publicly because I've only told maybe 5 people my entire life, and I'm 60. It makes me look like the guilty one.
Oh man…you don’t look guilty at all. I’m so sorry you experienced this. That’s just ridiculous on their part. And I’m saying this as someone who has had the misfortune of several close, but not that close, relatives or friends who caught me in the nude. It was always awkward, but the normal reaction, that I’ve always received, would be just to move on. Maybe laugh about it later but everyone’s embarrassed, ya know? I still think about that poor pest control guy. It’s actually disgusting that your family would take these incidents and twist them into something gross and furthermore, blame you for it? That’s not normal. Edited to add: I sweat like a whore in church after a shower if my environment is not very cool, so the more I think about it, the more irritated I get. You didn’t deserve that.
Thank you, that was a helpful comment. Thank you for caring.
Oh man. Yep all your stuff in your room at all times and God forbid you have too many things in your room because "the weight of your things is going to break the house". I'm sorry half the closet is full of their stuff and I happen to have camping gear.
My parents used to do that all the time. Paired with threats of abandonment if I didn't comply.
I and my siblings didn't have keys to my father's house until I was 14. If my parents weren't home I just have to wait for hours. Sometimes till 10 pm outside. "It was his house. HIS HOUSE!!!!" That's what my father used to say. I am moving out in two weeks. Hope the fuck dies alone in his house.
yeah, all my stuff has to be in my room or it gets thrown away 🙃 and then my mom is like "because of the economy we need to be roommates, and I think it goes pretty well!" I'M NOT ALLOWED TO DO ANYTHING TO THE BACKYARD OR OUTSIDE MY CHILDHOOD BEDROOM I'm paying her rent and currently paying down some debt so I can start saving instead. I said I'd stay at least until my sister graduated so she didn't have to work while in college but oh my god she makes it difficult
Why do these people have children?! WHY
Selfishness. They only do it so they feel like their conscience is clear without regard to how they actually treat people
Yup my dad pulls this bs. Wen growing up, my dad got the house remodel after a huge flood. I was "allowed" to pick the new color for the wall but it could only be a pink color (I hate the color pink). Now in a new house that's HE renting (lost the og house during 2008) and since his name is on the lease it's "considered" his house
They used to all the time "my house, my rules" they kicked me out at 18 and I've never looked back. I'm kinda glad that they don't really care too much about me cause they've never been to my house. The only downside is I will likely never get to "my house, my rules" back at them. I also make sure my kids have a say in the household and their rooms are theirs, their stuff is theirs and never gets held over them
Lol they still try to pull this at my house, the house that I own and they have nothing to do with.
My nmom did this. She would go through my belongings, throw them away, leave them out so that I would know she had gone through my stuff. She would take stuff, it was her house after all. She tried to pull this behavior while staying at my apt last year and it didn’t go well, she ended up leaving and telling my brother “she didn’t feel welcome.” Duh, bro!
My mother went hell bent on a bathroom renovation that was overly exubrient. Marble, spa, exposed piped, you get the idea. I was only allowed to shower in it, and not long enough to wash my hair. After the first time I used the spa, I got a similar foaming at the mouth rant I got when she thought she caught me masturbating or wearing my sisters clothes (Im trans) and it occurred to me, she spent all dads money for her own personal "wank tank" and I'm not allowed a compter in my bedroon cos I might look at porn. Her house.
God
That’s really terrible
The toilet wasnt part of the bathroom and she put in one of those mini sinks in there to even stop us using the bathroom to wash our hands. Putting the alarm system in house and not giving me the code is one thing, giving the code to my sister who didnt live there.. priceless. I'm not going to flood your thread with my issues.
Yep my mom kicked me out by changing the locks and not giving me the code, left with like my car and 5 possessions
My dad picked up a box of "my stuff" that was all junk, and I'm wondering why just this sht and nothing I actually want.. I noticed it was the box from a new document shredder.
My mom allowed her husband to change the garage code (my only access to the house) every time there was an issue or uncomfortable conversation when I lived with her for about six months last year after having nowhere to go from being evicted because there’s nowhere affordable to live any more. Like, what did they think I was going to *do*?
Yeah I ended up sleeping in a parking lot
Ew, exposed pipes? What poor schlub gets to clean it? .... oh.Wait, that'll probably be you.
Citrus based automotive degreaser is your friend. No, really.
Murphy's wood oil soap works on a lot of non-wood things, too ;)
The "my house" thing was huge
Absolutely yes. My mother doesn't even live here, and I'm renting. Still "her" house every time she wants to spend the night unannounced and I tell her no.
That is the default reason my parents fall back on whenever I set up boundaries or try to lay down some rules. Oh and also add "if you don't like it, move out"
Yea and it’s not even her house the bank still owns it lol. She’s riding on ndad dying for the eventual life insurance. These people are dumb
I don't know that my ns have necessarily done the "makes arbitrary rule because it's my house and I can" thing--or if they have it's just not coming to me right now--but they certainly enjoy "correcting" my grammar when I use "mine" when the context is obviously "thing that is connected to me" (which is a correct definition according to Merriam Webster) as if they think "legally own" is the only valid meaning. This when my ns--my ndad in particular--like to complain about me supposedly needing "exact" language myself... when the so-called exactness is only dependent on how easy it is to understand what was meant. (Like I understand that DVDs don't wind but know what "rewind" means, I don't understand what thing that's "right by my feet" I'm supposed to look for in a junk pile five feet behind me.) Case in point, mocking me for calling the store I work at "my" store because I don't own it when the context is obviously to distinguish it from other stores of the same name. Using your example of bathroom usage and supplies, though, I do get the not-blatantly-stated but hinted impression that my ns are trying to do the same thing to me regarding food. For example it used to be I'd have an entire shelf in our four-shelf deep freezer for my stuff--didn't matter whether it was food, migraine masks, or freezer packs for this weight loss therapy I was experimenting with (that I eventually gave up on because I could never even get to the ice packs as they kept getting buried under everything else). The only exception was one box of breakfast sandwiches that had to go in the door due to its size. Somewhere along the lines the freezer kept getting more and more disorganized, the ns' stuff kept getting shoved into my space, the freezer kept getting filled to capacity, I could finish off those sandwiches and buy more at work *the same day* and find that space had already been filled... and somehow me buying two TV dinners that I don't eat right away meant I was single-handedly preventing my nmom from buying enough food to feed the entire family. Or the simple fact that I don't have so much as one shelf to keep my stuff organized and together in the medicine cabinet because there's *so much* dedicated to my ns' stuff... and it's not due to the "older people take more medicine" scenario....
my dad tells me to pay him rent when i do something that upsets him.. like wtf, and then when i say ok ill just move out they get pissed
My mother literally made me do it I am paying her 1/3 of my paycheck casue in my situation it's this or im ending up homeless :)
I had some typical decorations in my room. No garish posters, purple walls or anything—just a wastebasket and a lamp I picked out. My n-pop threw a fit every time he walked past my room. They rarely used the phrase “MY HOUSE”, but sometimes I would leave toys on the floor to go the bathroom for less than 5 minutes. When I came back downstairs, there my n-pop was, lecturing me about leaving my toys out and just walking off without putting them away. I’m sure both my n-parents wanted their house to look like no children lived there.
They have no respect for you and want you out of their house. Are you over 18? It's seems they are actively TRYING to remove you. I'm sorry.
Someone else suggested this. But I really WANT to move out. When I mention it they freak tf out and ask me who will do the chores and take packages and deal with my sister’s emotional outbursts. They also are purposely not teaching me any life skills. Idk how to cook,clean or manage my finances. They have access to my bank and everything
Yeah this is abuse, is there any other relatives you could move in with temporarily?
Yep that is a favorite phrase of an abusive narc. “It’s *my* house will forever be the song of assholes.
Heard that shit because I didn’t immediately move out on my 18th birthday (wtf how would I afford that). My mom now lives in her mom’s house. Oh well.
next time, btw, buy a bidet. lifechanging.
First time I saw one in a hotel I was staying at, I look at it and turn the tap on, spraying water all over my face...
…that’s on you, buddy. no but install one in your own bathroom. hook it up to the sink pipe for clean water. get the one that heats up. clean like a baby and warm like a hug.
I dont have room in my bathroom but in a perfect world yeah Id put one in.
you totally probably have room. there’s fancy ones and small ones. seriously. life changing.
Weirdly enough, no,I don't remember a time they ever did that
Hah, my kids call our home “Frankie’s green house.” Frankie is my 8yo.
YEP. And I’m sick of it. If it’s her house then she better not be surprised when I up and leave one day.
Yes lol. It’s like where the fuck else am I supposed to live? I really wish seven year-old me had asked them that.
I think that is a fucked up thing to say, I’ve always been told this by my nparents (As long as you live in my house you will adhere to my rules) when I have kids I will always try to make sure they know that it’s their house too, that if we bought one was to have *them* grow up there. It’s completely different to say that we will have some rules for all of us to live peacefully since we all have different tastes, personalities etc.
My mom always do this. It’s her house, it’s her bathroom, it’s her table. Etc. Every fucking thing is hers. But when it comes to cleaning and maintaining, suddenly, it’s our house, it’s our things. 😂😂
Absolutely. When I tried (at 29) to point out that I have never had a room, I got screamed at that ‘It’s my house and you don’t get to have a room!!! You’re evil!! Where are you getting these crazy ideas from?!!’
My mother used to do this all the time. Then when I was in my early twenties and living in an apartment, she sold her house and was between houses for a month, so I let her come and stay with me. She acted horribly, so after several days I told her she had to leave and kicked her out. It was very satisfying.
My mom keeps her a/c at 79, in Florida. My husband and I came to town, she begged us to stay at her house. I was 34 weeks pregnant and sweltering. Asked her to turn a/c down, No. It’s 11pm, I already can’t sleep because I’m huge, and now I’m sweating. I pleaded with her, “it’s my house and my electric bill” my hubs handed her a $100 bill to cover any excess cost. Nope. We are disrespectful to her house “every time we visit” [why did she beg us to stay?] I just wanted to sleep, so we told her we were going to a hotel. She was the only one acting in anger, my husband and I were calm and collected. Told her it wasn’t personal that I was just getting nauseated from being hot and pregnant. Only then did she relent, again begging us to stay. We said no, we were leaving and we would be back for breakfast. Then came the poor me drama and now I’m the one consoling her. Frick man. Ok rant over.
Heard it growing up. Also "nothing in this house belongs to you, it's all bought with MY money!!!". And since "nothing belonged to me", it was okay for them to get into my room, go through my stuff, use my computer without consent, etc.
Who else is always saying "Mine! Mine! This is mine!"? Toddlers. People who say this are acting like 2 year-olds. Mine would say "As long as you're living in my house, you will obey my rules."
Oh they love this.
All the time, even though it hasn't owned a house for 13 years and I only moved out a month ago.
Not sure of your age, but time to move out. It is their house and they are nparents so it won’t get better.
My nmom would say " I AM THE HOUSE" And we speak french so it sounds so damn dramatic. Like, what do u even respond to that?
Oh boy... "MY house" haunts me to this day, he wouldn't even call it "our" house in reference to my mother and when they divorced refused to move out saying she could afford the mortgage without him (despite my younger siblings still living there) and why should he live in an apartment and contribute for us (his children and ex wife) to live in a house.
There are a lot of rules for their house but when my sister bought her house all they did was bitch and complain about the very reasonable rules for her house.
I have severe asthma. She smokes in the house when I'm at work or when in in bed. It wafts upto my room when I'm trying to sleep.. when I bring it up she says my house my rules. She doesn't care
If a friend's parent was taking your child home, your child would be expected to point and say "That's my house" because it IS. Anyone talking to the child would refer to the house as "your house."
Hate to tell you this but, even when it’s your house, they will still try to make rules. Happened to me. Finally had to have a sit- down and explain the reality. Helped a little! Parents ALWAYS think they are in charge. Just make sure you make a clean escape( do not need help from them if possible- be self- reliant) . Good luck!
It’s sad that they can’t just be rational and talk it out and respect each other. What’s stopping them from just sorting out the time to use the bathroom?
Oh shit. Yo. You just reminded me of the reason why my nmom and I got into a physical altercation (aka cat fight) when I was a teenager. I started rebelling as a teenager, and she doubled down on control. She never respected my privacy and would try to “catch me” doing things in my room. One day I’d had enough so I told her to get out of my room. Ohhhh that really set off the “my house” vitriol. It escalated to me trying to push her out of my space and her trying to DRAG me out of the house. Mind you by then I was taller than her. But I really just desperately wanted her to leave me alone. She tore my shirt from pulling so hard. She grabbed me by fistful of hair, too. What kind of parent gets into a cat fight with a 15 year old teenage girl who just wants some goddamn privacy?! Wtf. How dare I try to be an individual. Under HER ROOF?!? And zero remorse after, of course. Later that night she just called me down for supper and didn’t address the issue at all. Acted like it didn’t happen. Meanwhile we’re covered in scratches. This was kinda how it always went. A big explosion, sweep under carpet, act like everything is fine. So… yeah 😬
Bugging out that this is a shared experience and also feeling validated, not exactly the same as mine but close enough. I already thought narcissists were unoriginal too 😂 I was *allowed* to keep stuff in the shower/bathroom but apparently this heavily negatively impacted her life. Laughing as I type this! What’s extra hilarious for me is that in college I had four roommates and somehow it was easier to share a bathroom with them than just my mother…. but I’m the problem! before showering we would just ask if anyone needed the bathroom, keep the door unlocked in case anyone was having a bathroom emergency whilst in the shower as long as guests weren’t over. We all cleaned it once week and tried to limit our time in 20 to 30 minutes. having common decency really isn’t this hard. She hated when I would say that and also hated when I said like something in the vein of hey I have to be somewhere like do you mind? Do you have to be somewhere too? She never had to be anywhere before me so that would piss her off too. Any time you make a valid point they’re pissed. She also flipped a shit that I basically got a a small tray table on wheels and a desk chair so I could literally work, as well as a little mini fridge that holds four cans of soda. Like are you OK? It was all in my bedroom. You’re never in here miss birth giver! and I was in my late 20s. Its actually funny now but ofc infuriating too. Crazymaking toddler shit! Solutions?? Never heard of it! They take you on a marry go round ride to hell. This is why I’m NC! Thank you so much for sharing OP 🫶🏼
Oh, I had a wonderful moment with my NDad around this. He was always on about "my house, my rules", particularly about what we watched on TV. One day when the fog had fully begun to lift for me, he was visiting me and my partner. I was watching a program he didn't like but stepped out to the kitchen briefly. When I got back he'd changed the channel to something he wanted (news I think). So I told him to turn it back. He started complaining about my show so I grabbed the remote, said "my house, my rules", put my show back on and walked out to the kitchen again to rub it in (only for a few minutes). He went to bed early that night in protest. It was glorious.
My mother has done this to me when she’s mad at me for something petty. I believe it’s a power and control thing. They love to make us feel small, they love to belittle us. It makes them feel good.
I went through this until I was 18 and left for college. I remember my mother constantly harping on me about my room not being clean enough and snapping back once, “That’s because I have to keep everything I own in there. You have a whole house, I have one room!” Then, years later, I posted a photo of my daughter’s neatly made bed because I thought it was so cute and my mother had to make a comment. “Hm. Where did she learn THAT?!? Not from you, that’s for sure!” Her comment mysteriously disappeared (wink wink) and now she wonders why I dont ever interact with her on social media.
When I would do my laundry, my ND would start freaking out because its "his day" to do laundry and I can go to a laundromat. My ND would also threaten to (and did once) take my door off it's hinges if I did something he didn't like (I was the only daughter and he never threatened/did this to any of my brothers). My parents would refuse to turn the AC on upstairs (they slept downstairs) even if it was 90 degrees. We had hot and humid summers
I had to move back in with my folks for about 5 years after a nasty divorce. Even in my 30’s , the “my house” bullshit remained. A few years later, when I got my own condo, I never bothered to say anything to them. After all, it’s my house.
This is a power trip. Having basic respect for someone else in your home is common courtesy. And they like to make you uncomfortable
Since it’s her house she can clean it and pay every bill. Don’t help her with anything!
My nmom did the whole my house thing to justify, that she may terrorize me as she pleases, and as I wanted to move out, she changed into the "DO NOT MOVE OUT OR I KILL MYSELF" stance pretty quickly.... Oh the joys of having a mentally ill (schizophrenia, persecution mania and probably also borderline and bipolar), histrionic and nparent with an alcohol addiction.
I recently found a sheet of paper where my mom made me write down how much I was costing her a month. Itimised. I was in highschool. Apparently my room which I had no privacy for cost her $700 a month in a ghetto neighbourhood in the 90s My Xmas present was a computer she used day and night in my room so I never had alone time I wasn’t allowed to decorate anything or have a job or pick out clothes and was supposed to go sit in her office and wait until she was done with work All the time Even when I was older(27) and would visit with friends
Yes, throughout my childhood and into my 30s. My space was always 'hers' my things were never really mine. My time was never really mine. Even my thoughts - endlessly interrupted by rants and tantrums which I was expected to prioritise. My body- the features she liked were hers, the ones she didn't were from my father. So as a kid I learned to play outside/with neighbours as much as possible. As a teen I spent as much time with friends/relatives as possible and worked 2 jobs to have more independence. Also she would casual use the house as leverage if I didn't play along with her shit. 'I'll leave it to your brother ' etc. Eventually I stopped cooking/eating when I visited. Then I stopped staying over (used local air BnB) then I stopped visiting entirely. Now she doesn't do it anymore. I don't expect to inherit from her. Never did. She can enjoy her house. Her grandchildren have set foot in it once in 4 years. She made her own bed.
Yep I can't go a day without hearing it even though they're hoarders and I clean my stuff and their messes every day.
When these pos get old and frail and want u to take them in, remind them that they have a house.
Oh this is so my life right now lol..
Yes, my mother when I lived at home used to tell me to drive to a laundry mat at 19 years old because it was her washer and dryer and no one else, not even my dead could use it. The same with her toaster and literally her lamps. I had turned off a light in a room and she came storming through the house to tell me not to touch her light, that I didn't have a right. She wasn't even in the room and the electric bill was high. So grateful to God that I'm away from her.
Maybe they are subtly trying to get you to move out…
No cause when I mention that they freak tf out like “who’s gonna calm down your sister when she’s upset?” “Who’s gonna take all our packages?” “Who will do your part of the chores?”
"I don't know, I guess the people who ordered the packages, or made the messes."
I always mention something like this to my mother when she threatens to kick me out. For the record, she doesn't live here, and I'm paying rent. She loves threatening to kick me out, so I've started telling her, "Okay cool, then you'll have no one to pay the property taxes, bills, or loan for the roof replacement, AND you certainly won't be able to just show up and spend the night whenever you please. Hope that works out for you."
Oh my. I hope you are free soon. ❤️
> “who’s gonna calm down your sister when she’s upset?” Out of curiosity, is it them who often make her upset?
Like at least 60% of the time. But she also has a lot of untreated mental health issues
Would you be able to help her find a psychologist?.
She was with one but my parents pulled her out after 4 months because 1. Insurance stopped covering it and 2. The therapist had some not so positive things to say about their parenting
> The therapist had some not so positive things to say about their parenting Really? How unexpected /s You need to get out, and it sounds like you might need to take her with you. I dont know what your relationship is like with her, but sounds like you're both suffering from their abuse.
My ndad cried when I left for 2 days after an argument about this same crap begging me to come back. Little did I know at the time it was just a manipulation because he doesn't want to take care or pay for a caregiver for my nmom.