Lilly the Narcissistic Mother – Part 2

Lilly the Narcissistic Mother should also be known as Hurricane Lilly because everywhere she goes, she causes damage.

On New Years Eve 1999, Lilly and #5 husband attended a house party.  While they were there they met this new couple who had just moved to their area from Austria.  We’ll call them Klaus and Karin.  Karin was very pregnant with their second child.  Lilly took one look at Klaus and was immediately infatuated.  Klaus was rock star good looking. But Karin was a beauty as well.  Karin was tall, slim with long dark hair.

Lilly immediately started moving in on Klaus.  She first befriended Karin so that she could get closer to Klaus.  Using her usual cadre of charm and flattery, Lilly helped Karin learn more English and made herself available whenever Karin needed to talk about her problems.   When Karin needed food for the new baby but couldn’t make herself understood at the grocery store, Lilly ran to the rescue for Karin.   Lilly started inviting Klaus and Karin and their children to their home for suppers.   When Lillian found out that Klaus and Karin were back to the landers who practiced organic gardening and cooking, Lilly suddenly took an interest in her husband’s garden and organic cooking.  Where Lilly used to buy her children large bags of cheese twists and chips along with large bottles of cola on Friday nights, she now started buying them plain yogurt and multi-grain organic spelt flour chips.

Klaus and Karin went on to have another child and were very close emotionally and physically.  Lilly was starting to get worried that she would never get to Klaus.   She started manipulating Karin and #5, leaving them alone together on many occasions hoping something would blossom.  It didn’t.

Then Lilly started to push her girlfriends on her husband telling them “If you and _______ have a quickie, that is fine with me.  Just please let me know”  It was obvious that Lilly was trying to get her husband to screw around on her so that she could be the poor wife victim and would be available for Klaus.   It still didn’t work.  None of Lilly’s girlfriend’s were immoral enough to sleep with her husband.

When Klaus happened to bring out a guitar one night, Lilly had her answer.  Klaus enjoyed music; enjoyed singing, playing and making music.   So Lilly organized other people that she knew whom played an instrument and got everyone together.  Karin was too busy with the babies at home and #5 was busy at home with the children as well.  That left Lilly with Klaus.  Slowly, quietly, Lilly started getting closer to Klaus.  She flattered, cajoled, and charmed Klaus.   Lilly started to confide little things with Klaus about her marriage, how she was unhappy and the things that #5 did that upset her and her children.  She told Klaus that she could tell only him because only he understood her; that she could only show her real authentic self to Klaus because he was the only one who didn’t judge her.  Klaus, having strong narcissistic qualities himself, was extremely flattered.  He would hold Lilly’s hand as she cried about how she wanted to leave her marriage but couldn’t because she couldn’t support the 6 kids who were still at home.   Lilly cried about how mean, how uncaring, how insensitive #5 was to her.  She even told Klaus that #5 was bi-sexual and had a crush on him, Klaus.  Klaus was disgusted with #5 and became more and more concerned about Karin.

Meanwhile at home, Karin was taking care of three small children in an unfinished house with dirt floors and no hot water.  Karin began to become resentful of all the time that Klaus was spending away from home.  Karin, not knowing that Klaus was spending much of his time away from the house with Lilly, confided her feelings in Lilly.  Lilly used this information from Karin to start dividing Klaus and Karin.  She made little comments that had Klaus questioning his trust in Karin.  Lilly then used the  things that Klaus had confided in her to stir up misgivings with Karin.  Then Lilly decided she would help them both and announced she was doing ‘marriage counselling’ with them to try and save their marriage.  It was the final straw for Klaus and Karin’s marriage.

While Lilly was ‘marriage counselling’ Klaus and Karin, she convinced her mother that #5 was an abusive husband that she and the children needed to flee right away.  Lilly’s mother bought her a house in the town and Lilly and her children moved in right away. Now she was available for Klaus.

Karin, meanwhile, being a proactive woman, had learned English well enough to become active in the community and get a part time job.   It was at this job that she met a man named Paul.  Paul spent time with Karin, showed her and her children attention and helped them when the car broke down or she needed to talk.  Karin told Lilly about Paul, how nice he was to her and the children and Lilly encouraged Karin to take the leap and leave her unhappy marriage with Klaus and move in with Paul.  Karin took Lilly’s advice and left Klaus. Karin took the three children and moved in with Paul.

This was exactly what Lilly had hoped for.

Klaus was devastated and Lilly moved right in for the kill.

Lilly held his hand while he cried; she gave him her shoulder to cry on; she ‘bonded’ with him over their mutual marital breakups.  Klaus did not know that Lilly was behind both of the marital breakups.

Lilly then fanned Klaus’s anger at Karin while playing Karin against Klaus.  Nobody seemed to be able to connect the dots and see what was really happening and who was behind it. They were all so caught up in the drama that Lilly’s obvious maneuvering of everyone was not so obvious.  So many lies were told by Lilly that even she had trouble figuring out what the truth was.  Actually, to Lilly, the truth was whatever she said at that moment.

Lilly went on social assistance and berated her now Ex #5 for not giving her food out of his garden.  He may have done all the work to grow the food and he may have had the land before she married him but she argued that the 70 acres were now marital assets and half of it was hers and that meant that half the food he grew on the land was hers.   #5 gave her food because he expected it to go to the children.

The four children that were not #5’s but whom Lilly insisted they call Daddy, now had to forget about him.  Lilly would not let the 4 children he had helped raise for the past number of years see him. She would not let #5 see those 4 children either.  #5 hired a lawyer and demanded to see at least his two biological children.  By this time, Lilly’s first children were old enough for taking care of themselves and for babysitting so Lilly agreed that #5 could take his two biological children in a joint custody arrangement. And then she went after him for child support and half the assets.  Lilly never lifted a finger to help build the house, keep the garden, or preserve the food; she tucked any extra money away for herself and everyone else got second hand stuff.  Lilly did not hold a job outside the home and brought a lot of kids to the marriage that #5 provided for with his job and his land and his labour…but still she got half the assets.  #5 had to pay out more than $100,000 to Lilly. In the end, #5 said it was worth it to get rid of her lazy ass.

Lilly the Narcissist Mother Part 3 coming soon…

“Lilly”

Let’s call this narcissist “Lilly” .

Lilly moved to our area from another part of the country.  She came here with husband number 5.  Lilly admitted to her girlfriends that she didn’t particularly love #5 but that she already had 5 kids and he had land, money and a strong work ethic. Lilly convinced #5 to marry her when she became pregnant with child #6.

Getting pregnant was Lilly’s modus operandi.  She would meet a man she liked, usually the husband of a girlfriend, and she would do everything she could to seduce him.  If Lilly was particularly jealous of her girlfriend and/if the husband had any kind of sign of money, Lilly would become pregnant ‘accidentally’ by him after she had seduced him.  Lilly has broken up several marriages this way.  After her girlfriend’s marriage broke up, Lilly managed to talk the husband into marrying her because she was either pregnant or  had their child.   This marriage inevitably broke up as the new husband found out what a nightmare he had gotten himself into with Lilly.  When the marriage broke up, Lilly refused to let the father see their child.

Sometimes Lilly would go after child support from the latest father but she found filling out all those forms, appearing at court, all too much work for her. Instead, she would go and hunt down another girlfriend’s husband. That was much easier to Lilly.

There is just something about Lilly that some men find irresistible.   She is not attractive at all.  She has a plain face with coarse features.  Her body is nothing to fantasize about…especially after multiple births…and her posture is very bad.  But Lilly knows how to  make a man feel incredibly special….for awhile.   The man usually doesn’t know what has hit him but he feels loved, understood and appreciated when Lilly sets her sights on him.  He doesn’t realize that Lilly has figured out what is important to this man, where his weak spots are and to say Once she has him, she gets bored with him as there is no longer any challenge.  Then she starts abusing her latest husband financially, stealing money from him, his bank account or his credit cards.  After that Lilly starts screwing on her husband, usually with another woman’s husband.  Sometimes the husband leaves Lilly and sometimes Lilly has already lined up another man and leaves her husband.

Lilly would also be very charming with people she wanted to befriend as well.  She would go out of her way to compliment, flatter, and charm anyone whom had something that she wanted.  Lilly also had a knack for attaching herself to vulnerable people; people who were going through a difficult divorce, recently lost a member of their family or simply depressed and getting something out of them.  Once Lilly had what she wanted, she usually dropped the friendship like it was dog shit on her shoes.

And woo betide any friend who had confided in her: one of Lilly’s favorite expressions was “She better not say anything about me because I’ve got all sorts of shit on her and I’m not afraid to use it.”

So Lilly arrived here in our area in 1999 to ‘start afresh’.  She arrived with 7 kids (having just given birth to her latest two with husband #5) and her latest husband and they moved into a house he had built by hand on 70 acres of land.   Her husband practiced being frugal and it drove Lilly around the bend as she liked to show off, be status conscious, while at the same time convincing people that they were poor with many kids and needed money.

The first five kids had to learn to call #5 “Daddy” and take on #5’s last name as Lilly did not want it known that she had all those kids by all those different fathers.  The eldest of the five kids rebelled and bolted.  At the age of 15 he went back to the town they had moved from and slept on the streets until he found his father.

Lilly and #5 settled on to their acres and #5 grew a large garden and canned and preserved food to help feed all those children in addition to working for a living.  Lilly stayed at home with the children and collected the social benefit for the children.  She considered the children’s money to be ‘her  money’ . To clothe and shoe the children, she would tell people how poor they were and people would drop off bags of clothes and shoes at the end of their driveway for them.  Then Lilly would take the children’s money and go out for lunch several times a week, purchase a new ceramic top stove for herself, a couple of pairs of Birkenstock sandals for herself (at approximately $200 each) or squirrel the money away for herself.

Once, when one of the fathers of the children sent a birthday card to his daughter, Lilly intercepted the card.  Lilly was the only one permitted to check the mail box at the end of their long driveway so when she saw the card to one of her children, she knew what it was and who had sent it.  Lilly immediately opened the card, pocketed the $50 and  that the father had send and threw the card into the wood stove to burn.  I know as I was there and her action shocked me.  I saw Lilly do this on at least four other occasions with birthday cards for her kids from their various fathers.

Lilly knows no boundaries when it comes to mooching.  Her brother would send her money regularly for her to buy something for the kids for their birthdays, Christmas, etc.   Lilly would not tell the children that their uncle sent any money and pocket it herself.  One Christmas, Lilly’s brother sent her $2000 for the kid’s Christmas gifts.  Lilly pocketed the money  and the kids got second hand stuff and dollar store items for Christmas.

Lilly did not physically abuse her children but she was a MASTER at manipulating them.  Lilly would swing between smothering her children with baby noises and hugs and kisses to  neglecting and ignoring their needs and wants and leaving them with whomever would babysit them at the moment.  The children never knew what kind of attention they were or were not going to get or what stranger they were going to be left with.

Lilly was also a very gifted mooch.  She could get people to hand over clothes, money, babysitting, services or their car and they would often think it was their own idea.  I had picked up on Lilly’s mooching and watched for it.  Once, when Lilly was visiting me at my home, I would make it a point to see if she could get through the whole visit without asking something of me.  When she was at the door leaving, I thought “My gosh! This is a first! She is actually going to leave without asking me to do or give something to her”.  I had no more than finished the thought when she turned around and asked to borrow my car the next day as her van was going into the shop for repairs.

I became friends with Lilly when we met at a parent’s organization.  I was taking my pre-schooler to this parents’ group at the same time that Lilly was taking her two youngest children.  Lilly sought out my friendship to ‘help’ me when she heard that I was going through an acrimonious divorce and was a single parent.   I was grateful for the friendship at first but I saw, fairly quickly, what I was dealing with.  I knew that Lilly was a moocher but I didn’t figure out she was a narcissist until much later.  I quickly figured out that she wanted my babysitting services for when she went to lunch with her girl friends. My house was also in the centre of our town and she lived way out in the country so my house was handy for her to drop off her kids while she lunched.  When she found out that I had a decent car, she started asking to borrow it whenever her van broke down.  Then she figured out that I saved money and she started asking for $20 here and there and never re-paid the money because she was always ‘broke’ because “I needed to buy milk for the kids” or whatever other reason she came up with.  Often she would just ‘forget’ and expect me to ‘forget’ as well.

Then came New Years Eve 1999.

Stayed tuned for Lilly: Part 2

It is ALL about them in more ways than you know!

 

If you are looking up blogs on Narcissism, then you probably have encountered at least one narcissist whom has made an impact on your life in a negative way. Narcissists always make an impact in a negative way.  My goal with this blog is to write about narcissists that I have encountered whether through work, business, friendship (narcissists do not make good friends), my community or my family.

Narcissists have common traits.  The Mayo Clinic laid them out to include:

• Believing that you are better than others
• Fantasizing about your power, success and attractiveness;
• Exaggerating your achievements or talents
• Expecting constant praise and admiration
• Believing that you are special and acting accordingly;
• Failing to recognize other people’s emotions and feelings;
• Expecting others to go along with your ideas and plans
• Taking advantage of others (including your children – my emphasis)
• Expressing disdain for those you feel are inferior
• Being jealous of others
• Believing that  others are jealous of you
• Trouble keeping healthy relationships
• Setting unrealistic goals
• Being easily hurt and rejected
• Having a fragile self esteem

The Narcissists I have known have some or most of those character traits but they also have some more subtle traits.  I will be writing about the Narcissists I have known here in this blog.  Perhaps you know someone who is so similar that it is eerie and now you  know why you are never comfortable around them.