I Hate That I'm Rooting For My Mom's Marriage To End, But My Dad Is A Raging Narcissist

Family Beef is our family advice column at HuffPost Family.

Family Beef is our family advice column at HuffPost Family. Have a beef you want us to weigh in on? Submit it here.

Dear Family Beef,My parents have never had a “happy” marriage. My dad was always the loud, life-of-the-party, at least in public, and my mom is generally more reserved and quieter with him — mostly because it seems like he bullied the life out of her. It’s been that way for as long as I can remember. I don’t have much of a relationship with my father for a lot of reasons – but how he’s treated my mom, my sister and me over the years is a huge part.He’ll call anyone who disagrees with him names and insult their intelligence. I grew up hearing him call my mom a “dumb bitch” to her face and behind her back. He’s never been physically violent but when they fight he will say really cruel things and then debate, berate and “apologize” his way out of accountability later.In recent years, my mom has grown so much though. She’s gone to therapy. She’s agreed in separate conversations with my sister that our dad fits the bill of a narcissist. And she told both me and my sister that she wishes she was more assertive when we were growing up, that she wishes she stood up to our dad more and “has some regrets” about how we were raised. She sees friends more and has even joined the community garden and has her own social life that my dad is not involved in at all. I’m so proud of seeing her start to step out into her own life.So I finally asked her something I’ve wondered for years, if she was ready to just leave him. It felt like years of progress just disappeared in a second, like she shrunk into herself.She started crying and saying that we don’t understand the person she married or what it’s like to be married for so long and that they have been talking about going to therapy together. This isn’t the first time he’s said he’d go. He never does.I hate that I’m rooting for my mom’s marriage to end… but I’d hate to see her continue this cycle of him getting in her way for the rest of their lives.― Son of a Narc

Dear Son of a Narc,

First, it is clear from your write-in how much you love your mom and want to see her thrive. These should be the golden years of her life and the fact that you’re advocating so fiercely for that, even when it essentially means rooting for the demise of your parent’s marriage, shows how much you care for her.

It’s quite a task for you to take on alone, though, so it’s not surprising that you feel so conflicted and heavy about it. It’s also not surprising that your mom is shaken up by your proposal, even if you thought she was ready for it; family systems ― the way a family acts as a unit and influences each other’s well-being, for better or worse ― are not easy to change. (Think how hard it is to enact change in your own life. Now apply that to a whole grown-ass family. Rough.)