My Narcissistic Mother Hits On All Of My Boyfriends As She Thinks I Don’t Deserve Them

“I’m so glad you understand. I was worried you’d think I was terrible.”

“Not at all. In fact, I think this conversation is long overdue.”

Alex reached over and took my hand, which seemed to surprise my mother.

“The thing is,”

Alex continued,

“I need to be honest about my feelings too.”

“Of course,”

my mother said, leaning forward expectantly.,

“Patricia, you’re an absolutely incredible woman. Beautiful, intelligent, sophisticated. Any man would be lucky to have your attention.”

My mother was glowing.

“But I’m completely, utterly, head-over-heels in love with Emma.”

My mother’s face fell.

“More than that,”

Alex continued,

“I’m gay.”

The Fallout and the Truth About Narcissism

The silence in the room was deafening. My mother’s mouth opened and closed like a fish.

“I’m sorry, what?”

she finally managed.

“I’m gay, Patricia. I have been my entire life. I have a boyfriend named Marcus who I’ve been with for three years. Emma and I have been pretending to date because she was tired of you sabotaging her real relationships.”

My mother looked back and forth between us, her face cycling through confusion, embarrassment, and then pure rage.

“This is a joke,”

she said.

“It’s not a joke,”

Alex said gently.

“Emma asked me to help her because she was losing every good guy she met to your interference. She thought if you were focused on me, you might leave her actual dating life alone.”

“You’ve been lying to me for two months!”,

“You’ve been lying to yourself for years,”

Alex replied.

“Patricia, do you really think it’s normal to compete with your own daughter for male attention? Do you really think it’s healthy to sabotage her relationships because you can’t handle not being the center of attention?”

My mother stood up abruptly.

“I don’t have to listen to this.”

“No, you don’t,”

Alex agreed.

“But maybe you should.”

She turned to me, and I could see genuine hurt in her eyes for the first time in years.

“How could you do this to me?”

she asked.

“How could I do this to you?”

I repeated.

“Mom, you’ve chased away every guy I’ve dated since I was 18. You flirt with them. You text them behind my back. You make them feel guilty for being with me instead of giving you attention. You’ve sabotaged six years of my dating life.”

“I never sabotaged anything! If those boys couldn’t handle a little friendly attention from your mother, then they weren’t good enough for you anyway.”

“Friendly attention?”

Alex laughed.

“Patricia, you asked me to meet you for coffee three times. You sent me shirtless photos from your yoga class. You told me you thought Emma and I were settling for each other.”,

My mother’s face went white.

“I never sent you shirtless photos!”

Alex pulled out his phone and showed her the messages. My mother had indeed sent him several photos from her yoga sessions, wearing sports bras and tight leggings, with captions about how exercise was keeping her young.

“Those weren’t shirtless,”

she protested weakly.

“Patricia,”

Alex said gently,

“you’re a beautiful woman, but you’re also old enough to be my mother. This behavior isn’t flattering. It’s sad.”

That’s when my mother completely lost it. She started screaming about how we’d humiliated her, how we’d made her look like a fool, and how she’d never forgive either of us.

She threw the wine bottle against the wall, called me an ungrateful daughter, and told Alex he was a pervert for leading her on.

“I’m leaving,”

she announced dramatically.

“And don’t expect me to speak to you again anytime soon, Emma. Maybe when you grow up and learn how to treat your mother with respect.”,

She stormed out, slamming the door so hard that my neighbor’s dog started barking. Alex and I sat in stunned silence for several minutes.

“That went better than expected,”

he said finally.

“Better? She threw a bottle at my wall!”

“But she’s not going to bother your next boyfriend. Trust me, she’s way too embarrassed to pull her usual routine after this.”

Alex was right, but not in the way either of us expected. For the next three weeks, my mother didn’t contact me at all.

No calls, no texts, no surprise visits. It was the longest we’d gone without speaking since I’d moved out of her house.

I was starting to think maybe I’d finally gotten through to her. That the shock of being called out so publicly had made her realize how inappropriate her behavior had been.

Then I got a call from my aunt Linda, my mother’s sister.

“Emma honey, I need to tell you something about your mother,”

she said.

“She’s been staying with me since your fight and she’s been telling everyone a very different version of what happened.”,

“What do you mean?”

“According to Patricia, you brought home a gay man and pretended he was your boyfriend because you were jealous of the attention he was giving her. She’s saying you orchestrated this whole thing to humiliate her because you can’t stand that men find her attractive.”

My blood ran cold.

“That’s not what happened.”

“I know that, honey. But she’s been calling everyone in the family, all her friends, even some people at your work. She’s painting herself as the victim of some cruel prank you pulled because you’re jealous and immature.”

I felt sick. This was exactly the kind of thing my mother would do when she couldn’t control the narrative through manipulation: she’d rewrite history entirely.

“There’s more,”

Linda continued.

“She’s been posting about it on Facebook. Nothing that names you directly, but anyone who knows your family will be able to figure out what she’s talking about. Posts about how hard it is when your own children turn against you. How some daughters can’t handle their mothers being attractive.”,

I spent the rest of the day fielding calls and messages from relatives who wanted to know my side of the story. Some of them believed me, but others seemed to think there had to be some truth to my mother’s version.

The worst part was seeing how she’d twisted everything on social media. She’d posted cryptic messages about family betrayal and shared articles about narcissistic children who abuse their parents.

She had gotten dozens of supportive comments from people who had no idea what had really happened.

“She’s doing exactly what she did to your boyfriends,”

Alex pointed out when I called him in tears.

“She’s controlling the narrative to make herself look like the victim.”

“I can’t fight this,”

I said.

“She’s too good at this game.”

“Maybe you don’t have to fight it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, maybe it’s time to let her win this round. She wants to play the victim? Let her. But that means she also has to live with the consequences of what she’s claiming happened.”,

I didn’t understand what Alex meant until the next day when I got a call from my cousin Rachel.

“Emma, I’ve been thinking about what your mom told everyone,”

she said.

“And I have to ask you something. If Alex really was just a friend helping you out, why would your mother have been flirting with him in the first place?”

“What do you mean?”