The Shallow Pond

"One of the most effective methods of exposing a narcissist is by trying to go deeper and discuss matters substantially. The narcissist is shallow, a pond pretending to be an ocean."
http://www.healthyplace.com/personality-disorders/malignant-self-love/how-to-recognise-a-narcissist/menu-id-1469/

I've been trying to think more kindly of my FIL, even as my husband and I detach ourselves from his life. But it's not easy.

He wanted to have a discussion with me many years ago about a certain point of doctrine from our scriptures. That was a mistake. "Discussions" for him are never give and take; they are opportunities for him to point out others' shortcomings. The discussion ended up being an indictment of the son of my best friend, a young man about to leave on a mission to a foreign country. The young man had quoted a scripture that FIL thought underscored this young man's "pride." I was appalled when I discovered later that FIL had gone to my best friend's house, and instead of offering him support and encouragement on his imminent two-year absence, instead excoriated him for the (misread) "sin" of being like the humble prophet in the scripture.

My friend will not speak to FIL, understandably. I will not have doctrinal discussions with him.

FIL likes to go to farm meetings to bring up obscure or unrelated questions that no one can or wants to answer. Or they are questions someone already answered half an hour before. He thinks this shows how smart he is. My husband and nephew refuse to take him to farm meetings at all.

During my husband's excellent Sunday School lesson a few days ago, FIL raised a question about where something happened in obscure religious history. Then he answered it himself. Although he presents a persona of meek and mild humility, The Humble-Pie Man, he really likes to dazzle people with his intellect. He likes to mention his famous religious forebears in passing. He likes to ask questions constantly and sits in the middle up front so the teacher can't avoid seeing his hand creeping up. My husband handles this pretty well, but I've seen other teachers founder on my FIL's obsessive desire for attention from his church going neighbors. It's where he does his best work.

Another member of the Sunday School class (my best friend, actually) raised her hand and referred to the manual with the proper answer, which wasn't the same as his. He spent the rest of the class time injured, paying no attention to anything else. In the last two minutes of the class he raised his hand yet again and insisted that his first answer was the correct one.

He missed the entire lesson planning on how to stun everyone, but then, this is how it always has been. This is a man who is dependent on others to the point that he cannot plan an outing, much less an airplane ticket, on his own. He cannot keep records, make schematics, or even rationally explain his genius inventions. He cannot manage the navigation it takes to deliver Meals on Wheels. He constantly gets confused trying to provide one meal a month for our local missionaries. He cannot make a dental or doctor appointment on his own. He can't breed cows or do anything that takes advance planning. He refuses to clean up after himself, and will not listen to anyone's opinion that does not agree with his.

A pond pretending to be an ocean.

The Humble Pie Man

FIL is a man of the soil. He wears overalls over stained shirts that reek of working for days in the hot sun. He has a humble air, self-effacing, solicitous, ever-helpful. It is easy to be fooled. As long as you are on a shallow level of interaction, and require nothing of him and only want to thank him for his efforts, you are safe.

But wait awhile, and you will discover that any and all gifts to you from him require a double gift back, whether it is of your time and attention, your resources, the apricots on your tree that he covets and the water in your pipeline that should by rights of entitlement be his. He should not have to ask you for permission, since you have already granted it by accepting gifts from him.

He will get teary-eyed thinking about his sinful nature, since he is a Christian and all Christians need to repent. This is especially so in front of fellow members of the local congregation he attends. A lot of the Humble Pie is meant for them.

But once you get to specifics, the only sins he can really think of are yours. He is happy with his life, he says. He maintains that he knows people who don't need to repent, and he lets you know with a wink that he thinks he's in that company. If he ever needs to repent, he wants to pay the price himself. He doesn't want to ask too much of Jesus' atonement. He doesn't need anybody else--except to keep the Narcissistic Supply coming.

"Question: I met many narcissists who are modest – even self-effacing. This seems to conflict with your observations. How do you reconcile the two?

Answer: The "modesty" displayed by narcissists is false. . . The real aim . . . is intended to either aggrandise the narcissist or to protect his grandiosity from scrutiny and possible erosion. Such modest outbursts precede inflated, grandiosity-laden statements made by the narcissist and pertaining to fields of human knowledge and activity in which he is sorely lacking. . .

One of the more efficacious defence mechanisms is false modesty. . . This way, if (or, rather, when) exposed he could always say: "But I told you so in the first place, haven't I?" False modesty is, thus an insurance policy. . .

With false modesty he seeks to involve others in his mind games, to co-opt them, to force them to collaborate while making ultimate use of social conventions of conduct.

The narcissist, above all, is a shrewd manipulator, well-acquainted with human nature and its fault lines. No narcissist will ever admit to it. In this sense, narcissists are really modest."

http://samvak.tripod.com/faq36.html