All of My NSIL's Lies

[skynolongerblue]

My sister in law is a full blown narc, my brother is her co-dependent servant, and one of my biggest regrets is never calling her out on the many lies that she dropped with a smug smirk or with a dramatic flourish.

Here's some of them—with easily verified evidence to the contrary of what she stated. .

"I came from a super poor family!" SIL loved telling this one, most of all. How her family was poor, and she was raised by teen parents. Indeed, it was one of her biggest rallying cries, which tugged at my parents heartstrings, including my dad, who leased a car for her and my brother the moment they graduated from undergrad.

However, quick research suggested otherwise. SIL was raised in a house—that her parents owned— in one of the biggest HCL cities in our country, attended the top private high school in the city, and played club lacrosse. As someone who has worked with a lot of Actually Poor Kids as an AmeriCorps Vista member, lemme tell ya—impoverished families do not own property and their kids are working after school and on the weekends, not playing a traveling sport where equipment can run into the hundreds of dollars. Nope. Big lie.

"My parents abuse my brothers! They're all unemployed drunks!" Her brothers are all firefighters and cops within her HCL city. I found their jobs, and their current salaries, online.

(Sad side note: there's lots of loving pictures of her mom and her little brothers on their social media accounts, none of her. SIL also refused to invite them to her wedding to my brother, claiming they abused her)

"My dad is a tall blond white Nazi!" Her dad is none of those things, according to her grandfather, who posts pictures of them online.

"My parents cut me off and I had to work my way through college!" SIL went to a private college, had tons of nice clothes and handbags while she was there, tutored for free, and studied abroad in Europe. Like I said above, poor kids are too busy working part time and not majoring in Classics at a fancy university to do the things she did. She didn't even know what a Pell grant was–which rung all sorts of warning bells for me, as part of my Vista work was assisting first generation students in getting into college.

"My mom beat me constantly! I had to get surgery from her punching me in the face as a child!" She had to get surgery to fix an injury from lacrosse, according to her BFF at her wedding. Whom she doesn't talk to any more. Side note: SIL went through close friends the way other people go through Kleenex–lots of love bombing and discarding. It was gross.

"My friends supported me throughout college!" She mooched off a lot of people, and when they asked to return the favor, they were blocked.

"I have a heart condition that will never allow me to go running or get pregnant!" She's run multiple 5ks and is pregnant now.

"Your stepfather added me to his will to inherit a chunk of his estate—I'm basically his second daughter. But your mean stepsister talked him out of it!" Confirmed with my mom that this is a bald ass lie. Besides, why would he add one of his stepkid's spouses to his will? MAKE IT MAKE SENSE PEOPLE.

(This one happened a lot): "I have a migraine, I can't go out." ::Proceeds to sit in bed tapping on her computer or read on her phone::

That final one seems small, but oh boy, it really pissed me off. My husband gets migraines, and when that happens, he's in bed, ice pack on face, all windows covered, trashcan next to him so he can vomit in peace. He's OUT.

I understand the duper's delight amongst narcs. I get it. But I hate laziness. If you're going to lie, at least make it ironclad?

[notrightinthehead]

I am so sorry that your brother brought such a difficult person into your family. And he probably can't see it. The best you can do, try not to alienate him, use the Toolbox when dealing with her, and whenever she tells you something, check for yourself as you have been doing.
Whenever your brother comes Out of the FOG he will need your support, so try to be careful not to let her create a break with his family and isolate him. Medium chill, polite vagueness, non engagement are powerful weapons in such a situation.

[bloomie]

Hi skynolongerblue and welcome. I am thankful you have reached out for the support of people who can offer validation and support. It is such a disappointment that your brother would choose to marry someone who it is impossible to have an honest relationship with. Your sil's story telling and facade fabrication changes the potential for any kind of deeper connection with both of them, I would think. And that is a sad thing to come to realize.

I have a sil who I have found to be untrustworthy and dishonest. The extent and level she will go to to create and then control a narrative boggles my mind sometimes and for a long time greatly disturbed me. For me, I had to step away to a distance that is weddings/funerals only. Simply cooling my engagement brought a backlash of epic proportions. I couldn't have predicted how hypersensitive someone who displays NPD and HPD traits is to even a shift in the atmosphere away from them.

I recently, very unintentionally, saw a quote my own sil had shared in a way that the reader would assume she had authored it. She was given high praise for the writing. It was plagiarized. 

I am convinced from my experiences with my sil and one other family member, that at the core, those who are strategically and intentionally dishonest have little to no stable sense of themselves. So, from what I have observed, they craft a persona that is situational at best and leave scorched earth throughout their lives in relationships. It's very sad to see someone we love very much caught up with someone who has such character issues.

I am better off at a distance and to avoid seeing or hearing any of the fabrications and lies. It is just too disheartening and drags me down.

You are very clear on who you perceive your sil is, from what you share here. That puts you in a position to decide how best to not be harmed by her.

I hope you will continue to share here and to make good use of some of the great resources and support this community has to offer. Keep coming back. It helps lighten a heavy heart.

[Catothecat]

My NPD SIL has created her own personal alternative history and has found an enabling co-dependent husband to help her maintain her persona as The Best Little Girl in the World in my brother.  Rather than work on his own issues, my brother has a history of getting involved with toxic, dysfunctional women because dealing with them takes all of his time and energy leaving little for himself.  Which is the way he wants it.

There's nothing you can say or do because your brother has made a choice and you can't change that.  He has to come to awareness of her PD himself before anything might change.  And you have to be prepared for that to never happen.  With my own brother, he's in this marriage for life and will never, ever admit to the problems his wife causes.  The only way he will break away from her is if she breaks away from him, first.  Which actually happened early in their marriage.  She left him and filed for divorce, but he begged her to come back and she did.  She got him exactly where she wanted him and scored a victory.  She's been taking laps ever since.

While other family members engage with her because of my brother, I don't.  I can't.  Her constant BS bragging and lying were too much to take after a while.  I could no longer deal with her and the constant feeling of being just another enabler.  And that's all I would ever be to her were I to get more involved.  She could care less about me or any other member of the family, we're just her audience to admire her performance.  So when I view it from that perspective, I stop feeling guilty about my position. 

[M0009803]

Oh boy, I have met this type of narcissist in my own life.

They have a compulsive need to one up everybody else.

They will essentially try to change the narrative in order to gain the locus of attention.     They do this literally in real-time while conversing with you, and then start changing their "back-story" to suit their lies later on.

Example (we are all having a nice dinner at a restaurant in a group setting):

Me: I just bought a very nice electric car (Jaguar I-PACE).

Group starts conversing about the car and how good it looks, as well as its technical workings.    This is totally normal.

At this point, the narcissist is getting annoyed internally, as the locus of attention is not on them and their life.

Then.....it comes out.

Narcissist: oh, thats a nice car but I got a Tesla Roadster (super nice electric sports car).

*This is obviously a lie, but because they do it spur of the moment it is hard to call them out in it.    They then start creating a back-story to fill in the lie*

Me: how did you manage to get such a car?

Narcissist: oh, I leased it as a company car

*This is another lie*

And on and on it goes.  Essentially, if you say you have a car, then they say they have a tank.  If you say you have a gun, then they say they have a bazooka.

Once you spot the patterns, it is easier to not feed their dysfunction.  A strict information diet is what I found to be optimal as calling them out on it will not work (they will turn it around on you by playing the victim).