30/10/2025
A narcissistic parent will go as far as turning their own children against one another in order to protect their ego and maintain control in their family.**
In a narcissistic family system, love is conditional and loyalty is weaponized. The parent’s goal isn’t to nurture unity — it’s to maintain dominance. To them, control equals safety. So they divide their children, assigning roles like “the golden child” and “the scapegoat,” manipulating both to serve their image and emotional needs. This keeps the focus off their behavior and ensures no one unites against them.
The golden child is praised, idealized, and burdened with impossible expectations. Their worth is tied to performance and compliance. The scapegoat, on the other hand, becomes the emotional dumping ground — blamed for conflict, criticized for honesty, and punished for seeing the truth. The narcissistic parent subtly pits them against each other, feeding comparisons, jealousy, and resentment to prevent closeness.
This emotional triangulation fractures the family bond. It robs children of the safety that should exist between siblings and replaces it with competition, confusion, and pain. Even as adults, many carry the residue — guilt, self-doubt, and a distorted sense of love. The narcissistic parent watches this dysfunction and feels validated, because as long as the children are divided, their authority remains unquestioned.
It’s one of the cruelest forms of manipulation — destroying the unity of your own children to protect your ego. Yet recognizing it is the beginning of freedom. When you see the pattern, you can step out of it. Healing means rebuilding connection, not just with your siblings, but with yourself — the part that was taught love must come through pain and rivalry.
Because the truth is, their control was never love. And once you see that clearly, you begin to reclaim everything they tried to keep broken.
