How to Tell If Your Other Parent Is Narcissistic Too, a Victim, or an Enabler: Understanding the Different Roles Inside a Narcissistic Family System

How to Tell If Your Other Parent Is Narcissistic Too, a Victim, or an Enabler

Understanding the Different Roles Inside a Narcissistic Family System

Trauma-Informed Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Coach, Randi Fine

Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Coaching with Randi Fine

One of the most common and emotionally confusing questions survivors ask after recognizing narcissistic abuse in their family is: “Was my other parent narcissistic too, a victim of the narcissistic spouse, or just an enabler?”

For many adult children, one parent clearly appeared more controlling, manipulative, emotionally abusive, explosive, self-centered, or psychologically harmful. The other parent often seemed quieter, softer, more passive, emotionally overwhelmed, or less threatening by comparison.

That difference can create tremendous confusion.

Many survivors cling to the belief that one parent was “the bad one” while the other parent was simply trapped, powerless, or trying to survive. But over time, many begin realizing something much more complicated:The parent who seemed safer may still not have been emotionally safe.

Understanding the difference between a narcissistic parent, a victimized parent, and an enabling parent can help survivors make sense of painful childhood dynamics that often continue affecting self-worth, relationships, boundaries, and emotional regulation long into adulthood.

Can a Parent Be Both a Victim and Harmful?

The answer is, yes. This is one of the hardest realities for survivors to process.

A parent may genuinely have been emotionally abused, manipulated, intimidated, controlled, financially dependent, trauma bonded, or psychologically worn down by a narcissistic spouse. That parent may absolutely have suffered. But a parent can simultaneously be victimized and still fail to protect the child.

For many survivors, both realities exist at the same time:“I feel compassion for what my parent endured, but I also feel hurt by what that person failed to do.”

Those two truths do not cancel each other out.

Signs Your Parent May Have Been Primarily a Victim of Narcissistic Abuse

Some parents are deeply psychologically trapped inside the narcissistic relationship themselves.

These parents may:

• Appear fearful, anxious, emotionally defeated, or hypervigilant

• Avoid conflict because they fear retaliation

• Become emotionally shut down or numb

• Show signs of trauma bonding

• Seem dependent on the narcissistic parent emotionally or financially

• Minimize abuse because denial feels psychologically safer

• Privately validate the child’s experience while publicly remaining silent

• Feel emotionally powerless to challenge the narcissistic spouse

• Struggle with guilt, shame, exhaustion, or learned helplessness

In some cases, these parents truly believe they are protecting the family by avoiding escalation.

Others may fear abandonment, financial instability, humiliation, rage, or further emotional punishment if they confront the narcissistic spouse directly.

But while understanding the context matters, the emotional impact on the child still remains.

What Is an Enabler in a Narcissistic Family?

An enabling parent may or may not be a victim themselves.

An enabler functions in ways that help maintain the narcissistic family system, even if unintentionally.

An enabling parent may:

• Ask everyone to “keep the peace”

• Excuse abusive behavior

• Pressure the child to tolerate mistreatment

• Prioritize family image over emotional truth

• Dismiss the child’s feelings

• Avoid accountability conversations

• Encourage silence or secrecy

• Defend the narcissistic parent repeatedly

• Normalize emotional abuse

• Pressure the child to reconcile without genuine change

Enabling often develops from fear, dependency, emotional conditioning, conflict avoidance, or a desperate need for stability.

But for the child, enabling still creates emotional abandonment. Many survivors later realize:“The parent who comforted me also sent me back into the harm.”

That realization can be devastating.

Signs Your Other Parent May Also Be Narcissistic

In some families, both parents display narcissistic traits or participate in narcissistic abuse in different ways.

A narcissistic parent typically operates from a stronger need for:

• Control

• Emotional dominance

• Admiration

• Power

• Superiority

• Manipulation

• Image management

Signs your other parent may also be narcissistic include:

• Gaslighting and reality distortion

• Punishing emotional honesty

• Emotional manipulation

• Using guilt, fear, or shame strategically

• Needing loyalty over truth

• Creating favoritism or scapegoating dynamics

• Competing with children emotionally

• Refusing accountability

• Participating in smear campaigns

• Manipulating how outsiders perceive the family

• Turning siblings or relatives against one another

• Punishing boundaries or independence

Unlike a fearful or passive victimized parent, a narcissistic parent usually remains manipulative and emotionally controlling regardless of who is present.

When the Other Parent Turns the Child Into Emotional Support

One of the more confusing dynamics in narcissistic families happens when the other parent openly acknowledges the narcissistic spouse’s behavior, complains about the abuse, cries to the child, or positions himself or herself as another victim in the home.

Many survivors grow up hearing things like:

• “You know how your father/mother is.”

• “I’ve suffered too.”

• “I stay because I have no choice.”

• “You’re the only person who understands me.”

• “Please don’t make things harder.”

• “We just have to keep the peace.”

This can create enormous emotional confusion for a child.

On the surface, the parent appears emotionally validating because that person privately admits the abuse is happening. The child may feel chosen, trusted, emotionally close, or responsible for comforting the parent.

But over time, many survivors realize something painful: The parent leaned on the child emotionally while still failing to protect the child from the harm.

In some families, the child quietly becomes the emotional caretaker for the safer parent while no adult in the household is truly protecting the child’s emotional well-being.

This can place the child in an impossible position:

• absorbing the narcissistic abuse,

• carrying the emotional weight of the overwhelmed parent,

• and feeling guilty for wanting boundaries, distance, or relief.

Many survivors later struggle with chronic guilt, over-responsibility, people pleasing, emotional parentification, and confusion about what healthy emotional support actually looks like.

A parent may genuinely feel trapped, victimized, emotionally exhausted, or afraid. But when a parent repeatedly turns to the child for emotional support while continuing to leave the child exposed to ongoing harm, the child’s emotional needs are still being abandoned.

The “Safer Parent” Is Not Always a Safe Parent

Children naturally attach to the less dangerous parent for emotional survival. That attachment can create powerful loyalty conflicts later in life.

Many survivors continue protecting, defending, rescuing, or emotionally prioritizing the enabling or victimized parent long after recognizing the family dysfunction.

This often becomes especially painful when the survivor realizes:

• The parent knew more than they admitted

• The parent repeatedly failed to intervene

• The parent protected the narcissistic spouse over the child

• The parent valued stability over truth

• The parent still pressures silence, guilt, or reconciliation

This can trigger enormous grief, anger, confusion, and self-doubt.

Why This Realization Can Feel So Emotionally Overwhelming

Many survivors expect clarity about narcissistic abuse to bring immediate emotional relief.

Instead, they often experience emotional collapse, confusion, grief, hypervigilance, guilt, and nervous system dysregulation after finally seeing the family system clearly.

This is part of what I describe in The Post-Narcissistic Reality Hangover, the painful stage where awareness arrives intellectually, but the nervous system is still emotionally attached to old survival patterns, hopes, fears, and conditioning.

The mind may understand the truth while the body still longs for repair, protection, validation, or family connection.

That internal conflict can feel exhausting.

Healing From Narcissistic Family Dynamics

Healing often begins when survivors stop trying to determine which parent deserves the most blame and start focusing on what their own nervous system, emotional reality, and healing actually need now.

You are allowed to:

• Recognize nuance

• Hold compassion for a parent’s suffering

• Acknowledge that a parent was victimized

• Recognize enabling patterns

• Name emotional neglect

• See narcissistic behavior clearly

• Grieve what you did not receive

• Protect yourself from ongoing harm

These truths can exist together.

Where You Go From Here

If you are struggling to untangle the emotional confusion surrounding narcissistic family abuse, you do not have to navigate it alone.

Many survivors reach a point where they finally begin seeing the family dynamic more clearly, yet still feel emotionally overwhelmed, conflicted, guilty, hypervigilant, or unsure how to move forward. Understanding what happened intellectually does not always immediately resolve what the nervous system has been conditioned to carry for years.

I work with survivors dealing with the long-term effects of narcissistic abuse, emotional invalidation, trauma bonding, family scapegoating, parentification, emotional enmeshment, and the confusing aftermath that often follows awakening to these dynamics.

My work is trauma-informed, emotionally grounded, and focused on helping survivors rebuild internal safety, self-trust, clarity, emotional regulation, and stability at a pace that feels safe and sustainable.

Whether you are just beginning to question your family dynamics or are already deep into the healing process, support can help you make sense of what you are experiencing without pressure, judgment, or having your reality minimized.

You do not have to continue carrying the emotional weight of these dynamics alone.

If you feel ready for support, you can schedule a private coaching session to begin working toward greater clarity, stability, and self-trust.

Randi Fine is a trauma-informed narcissistic abuse recovery coach and the originator of the term Post-Narcissistic Reality Hangover™, describing the disorienting psychological aftermath survivors experience after leaving a narcissist. She is the creator of the Emotional Hostage Loop™, a trauma-recovery framework identifying the conditioning patterns that keep survivors emotionally trapped. Randi is the author of the groundbreaking best-seller Close Encounters of the Worst Kind, its official companion workbook, the memoir Cliffedge Road, and her newest book, The Post-Narcissistic Reality Hangover™, a comprehensive guide to understanding and healing the crash that follows narcissistic abuse.