It’s almost tragic if you think about it, but it is also very, very dangerous. The same wounds that keep him tied to her are the wounds he inflicts on everybody else. I call it taking “mother revenge.”
Let’s understand the golden child-narcissistic mother dynamic a little better. The golden child is trained to believe they are special, but only as long as they meet the narcissistic mother’s conditions. They exist to make her look good; their achievements are her achievements, and their failures are treated like personal betrayals. So, the golden child learns early on: I am loved only when I perform. This teaches the male narcissist that real love does not exist—only transactions, only manipulation, only image management.
So when he grows up, he seeks partners not for emotional intimacy—because he does not know what that is—but for emotional usefulness. He repeats the pattern, dominating others to avoid being dominated. But the mother remains the one relationship where he willingly stays dominated, even while boiling with resentment underneath.
Here’s another fascinating angle to this whole thing: the political leader phenomenon. Male narcissists often latch onto political figures who represent their own grandiosity. They idealize dictators and controversial leaders who mirror the narcissist’s fantasy self. They vicariously live through these figures, cheering on their cruelty and worshiping their power. It is the same dynamic they submit to with the political leader’s vision, the same way they submit to their mother’s demands.
This isn’t only applicable to male narcissists; it applies to narcissists in general—male, female, other genders. They glorify the leader as the only one who can make things great again, just as they glorify their mother as the only one who really loved them. They kiss the behinds of these leaders, excusing every crime, every cruelty, because they see their own survival reflected in their power. They will defend that leader against all criticism, just like they defend their mother’s image against all internal resentment.
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