Abusers, narcissists in particular cannot stand it when they are not the center of attention and the one in “control”. Three things in life are going to show you who and how people really are: Weddings, Funerals, and Finances or money. Abusers will try to ruin a wedding with unnecessary drama, or they will try to turn the attention to themselves somehow. Funerals will bring out the greed in abusers, they will fight over every last thing in the will and they are morbidly afraid (pun intended) of death and dying so anything that reminds them of their mortality will make them angry.
Abusers while alive, will use “the inheritance” as a way to manipulate and control family members, threatening to write out anyone who crosses them or doesn’t support their abuse. Finances bring out the miser in abusers. They will spend lavishly on themselves or on total strangers but, make their own spouse beg for enough money to buy groceries or get clothes and then will berate the spouse for spending “too much”, demanding to see every receipt and the spouse to account for every last cent, making it impossible for the target of abuse to save up money to leave the abuser.
All of these behaviors are done ON PURPOSE! Do NOT think for one second that it was a coincident or accidental that they blew up at the wedding or were picking fights with relatives at the funeral or that “They just had to have the new leather jacket” right when rent was due. If the target of abuse buys something nice for themselves you can bet that the abuser will “punish” them for buying themselves something nice and then demand that the target buy them something nice.
