How to Know if You Have a Covert Narcissist Mother

Covert narcissist mothers behave differently than their more overt counterparts. For this reason, they can be harder to spot and identify. 

In today’s article, we’ll go over the traits of these passive-aggressive manipulators. If you recognize your mother in these descriptions, you’ll be better able to deal with her confusing, even crazy-making, behavior.

Covert narcissist mother traits

Unlike the overt narcissist, your mother does not display grandiosity or brag about herself. She may do the opposite.

The overt narcissist can be easy to spot due to outrageous behavior. The covert is cunning in that she behaves in ways that make it easy to deny she’s done anything wrong.

Playing the victim

If you try to set a boundary with your mother she will act wounded. If you call her out on something she’s done or how she’s made you feel, she will turn it around on you.

Instead of taking accountability, she will sulk and say you’re calling her a terrible mother.

This is how she gets you to prioritize her feelings over your own. You are forced to surrender what you want in order to make her happy.

But she’s tricked you into believing you are doing so by your own choice. In fact, you are being coerced to abandon yourself through emotional blackmail.

Guilt tripping

If you assert yourself or do anything she doesn’t want, she will treat it like a betrayal. 

You are ungrateful because she has given you everything (starting with life). And this is how you repay her.

She controls you through guilt, using it to get her way. You drop the boundary to avoid feeling guilty without realizing this is one of her tactics.

You probably feel guilty most of the time. Yet you have no idea this is exactly how she wants you.

Fake concern/generosity

She appears selfless and generous. She displays deep concern for others.

But these acts are motivated by a desire for external validation and credit rather than true care for anyone else.

The overt narcissist appears flagrantly self-centered and self-referential. The covert narcissist mother, on the other hand, will pretend to put others ahead of herself to score points.

She wins by making everyone feel bad that they don’t do as much as her for other people. For example, I remember my covert mother-in-law bragging about buying snacks and drinks for the workers in her home.

That’s not something a normal person would mention out of context. But true to covert form, if you dared to say that, you would look like the bad guy.

Things covert narcissist mothers say

Of course, there are many more traits we could discuss. Martyr syndrome, gaslighting, favoring one child over another, dismissing your feelings - all tools of the covert mother.

But let’s move on to the passive-aggressive comments and backhanded compliments that leave you reeling.

“I’m only trying to help.”

Whether she’s called out on her unwanted advice, privacy violations, or criticism, she’ll respond with these words, or some variation thereof.

Rather than taking accountability for how she’s made you feel, or even acknowledging that your feelings are valid, she’ll gaslight you into believing she had your best interests in mind.

In fact, she had no interest in helping and never does. She wants to win and she does that by making you feel bad for daring to question her.

“I guess I'm just a terrible mother.”

If you ask her to respect your wishes or anything else resembling a boundary, she’ll pull out this show stopper.

These manipulative words prevent you from pursuing your desire to be seen and heard. Now, you are focused on convincing your mother she is not the worst.

On top of that, you feel guilty (again) for making her feel like she let you down. Even though she did and will continue to do so over and over.

You feel confused, anxious, and misunderstood. And that’s exactly her intention.

“After all I’ve done for you…”

Part of the guilt-tripping mentioned above, she will take it as a personal affront when you assert your independence with a boundary or desire outside of what she wants.

It’s another example of how those things she does for people are added up and used against them later. 

Acts of service are not expressions of love, but marks on a score card. And, later on, you will pay the price.

The covert narcissist mother-in-law

During my ten-year marriage, my MIL terrorized me with her covert narcissism. Like many of these women, she acted sweet and innocent while shoving the knife in my back at every turn.

These women know what society expects from them. And, boy, do they deliver.

The wicked witch of the west wore kitten sweatshirts and used a high-pitched sing-song voice to lob spears of backhanded “compliments”, unwanted advice, and thinly veiled criticism.

This tiny sweet-talking, self-effacing phony had the big men in her life running scared. Terrified of her wrath, which looked like passive aggressive forms of emotional torment, they threw me under the bus to save themselves.

When I asked her not to give me unwanted advice about how to care for my baby, she inflicted the full silent treatment. My husband allowed this, even going to visit her without me, and his father came around as a flying monkey to get me to surrender without her having to take any accountability.

These men were afraid of her, even though they were twice her size! The covert mother often surrounds herself with passive men who lie down and play dead while she runs roughshod over everyone else’s lives.

last words

So, now you know how to identify a covert narcissist mother. She makes you feel guilty, behaves in manipulative ways that can easily be denied if you call her out, and uses fake concern and generosity to score points.

She has orchestrated all the confusion, anxiety, and self-blame you experience. That’s because it serves her to keep you feeling bad about yourself. 

It makes you easier to control and manage. It keeps you beholden to her and prevents her from taking accountability or ever admitting she’s wrong.