Does anyone else feel like if you have a really bad experience with a narcissist you end up looking like the narcissist. You're left broken not getting things done, not confident in your ability to do things anymore etc.
That happens more than we know. It's so not the same as being a Narcissist, and we have to silently Hold our Truth while we get stronger and find ourselves again.
Absolutely! My ex did that all the time, literally took credit for anything I did, or if I taught him how to use a drill then turned around and quoted me back to me, acting like he knew all along and I didnt know what I knew. He never used the right tools for anything. He jammed a broom handle down the washing machine drain pipe, and was the only person I ever saw break hammer claws and pliers! If he even showed up while I was building or fixing anything he supervised with his incompetence, showed off to others who assumned he did the work and he never credited me, the one who actually built it or repaired it! I lost all respect for him pdq as he did not want to bother to learn the very basic home repair jobs or use the right tools, nails or screws! I asked him once to fix a loose toilet seat and he drilled a 2 and a half inch screw point up into a wooden toliet seat where you hit the point with your hiney if you didn't know it was there. Task any iget could learn or figure out, he didn't even try. He was a high ranking military person and for years I questioned how he could command and be so inept, till I figured out delegating tasks, not doing them himself and getting the credit his minions deserved, was his only competence in any arena.
@@vickimerritt2832 It goes hand in hand with "Never admit to being at fault if you are an officer/commander, it makes you look weak/incompetent" idiocy from the Narcissism 101 handbook.
I used to say to my now ex narc, “you play stupid to get out of responsibility”. What they don’t realize is that they’re preparing you to be on your own without them the more they didn’t help the more you saw you didn’t need them.
There's also reversed weaponized incompetence. When a narcissistic parent or partner offers you help and they offer to do something repeatedly for you instead of using that as an opportunity to teach you how to do it yourself so that you can be self sufficient and not reliant on them, they later go on the attack and weaponize *your* incompetence that they created in you by denying you multiple opportunities to learn how to do something for yourself so that the next time you need help you are trained to say, "Can you help me with this?" Then they shame you and say, "Ugh! You really don't know how to do this?! It's like I have to do everything for you around here!"
Oh God, my ex talked to me like that. My mother would say " being condescending to others, about the skill they can learn discourages them from trying and that's not reflective of your own capabilities. Teach a man to fish, don't give it to them alone"
My Nfather loved this method. They don't explain it, they don't show it or show the wrong way, then they hover over you and yell at you because you should have already known how to do it.
They deliberately act like they can’t do or achieve something, just to disappoint you or make things difficult for you. They find pleasure in your disappointment, inconvenience and dissatisfaction.
On top of weaponized incompetence, dangerous negligence, and constant rage/terror, THEN they go around pretending to be the victim so that outsiders gang up on the person they are abusing. It's a deadly combo, these people ruin health and lives.
My mother had a heart condition, and she used it as an excuse not to do things she didn't want to do. For instance, when I was 20 and had to go to the dentist to have a couple of wisdom teeth taken out, I was supposed to have someone.with me because I would be getting a general.anasthaetic. My dad was working so.my mother said that she would go with me. On the morning of the surgery she suddenly told me that she didn't feel well and would be staying home. I was annoyed but there was nothing I could do except go to the appointment and make my own way home.
Just remember: Almost anything you do to such a person would be morally justified. Just make sure you give them a chance to be honest with you first. If they choose deceit, then that's that.
My mother did this in regards to emotional support: if I ever needed comfort (like if I was bullied or injured or just sad about something) she would suddenly act like she had no idea how emotions work - I KNEW on a core level that a mother should hug her kids, soothe them, let them know that they are loved by someone who is sad when they are sad. My mother would turn into a brick wall and say “I don’t know what you want from me / I don’t know what you want me to say / I’m just not good at this emotional stuff” Even when I was like EIGHT, I smelled bullshit. My mother is a smart woman. I knew she knew what I needed emotionally from her and was enjoying witholding it and playing dumb, and if I tried to call her on it, I would be the bad guy for making her feel like a bad mother when clearly I should be more understanding of her lack of skills that she couldn’t help. When I tried to be understanding and tell her “look, I’ll understand if you don’t know what to say. I don’t expect a perfect speech that fixes everything. Just please, show me that you care when bad things happen to me. Even just saying “I love you and I am here even if I don’t know how to fix it or say the right thing” And she would stare hard anywhere but at me, looking angry and disdainful, then repeat her ridiculously bullshit claims of “just not understanding this stuff”
There’s also the “half-a$$ed incompetence,” you ask them to do a chore and they do it so badly, or only do it half way, so that you end up spending more effort to finish it or clean up the mess afterward. We probably all have some comically absurd scenarios from these.
Unfortunately, it seems that in some cultures, boys get away with this quite frequently from a young age, whereas their sisters are punished harshly for displaying the same behaviour. It isn't always gendered I know, but I've seen it happen way too many times to discard the fact that there is a cultural problem too. I wonder if them being allowed to get away with it early on without the behaviour being nipped in the bud allows narcissism to breed. You expect a child to push boundaries like that, they're supposed to, but they grow out of it. To see grown adults acting like that is deplorable.
My dad did this, washing dishes before we got a dishwasher. There were bits of dried on food still stuck on the plates later. And he literally bragged about doing a shit job at stuff, so he wouldn't be asked again to his friends in front of the rest of us. I was so pissed off at him but couldn't even say anything because nothing would have improved.
The thing that infuriates me is this. They "don't know how" because "nobody showed them." So you show them. And show them. And show them. And they "keep forgetting" or "just don't get it."
What's almost worse are the ones who talk a big game, never do anything, then criticize and find fault with the people who do take initiative do the thing.
Narcs love to give orders to others regarding what needs done, but THEY are above menial tasks they prefer to supervise, even on the home front. Lazy as heck, AND truly inept at everything, yet hold high positions at work. My ex used duck tape for diapers and any and all tasks. Many men despise being told or asked to do anything and avoid adulting, for sure on the home front, worse than a 2 year old, they whine, evade and avoid or always run out of time for anything that needs done but have plenty of time for what leisure they enjoy.
I love being old and retired. I don't need to cover for coworkers' "weaponized incompetence." I had no choice as a flight attendant. If a passenger complained about service, the whole crew got in trouble. I don't care what anyone thinks about me anymore. I know that I'm a kind and caring person, but I don't need to be codependent or an enabler to prove it. I can live out my last years peacefully and without fear of judgment, now or later.
That's a brilliant example.you were in a job where you HAD to pick up the slack. Sometimes it can be like that, until we can get away from that situation one day
On a manager’s orders, I spent the best part of a year sorting out a colleagues messes, assignments he ‘couldn’t handle’, and offering supportive training. At the end of the year, said colleague got a productivity award and I was criticised for my poor work ethic and having to do so many reworks. The next year, someone else got to help him… Rinse and repeat…
Weaponized incompetence is a very powerful tool against the empathic around the narcissists. The latter use it not just to get things done for them without lifting a finger, but also as a way to claim their dominance over others. The emotional manipulation in this tactic is really repulsive in my opinion.
Not only did I have a narcissistic, abusive, husband for 15 years, but I've also worked with loads of people like this over the years. The managers all know about them, yet nothing's done about it, and their solution to the problem is to get us hard-working, competent ones to cover for them. You find yourself doing your work, their work, and we're all getting paid the same!
This is one of the things that sucks about being new at a large company. These predatory people come out of the woodwork 'I couldn't do X because you didn't do Y' - well, there was no training, no explanation, no indication that Y was even a thing. Bonus points when the person who's supposed to do Y task is actually the person who told you it was your job.
I hear ya! I was also married to an abusive narc for 15 years, and the vulnerable narcissist I worked with ended up being our basement suite tenant. The husband is gone now, and I can't wait to move away from this house with the roommate.
100% nailed this on all points. Weaponized incompetence is just another form of passive aggression. They also use it to say, “but I did help you, it’s not my fault if you’re a perfectionist or I can’t do it as well as you or I don’t do it the way you want. It’s not my fault if I don’t do it the way you want, that’s on you.” It’s a lose lose either way
Narcissists may also use weaponized incompetence in a financially abusive way. They may have a history of addiction, mismanagement, bankruptcy, unemployment, etc. and they use those things to avoid paying debts, contributing to household expenses, or to punish their partners by leaving them with the financial burden.
Years ago I worked with a woman who convinced me she was too busy to do her job, so like a chump, I offered to help. Guess what happened? Her work got dumped on me while she did nothing, making way more money than I did. She couldn’t do the job because she was completely incompetent, but for whatever reason, people (flying monkeys) believed her. When I finally spoke up - guess what happened. SMEAR CAMPAIGN! I had to quit. She took it so far it infiltrated my family life. Suddenly asking my cousin (who happened to live next door to her - small town), to hang out. She actually sent people to our house to pretend like they wanted to purchase it when we decided to move. It was such a nightmare experience. It’s over a decade later and I’m still dealing with the repercussions of telling someone I wasn’t going to do their job for them anymore. She even convinced people SHE was doing MY job when it was so obvious she wasn’t. She promoted, but she was so incompetent they had to hire her an assistant and that person got all her work dumped on her. It makes me just sick. I will NEVER understand why people blindly believe narcissists. Why can’t people see through that?? Like look at facts!
I worked so hard on our homestead, and he did nothing. He would just stand there and watch me work. He always said, I don't know what to do. Who told ME what to do? No one, that's who. I learned all on my own. I finally quit after so much blood, sweat and tears. When he couldn't help build a bigger chicken coop, I just quit. No more huge gardens, I tilled with a broadfork, by hand. Now, I am looking for a little rv to move into and leave this empty marriage/relationship behind. I am beyond DONE with incompetence!!! Life is too short and I'm not living like this with what little time I have left!
I secured our rescue chickens and was trying to buy all the materials to make a chicken coop, I even bought power tools cos my partner didn't have any besides a rusty electric screwdriver, I asked for help to build it and my partner said it would be too complicated, after giving up and cancelling my order for our rescued chickens, my partner complained and said "well I would have helped you build one!" what kind of messed up world do they live in?
This confirms this is the person i am married to. Our daughter once referred to him as weaponizing incompetence. The light went on and I knew it wasn't just me doing too much and not knowing how to ask for help. I am exhausted. I want to be alone just so i can rest.
I always get the "nobody asked you to..." thrown at me after I either fix or pay for something. It's amazing how quickly they forget when you step up or make it seem like you're asking for a kidney when thinking you might get a simple thank you.
Ugh, let's say I make a nice home-cooked meal, and I ask for help with the dishes, i get "well I didn't tell you to make that food. I would have been fine eating cereal or something."
Funny you mention the kidney. That's how I felt for 25+ years of marriage to a Narc. Asking for *anything* had such terrible consequences that I learned to do everything myself and not ask anymore. The interesting thing is that the new supply won't see that side of them for a while... My ex-narc currently looks like a housekeeper... 🙄 Won't last. 😂
Ugh. "Nobody asked me to pay bill!" It's a utility bill. The utility company asks you to pay it every month. What do you mean no one asked you?! Hate their total lack of logic and lack of just saying thank you. At least their laziness would be more tolerable if they were at least thankful someone was doing their life for them.
@@angelaa7388 And this is why I now have a rule that whoever eats the food, but didn't do the cooking, has to do the dishes. If you don't want to do the dishes, don't eat my food. Normal people, friends, partners have always understood this rule as reasonable. It's helped out some unsavory people in my life when they balked and said I dirtied them so I should clean them.
@@angelaa7388WaaaaaW 😳 that hit a nerve for me Hecktic I'm sorry that was said to you My Dad said something similar to me I was incensed at the gall and cruelty of the situation, and powerless to do anything about it, as a child under his rule
And when you have that one thing you never knew how to do and tell the narcissist that you don’t know how to do it, you will likely be met with shame and even ridicule with them telling you to your face that you are incompetent and they’ll say something along the lines _“Oh why is it always me that has to do everything around here!”_
My ex never taught me how to drive a stick shift! But we only had one vehicle that was manuel. (His truck when we got married) Everything since we've just bought automatic. Yet he told our oldest that I "couldn't" drive a stick shift. 🤬
My mother was like this & she would REFUSE to learn, especially when it came to tech stuff. I cut her off completely 5 yrs ago and I often wonder if she decided to figure out how to work her phone and iPad, or if she just continues to find boyfriends to do it for her. It has also inspired me to be the opposite- wherever possible, I learn how to do the thing. My partner is highly skilled when it comes to DIY skills, but I watched RUclips videos how to use our drill to anchor our dressers to protect our toddler because it needed to be done. I’m not going to feign ignorance even to the stuff I don’t know, I’m going to get the help I need to figure it out. It has made our relationship better since I started making these efforts because he has taken more initiative with tasks that use to fall on me as well. You CAN outgrow your narcissistic upbringing!
You are describing my ex-husband word for word, although this seemed to a phenomenon which only happened at home. As far as I knew, he did was competent at work, but then he was dealing with his first love at work: electronics. I came home once after a day away. As soon as I walked in the door our toddler fell apart. I asked my husband what he'd fed our kiddo for lunch. His answer: nothing. Me (astonished): Why didn't you feed him? Him: because he didn't tell me he was hungry! Doesn't that say it all.
Thank you for the education and vocabulary on this topic! My narc would purposefully mess up household chores so that I wouldn't expect him to do them again. He would say things like "Well, if you want it done right, then YOU do it!" It was very passive aggressive.
I had an ex whom I had asked to empty the litter box. This was a rare occasion when I had asked them to. They literally turned around and said, "Oh, but you do it so much better than I can." I stood there, thinking, "It's not that hard. You take a bag, put the litter box in the bag, empty the litter into the bag, close the bag, put the bag down the garbage chute, and there you go-simple, right?" However, just the audacity to turn around and tell me, in other words, they WERE REALLY SAYING "Oh, sorry, I don't want to do it, so you have to do it yourself."
@@Olivera81 this ex wasn't stupid that's the sad part. It really does not take a genius to figure out how to empty out a litter box. The ironic thing is that when we broke up they actually gonna get a cat with his next partner
OMG I heard that almost EVERY time I asked him to do something. It’s a mind **F** because he also spends A LOT of his energy to let me know I can’t do anything right!
@@idontknowyouthatsmypurseSad but true, true. They won't do anything for themselves, yet when you won't do anything for them they get pissed off. It's trying to soothe a 2 year old who's throwing the biggest tantrum ever. No matter how many times and as calmly as you can explain to the person they just don't get it.
Yeah, it may and may not be quite as lazy as it seems. It ight be more troubling than that. I've dealt with some narcissists who can't cope with the paranoid and ever-present thought that someone might be trying to get the better of them (which they developed from their life spent constantly strategizing against others) that they just assumed that everybody else was doing so in every interaction and therefore treated everyone as an adversary ahead of time (and of course confirmation bias would take hold when that person eventually strategized back). It'd be an extremely destabilizing mental life. They'd have a fit if they knew how transparent their personality was. I know someone who basically trained her daughters to be this way. She didn't want to grow old, so she trained her daughters to be the train-wreck that she is so that she could live vicariously through their narcissism. Muffia-types-that's how they are.
This describes my husband’s ex as if you were there. A grown woman, bounced checks because “Why would I have checks if I didn’t have enough money?”, wouldn’t cook or clean or get a job, continually ran out of gas…. On and on. So naturally he did everything and she criticized. It was actually a real problem when we were first married because he assumed he’d have to do the lions share of work with us, and was stunned that I did in fact operate on his level. Forty years later he’s still grateful for the smallest thing I do for him, which is sad in a way since it’s so unconditionally offered but I get it. The damage a covert narcissist does leaves deep scars.
Forty plus years ago, I entered the workforce. Weaponized incompetence was a familiar behaviorist pattern limited to a small number of employees. Then a cultural shift happened, employees attitudes seemed more entitled, I noticed more effort to avoid work and less effort to do the work. Unfortunately, I was one of the employees that over functioned to ensure safe and secure patient care and pick up the slack. My genuine efforts also came with sides of: insomnia, exhaustion, anger, anxiety, mistrust, moodiness, and unhappiness. Last year I retired, best decision I made in years. For those who over function to compensate for the entitled, please continue to listen to Dr. Ramani and her incredible work, so that you are less likely to repeat my mistakes.
One way I've seen incompetence used is when they do something incorrectly, then blame you. You didn't tell them, or you didn't say it needed to be done THAT way. From that point on, they now have an excuse to never do that task again because they "can never get it right because you're so picky." So you adjust and try to "make sure" they understand what they're supposed to do beforehand. Except now you're blamed for treating them like a child, or not trusting them. So that becomes their excuse for not stepping up. Seriously, you can't solve this problem. There's always another excuse, and it'll always be your fault.
This was so my mother. She was extremely intelligent and a talented artist but she wouldn't do anything. Never done anything with her talent. She was too busy manipulating everyone and having others do for her. My dad was a narcissistic person too but in a different way. I can honestly say I wish I'd been give up for adoption and never known either of them.
I understand the sentiment behind your comment, but while not every adopter is a narc, there's a really high rate of narcissistic women who adopt - so much so, there's a nickname for the phenomenon in the adoptee community - something like Narcissistic Adoptive Mother Syndrome, or NAM for short. So, there's a good chance you'd still have ended up having a similar life, unfortunately. My adoptive dad was a narc, and my adoptive mum wasn't so bad but she's not emotionally healthy herself, and probably never has been. I was probably more mature than either of them by the time I was a young adult. You also never get over being given up by your birth parents/mother - adoptees who seem OK have literally buried the trauma so deep they don't realise it's there, even if the separation happened when they were a baby and they haven't been told.
I wished my real parents would show up and take me away to a better place. But unfortunately my narcissistic mother and fraudulent father were my real parents, and I was stuck with them.
You just described my 35 year marriage! He would do a chore or fix something, but do it so badly that I had to redo/fix it. So to save myself the hassle I'd just do it myself. At one point I was solely managing the schedules of 3 senior parents/in-laws, two teenagers, and an incompetent spouse. Never again!!!!
Another way that narcissists frequently weaponize incompetence is to use reactive abuse by purposely doing something they know will upset you or give you anxiety and claiming it was just a mistake or they didn't know it was a problem or something that would upset you. Things like repeatedly leaving the house and "forgetting" to shut the stove off or leaving the front door wide open when you are sleeping. After about the tenth time and an accident that only happens when you are sleeping. It's pretty obvious what's happening. It's always an accident according to the narcissist. An accident that coincidentally, happens more often the more upset they see that you are with whatever they are doing. The narcissist I have been dealing with also purposely damages things in my home. He dents and scratches things, cuts holes in anything new brought into the house including the flooring because he knows that having my home look nice was important to me. He always claims it was accidental or that he doesn't know how the damage happened. They really do think that we are all stupid. When things like this happened in the beginning before I knew who and what I was dealing with, I thought they were just accidents and then they started happening with a too frequent to be an accident consistency once I expressed my negative feelings about whatever was happening. Every time I told him something bothered me it would then become a nearly daily occurrence. There are too many examples like that to list here.
Some people legitimately cant learn some things which is where the sharing of labor in healthy relationships comes in - narcissists will not even be willing to talk about why they cant do something and will simply deflect, shift blame, gaslight.
Right. I think the healthy way is to ask to be taught or ask for a little guidance about how to learn if you don’t know where to start. The narcs don’t even try.
When Narcs weaponize incompetence: They criticize others for incompetence. They feign ignorant innocence to pay the buck onto another...and criticize that person for doing the job poorly or complain to get sympathy or rob them of the credit they deserve...or do all of it and gaslight to add confusion. You can't win.
What do you do if someone has tech issues and really faces challenges with certain online tasks (e.g. online applications, travel arrangements, phone issues, etc.?) While some of us have had to use tech at work, others have not. This creates a real challenge for many in our society at work and home. These skills can take a long time to master….and in some cases, it is like math phobia. People just freeze or get frustrated and then lean on others. My motto is “be a learner” but not everyone shares that mindset either. Any insights appreciated.
This was a CONSTANT thing in my marriage. It annoyed me to no end. Once I run across someone who does it, I lose respect for them and I distance myself from them.
“You’re so much better at doing this than I am” or “You love doing this” or “You don’t let me do it, you always complain about the way I do it.” There was always an excuse! My boyfriend “cleaned” like his wrists were broken. Everything was left to me 🤬 He even bragged to me how he had a co-corker peel an orange for him because he was hungry but didn’t want to peel it 🙄
Its worst when its being done deliberately to be spiteful and undermining, just to test someone's patience, intelligence & integrity for their sick and weird amusement its absolutely the strangest thing people do to feed their need to critique another person's life. Its truly sad people feel the need to play mind games with someone and try to discredit or deny what has been experienced.
I learned what weaponized incompetence was with my younger brother. Introduce him to a machine, he could figure it out with ease. Expect him to do any kind of housework, and suddenly he'd be unable to figure it out and argue until it was given up on and someone else did it.
I am having such a hard time in my life right now, trying to navigate my mother. She is 65 and has literally been “sick” all of our lives. I watched her feign incompetence all of my life and saw how it affected everyone in the family (my dad and us five kids). Everything was left to my dad because she was always “too sick.” After my dad passed away 7 yrs ago, it was a huge loss. She has not functioned since then, but we see it more like she never functioned and now he is not here to compensate for it anymore. She goes to the hospital all the time, they run tests, maybe give her an antibiotic and send her home. The cycle continues. She won’t cook, clean, won’t bath (it has been years, no exaggeration) and doesn’t even wash her hands. There’s so much to the situation and because no one has ever heard of anyone behaving this way, I am at a loss of what to do. She isn’t suicidal and isn’t actively trying to hurt herself or anyone else. She simply is choosing not to function and saying it’s because of one ailment or another. Her lack of participation in life effects me because I have to worry about her, do things she should be doing and I am so overwhelmed. My sister has suggested that she is a narcissist a long time ago and for some reason I resisted the idea. This idea of weaponized incompetence I have heard of before but for some reason never applied it to this situation. I am very overwhelmed and lost, the medial system is failing her and no one knows what to do. She is angry and entitled and saying that my dismissal of her “medical problems” is abusive. She is the perpetual victim. I was even considering munchausens as a possibility, because she has always been in the sick role. Funny thing is, she has never had any serious health issues like cancer/diabetes/etc. she barely even gets a cold! I can analyze and speculate all day, but it’s not helping anything. just wanted to see if anyone had any thoughts or knows someone similar 😢
My husband (now ex) took our son out for a walk, when he was still just a toddler. It was usually me who did it , but I had a migraine. He (our son) fell over a rock and came back crying with a large bruise on his forehead. When I asked what happened, apparently it was my fault, because my dear hubby was "so used to me being there" to keep an eye on our son that he hadn't been doing it. He had "just assumed that he was keeping up." I didn't know what narcissism was at the time, and I cringe to remember how, after being subjected to some pretty intense blame shifting, I ended up apologising to him. 😖
Does anyone here have any narcissistic family or friends who offer their help to you when you're down and out but you can feel them judging you the entire time that you're accepting their "help"? So they come to your "aid" when you are at your lowest point in life just to condemn you for all the life choices you made that brought you to the point they are in a position to help you but somehow their help ends up making you feel even worse about yourself and or your situation somehow worsens due to their interference in a bizarre twist of fate despite all their "assistance?"
Yes, and then there's the way they can make a big thing of 'offering to help' in front of an audience, but then they never seem to be able to actually be there when the help is most needed. Oh, and they can feel superior in patronising you. Nothing like a good kick when you're down!
Yes, Roxy. I'm female. My female cousin of approximately my age loaned me money for an expensive trip I needed to make. I knew I could pay her back because I was approved for a student loan. I took my trip and returned. My student loan was delayed (by about a week), but did arrive and I immediately repaid my cousin. My female cousin then blamed me, not only for my delay in repaying her, but also for having borrowed the money to begin with. She claimed that she had lived in fear that her husband would discover that money was missing from her bank account and that loaning me the money had jeopardized her marriage. In the following years, she treated me badly, so I got away from her. I'm so glad I got away from her.
@@vintage6346 in that case, it would have been her fault; she wasn't being forced to loan you the money, and there's also the fact she could have potentially discussed it with her husband first - ultimately, everyone knows loaning any amount of money is a risk, even if it's to a family member or best friend!
@@ShintogaDeathAngel Thanks for the support. And, I agree. The fact was that her husband barely worked and she was the breadwinner. But "submission" was a huge part of their belief-system, so that supposedly it didn't matter which one had earned the money. They are now divorced and she has remarried. I still stay clear of her.
Yup. This was my 14 year long marriage to a Narcissist. This man child could build houses, for goodness sake, but would throw tantrums when he had no clean boxers or washcloths, when there weren't clean dishes, etc. 🤦🏻♀️
So validating to hear this behavior named and described. My ex was exactly like this. He was supposed to be the stay-at-home parent while I worked, which was a complete train wreck. He did one load of laundry in 5 years. When asked to put the dishes away, he'd just set them on the counter or in random places. Of course, this is just scratching the surface.
Oh my God. I could barely watch this. And still haven't made it completely through. This is 1000% my sister! She is this in every area of her life, especially money. I have bailed her out so many times financially, doing things for her, etc. and I won't do it again. Here is a great example. A few years ago she received a certification for medical records from a college in her area. But she never paid the final fee so they withheld her certificate. She lied on a resume about having it and when they made her show it she didn't have it. She was TOO LAZY to drive to the college a few miles away and get it handled in person. And of course she blames the college for this! She also has a house I helped her buy 20 years ago that has fallen in total disrepair. Of course it is the houses fault, not hers. But she does have every closet filled with clothes and subscribes to a very expensive makeup and facial cream company. Lord help us all having to deal with these people.
My ex has done everything in this post.. all of it! And when it wasn’t weaponized it was just plain incompetence. Best line during parenting years: “I don’t have the hormones for taking care of babies”
Thank you for this video. You are so right. I experienced weaponised incompetence from my n-ex throughout our marriage. He claimed to be completely incompetent with any practical task, so that I had to do it. He also refused to pay for anyone else to do it. So, I ended up having to learn how to do pretty extensive DIY tasks to be able to repair, maintain and improve our home. I single-handedly renovated two homes, including getting up on the roof to repair it, manoeuvre heavy materials and equipment on my own etc. My n-ex would stand around, saying he didn't know how to help, but when I offered to show him so that we would do it together he would offer to make me a cup of tea and then disappear. Later, this shifted to him blaming me for any problems with our house. Even though I worked full-time I had to do this on top of my job. I think he also used his 'incompetence' as opportunities to try to accidentally kill me eg switching on the electricity at the main fuse box when I was replacing a socket and refusing to climb a short ladder to help me down when I fell on some scaffolding because of his supposed fear of heights. I agree with you that a covert narcissist is the last person we'd want to be stranded on a desert island with.
They're super passive aggressive. And if they act like they can't do it then they get you to do it so that they never have to do it. Passing the buck 100%
Lol this literally describes my fathers daily behavior. He's very intelligent but plays the games you described so it makes him look and sound dumb af. What's worse is when I call out the ridiculous behavior he will keep doing the wrong thing over and over again and act like it's my fault even though he is making his situation worse by being self-destructive.Which follows with more weaponized incompetence. Here's an example. I asked him to turn the front porch light on for me at night so when I come home from work I am not walking around in the dark for my safety. The restroom is located by the light switch for the front porch. He avoided going to the restroom and urinated all over himself just so he could say, "Oh, I haven't been near that part of the house so I never had a chance"
Amen! My ex was a pro at this, it made me crazy! I even overheard her tell a friend of hers, “all you have to do is act and/or say you can’t do something long enough and someone will to do it.” 🤬
People like that we can never get away from.If you cut them off eventually you will run into another one like that later on.But that is bad when narcissists know that they are being sneaky like that
Thank you Dr. Ramani for giving this a name. I've seen it in action at home for years while the narc is fully in charge in public. Just another part of the sh-t list of living with a narc.
I agree about "grit" and "hustle" being no substitute, no matter how intelligent or how big you talk. And that's really the tragedy of narcissists. All that energy they put into manipulation and trying to appear great could actually be used to make them as great as they want to be!
This is my husband! He always told me it was his ex who was a narcissist but I’m beginning to see it’s him too. He has admitted to me that he used to do things badly and pretend not to know how to do stuff so he didn’t have to do them again. It’s the exact same here. He hasn’t got a clue.
This brings back a memory when I was a young teen. My sister’s boyfriend was acting like a baby saying he didn’t know how to iron his shirt. So she did it for him. After she left the room. He laughed smugly and said he just said that so she would do it for him. Looking back. My sister was a stunning beautiful girl who loved him. He was a tall handsome player. I didn’t think much at the time because she was mean and hateful toward me. Looking back we waste our pearls because there are no good options. No protection in life. Or little. The story gets much worse from there. 😢
My father has always been like this and my mom has always done everything for him. "That's how men are" she said. And their partner is like their babysitter🤦🏻♀️
A guy I used to hang out with tried to get me to do stuff for him because "he was drunk" and "didn't want to look like a tit" when ordering a takeaway - I, being used to this kind of sh*tty ruse cos of my dad, just told him if he wanted a pizza that badly to get on with it.
The emotional incompetence though!!! Im still figuring all of this out, but I think that my doing all the emotional lifting in the relationship contributed to my becoming lost in this strange abyss while he appears to be the stand-up, hard working guy.
Ahhhh my mother’s forte in life - weaponised incompetence + no accountability + victimhood + guilt tripping (gaslighting??!) + smear campaigning = my mother’s covert narcissism 😭😭 …
Thank you for explaining that. This is one of those maddening little things that victims often cannot put into words. This happens so often. It’s heartwarming to hear someone explaining our pain.
I think there's always a way to put things into words. It just takes a lot of attention sometimes. Narcissists seem to make it their job to make explanations of their behaviour take as much time, attention, and energy as possible.
I like the term ‘weaponised incompetence’. The Narc will deliberately drop a tactical nuke and leave the victim(s) to clear up ground zero AND THEN blame the victim(s) for forcing them to drop the bomb.
a few years ago, i was choking on a cough-drop at home in our bedroom. i told my wife to do the hymlic on me but she was worried about my chocking and said that it couldn't be done till i passed out (wrong!). then my airway was completely blocked and i wasn't going to wait! so i did my own hymlic using the end of the dresser.
Sexlessness. Sharing a bed with someone who doesn’t acknowledge you are a sexual being hurts so much. I was in a sexless marriage for years. Being a woman with a high libido, I felt inadequate. Worst I feel invisible. The man who was “supposed” to want me, just didn’t. We talked about it many times, more than I can recall now. It was always me. I wanted too much - once a week was too much for him. I didn’t initiate - he was always complaining of headaches, stomaches, always stressed, always tired. I was too sexual - when being subtle doesn’t work, what is next? Explicitly saying I wanted sex. Oh but then it was not appropriate. Conversations would end up with him saying he didn’t feel desired or I made him feel emasculated because he didn’t want sex as much as I did. Yeah, it was always me. I could never win. While we were dating we would have a decent amount of sex, it was good. The first huge red flag was not having sex in our honeymoon - which I ignored. It rapidly decrease to once a week, then every other week. Years gone by it was months in between, by the time we divorced it was over a year with no sex. I cried myself to sleep more times that I can count. I didn’t understand what was wrong with me. Was I that undesirable? Was I repulsive? After those conversations, I just stopped trying, initiating, mentioning sex. We were still loving - holding hands, hugging, kissing - but sex was off the table. He then cheated on me. Swore he had sex only 4 times in a year (or more) long affair. It didn’t matter. For years my self worth was damaged by him, years of low self esteem, years of feeling less of a woman, the marriage that was more than over, waiting in hospice, really ended. Funny how things are, I asked him for a divorce, he manipulated me into staying, next day his infidelity came to light. I was out as soon as I could. Best thing of my life. Additionally, That feeling when your partner cheated and you don't have the courage to leave him / her so you just death with the pain and live everyday asking questions about your worth. This pain is different from the cheating one_living and seeing him everywhere anticipating when he or she do it again. The best thing is to hire a private investigator digitalinvestigate@gmail.com to help you spy on their cellphone remotely just like he did for me...
Oh my god! I finally can explain my anger towards my passive aggressive cant'-do-nothing-by-myself-please-do-it-for-me but i-will-take-the-credit-for-your-help-and-pass-it-on-as-my-hard-work-to-the-manager colleague!!!
Oh my. One week into my marriage he comment that the grapefruit I served was not segmented for him. "But my mother always did it." I knew he wanted to stay in his little nest. I also knew I could not afford to have a child with him. I would not reproduce a double.
This weaponized incompetence was a huge feature in my marriage to my narc. “I hated finger painting as a child” meant he wouldn’t prep food, clean up dishes, or clean toilets…anything that might involve getting his hands wet, even with gloves on! I knew it was bs, but you can’t win!
Hi Dr Ramani and everyone. They will use any excuse in the book to get out of doing something. It's pretty sad when a grown man tells a woman to push a car out in the snow & ice. Yes, I pushed the car while his ass was in there steering! 😭
Sometimes they're complete know-it-alls. In others, they break out the woe-is-me victim repertoire. Whatever suits the circumstance. Just as they love passing on their emotional tensions, they love passing on basic personal responsibilities that have nothing to do with other people. For example, my covert narc mom is money- and status-obsessed and lives in a huge house she can't afford on her own, and tries to guilt and shame her kids into helping her with it physically and with money. Complains how everything is so expensive, and how it's the politicians' fault blah blah. If you politely tell her she can't afford the house and it's her own responsibility, then she gets nasty and gaslights about people doing what makes them happy, etc. No accountability. They're sick and won't change.
THIS!!!! I heard this phrase for the first-time last week and I've been hoping Dr. Ramani would do a video. This is the preferred gas lighting technique of my 50-year marriage. It's only gotten worse since his retirement eight years ago. It's decidedly more noticeable since we are together almost 24/7 All the things we were going to get done so we could travel are delayed or screwed up in such a way as to cost more time and money than they should have. I'm so tired of it and his fragile ego I no longer have any desire to get things prepped for aging in place nor going anywhere with him. Especially not on an extended trip.
@@aSimpleTailor Yes, and people's belief in their own competence and trust in their abilities can be completely destroyed by being raised in an utterly invalidating childhood family environment by incompetent and abusive chaotic narcissistic 'parenting', where the parents are too busy and overwhelmed and do not know the essentials of good parenting. I have known of cases where one parent has good intentions and works hard and ethically to raise the child and the domineering and invalidating parent's contribution is to tear down the good work of the parent who is acting responsibly, that is, they destroy the budding child, because they are that domineering, narcissistic and abusively invalidating. I.e., the parents are in fact at odds in their parenting. The result can be a destroyed child, suicide, etc. This is a serious matter for society. Some people should not become parents, but they do not realize that they lack the abilities needed to raise a child, because, e.g., they are too young and arrogant, and for most people it's is easy to produce a child, being fertile and driven by their sex drive to mate, of course. The psychological challenges of attempting to raise a child, children, in a family system where domestic abuse occurs, are such that it truly would be best to divorce early on, tragic as that is and harrowing as the process may be, if one has the good of one's children at heart. A problem here is the social shaming of divorce and the mere logistics, too. The abused spouse may be in denial and worn down over time. They are in an untenable position. The children are harmed by being raised in FOOs where chaos and patterns of abusive dominance reign Narcissistic abuse is real and pernicious, and hidden in such a family. The damage done psychologically to the children is tragic. The damage done psychologically over time, even decades, to the non narcissistic parent is tragic. This happens all the time and is covered up. It makes me sad to see that domestic violence programs locally are being shut down due to lack of funding and interest, perhaps. Compassion and wisdom are crucial in parenting, and unfortunately our society does not seem to prioritize, value or exemplify that much. This is indicative of Kali yuga. We need enlightened hearts and minds. We need to really know ourselves and our potential co-parent BEFORE we reproduce, and not be dazzled by our own fantasies. In parting, we must realize that the toll of narcissistic abuse is societal, as Dr. Rajmani and others have pointed out in previous videos, and it occurs in all hierarchical strata or castes, if you want to call the structures that, from the wealthy money wise to the impoverished, and from the less formally educated to those with PhD's. So we cannot judge from the exterior impressions. It is much deeper than appearances or words.
Learned helplessness is not the same thing. Learned helplessness is often not the person's choice and is often punitively enforced on vulnerable people for the convenience of those in power. It shouldn't be confused with weaponised incompetence.
Is it still considered weaponized incompetence if they don't do the things and they always have some excuse as to why they didn't? My ex would leave dishes in the sink in the morning always saying "I don't have time to wash them" (meanwhile I know she sat on social media for 20-30min at a time in the morning) or leave boxes by the front door saying things like "my hands were full" and I would constantly have to be the one to wash her dishes when I got home or take the boxes/trash out. I also later found out from her old coworkers that, if I didn't wash her dishes and just left them, she would complain to them that I didn't wash her dishes but I washed mine (yes, I was being petty because it was so frequent even after I mentioned it to her multiple times). Now that's not to say that she sometimes didn't do those things but, way more often than not, I was the one cleaning up after her.
For too many years I was genuinely confused - How was it my INCREDIBLY successful ex-husband (educated, wealthy, and in a position of great responsibility, power, and influence) could be so WILDLY capable in his work, but he could never “get” how to do simple manual labor?!? He’s so SMART, but over and over again couldn’t “remember” that his go to behaviors to “win” in his work scenarios are emotionally destroying when he uses them against me? Once I clocked the pattern to his (selectively applied) *FEIGNED* incompetence and finally pushed back on the inconsistencies (by saying, “I noticed that…) our 25 year relationship quickly fell apart. When I could no longer be manipulated, he was DONE with me.
1:23 I get around this by: 1) Being a very good teacher. Ill show you how to do it and know you know how to do it after we are done 2) Being willing to let whatever it is fail. They ruin all the clothes using the "washer wrong". Fine. Ill buy new clothes & then we will be on a strict budget (with no fun) until that money is made back up. There is nothing I will not allow to fail. Sooner or later the other person will give in and shape up
Most just play victim and start badmouthing you to everyone. Dealing with a child or such childlike behavior in an adult is so taxing and if you stop making most of life easy for them from a to z they get even by more lying, cheating and silent treatment, exiting or playing the victim to others. Funny enough if called out by others witnessing their weaponized incompetence they say, oh she likes to do it or they laugh and make you out to be a shrew or compare you to their horrid mother, this behavior ruins your kids as they get older as the narc needs allies against your "unreasonable behavior" they have just projected and gas lit their incompetence onto you, this is also when you may notice alienation of your kids. They actually teach their kids the same inepitude and defiance of anything you attempt to dicipline or raise self reliant competent, respectful children. The step to full alienation of your previously competent kids is well on its way. My ex now relies on our four adult daughters to mother him, and meet his needs. They do everything for him as if he is a child. He fakes them out and uses the same bs he did on me till I got wise, but these things needed done and someone had to be the adult on the homefront. It is sickening to watch him utilize them in this way.
My aunt definitely uses this. When she says "I can't", what she means is "I don't want to", because when she does want, when she is the one being affected instead of me... then, suddenly, she is not "too old and too tired" anymore and is actually completely capable of doing what I asked her to do.
I literally just got in a fight with my narcissistic ex just yesterday and accused him of using weaponized incompetence in order to get out of having to be held accountable for things he is guilty of and he said, "Weaponized incompetence, what's that?!" And I said, "You're doing it right now, acting like you don't understand what weaponized incompetence is." And he said, "What are you talking about!?" 😒🙄🤦♀️
I had essentially the same thing happen when I accused a narcissist of gaslighting. He acted like it had no valid meaning. He was using gaslighting to avoid a discussion of his gaslighting the same way your ex used weaponized incompetence to pretend he wasn't engaging in weaponized incompetence.
How many are hired for their incompetence, to insure their superiors keep their 'superior' position? Awesome video Dr. Ramani! You'll save a lot of folks a ton of frustration with this one.
Quite a few of them have been my colleagues or my daughter's. AND the got promoted in spite of (or because of) their incompetence while we got bullied until we quit. But before that, they would guilt trip us into insane workloads. They are a perfect argument in favour of going self-employed.
My 39 year old narc ex used to complain he nearly fainted driving home from work because he hadn’t eaten all day because I didn’t make him sandwiches in the morning. (Baring in mind he would stay in bed while I was getting my son ready for school when he could have easily made himself sandwiches) but he said he wasn’t good at making us own sandwiches wtaf. Needless to say he’s gone now - moved back in with his mother & my son & I have peaceful mornings before school ❤
Fascinating and heartbreaking. This describes my now-senior mother to a T. Now that she can't rely on my dad to do things for her, it often falls on me or my brother. If I'm available and refuse, she scoffs. If I ask her why she didn't do it herself, she says "that's man's work." Seemingly... anything she doesn't like to do is "man's work." This also includes the many times that she has offered to do things for me, but right at the last minute something falls through, there isn't enough money to do the thing, or people weren't notified/scheduled. This usually results in an argument similar to the "but you didn't tell me exactly *when* you needed [the thing]" or any other combination of excuses. Like, maybe it was to schedule a moving truck, but she offered to ask her friend if they could borrow their truck... the day comes, everything is packed up and ready to go... and nope, at the last minute "they couldn't do it, they'll have to do it some other time." (It's likely that the person wasn't even contacted.) The worst of this is that I learned this behavior myself. We were in a bubble, and I remember learning at a certain point that being all talk was just what people did. And from watching my parents' behaviors, I could also get out of doing the dishes if it just took forever to do them, or maybe something got broken... Or maybe if I fumble with this thing long enough, someone will see and take over. That was my childhood. And it extended into my young-adulthood, promising people things that never came to fruition and then having to make a million apologies or return checks, and burning bridges along the way. Interestingly, it has crossed over into a diagnosis with ADHD, and another video I watched about narcissists had mentioned something about how being raised by a narcissist can affect a child's executive function, and undoing that can take a lot of neural rewiring... I suspect there is a strong link between kids raised by narcissists and eventual ADHD diagnoses, so now it has been something I have had to actively call myself out on and do the work. I am really happy to have a partner from a different type of family system that didn't allow that sort of thing, so it's actually refreshing to learn how to do things well, take responsibility, and reparent myself with the right skills and tools. I love doing things for myself and learning new skills, and really being a useful person when someone needs me. But man, anytime I have to interact with my mother after being exposed to normal behavior outside the family bubble, it works on my last nerve because I know I either have to "do the thing" or brace myself for some passive-aggressive nonsense that usually builds to an argument it's allowed to build. Realizing the narcissist connection over the past few years has been a real challenge, but I'm glad Dr. Ramani has been here to help me discover the right path out of the illusion.
Thank you for this video! I see this in my mother so often. The length she will go to with acting incompetent or even stupid in order to be lazy or avoid taking accountability is shocking. Doctor Ramani, you have helped me heal more than I can tell you. Thank you for this. You are one of the only people I can find who is distinguishing the "vulnerable narcissist". As someone who grew up with a single caretaker who is a vulnerable narcissist, your information and advice about these people is invaluable. Thank you, thank you, thank you! To anyone out there struggling with your own narcissist, stay strong. Learn about why they do what they do and how to handle it. Get away if you can. You are not alone and all of us who know what you're going through are rooting for you.
Thanks for this! I had exactly this in a work situation and ended up completely burnt out trying out different strategies to get this person to actually do the job they were employed for. If I took something back to basics, it was condescending. If I gave her a task to do, it was too much. If I divided a project up between the department, I would find she had off loaded her part to other team members but then said she had done it. If I made any comment on the standard or speed of work being done, I was bullying. And as a manager, I found I ended up working around her to get jobs done which meant I and the other members of the team were having to do more to cover her doing so little. But she made it her business to broadcast how hard she was working for so little recognition. I ended up leaving the job as I just couldn’t find a way of working with her that didn’t mean doing it all and then being accused of being mean. She left shortly after as my replacement saw the behaviour in the handover time and flagged it up with management immediately. I wish I had done that sooner too but I just didn’t know this behaviour existed before. I thought she just needed a bit more hand holding than anyone I had worked with before.
Yes, yes, yes,yes. Then the want praised to high heavens for what you had to hold their hand to get it done. However, if you truly need anything that requires team effort, like moving a couch, or carring in furniture they disappear.
This is what I equate it to, you are swimming with someone you are tethered to, but they are swimming down, deeper into the abyss yet laxadazilly as you frantically try and swim towards the surface, all you can do is sever that rope that ties them to you and get air so you can breathe, then you can find the land. They are just such lost causes. It's sad but for your own survival, you can't save you both. Praying for healing for every survivor, the feelings of hopelessness they induce and glorify in your suffering is truly sickening.
I remember my narc mother will always fake not knowing how to use her phone and will want me to do it for her but when it comes to smearing my name, she automatically know how to use her phone or laptop and I saw this with my ex too but once I left he knew how to use his phone and even knew how to order stuff from online too without my help. I felt used to be honest and am glad I walked away . This people are truly parasites and toxic. Their words are empty and they dont follow with their words. Don't ever trust a narcissist doing anything when a child comes because waiting for them to help will be waiting for dry ice to fall from the sky on an autumn day.
Oh my gosh I am so grateful that you're making this video! I just had to completely walk away from a toxic" friend" for this reason she had her own set of helpers if you will in place at her disposal every time she needed anything done. She made me feel like she was the victim of a narcissistic marriage then quickly I realized she uses victimization tactics to receive help from anyone she possibly could including emotional support it was so draining!
Yes! Same thing here with an ex friend. She always played the, "poor, poor pitiful me - I can't get out of my own way" type deal. Then I realized that she was only telling me half a story (when she would constantly complain about her partner and his kids) - she told the end of the story - not what lead up to it. So I asked her, "Feels like there's more to this story - people don't react to nothing, they react to something - so what happened that made them react like that"? No answer. That said, now she knew that I was onto her - that I wasn't buying into her anymore. Glad that's behind me - she was SO draining/exhausting to be around.
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Does anyone else feel like if you have a really bad experience with a narcissist you end up looking like the narcissist. You're left broken not getting things done, not confident in your ability to do things anymore etc.
Yes, you got to take it back in small bits.
To much, l am discovering this l used to keep people along the way but l just seemed to be breaking my back like l wasn't just understanding it .
Yes, looking like the narc because I'm prioritizing myself after the devaluation. If I look like a narc, so be it.
That happens more than we know. It's so not the same as being a Narcissist, and we have to silently Hold our Truth while we get stronger and find ourselves again.
Therapy boo 😘💕
Don't be surprised if the narcissist weaponizes incompetence and then take credit for your work.
Absolutely! My ex did that all the time, literally took credit for anything I did, or if I taught him how to use a drill then turned around and quoted me back to me, acting like he knew all along and I didnt know what I knew. He never used the right tools for anything. He jammed a broom handle down the washing machine drain pipe, and was the only person I ever saw break hammer claws and pliers! If he even showed up while I was building or fixing anything he supervised with his incompetence, showed off to others who assumned he did the work and he never credited me, the one who actually built it or repaired it! I lost all respect for him pdq as he did not want to bother to learn the very basic home repair jobs or use the right tools, nails or screws! I asked him once to fix a loose toilet seat and he drilled a 2 and a half inch screw point up into a wooden toliet seat where you hit the point with your hiney if you didn't know it was there. Task any iget could learn or figure out, he didn't even try. He was a high ranking military person and for years I questioned how he could command and be so inept, till I figured out delegating tasks, not doing them himself and getting the credit his minions deserved, was his only competence in any arena.
Always have proof that your work is your work
@@robinkholmes7127 YES! THIS!!! 🔥
@@vickimerritt2832 I do a lot of teaching the narc and they take over as if they knew it all along and I am dumb and don’t know anything.
@@vickimerritt2832
It goes hand in hand with "Never admit to being at fault if you are an officer/commander, it makes you look weak/incompetent" idiocy from the Narcissism 101 handbook.
I used to say to my now ex narc, “you play stupid to get out of responsibility”. What they don’t realize is that they’re preparing you to be on your own without them the more they didn’t help the more you saw you didn’t need them.
Well said
Real Talk!👍🏾
My dad did it to me. Never had a real dad. But I'm absurdly competent in doing all things
Biden plays this game
@@jameskeating4719
No, he IS INCOMPETENT!!!
There's also reversed weaponized incompetence.
When a narcissistic parent or partner offers you help and they offer to do something repeatedly for you instead of using that as an opportunity to teach you how to do it yourself so that you can be self sufficient and not reliant on them, they later go on the attack and weaponize *your* incompetence that they created in you by denying you multiple opportunities to learn how to do something for yourself so that the next time you need help you are trained to say, "Can you help me with this?" Then they shame you and say, "Ugh! You really don't know how to do this?! It's like I have to do everything for you around here!"
This is why I never learned to drive. 😞
Oh God, my ex talked to me like that. My mother would say " being condescending to others, about the skill they can learn discourages them from trying and that's not reflective of your own capabilities. Teach a man to fish, don't give it to them alone"
My Nfather loved this method. They don't explain it, they don't show it or show the wrong way, then they hover over you and yell at you because you should have already known how to do it.
Exactly this!!
Goodness, yes! That's how I didn't learn how to cook. But I did learn the chores my mum didn't like to do.
They deliberately act like they can’t do or achieve something, just to disappoint you or make things difficult for you. They find pleasure in your disappointment, inconvenience and dissatisfaction.
Very well said
Stating the obvious again
So they can say, "There's no pleasing you! You're never satisfied. You're never happy." Yeah, wonder why... 😠
This make so much sense💯💯💯Now i understand why my sister act like that way🤦🤦🙍Thank you 🙏
@SharonFromNB life is beautiful not hearing all that anymore!! 🥰
On top of weaponized incompetence, dangerous negligence, and constant rage/terror, THEN they go around pretending to be the victim so that outsiders gang up on the person they are abusing. It's a deadly combo, these people ruin health and lives.
Totally
Most of my moronic relatives do this. They can't work out why I am non contact now. I got sick and tried of it all.
My mother had a heart condition, and she used it as an excuse not to do things she didn't want to do. For instance, when I was 20 and had to go to the dentist to have a couple of wisdom teeth taken out, I was supposed to have someone.with me because I would be getting a general.anasthaetic. My dad was working so.my mother said that she would go with me. On the morning of the surgery she suddenly told me that she didn't feel well and would be staying home. I was annoyed but there was nothing I could do except go to the appointment and make my own way home.
True!
Just remember: Almost anything you do to such a person would be morally justified. Just make sure you give them a chance to be honest with you first. If they choose deceit, then that's that.
"I don't want to get the wrong things and make you mad, so you have to do the grocery shopping"...forever.
My mother did this in regards to emotional support: if I ever needed comfort (like if I was bullied or injured or just sad about something) she would suddenly act like she had no idea how emotions work - I KNEW on a core level that a mother should hug her kids, soothe them, let them know that they are loved by someone who is sad when they are sad.
My mother would turn into a brick wall and say “I don’t know what you want from me / I don’t know what you want me to say / I’m just not good at this emotional stuff”
Even when I was like EIGHT, I smelled bullshit. My mother is a smart woman. I knew she knew what I needed emotionally from her and was enjoying witholding it and playing dumb, and if I tried to call her on it, I would be the bad guy for making her feel like a bad mother when clearly I should be more understanding of her lack of skills that she couldn’t help.
When I tried to be understanding and tell her “look, I’ll understand if you don’t know what to say. I don’t expect a perfect speech that fixes everything. Just please, show me that you care when bad things happen to me. Even just saying “I love you and I am here even if I don’t know how to fix it or say the right thing”
And she would stare hard anywhere but at me, looking angry and disdainful, then repeat her ridiculously bullshit claims of “just not understanding this stuff”
There’s also the “half-a$$ed incompetence,” you ask them to do a chore and they do it so badly, or only do it half way, so that you end up spending more effort to finish it or clean up the mess afterward. We probably all have some comically absurd scenarios from these.
My older brother would do a crummy job at his chores, like leaving food on dishes he "washed" so my mother ended up asking me to do everything.
I always felt like the older sibling growing up (2 year age difference) in terms of maturity and responsibility
My narc boyfriend didn't do things half-a$$ed, he did everything QUARTER-A$$ED.
Unfortunately, it seems that in some cultures, boys get away with this quite frequently from a young age, whereas their sisters are punished harshly for displaying the same behaviour. It isn't always gendered I know, but I've seen it happen way too many times to discard the fact that there is a cultural problem too.
I wonder if them being allowed to get away with it early on without the behaviour being nipped in the bud allows narcissism to breed. You expect a child to push boundaries like that, they're supposed to, but they grow out of it. To see grown adults acting like that is deplorable.
My dad did this, washing dishes before we got a dishwasher. There were bits of dried on food still stuck on the plates later. And he literally bragged about doing a shit job at stuff, so he wouldn't be asked again to his friends in front of the rest of us. I was so pissed off at him but couldn't even say anything because nothing would have improved.
The thing that infuriates me is this. They "don't know how" because "nobody showed them." So you show them. And show them. And show them. And they "keep forgetting" or "just don't get it."
My ex used to say it is because he is "aneurotypical" and his brain works differently so he won't always get things right.
Exactly!
When it comes to a child, okay, but when it’s an adult absolutely not okay.
They don't like the discomfort of being responsible.
We suffer from dealing with their incompetence because we think they are the only people we have. Distance is the only answer to disrespect..
Yes!
What's almost worse are the ones who talk a big game, never do anything, then criticize and find fault with the people who do take initiative do the thing.
This is my situation as well as telling others that he does a lot which is a lie
All narcissists I know are incompetent 🤦♂️ it just sucks when it’s parenting.
Absolutely! I was adopted by people like this.
But but but, they know more than everyone about everything. They said so.😋
@@mrsqueakthecat.8061 They are simultaneously the bestest evaah and the total L0sers.
yes, failure to launch and they hold us back.
Narcs love to give orders to others regarding what needs done, but THEY are above menial tasks they prefer to supervise, even on the home front. Lazy as heck, AND truly inept at everything, yet hold high positions at work. My ex used duck tape for diapers and any and all tasks. Many men despise being told or asked to do anything and avoid adulting, for sure on the home front, worse than a 2 year old, they whine, evade and avoid or always run out of time for anything that needs done but have plenty of time for what leisure they enjoy.
I love being old and retired. I don't need to cover for coworkers' "weaponized incompetence." I had no choice as a flight attendant. If a passenger complained about service, the whole crew got in trouble.
I don't care what anyone thinks about me anymore. I know that I'm a kind and caring person, but I don't need to be codependent or an enabler to prove it. I can live out my last years peacefully and without fear of judgment, now or later.
That's a brilliant example.you were in a job where you HAD to pick up the slack. Sometimes it can be like that, until we can get away from that situation one day
Wow! Considering that you're referring to "being up there" with no way out, this sounds crazily dreadful from a passenger's perspective too!
On a manager’s orders, I spent the best part of a year sorting out a colleagues messes, assignments he ‘couldn’t handle’, and offering supportive training. At the end of the year, said colleague got a productivity award and I was criticised for my poor work ethic and having to do so many reworks.
The next year, someone else got to help him… Rinse and repeat…
I’m chuckling away because you are echoing my thoughts. 😂😀🥂
@@clogs4956 Good grief, what a f'ing nightmare!
I have always viewed weaponized incompetence as being in the same category as weaponized procrastination. They use it the same way.
Weaponized incompetence is a very powerful tool against the empathic around the narcissists. The latter use it not just to get things done for them without lifting a finger, but also as a way to claim their dominance over others. The emotional manipulation in this tactic is really repulsive in my opinion.
Not only did I have a narcissistic, abusive, husband for 15 years, but I've also worked with loads of people like this over the years. The managers all know about them, yet nothing's done about it, and their solution to the problem is to get us hard-working, competent ones to cover for them. You find yourself doing your work, their work, and we're all getting paid the same!
One of my competent co-works had a favorite line when we discussed this... "work flows to the competent people until they submerge."
Yes! This. I understand completely.
This is one of the things that sucks about being new at a large company. These predatory people come out of the woodwork 'I couldn't do X because you didn't do Y' - well, there was no training, no explanation, no indication that Y was even a thing. Bonus points when the person who's supposed to do Y task is actually the person who told you it was your job.
I hear ya! I was also married to an abusive narc for 15 years, and the vulnerable narcissist I worked with ended up being our basement suite tenant. The husband is gone now, and I can't wait to move away from this house with the roommate.
100% nailed this on all points. Weaponized incompetence is just another form of passive aggression. They also use it to say, “but I did help you, it’s not my fault if you’re a perfectionist or I can’t do it as well as you or I don’t do it the way you want. It’s not my fault if I don’t do it the way you want, that’s on you.” It’s a lose lose either way
Narcissists may also use weaponized incompetence in a financially abusive way. They may have a history of addiction, mismanagement, bankruptcy, unemployment, etc. and they use those things to avoid paying debts, contributing to household expenses, or to punish their partners by leaving them with the financial burden.
Years ago I worked with a woman who convinced me she was too busy to do her job, so like a chump, I offered to help. Guess what happened? Her work got dumped on me while she did nothing, making way more money than I did. She couldn’t do the job because she was completely incompetent, but for whatever reason, people (flying monkeys) believed her. When I finally spoke up - guess what happened. SMEAR CAMPAIGN! I had to quit. She took it so far it infiltrated my family life. Suddenly asking my cousin (who happened to live next door to her - small town), to hang out. She actually sent people to our house to pretend like they wanted to purchase it when we decided to move. It was such a nightmare experience. It’s over a decade later and I’m still dealing with the repercussions of telling someone I wasn’t going to do their job for them anymore. She even convinced people SHE was doing MY job when it was so obvious she wasn’t. She promoted, but she was so incompetent they had to hire her an assistant and that person got all her work dumped on her. It makes me just sick. I will NEVER understand why people blindly believe narcissists. Why can’t people see through that?? Like look at facts!
I worked so hard on our homestead, and he did nothing. He would just stand there and watch me work. He always said, I don't know what to do. Who told ME what to do? No one, that's who. I learned all on my own. I finally quit after so much blood, sweat and tears. When he couldn't help build a bigger chicken coop, I just quit. No more huge gardens, I tilled with a broadfork, by hand. Now, I am looking for a little rv to move into and leave this empty marriage/relationship behind. I am beyond DONE with incompetence!!! Life is too short and I'm not living like this with what little time I have left!
I secured our rescue chickens and was trying to buy all the materials to make a chicken coop, I even bought power tools cos my partner didn't have any besides a rusty electric screwdriver, I asked for help to build it and my partner said it would be too complicated, after giving up and cancelling my order for our rescued chickens, my partner complained and said "well I would have helped you build one!" what kind of messed up world do they live in?
@@melyngoch it's always our fault. No matter what! I'm not his excuse anymore! Stay strong and know you are not alone! 🙏🏻💯💪🏼🥰
This confirms this is the person i am married to. Our daughter once referred to him as weaponizing incompetence. The light went on and I knew it wasn't just me doing too much and not knowing how to ask for help. I am exhausted. I want to be alone just so i can rest.
A video confirms your marriage issues? Trust this you are the problem if you can be this foolish.
"They TALKED about getting stuff done -- but they didn't DO the things" -- both my parents have found evilly ingenious ways to do this
I always get the "nobody asked you to..." thrown at me after I either fix or pay for something. It's amazing how quickly they forget when you step up or make it seem like you're asking for a kidney when thinking you might get a simple thank you.
Ugh, let's say I make a nice home-cooked meal, and I ask for help with the dishes, i get "well I didn't tell you to make that food. I would have been fine eating cereal or something."
Funny you mention the kidney. That's how I felt for 25+ years of marriage to a Narc. Asking for *anything* had such terrible consequences that I learned to do everything myself and not ask anymore. The interesting thing is that the new supply won't see that side of them for a while... My ex-narc currently looks like a housekeeper... 🙄 Won't last. 😂
Ugh. "Nobody asked me to pay bill!" It's a utility bill. The utility company asks you to pay it every month. What do you mean no one asked you?! Hate their total lack of logic and lack of just saying thank you. At least their laziness would be more tolerable if they were at least thankful someone was doing their life for them.
@@angelaa7388 And this is why I now have a rule that whoever eats the food, but didn't do the cooking, has to do the dishes. If you don't want to do the dishes, don't eat my food. Normal people, friends, partners have always understood this rule as reasonable. It's helped out some unsavory people in my life when they balked and said I dirtied them so I should clean them.
@@angelaa7388WaaaaaW 😳 that hit a nerve for me
Hecktic I'm sorry that was said to you
My Dad said something similar to me
I was incensed at the gall and cruelty of the situation, and powerless to do anything about it, as a child under his rule
Wow, never knew this. Learning about narcissists is like learning about a different human breed.
I used to wonder if mine was a subspecies of human or possibly had a higher percentage of Neanderthal than normal.
I know that feeling
Or the devil
DING DING DING, narcissism=demonic possesion@@patrick8116
They are a different breed. Spawn from the depths of a very bad place.
And when you have that one thing you never knew how to do and tell the narcissist that you don’t know how to do it, you will likely be met with shame and even ridicule with them telling you to your face that you are incompetent and they’ll say something along the lines _“Oh why is it always me that has to do everything around here!”_
My ex never taught me how to drive a stick shift! But we only had one vehicle that was manuel. (His truck when we got married) Everything since we've just bought automatic. Yet he told our oldest that I "couldn't" drive a stick shift. 🤬
I get told that I think he can't do anything right. It gets very, very old.
Was my Mother
Ah yes. Almost forgot about that one!
My mother was like this & she would REFUSE to learn, especially when it came to tech stuff. I cut her off completely 5 yrs ago and I often wonder if she decided to figure out how to work her phone and iPad, or if she just continues to find boyfriends to do it for her. It has also inspired me to be the opposite- wherever possible, I learn how to do the thing. My partner is highly skilled when it comes to DIY skills, but I watched RUclips videos how to use our drill to anchor our dressers to protect our toddler because it needed to be done. I’m not going to feign ignorance even to the stuff I don’t know, I’m going to get the help I need to figure it out. It has made our relationship better since I started making these efforts because he has taken more initiative with tasks that use to fall on me as well. You CAN outgrow your narcissistic upbringing!
You are describing my ex-husband word for word, although this seemed to a phenomenon which only happened at home. As far as I knew, he did was competent at work, but then he was dealing with his first love at work: electronics. I came home once after a day away. As soon as I walked in the door our toddler fell apart. I asked my husband what he'd fed our kiddo for lunch. His answer: nothing. Me (astonished): Why didn't you feed him? Him: because he didn't tell me he was hungry! Doesn't that say it all.
Thank you for the education and vocabulary on this topic! My narc would purposefully mess up household chores so that I wouldn't expect him to do them again. He would say things like "Well, if you want it done right, then YOU do it!" It was very passive aggressive.
I had an ex whom I had asked to empty the litter box. This was a rare occasion when I had asked them to. They literally turned around and said, "Oh, but you do it so much better than I can." I stood there, thinking, "It's not that hard. You take a bag, put the litter box in the bag, empty the litter into the bag, close the bag, put the bag down the garbage chute, and there you go-simple, right?" However, just the audacity to turn around and tell me, in other words, they WERE REALLY SAYING "Oh, sorry, I don't want to do it, so you have to do it yourself."
Right...only without "sorry" part😂
@@Olivera81 this ex wasn't stupid that's the sad part. It really does not take a genius to figure out how to empty out a litter box. The ironic thing is that when we broke up they actually gonna get a cat with his next partner
OMG I heard that almost EVERY time I asked him to do something. It’s a mind **F** because he also spends A LOT of his energy to let me know I can’t do anything right!
@@idontknowyouthatsmypurseSad but true, true. They won't do anything for themselves, yet when you won't do anything for them they get pissed off. It's trying to soothe a 2 year old who's throwing the biggest tantrum ever. No matter how many times and as calmly as you can explain to the person they just don't get it.
Yeah, it may and may not be quite as lazy as it seems. It ight be more troubling than that. I've dealt with some narcissists who can't cope with the paranoid and ever-present thought that someone might be trying to get the better of them (which they developed from their life spent constantly strategizing against others) that they just assumed that everybody else was doing so in every interaction and therefore treated everyone as an adversary ahead of time (and of course confirmation bias would take hold when that person eventually strategized back). It'd be an extremely destabilizing mental life. They'd have a fit if they knew how transparent their personality was. I know someone who basically trained her daughters to be this way. She didn't want to grow old, so she trained her daughters to be the train-wreck that she is so that she could live vicariously through their narcissism. Muffia-types-that's how they are.
This describes my husband’s ex as if you were there. A grown woman, bounced checks because “Why would I have checks if I didn’t have enough money?”, wouldn’t cook or clean or get a job, continually ran out of gas…. On and on. So naturally he did everything and she criticized. It was actually a real problem when we were first married because he assumed he’d have to do the lions share of work with us, and was stunned that I did in fact operate on his level. Forty years later he’s still grateful for the smallest thing I do for him, which is sad in a way since it’s so unconditionally offered but I get it. The damage a covert narcissist does leaves deep scars.
Forty plus years ago, I entered the workforce. Weaponized incompetence was a familiar behaviorist pattern limited to a small number of employees. Then a cultural shift happened, employees attitudes seemed more entitled, I noticed more effort to avoid work and less effort to do the work. Unfortunately, I was one of the employees that over functioned to ensure safe and secure patient care and pick up the slack. My genuine efforts also came with sides of: insomnia, exhaustion, anger, anxiety, mistrust, moodiness, and unhappiness. Last year I retired, best decision I made in years. For those who over function to compensate for the entitled, please continue to listen to Dr. Ramani and her incredible work, so that you are less likely to repeat my mistakes.
One way I've seen incompetence used is when they do something incorrectly, then blame you. You didn't tell them, or you didn't say it needed to be done THAT way. From that point on, they now have an excuse to never do that task again because they "can never get it right because you're so picky." So you adjust and try to "make sure" they understand what they're supposed to do beforehand. Except now you're blamed for treating them like a child, or not trusting them. So that becomes their excuse for not stepping up.
Seriously, you can't solve this problem. There's always another excuse, and it'll always be your fault.
Or they'll say "I was
Or they'll say "I was going to do that" after you've already done whatever it was.
This was so my mother. She was extremely intelligent and a talented artist but she wouldn't do anything. Never done anything with her talent. She was too busy manipulating everyone and having others do for her. My dad was a narcissistic person too but in a different way. I can honestly say I wish I'd been give up for adoption and never known either of them.
I understand the sentiment behind your comment, but while not every adopter is a narc, there's a really high rate of narcissistic women who adopt - so much so, there's a nickname for the phenomenon in the adoptee community - something like Narcissistic Adoptive Mother Syndrome, or NAM for short.
So, there's a good chance you'd still have ended up having a similar life, unfortunately.
My adoptive dad was a narc, and my adoptive mum wasn't so bad but she's not emotionally healthy herself, and probably never has been. I was probably more mature than either of them by the time I was a young adult.
You also never get over being given up by your birth parents/mother - adoptees who seem OK have literally buried the trauma so deep they don't realise it's there, even if the separation happened when they were a baby and they haven't been told.
I wished my real parents would show up and take me away to a better place. But unfortunately my narcissistic mother and fraudulent father were my real parents, and I was stuck with them.
That’s a common sentiment.
You just described my 35 year marriage! He would do a chore or fix something, but do it so badly that I had to redo/fix it. So to save myself the hassle I'd just do it myself. At one point I was solely managing the schedules of 3 senior parents/in-laws, two teenagers, and an incompetent spouse. Never again!!!!
Another way that narcissists frequently weaponize incompetence is to use reactive abuse by purposely doing something they know will upset you or give you anxiety and claiming it was just a mistake or they didn't know it was a problem or something that would upset you. Things like repeatedly leaving the house and "forgetting" to shut the stove off or leaving the front door wide open when you are sleeping. After about the tenth time and an accident that only happens when you are sleeping. It's pretty obvious what's happening. It's always an accident according to the narcissist. An accident that coincidentally, happens more often the more upset they see that you are with whatever they are doing.
The narcissist I have been dealing with also purposely damages things in my home. He dents and scratches things, cuts holes in anything new brought into the house including the flooring because he knows that having my home look nice was important to me. He always claims it was accidental or that he doesn't know how the damage happened. They really do think that we are all stupid. When things like this happened in the beginning before I knew who and what I was dealing with, I thought they were just accidents and then they started happening with a too frequent to be an accident consistency once I expressed my negative feelings about whatever was happening. Every time I told him something bothered me it would then become a nearly daily occurrence. There are too many examples like that to list here.
If you know you “can’t” do something, you don’t get to put that responsibility on somebody else. Be an adult and learn how to do it.
Some people legitimately cant learn some things which is where the sharing of labor in healthy relationships comes in - narcissists will not even be willing to talk about why they cant do something and will simply deflect, shift blame, gaslight.
Right. I think the healthy way is to ask to be taught or ask for a little guidance about how to learn if you don’t know where to start. The narcs don’t even try.
💯💯💯
When Narcs weaponize incompetence:
They criticize others for incompetence.
They feign ignorant innocence to pay the buck onto another...and criticize that person for doing the job poorly or complain to get sympathy or rob them of the credit they deserve...or do all of it and gaslight to add confusion.
You can't win.
What do you do if someone has tech issues and really faces challenges with certain online tasks (e.g. online applications, travel arrangements, phone issues, etc.?) While some of us have had to use tech at work, others have not. This creates a real challenge for many in our society at work and home. These skills can take a long time to master….and in some cases, it is like math phobia. People just freeze or get frustrated and then lean on others. My motto is “be a learner” but not everyone shares that mindset either. Any insights appreciated.
Thank you SO MUCH for covering this critical issue. These people can drive you absolutely bugshit insane with the extra workload they place on you.
This was a CONSTANT thing in my marriage. It annoyed me to no end. Once I run across someone who does it, I lose respect for them and I distance myself from them.
“You’re so much better at doing this than I am” or “You love doing this” or “You don’t let me do it, you always complain about the way I do it.” There was always an excuse! My boyfriend “cleaned” like his wrists were broken. Everything was left to me 🤬 He even bragged to me how he had a co-corker peel an orange for him because he was hungry but didn’t want to peel it 🙄
Its worst when its being done deliberately to be spiteful and undermining, just to test someone's patience, intelligence & integrity for their sick and weird amusement its absolutely the strangest thing people do to feed their need to critique another person's life. Its truly sad people feel the need to play mind games with someone and try to discredit or deny what has been experienced.
I learned what weaponized incompetence was with my younger brother. Introduce him to a machine, he could figure it out with ease. Expect him to do any kind of housework, and suddenly he'd be unable to figure it out and argue until it was given up on and someone else did it.
I am having such a hard time in my life right now, trying to navigate my mother. She is 65 and has literally been “sick” all of our lives. I watched her feign incompetence all of my life and saw how it affected everyone in the family (my dad and us five kids). Everything was left to my dad because she was always “too sick.” After my dad passed away 7 yrs ago, it was a huge loss. She has not functioned since then, but we see it more like she never functioned and now he is not here to compensate for it anymore. She goes to the hospital all the time, they run tests, maybe give her an antibiotic and send her home. The cycle continues. She won’t cook, clean, won’t bath (it has been years, no exaggeration) and doesn’t even wash her hands. There’s so much to the situation and because no one has ever heard of anyone behaving this way, I am at a loss of what to do. She isn’t suicidal and isn’t actively trying to hurt herself or anyone else. She simply is choosing not to function and saying it’s because of one ailment or another. Her lack of participation in life effects me because I have to worry about her, do things she should be doing and I am so overwhelmed. My sister has suggested that she is a narcissist a long time ago and for some reason I resisted the idea. This idea of weaponized incompetence I have heard of before but for some reason never applied it to this situation. I am very overwhelmed and lost, the medial system is failing her and no one knows what to do. She is angry and entitled and saying that my dismissal of her “medical problems” is abusive. She is the perpetual victim. I was even considering munchausens as a possibility, because she has always been in the sick role. Funny thing is, she has never had any serious health issues like cancer/diabetes/etc. she barely even gets a cold! I can analyze and speculate all day, but it’s not helping anything. just wanted to see if anyone had any thoughts or knows someone similar 😢
Thanks for your response. I’m sorry to hear that, as well. I do think there is an element of acceptance on my part that I have to work ok.
My husband (now ex) took our son out for a walk, when he was still just a toddler. It was usually me who did it , but I had a migraine. He (our son) fell over a rock and came back crying with a large bruise on his forehead. When I asked what happened, apparently it was my fault, because my dear hubby was "so used to me being there" to keep an eye on our son that he hadn't been doing it. He had "just assumed that he was keeping up." I didn't know what narcissism was at the time, and I cringe to remember how, after being subjected to some pretty intense blame shifting, I ended up apologising to him. 😖
Weaponised incompetence can be devastating and can sometimes be extreme.
Two words "zero effort" that's what they do they put in zero effort into anything including remembering instructions.
Does anyone here have any narcissistic family or friends who offer their help to you when you're down and out but you can feel them judging you the entire time that you're accepting their "help"? So they come to your "aid" when you are at your lowest point in life just to condemn you for all the life choices you made that brought you to the point they are in a position to help you but somehow their help ends up making you feel even worse about yourself and or your situation somehow worsens due to their interference in a bizarre twist of fate despite all their "assistance?"
Yes, I have experienced this with family and friends. I no longer engage with them and I feel so much better. Wishing you peace. Keep going.
Yes, and then there's the way they can make a big thing of 'offering to help' in front of an audience, but then they never seem to be able to actually be there when the help is most needed. Oh, and they can feel superior in patronising you. Nothing like a good kick when you're down!
Yes, Roxy. I'm female. My female cousin of approximately my age loaned me money for an expensive trip I needed to make. I knew I could pay her back because I was approved for a student loan. I took my trip and returned. My student loan was delayed (by about a week), but did arrive and I immediately repaid my cousin. My female cousin then blamed me, not only for my delay in repaying her, but also for having borrowed the money to begin with. She claimed that she had lived in fear that her husband would discover that money was missing from her bank account and that loaning me the money had jeopardized her marriage. In the following years, she treated me badly, so I got away from her. I'm so glad I got away from her.
@@vintage6346 in that case, it would have been her fault; she wasn't being forced to loan you the money, and there's also the fact she could have potentially discussed it with her husband first - ultimately, everyone knows loaning any amount of money is a risk, even if it's to a family member or best friend!
@@ShintogaDeathAngel
Thanks for the support. And, I agree. The fact was that her husband barely worked and she was the breadwinner. But "submission" was a huge part of their belief-system, so that supposedly it didn't matter which one had earned the money. They are now divorced and she has remarried. I still stay clear of her.
Yup. This was my 14 year long marriage to a Narcissist. This man child could build houses, for goodness sake, but would throw tantrums when he had no clean boxers or washcloths, when there weren't clean dishes, etc. 🤦🏻♀️
So validating to hear this behavior named and described. My ex was exactly like this. He was supposed to be the stay-at-home parent while I worked, which was a complete train wreck. He did one load of laundry in 5 years. When asked to put the dishes away, he'd just set them on the counter or in random places. Of course, this is just scratching the surface.
Coparenting with weaponized incompetence.. I didn't think that it could get worse than parenting in the same home with a narcissist. But it sure did.
It's good that we're starting to talk about the actual behavior that we notice with narcissism.
Sounds passive aggressive so the responsibility never falls on the narc again
Oh my God. I could barely watch this. And still haven't made it completely through. This is 1000% my sister! She is this in every area of her life, especially money. I have bailed her out so many times financially, doing things for her, etc. and I won't do it again.
Here is a great example. A few years ago she received a certification for medical records from a college in her area. But she never paid the final fee so they withheld her certificate. She lied on a resume about having it and when they made her show it she didn't have it. She was TOO LAZY to drive to the college a few miles away and get it handled in person. And of course she blames the college for this!
She also has a house I helped her buy 20 years ago that has fallen in total disrepair. Of course it is the houses fault, not hers. But she does have every closet filled with clothes and subscribes to a very expensive makeup and facial cream company. Lord help us all having to deal with these people.
My ex has done everything in this post.. all of it! And when it wasn’t weaponized it was just plain incompetence. Best line during parenting years: “I don’t have the hormones for taking care of babies”
Thank you for this video. You are so right. I experienced weaponised incompetence from my n-ex throughout our marriage. He claimed to be completely incompetent with any practical task, so that I had to do it. He also refused to pay for anyone else to do it. So, I ended up having to learn how to do pretty extensive DIY tasks to be able to repair, maintain and improve our home. I single-handedly renovated two homes, including getting up on the roof to repair it, manoeuvre heavy materials and equipment on my own etc. My n-ex would stand around, saying he didn't know how to help, but when I offered to show him so that we would do it together he would offer to make me a cup of tea and then disappear. Later, this shifted to him blaming me for any problems with our house. Even though I worked full-time I had to do this on top of my job. I think he also used his 'incompetence' as opportunities to try to accidentally kill me eg switching on the electricity at the main fuse box when I was replacing a socket and refusing to climb a short ladder to help me down when I fell on some scaffolding because of his supposed fear of heights. I agree with you that a covert narcissist is the last person we'd want to be stranded on a desert island with.
I have no words. Thank God he's an ex.
They're super passive aggressive. And if they act like they can't do it then they get you to do it so that they never have to do it. Passing the buck 100%
Lol this literally describes my fathers daily behavior. He's very intelligent but plays the games you described so it makes him look and sound dumb af. What's worse is when I call out the ridiculous behavior he will keep doing the wrong thing over and over again and act like it's my fault even though he is making his situation worse by being self-destructive.Which follows with more weaponized incompetence.
Here's an example. I asked him to turn the front porch light on for me at night so when I come home from work I am not walking around in the dark for my safety. The restroom is located by the light switch for the front porch. He avoided going to the restroom and urinated all over himself just so he could say, "Oh, I haven't been near that part of the house so I never had a chance"
They are so ridiculous, it's disgusting.
Amen! My ex was a pro at this, it made me crazy! I even overheard her tell a friend of hers, “all you have to do is act and/or say you can’t do something long enough and someone will to do it.” 🤬
They know they're doing it. Thats the part that gets me.
@@IamtheEricaBergstromExactly!
People like that we can never get away from.If you cut them off eventually you will run into another one like that later on.But that is bad when narcissists know that they are being sneaky like that
funny how they are always so "perfect" but yet are unable to accomplish even minute tasks
Thank you Dr. Ramani for giving this a name. I've seen it in action at home for years while the narc is fully in charge in public. Just another part of the sh-t list of living with a narc.
I agree about "grit" and "hustle" being no substitute, no matter how intelligent or how big you talk.
And that's really the tragedy of narcissists. All that energy they put into manipulation and trying to appear great could actually be used to make them as great as they want to be!
This is my husband! He always told me it was his ex who was a narcissist but I’m beginning to see it’s him too. He has admitted to me that he used to do things badly and pretend not to know how to do stuff so he didn’t have to do them again. It’s the exact same here. He hasn’t got a clue.
This brings back a memory when I was a young teen. My sister’s boyfriend was acting like a baby saying he didn’t know how to iron his shirt. So she did it for him. After she left the room. He laughed smugly and said he just said that so she would do it for him. Looking back. My sister was a stunning beautiful girl who loved him. He was a tall handsome player. I didn’t think much at the time because she was mean and hateful toward me. Looking back we waste our pearls because there are no good options. No protection in life. Or little. The story gets much worse from there. 😢
You paint a bleak picture, like someday soon the sadness of the world is going to fill the air.
My father has always been like this and my mom has always done everything for him. "That's how men are" she said. And their partner is like their babysitter🤦🏻♀️
A guy I used to hang out with tried to get me to do stuff for him because "he was drunk" and "didn't want to look like a tit" when ordering a takeaway - I, being used to this kind of sh*tty ruse cos of my dad, just told him if he wanted a pizza that badly to get on with it.
Every time you post a new video it’s like you live in my house and have witnessed my reality. Thank you 🙏
Indeed Dr Ramani could read our plight from afar..
The emotional incompetence though!!! Im still figuring all of this out, but I think that my doing all the emotional lifting in the relationship contributed to my becoming lost in this strange abyss while he appears to be the stand-up, hard working guy.
"Weaponized Incompetence" is the perfect description of government. Any government.
Many are there to be in a bribeable position, it seems like (and often is) incompetence paid for
These people are a nightmare. They exist to make everyone around them miserable.
There's an old Japanese saying: whatever you do or are doing, make sure you do a good job. It's so ridiculously simple yet so true.
Ahhhh my mother’s forte in life - weaponised incompetence + no accountability + victimhood + guilt tripping (gaslighting??!) + smear campaigning = my mother’s covert narcissism 😭😭 …
Sounds like my dad
Thank you for explaining that. This is one of those maddening little things that victims often cannot put into words. This happens so often. It’s heartwarming to hear someone explaining our pain.
I think there's always a way to put things into words. It just takes a lot of attention sometimes. Narcissists seem to make it their job to make explanations of their behaviour take as much time, attention, and energy as possible.
Here's the kicker.the other thing they are good at is saying they are going to do something and never do it.
I like the term ‘weaponised incompetence’. The Narc will deliberately drop a tactical nuke and leave the victim(s) to clear up ground zero AND THEN blame the victim(s) for forcing them to drop the bomb.
a few years ago, i was choking on a cough-drop at home in our bedroom. i told my wife to do the hymlic on me but she was worried about my chocking and said that it couldn't be done till i passed out (wrong!). then my airway was completely blocked and i wasn't going to wait! so i did my own hymlic using the end of the dresser.
OMG! I am sure if anything ever happened to me my husband would be like a chicken without a head.
Sexlessness. Sharing a bed with someone who doesn’t acknowledge you are a sexual being hurts so much. I was in a sexless marriage for years. Being a woman with a high libido, I felt inadequate. Worst I feel invisible. The man who was “supposed” to want me, just didn’t. We talked about it many times, more than I can recall now. It was always me. I wanted too much - once a week was too much for him. I didn’t initiate - he was always complaining of headaches, stomaches, always stressed, always tired. I was too sexual - when being subtle doesn’t work, what is next? Explicitly saying I wanted sex. Oh but then it was not appropriate. Conversations would end up with him saying he didn’t feel desired or I made him feel emasculated because he didn’t want sex as much as I did. Yeah, it was always me. I could never win. While we were dating we would have a decent amount of sex, it was good. The first huge red flag was not having sex in our honeymoon - which I ignored. It rapidly decrease to once a week, then every other week. Years gone by it was months in between, by the time we divorced it was over a year with no sex. I cried myself to sleep more times that I can count. I didn’t understand what was wrong with me. Was I that undesirable? Was I repulsive? After those conversations, I just stopped trying, initiating, mentioning sex. We were still loving - holding hands, hugging, kissing - but sex was off the table. He then cheated on me. Swore he had sex only 4 times in a year (or more) long affair. It didn’t matter. For years my self worth was damaged by him, years of low self esteem, years of feeling less of a woman, the marriage that was more than over, waiting in hospice, really ended. Funny how things are, I asked him for a divorce, he manipulated me into staying, next day his infidelity came to light. I was out as soon as I could. Best thing of my life. Additionally, That feeling when your partner cheated and you don't have the courage to leave him / her so you just death with the pain and live everyday asking questions about your worth. This pain is different from the cheating one_living and seeing him everywhere anticipating when he or she do it again. The best thing is to hire a private investigator digitalinvestigate@gmail.com to help you spy on their cellphone remotely just like he did for me...
Sorry to hear this. Thanks for sharing.
OMG!!! 😮😮😮 Have I EVER experienced this!?!?! 😠😡🤬 I do love the term “weaponized incompetence”. ❤️ So on point. 👈
Oh my god! I finally can explain my anger towards my passive aggressive cant'-do-nothing-by-myself-please-do-it-for-me but i-will-take-the-credit-for-your-help-and-pass-it-on-as-my-hard-work-to-the-manager colleague!!!
Oh my. One week into my marriage he comment that the grapefruit I served was not segmented for him. "But my mother always did it." I knew he wanted to stay in his little nest. I also knew I could not afford to have a child with him. I would not reproduce a double.
Agree, I experienced it almost everyday with my spouse...so draining and sickening sad to say.😢
This weaponized incompetence was a huge feature in my marriage to my narc. “I hated finger painting as a child” meant he wouldn’t prep food, clean up dishes, or clean toilets…anything that might involve getting his hands wet, even with gloves on! I knew it was bs, but you can’t win!
Hi Dr Ramani and everyone. They will use any excuse in the book to get out of doing something. It's pretty sad when a grown man tells a woman to push a car out in the snow & ice. Yes, I pushed the car while his ass was in there steering! 😭
😢😢😢 you can say it again
Sometimes they're complete know-it-alls. In others, they break out the woe-is-me victim repertoire. Whatever suits the circumstance. Just as they love passing on their emotional tensions, they love passing on basic personal responsibilities that have nothing to do with other people.
For example, my covert narc mom is money- and status-obsessed and lives in a huge house she can't afford on her own, and tries to guilt and shame her kids into helping her with it physically and with money. Complains how everything is so expensive, and how it's the politicians' fault blah blah. If you politely tell her she can't afford the house and it's her own responsibility, then she gets nasty and gaslights about people doing what makes them happy, etc. No accountability. They're sick and won't change.
THIS!!!! I heard this phrase for the first-time last week and I've been hoping Dr. Ramani would do a video. This is the preferred gas lighting technique of my 50-year marriage. It's only gotten worse since his retirement eight years ago. It's decidedly more noticeable since we are together almost 24/7 All the things we were going to get done so we could travel are delayed or screwed up in such a way as to cost more time and money than they should have. I'm so tired of it and his fragile ego I no longer have any desire to get things prepped for aging in place nor going anywhere with him. Especially not on an extended trip.
I’ve always called this “learned helplessness”. Irritates me to no end.
Learned helplessness is something else. There are sad videos on YT about experiments on dogs to give them Learned Helplessness.
Lmao. I don’t know how to break a coconut 😂😂😂 Ya, I also won’t do family therapy because I can’t figure out zoom. Barf.
@@aSimpleTailor Thanks! I will look that up.
@@aSimpleTailor Yes, and people's belief in their own competence and trust in their abilities can be completely destroyed by being raised in an utterly invalidating childhood family environment by incompetent and abusive chaotic narcissistic 'parenting', where the parents are too busy and overwhelmed and do not know the essentials of good parenting.
I have known of cases where one parent has good intentions and works hard and ethically to raise the child and the domineering and invalidating parent's contribution is to tear down the good work of the parent who is acting responsibly, that is, they destroy the budding child, because they are that domineering, narcissistic and abusively invalidating.
I.e., the parents are in fact at odds in their parenting. The result can be
a destroyed child, suicide, etc.
This is a serious matter for society.
Some people should not become parents, but they do not realize that they lack the abilities needed to raise a child, because, e.g., they are too young and arrogant, and for most people it's is easy to produce a child, being fertile and driven by their sex drive to mate, of course.
The psychological challenges of attempting to raise a child, children,
in a family system where domestic abuse occurs, are such that it truly would be best to divorce early on, tragic as that is and harrowing as the process may be, if one has the good of one's children at heart.
A problem here is the social shaming of divorce and the mere logistics, too.
The abused spouse may be in denial and worn down over time.
They are in an untenable position.
The children are harmed by being raised in FOOs where chaos and patterns of abusive dominance reign
Narcissistic abuse is real and pernicious, and hidden in such a family. The damage done psychologically to the children is tragic.
The damage done psychologically over time, even decades, to the non narcissistic parent is tragic.
This happens all the time and is covered up.
It makes me sad to see that domestic violence programs locally are being shut down due to lack of funding and interest, perhaps.
Compassion and wisdom are crucial in parenting, and unfortunately
our society does not seem to prioritize, value or exemplify that much.
This is indicative of Kali yuga.
We need enlightened hearts and minds. We need to really know ourselves and our potential co-parent
BEFORE we reproduce, and not be dazzled by our own fantasies.
In parting, we must realize that the toll of narcissistic abuse is societal, as Dr. Rajmani and others have pointed out in previous videos, and
it occurs in all hierarchical strata or castes, if you want to call the structures that, from the wealthy money wise to the impoverished, and from the less formally educated to those with PhD's.
So we cannot judge from the exterior impressions. It is much deeper than appearances or words.
Learned helplessness is not the same thing. Learned helplessness is often not the person's choice and is often punitively enforced on vulnerable people for the convenience of those in power. It shouldn't be confused with weaponised incompetence.
Once you know about narcissism, you can’t unsee it lol
10 months with a narc and NEVER again.
This us so so true once you start to see it it is impossible to not see it ever again
@janlouisemakiling 💯for real👍😱👺
Is it still considered weaponized incompetence if they don't do the things and they always have some excuse as to why they didn't? My ex would leave dishes in the sink in the morning always saying "I don't have time to wash them" (meanwhile I know she sat on social media for 20-30min at a time in the morning) or leave boxes by the front door saying things like "my hands were full" and I would constantly have to be the one to wash her dishes when I got home or take the boxes/trash out. I also later found out from her old coworkers that, if I didn't wash her dishes and just left them, she would complain to them that I didn't wash her dishes but I washed mine (yes, I was being petty because it was so frequent even after I mentioned it to her multiple times). Now that's not to say that she sometimes didn't do those things but, way more often than not, I was the one cleaning up after her.
For too many years I was genuinely confused - How was it my INCREDIBLY successful ex-husband (educated, wealthy, and in a position of great responsibility, power, and influence) could be so WILDLY capable in his work, but he could never “get” how to do simple manual labor?!? He’s so SMART, but over and over again couldn’t “remember” that his go to behaviors to “win” in his work scenarios are emotionally destroying when he uses them against me? Once I clocked the pattern to his (selectively applied) *FEIGNED* incompetence and finally pushed back on the inconsistencies (by saying, “I noticed that…) our 25 year relationship quickly fell apart. When I could no longer be manipulated, he was DONE with me.
1:23 I get around this by:
1) Being a very good teacher. Ill show you how to do it and know you know how to do it after we are done
2) Being willing to let whatever it is fail. They ruin all the clothes using the "washer wrong". Fine. Ill buy new clothes & then we will be on a strict budget (with no fun) until that money is made back up.
There is nothing I will not allow to fail. Sooner or later the other person will give in and shape up
💯💯💯🏆
Most just play victim and start badmouthing you to everyone. Dealing with a child or such childlike behavior in an adult is so taxing and if you stop making most of life easy for them from a to z they get even by more lying, cheating and silent treatment, exiting or playing the victim to others. Funny enough if called out by others witnessing their weaponized incompetence they say, oh she likes to do it or they laugh and make you out to be a shrew or compare you to their horrid mother, this behavior ruins your kids as they get older as the narc needs allies against your "unreasonable behavior" they have just projected and gas lit their incompetence onto you, this is also when you may notice alienation of your kids. They actually teach their kids the same inepitude and defiance of anything you attempt to dicipline or raise self reliant competent, respectful children. The step to full alienation of your previously competent kids is well on its way. My ex now relies on our four adult daughters to mother him, and meet his needs. They do everything for him as if he is a child. He fakes them out and uses the same bs he did on me till I got wise, but these things needed done and someone had to be the adult on the homefront. It is sickening to watch him utilize them in this way.
My aunt definitely uses this. When she says "I can't", what she means is "I don't want to", because when she does want, when she is the one being affected instead of me... then, suddenly, she is not "too old and too tired" anymore and is actually completely capable of doing what I asked her to do.
I literally just got in a fight with my narcissistic ex just yesterday and accused him of using weaponized incompetence in order to get out of having to be held accountable for things he is guilty of and he said, "Weaponized incompetence, what's that?!"
And I said, "You're doing it right now, acting like you don't understand what weaponized incompetence is."
And he said, "What are you talking about!?"
😒🙄🤦♀️
They are so disgusting, I hate them.
Oh, that was weaponized ignorance .. knew someone who was an expert in it
I had essentially the same thing happen when I accused a narcissist of gaslighting. He acted like it had no valid meaning. He was using gaslighting to avoid a discussion of his gaslighting the same way your ex used weaponized incompetence to pretend he wasn't engaging in weaponized incompetence.
How many are hired for their incompetence, to insure their superiors keep their 'superior' position?
Awesome video Dr. Ramani! You'll save a lot of folks a ton of frustration with this one.
🎯
Quite a few of them have been my colleagues or my daughter's. AND the got promoted in spite of (or because of) their incompetence while we got bullied until we quit. But before that, they would guilt trip us into insane workloads. They are a perfect argument in favour of going self-employed.
My 39 year old narc ex used to complain he nearly fainted driving home from work because he hadn’t eaten all day because I didn’t make him sandwiches in the morning. (Baring in mind he would stay in bed while I was getting my son ready for school when he could have easily made himself sandwiches) but he said he wasn’t good at making us own sandwiches wtaf. Needless to say he’s gone now - moved back in with his mother & my son & I have peaceful mornings before school ❤
“Nobody told me nothing” is my soon to be ex narcs favorite response to get out of doing something. He’s smart but toxic & lazy.
For a few years I really did think he was stupid.
Fascinating and heartbreaking. This describes my now-senior mother to a T. Now that she can't rely on my dad to do things for her, it often falls on me or my brother. If I'm available and refuse, she scoffs. If I ask her why she didn't do it herself, she says "that's man's work." Seemingly... anything she doesn't like to do is "man's work." This also includes the many times that she has offered to do things for me, but right at the last minute something falls through, there isn't enough money to do the thing, or people weren't notified/scheduled. This usually results in an argument similar to the "but you didn't tell me exactly *when* you needed [the thing]" or any other combination of excuses. Like, maybe it was to schedule a moving truck, but she offered to ask her friend if they could borrow their truck... the day comes, everything is packed up and ready to go... and nope, at the last minute "they couldn't do it, they'll have to do it some other time." (It's likely that the person wasn't even contacted.)
The worst of this is that I learned this behavior myself. We were in a bubble, and I remember learning at a certain point that being all talk was just what people did. And from watching my parents' behaviors, I could also get out of doing the dishes if it just took forever to do them, or maybe something got broken... Or maybe if I fumble with this thing long enough, someone will see and take over. That was my childhood. And it extended into my young-adulthood, promising people things that never came to fruition and then having to make a million apologies or return checks, and burning bridges along the way.
Interestingly, it has crossed over into a diagnosis with ADHD, and another video I watched about narcissists had mentioned something about how being raised by a narcissist can affect a child's executive function, and undoing that can take a lot of neural rewiring... I suspect there is a strong link between kids raised by narcissists and eventual ADHD diagnoses, so now it has been something I have had to actively call myself out on and do the work. I am really happy to have a partner from a different type of family system that didn't allow that sort of thing, so it's actually refreshing to learn how to do things well, take responsibility, and reparent myself with the right skills and tools. I love doing things for myself and learning new skills, and really being a useful person when someone needs me. But man, anytime I have to interact with my mother after being exposed to normal behavior outside the family bubble, it works on my last nerve because I know I either have to "do the thing" or brace myself for some passive-aggressive nonsense that usually builds to an argument it's allowed to build. Realizing the narcissist connection over the past few years has been a real challenge, but I'm glad Dr. Ramani has been here to help me discover the right path out of the illusion.
Thank you for this video! I see this in my mother so often. The length she will go to with acting incompetent or even stupid in order to be lazy or avoid taking accountability is shocking.
Doctor Ramani, you have helped me heal more than I can tell you. Thank you for this. You are one of the only people I can find who is distinguishing the "vulnerable narcissist". As someone who grew up with a single caretaker who is a vulnerable narcissist, your information and advice about these people is invaluable.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
To anyone out there struggling with your own narcissist, stay strong. Learn about why they do what they do and how to handle it. Get away if you can. You are not alone and all of us who know what you're going through are rooting for you.
Thanks for this!
I had exactly this in a work situation and ended up completely burnt out trying out different strategies to get this person to actually do the job they were employed for. If I took something back to basics, it was condescending. If I gave her a task to do, it was too much. If I divided a project up between the department, I would find she had off loaded her part to other team members but then said she had done it. If I made any comment on the standard or speed of work being done, I was bullying. And as a manager, I found I ended up working around her to get jobs done which meant I and the other members of the team were having to do more to cover her doing so little. But she made it her business to broadcast how hard she was working for so little recognition. I ended up leaving the job as I just couldn’t find a way of working with her that didn’t mean doing it all and then being accused of being mean. She left shortly after as my replacement saw the behaviour in the handover time and flagged it up with management immediately. I wish I had done that sooner too but I just didn’t know this behaviour existed before. I thought she just needed a bit more hand holding than anyone I had worked with before.
Not only weaponized incompetence but husband also asks me to drop everything and help him with things that only need one person to do!
Yes, yes, yes,yes. Then the want praised to high heavens for what you had to hold their hand to get it done. However, if you truly need anything that requires team effort, like moving a couch, or carring in furniture they disappear.
This is what I equate it to, you are swimming with someone you are tethered to, but they are swimming down, deeper into the abyss yet laxadazilly as you frantically try and swim towards the surface, all you can do is sever that rope that ties them to you and get air so you can breathe, then you can find the land. They are just such lost causes. It's sad but for your own survival, you can't save you both.
Praying for healing for every survivor, the feelings of hopelessness they induce and glorify in your suffering is truly sickening.
I remember my narc mother will always fake not knowing how to use her phone and will want me to do it for her but when it comes to smearing my name, she automatically know how to use her phone or laptop and I saw this with my ex too but once I left he knew how to use his phone and even knew how to order stuff from online too without my help. I felt used to be honest and am glad I walked away . This people are truly parasites and toxic. Their words are empty and they dont follow with their words. Don't ever trust a narcissist doing anything when a child comes because waiting for them to help will be waiting for dry ice to fall from the sky on an autumn day.
Oh my gosh I am so grateful that you're making this video! I just had to completely walk away from a toxic" friend" for this reason she had her own set of helpers if you will in place at her disposal every time she needed anything done. She made me feel like she was the victim of a narcissistic marriage then quickly I realized she uses victimization tactics to receive help from anyone she possibly could including emotional support it was so draining!
I have a friend I suspect is doing the same thing...
Yep 👍 just went no contact with a 'friend' like that.
she's diagnosed 'bipolar' BS
my goodness these assholes come in all shades
Yes! Same thing here with an ex friend. She always played the, "poor, poor pitiful me - I can't get out of my own way" type deal. Then I realized that she was only telling me half a story (when she would constantly complain about her partner and his kids) - she told the end of the story - not what lead up to it. So I asked her, "Feels like there's more to this story - people don't react to nothing, they react to something - so what happened that made them react like that"? No answer. That said, now she knew that I was onto her - that I wasn't buying into her anymore. Glad that's behind me - she was SO draining/exhausting to be around.