Quote Originally Posted by Adam Strange View Post
In my family, my narcissistic LSE mother had an older IEI sister, and when we visited her house, we (the kids) always got a lecture about how she (the IEI) was spending too much money on decorating, how she was raising her kids (my favorite cousins) wrong, etc. etc. In retrospect, the two sisters did not get along well at all.

My SLI father is my Supervisor, and no matter how much I (LIE) achieve, I cannot get him to say I have done anything productive with my life. It is not that he is reticent. He genuinely believes I'm a screwup. So, I find it best to simply keep a distance from him, and to expect nothing from him.

Growing up in a household with parents whose approval is conditional or non-existent forces a person to maintain a psychological distance to maintain their own identity. I sometimes felt as if my parents were trying to kill my soul, and replace it with one that they liked better. Still, maintaining a psychological distance does not remove the desire for parental love. The desire merely gets transposed to someone else. I married an SLI because she was a better version of my father, and my LSE sister married an IEI conflictor male, because the conflict and distance she felt with him was familiar to her (growing up with a narcissistic mother who was her Identical, and thus competition), but the IEI also loved her. My other sister, an LII, married an LSE male. She says she married our mother, and she's desperately looking for an out from that marriage.
Neither I nor my sisters spend any time with our parents. They sometimes ask why.

Still, my son is another SLI, and both he and my SLI ex-wife visit my LSE & SLI parents frequently. They all love each other, and call each other almost daily. So, it is not that one type or another is intrinsically good or bad, but rather it is the interactions which can be good or can be toxic.

This is why I am a strong advocate for finding a dual with whom you have compatible love-maps, world-views, and instincts. Mutual approval and support are almost a given in that situation.
This is all very interesting the way you have explained it. You have certainly worked to understand these dynamics!

My Mom is ISFj, my Dad was ISTp. I got along great with my Dad, who was easy, and my Mom was more challenging, always. A mystery. They say when your parent or person in authority over you, as in a job, is your Supervisee, you don't respect them. Certainly during my teen years I rebelled and I did not respect her; I found her exasperating. Then when I got away to college I felt guilty for that. I reflected that by marrying my ESFj ex, I "married my Mom" as the ESFj was more similar to Mom than Dad, especially in that he was hard to please, as well as quite sure and firm on how things should be done. But I was sure he loved me when I picked him, as he did a good imitation of that. And I think marrying him was a way of marrying the difficult parent, my Mom, in order to correct the past. I think that's done a lot. And it sounds like what happened in your family.

In my case, my ex's inability to understand/appreciate me only increased. I spend a long time learning how to communicate better, and trying to understand him better (which is why I learned MBTI so thoroughly) but it didn't work because, as I later understood, he purposely was withholding any sign of understanding as a way of control, as he was a Narcissist - he would withhold what he knew I most wanted. In my Mom's case, I think her inability to understand or relate had to do with the shock treatment she had for postpartum depression. I think she never was able to be herself, really, even though, like my ex, she was seemingly normal.

Its sure is hard to be our best when our lives are populated with so many fallible people!