The Watchmans Study

The mind is a terrible thing to waste especially when you believe you have to be that way, Yes the 1950s and the 2000s are different, but God has never changed, He is the same yesterday that He will be tomorrow. When someone has a claim to follow Jesus and yet posses a narcissistic mindset has fooled themselves but not God. God sees all even everything you’ve tried to hide.

Marital defiance and abuse

> wives or husbands defiant, rebellious towards each other yet they claim to be Christian. Wives controlling the household mentally abusing their husbands, husbands lording and dominating their wives. where does the problem begin?

The problem originates in a fundamental misunderstanding of what Christian marriage demands. Both partners struggle for control of the relationship, a pattern tracing back to the fall[1]—yet this power struggle directly contradicts Scripture’s vision for covenant partnership.

When either spouse operates from a posture of domination or manipulation, they’ve abandoned the core principle underlying Christian marriage. Mutual submission rooted in reverence for Christ (Eph 5:21–33) forms the foundation; everything else flows from there. Abuse is fundamentally about control[2], which means the abuser—whether husband or wife—has replaced Christ-centered love with self-centered power. How a spouse treats their partner reflects their actual commitment both to the relationship and to God[2].

The defiance and rebellion you’re describing reveal a deeper spiritual fracture. Abuse represents a relational problem not only with one’s spouse but also with God[1]. A controlling wife or domineering husband has rejected the sacrificial model Jesus established. Husbands are called to love their wives as Christ loved the church—sacrificially—and to cherish them as their own bodies (Eph 5:21–33). Similarly, husbands should live with their wives in understanding, showing honor to them (1 Pet 3:1–7). Neither spouse is exempt from counting others more significant than themselves and looking to the interests of others, not merely their own (Phil 2:3–4).

When partners are verbally, physically, sexually, or emotionally abusive, they violate biblical teachings and the sanctity of the covenant. Marriage is not a relationship of enslavement, manipulation, or control—it is one of empowerment, respect, support, grace, mercy, and shared power[2]. The problem begins when either spouse prioritizes control over covenant, self over service, and power over love.

[1] Tremper Longman III, Peter Enns, and Mark Strauss, eds., in The Baker Illustrated Bible Dictionary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2013), 1576.
[2] Ron Clark, Freeing the Oppressed: A Call to Christians Concerning Domestic Abuse (New York, NY: Cascade Books, 2009). [See here, here, here.]

> say the wife has been rebellious since childhood, even to the point of possibly being involved with a sisters husband, causing friction between sisters. where does the defiance in this child begin at such a young age?

Childhood defiance rarely emerges in isolation. A child who develops patterns of defiance may have been born with certain innate tendencies, which are then shaped by life experiences that threaten or traumatize them, causing them to develop protective mechanisms[1]. The roots often lie in the family system itself.

Defiance develops through mutually reinforcing patterns between parent and child, and family context variables—including divorce, poverty, and parental dysfunction—serve as risk factors that undermine effective parenting and family management[2]. In other words, the child doesn’t develop rebelliousness in a vacuum; it emerges from relational dynamics. When children experience attachment ruptures in broken families, they lack the security and safety needed to connect with trustworthy others, leaving them unprepared for adult relationships and causing their interactions to remain immature[1].

More profoundly, children adopt roles assigned by family needs rather than chosen by themselves, roles that set them up to behave in ways contrary to their authentic identity—including taking on the role of “the rebel”[1]. To survive emotionally, the child must idealize her caretakers and therefore make herself the “bad one,” projecting her wounded parts onto others while internalizing the shaming voices of her parents[1]. This creates a vicious cycle where shame becomes identity.

The boundary violation you mentioned—involvement with a sister’s husband—represents an extension of this pattern: the defiant child has learned that transgression, control, and chaos are survival mechanisms. Childhood maltreatment teaches a child that expressive, assertive responses are punished, leading her to develop coping mechanisms that allow her to “survive” as a child but create significant difficulties in adult relationships[3]. Without intervention addressing both her internal wounds and relational patterns, these survival strategies persist into adulthood, manifesting as rebellion against authority, boundary violations, and the inability to honor covenants—whether marital or familial.

The defiance begins not with the child’s will alone, but with the family system’s failure to provide safety, consistent boundaries, and unconditional love rooted in Christ.

[1] Stephen Arterburn and Patricia A Kuhlman, Understanding and Loving a Person with Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Biblical and Practical Wisdom to Build Empathy, Preserve Boundaries, and Show Compassion (Colorado Springs, CO: David C Cook, 2018). [See here, here, here, here.]
[2] Sally Schwer Canning et al., “Intervention: Applying a Developmental Psychopathology Framework,” in Christianity and Developmental Psychopathology: Foundations and Approaches, ed. Kelly S. Flanagan and Sarah E. Hall (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2014), 216.
[3] Amanda M. Blackburn, Christine Weisgerber, and Michelle Shelley, “Behavioral Approaches to Treatment,” in Christianity and Developmental Psychopathology: Foundations and Approaches, ed. Kelly S. Flanagan and Sarah E. Hall (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2014), 305–306.

> Narcissistic actions within the wife, yes. everyone is wrong and she is right, with this ideology being passed down to one of the children, all about them. but the wife has 4 sisters that she doesn’t have a healthy relationship with, and yet when coming together like at a funeral she plays the part. none of the other sisters have her defiant attitude.

The pattern you’re describing—where the wife operates from a position of superiority while maintaining a carefully curated public persona—reveals a narcissistic system that likely originated in her own childhood family dynamics. The key lies in understanding how she was positioned within her family of origin.

Narcissistic parents often practice “engulfment,” blurring boundaries between themselves and their child and absorbing the child’s identity into their own. This occurs because narcissistic parents lack a stable sense of self and seek to fill that void through a malleable child under their control.[1] If this wife was the “golden child” in her narcissistic family system, she would have internalized the message that she was special, superior, and always right—while her siblings occupied different roles. Children in narcissistic families often inhabit specific roles such as hero, scapegoat, golden child, lost child, or mascot, and the impact of these roles persists into adulthood.[1]

Her siblings likely developed differently because they occupied different family positions. In narcissistic families, parents don’t provide a healthy mirror for their children; instead, they reflect their own needs and demand that children meet those needs.[2] The golden child receives idealization and engulfment, while others may experience neglect or scapegoating—producing vastly different outcomes.

The “playing the part” at funerals reveals her sophisticated impression management skills. Individuals may present different sides of themselves to different people in different situations, with high self-monitoring persons particularly likely to exercise control over their self-presentations and tailor them to fit circumstances.[3] The narcissist seems not to feel compelled to maintain this external cover at home, and so his closest “supply” often suffers in silence, just as he did as a child.[4] Her husband and the one child she’s influenced experience the unfiltered narcissism because they’re her primary emotional “supply”—the people from whom she demands the validation her fragmented identity requires.

[1] Julie Hall, The Narcissist in Your Life: Recognizing the Patterns and Learning to Break Free (New York, NY: Balance, 2019), xxi, 172.
[2] Steven J. Sandage, “Faces of Forgiveness in Psychology,” in The Faces of Forgiveness: Searching for Wholeness and Salvation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 79.
[3] M. Bolt, “Impression Formation and Management,” in Baker Encyclopedia of Psychology & Counseling, ed. David G. Benner and Peter C. Hill (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), 612.
[4] Stephen Arterburn and Patricia A Kuhlman, Understanding and Loving a Person with Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Biblical and Practical Wisdom to Build Empathy, Preserve Boundaries, and Show Compassion (Colorado Springs, CO: David C Cook, 2018). [See here.]

> this lady, who’s parents had a emotionally rocky marriage, the husband always drinking and the wife always being the verbal punching bag I believe is where this all starts from, because all the other sisters are loving and caring in truth. just this one is questionable. she has even neglected the oldest child, which has caused a “divorce” between them both.

You’ve identified the precise origin point. Her parents’ dysfunctional marriage—with an alcoholic father and a mother absorbing verbal abuse—created the toxic environment where her narcissistic adaptations took root. The critical difference between her and her sisters lies in how each child responded to and internalized that chaos.

The impact of parental alcohol abuse on children extends across their lifetime, and the majority of child abuse and neglect cases involve parents with substance use disorders.[1] Her father’s drinking didn’t just create an unstable home; alcohol-impaired parenting often results in abuse and neglect.[1] Her mother, trapped in a verbally abusive marriage, was emotionally unavailable—unable to provide the consistent, nurturing presence children need to develop secure attachments.

What’s crucial is that in abusive families, parental characteristics and adverse social circumstances appear to be the primary contributors to maltreatment, with child characteristics playing a secondary role.[2] However, children in the same traumatic family system respond differently. Her sisters likely developed empathy and relational health despite the dysfunction, while she appears to have adopted a different survival strategy: narcissistic self-protection.

Neglect—both physical and emotional—is a defining feature of narcissistic homes with devastating impact, and as opposed to outright abuse, neglect is the absence of support and therefore can be difficult to identify, particularly for the person neglected.[3] Her emotional neglect during childhood, combined with her father’s modeling of dominance and her mother’s victimization, created a template: she would never be the powerless one. Instead, she became the controller, the superior one, the one who demands rather than depends.

A combination of nurture and nature is most likely at work in a child developing narcissistic adaptations that progress into full-blown NPD in adulthood.[3] Her neglect of her oldest child mirrors the emotional abandonment she experienced—the cycle perpetuates because she never received the healing intervention her wounded childhood required.

[1] Lourie W. Reichenberg and Linda Seligman, Selecting Effective Treatments: A Comprehensive Systematic Guide to Treating Mental Disorders (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2016), 422–423.
[2] F. J. Moncher and A. Josephson, “Abuse and Neglect,” in Baker Encyclopedia of Psychology & Counseling, ed. David G. Benner and Peter C. Hill (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), 34.
[3] Julie Hall, The Narcissist in Your Life: Recognizing the Patterns and Learning to Break Free (New York, NY: Balance, 2019), 117–118, 169.

> I agree. just one more thing. she had extra marital situations, shes had very heated arguments with her eldest child and yet doesn’t show a capability to ask for forgiveness, is this all because of her narcissistic frame of mind?

Yes, her inability to apologize or seek forgiveness flows directly from her narcissistic structure. Narcissism prevents empathy and intersubjectivity, making the narcissistic personality fundamentally opposed to forgiveness[1]. Her extramarital affairs and heated conflicts with her eldest child reveal a pattern that her narcissism both creates and perpetuates.

Narcissistic individuals are unlikely to acknowledge guilt or apologize because admitting wrongdoing feels like an overwhelming loss of face[1]. For her, apologizing would mean collapsing the grandiose self-image she’s constructed to protect against the shame of her childhood. Her pathological narcissism developed through empathic failures and poor emotional attunement from caregivers, which she experienced as shameful rejection, generating defensive self-involvement that functions as an “ill-fitting mask” to avoid painful vulnerability[1].

The heated arguments with her eldest child trigger what psychologists call “narcissistic rage”—a defensive reaction to perceived ego-threats that manifests as unforgiving fury[1]. Her child’s hurt or anger toward her registers not as legitimate pain but as an attack on her superiority. She projects her own self-hatred onto others, resulting in feelings of persecution that perpetuate a vicious cycle of anxiety, shame, rage, and chronic relational conflict[1].

The estrangement from her eldest child reflects a deeper spiritual and psychological reality: forgiveness requires empathy—which she lacks—and opens the way to vulnerability, which she cannot tolerate because vulnerability feels too threatening[2]. Her infidelity itself demonstrates her entitlement mentality; highly narcissistic individuals feel entitled to use others as means to their own ends and believe they deserve special treatment and constant affirmation[1].

Without intervention addressing her shame-based origins and her defensive narcissistic structure, she will remain locked in this pattern—unable to genuinely repair the relationship with her child because doing so would require the very capacities her narcissism was designed to prevent.

[1] Steven J. Sandage, “Faces of Forgiveness in Psychology,” in The Faces of Forgiveness: Searching for Wholeness and Salvation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 56–57.
[2] Darrell Puls, Let Us Prey, Revised Edition: The Plague of Narcissist Pastors and What We Can Do About It (New York, NY: Cascade Books, 2020). [See here.]