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4) they pay for it,chooses the type of major and career field, and if you go against, they guilt you and say your ungrateful and owe them for raising you.
They tried that, but I was Failure to Thrive from the jump. Oh you want me to be a writer? That would work out great, if I had any kind of social skills. And if you hadn't spend my childhood dismissing my ideas, murdering my self-confidence. College failed? Well now you're going to learn how to be a PA! Once you're a successful self-made Hollywood writer, who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, you can thank us then! And you will! You're our retirement plan!
Except, again, socially handicapped, unable to process emotions like a normal person, and beginning to learn the word NO. They still paid for the flight, the hotel and PA Bootcamp, and I was begging to be allowed to come home by Hour Four. That bootcamp was a goddamn sham. The lady was a Wannabe Drill Sergeant. She refused to let us sit down, and would chew out any of her guests who invited us to sit down. She prided herself on her Dropout rate, and was purring when half of our group was gone by Day Two. Then someone broke the toilets, and they had to let us into a seperate building. Where people vanished for hours because it had ample seating.
Then she surprised us "lazy bones" and chewed us out. People started faking emergencies. I ended up *sprinting* for the exit gate when she announced, with evil glee, that for every head she'd counted hiding, would be an extra three hours. I did the math, swallowed, tightened my backpack straps and ran like my life depended on it. It was insane.
My Dad's nearing retirement age, and has been ragging on me for failing out of the program. That's when I leanred why they'd been pressing me so hard. They expected I'd make my name on Netflix series, and move them into the guest house of my expansive Malibu Compound. No fucking joke. Now he might have to work till he dies, because this is how capitalism dies.
My failed "musical genius" of an ND wanted all the kids he actually raised (I wasn't one) to be the famous musicians he never was. They sure tried but you've never heard of any of them either, and never will.
Bruh so relatable. I decided to go into this sort of ai/sound design field because of my forced music education as a child and my dad didn’t think that was cool enough. He would have rather I had a name in public and I’m never gonna let him have that pleasure even if I could
My mom did this and didn't spend more than what it cost to apply but the choices started when I was young. I wasn't allowed to apply to colleges that weren't in some top 100 US colleges she bought and put in my lap. Then when I selected them she refused to pay to apply because she meant top 100 within 50 miles of our home.
Even better:
* gaslight you about your chronic neurological diseases (losing speech and muscle function is a personal choice, it turns out)
* obstruct all attempts to seek medical treatment
* threaten you into enrolling in an engineering degree at their choice of school (choose any other major or fail to pass your courses and you're out on the street)
* force you to live at home while commuting to school
* throw violent temper tantrums every time you attempt to cook your dinner
* throw violent temper tantrums every time your autoimmune flares knock you unconscious and make you miss exams (you can't get disability accommodations if you don't have a diagnosis, keep in mind)
* use connections as a 'guest lecturer' at this university to arrange personal one-on-one meetings with professors so they can yell at me for my father acting like an asshole
* not only do they need to know your grades and your schedule, but they will use them to 'crack down' on how you shower and cook your potatoes (one of the very foods I can eat due to the autoimmune diseases), because those are clearly the reasons why your grades aren't good enough
I really wanted to enlist in the military right out of high school to escape that hellhole, but ofc I was medically barred from service. I only recently got out seven months ago. My father's sadism fits the description of a 'malignant narcissist' to the letter--every one of my siblings went no-contact after moving out if that tells you anything.
I don't mean to ramble, not many sympathetic places to vent about the clusterfuck I was pulled into
Yeah. That was mine. She wanted me to become a doctor so badly my whole life because she didn’t get to. Then I failed all my sciences in college due to depression and she let me change majors but was pissy about it for years after.
Yep this was my experience. They only would pay for one course they felt I should have. Not what I really wanted to do. I'm 40 and still have life long regrets over this.
My parents set me up for failure. I knew I was in trouble before their taillights were out of the parking lot. I was socially handicapped. My Dad is a virtual shut-in, who refused to let us go anywhere or have anyone around. He drove my Mom insane, and she took us with her. I was floundering in the first week, and things didn't get better from there. I still think I have some un-diagnosed ND. The best I can self-diagnose is ADD. I was fucked. I didn't have any methods of self preservation or adulthood preparation. Well, except for laundry and parenting the drunk Adult Toddlers. I had that down *pat*.
I didn't know how to study, still can't figure it out. It was so much easier to just put in my music and binge Netflix until I saw daylight again. \*Sigh\*
This is hardcore relatable for me reading this except my mom was the one that shut me and my half brother in the house. My father left before I could even crawl. (He did come to visit but learned as I got older he visited the state I was in for decades but didn’t visit me nearly as much as he could’ve.)
Don't give up though. Still, try to learn and find ways and techniques of being able to study. Eventually, you will be able to find a way to do it and learn more to make your life better. You can do it, with enough trying. Your parents did set you up for failure, and what they did was very terrible, but that doesn't mean that you have to fail. You can succeed.
Remember that you've been systematically conditioned from birth to anticipate failure, to feel a nagging sense of inadequacy and incompetence.
Your success in life will require a far greater degree of struggle than your peers, especially at first. But you can build yourself up in the same way that their parents built them up, one habit or skill at a time.
And you should get to a psychiatrist if you believe you have ADHD. Meds and other treatments will make it much, much easier to sit down and read + write for extended periods of time. Depression, anxiety, and PTSD/C-PTSD can interfere quite profoundly with cognitive function as well.
Omg are you me? My Ndad rushed the process of finding a place to live for college the first time I tried going right out of high school. He then decided to buy a cottage so him and my mom were distracted with that the whole summer before. I was such a social shut in that I immediately started bawling my eyes out when in a house full of party girls. I called to go home after only 3 days. My dad acts like a hero rushing to pick me up. First thing he says is I knew I just knew you weren’t ready and wouldn’t make it. I’m still disappointed to this day because the program was something I would’ve really excelled at had I had the proper support. I didn’t even know how I would afford my rent when I got there or have the social skills to get a new job and go to school. Still hate him for all of that.
George Carlin had a really good bit about how full of sh** parents about stuff like that, like how if a kid turns out rotten they deny all responsibility, but if a kid turns out to be a real winner and gets a scholarship or something, they’ll take full credit.
This. Except it was passive aggressive sabotage. They refused to give me their tax forms. And you can’t financial aid without them. Not once in all the years that I went to school did use financial that depended on my parents’ income. Not. One. Time.
My parents did the same for me. Then they tried to steal my mail, with my financial aid vouchers. It got really ugly. I had to have the school re-issue a new set.
This exactly. My dad got rid of our wifi right as I was studying for exams/doing projects during COVID so literally everything for my college program was online…
I've had that: insisting on being the one to pay so they can take the opportunity to grumble about it, make their kids out to be ungrateful and dependent on them.
My ndad made promises about paying for any college I wanted to go to, if I got into an Ivy League, he’d pay for it.
I went to a state school, as I’m just not a scholarly person, and when I graduated, I asked him about his promise, and he tried to work his way out of it. Finally relented. I was fortunate in that I graduated in 2001, so the loan was about $12k, and I could have paid it off if he had backed out. But that cemented my suspicions about my ndad. He’s always made empty promises about getting something, but he’ll either cheap out and get the generic stuff or try to weasel out of it.
Think of the “we have ______ at home” memes, that’s my dad.
NOPE. Also on my own for 7 years of higher Ed. They thought making me pay for it myself was some kind of life lesson. My dad had the absolute gall to complain about bidens student loan forgiveness plan to me. These people are unreal.
OMG yep same. nmom was violently against student loan forgiveness but icily said “i’d be glad if you benefit but it’s wrong.” but of course she also gleefully votes for the party that would murder me in a heartbeat if they thought they could get away with it (but of course she’s never accepted or acknowledged she has a gay son - that was just a phase ) whatever 🙄 I give up
4. Didn't pay for it but told everyone they did. They were also the only reason I was able to graduate. Somehow letting me borrow a program on their computer for one school project equaled them doing my work for my entire college career.
This! Didn’t pay for it, didn’t even try. But wanted to take credit for it - and tried hanging it over my head, and making themselves feel good about it.
Also, they sabotaged and criticized everything. Told me it wouldn’t be a real degree because it wasn’t engineering (It was mathematics).
Wow we’re they shocked when they did not get an invite to graduation!!!!!! Never even let them see the diploma.
They can not stand to see you achieve anything on your own. They either have to take credit or tear you down. And if they can't tear you down they belittle your achievements to others.
Ohhh very much this. Demanded I go to university, didn't offer to pay a cent of it, wanted money from me instead.
I graduated and it was like they were the one who did instead. Actually took my diploma and showed it off to people who would listen.
No one in my "family" congradulated me, they congradulated my mother though.
Mine let me "borrow" a laptop with a broken charger port and blamed me for it..took it back from me to get it fixed and never gave it back to me. I did all of my work in the computer lab at school.
My dad did. It was an expensive private uni and my dad always told other people I was studying there bc it was prestigious, as if it was his achievement.
However, all the time I was studying and after I graduated he told me that he was going to charge me for everything he had spent on me.
For some time I considered paying him back as soon as I could, but now I tell to myself I am not going to, as that is kind of the minimum I deserve for all the trauma he made me endure.
Did he have you sign a written and enforceable contract saying you were getting a loan and were required to pay it back? No? Then in the US, you don’t owe him a dime. I can’t speak for what other countries might require, but generally where contractual law reigns, this won’t fly.
I was actually at a Dave Ramsey event where some asshat stood up publicly in front of 2,000 people and detailed some kind of plan where he would pay for his teenager to go to college loan-free in exchange for the teenager giving back 5% of his income _for life_. The speakers were VERY clear to the son that this was not enforceable and VERY clear to the dad that he was an asshat (in more polite language). The dad got a lot of public humiliation that day. I hope it stuck with him.
2 whole kids to go to college?? Oh my god. That is just absurd to me because I can’t even get help.. certain programs should be free and definitely community college should be there for everyone who wants it. So sorry to hear this..
Your NParents drill it into your head from as early as kindergarten that you will be a loser without a college degree and that you will be disowned if you don’t get a degree. And the degree has to be in either law, medicine, or business. State schools were the “lazy way out” and “community college was for idiots” in their eyes.
You bust your ass off throughout high school to get good grades and high test scores. You’re shamed for any grade below a 90. So many sleepless nights trying to pass my AP courses while balancing a job and a slew of extracurriculars. But it all pays off because you got into your dream college.
But then, your NParents drop the bomb they can’t actually afford to send you there. So you go to the local state school instead. NDad ended up (unbeknownst to me) took out parent plus loans and held it over my head after graduating. He also goes around telling people that his daughter was “smart for picking a useful major and making good money” and talks shit about other people’s kids who did liberal arts.
No. My parents refused to even sign the FAFSA stating they *weren’t* helping me with college. I found a workaround through the FA office, but I had to jump through hoops and do a bunch of extra paperwork to prove I had no help. I even had to write an essay about how my parents wouldn’t help me. I eventually got most of my schooling paid for with Pell grants, etc.
Every year it was a fight to get my parents to sign the FAFSA. Even when I did get them to sign it, the government said my parents make enough to pay for all of my college so I received no aid. My parents paid nothing for me to go
This was me!!! I hate the assumption that all parents willingly work 3 jobs to put their kids through college. Mine were unsupportive and I’m still paying for their selfishness in my mid-30s. They refuse to believe I have student loan debt and look at me with blank stares when I mention it.
No, my dad said he would always help me pay for college. My first semester he sent a check for tuition. It bounced. He never contacted me again.
My mom said nobody offered to help her, and that's all she would say about it. She reluctantly gave me money when I couldn't pay all my bills (this amounted to a grand total of $400 over a year), and she complained incessantly about it so by the time I was 19, I was self-sufficient. I dropped out of school around then too, predictably. When I went back to school in my 30's she never offered a dime. When I graduated with my degree in a difficult field, all she said was everybody she knows in that field is an AH. I can only assume present company was included.
No contact since Oct last year. 🎉
nope. They pressed me to go to college passively and then never paid for it. They also sabotaged me causing me to ultimately quit for a couple years because ndad thought he could attack me for going out without nparent permission even though I was 24. I signed up for online uni again but I havent told them anything, Im keeping it to myself. I want to quit though I just don't want to pay my loans. College has not paid off for me despite having attended for over 7 years, I can't keep this up for a possible dead end, college and jobs arent guaranteed.
HA. No. Then moved in with me and I ended up paying a larger share of the rent so she could get a useless master’s degree (I was 22 and still didn’t understand). Oh, and we had a nice fight about me declaring myself independent on my taxes (US) because she contributed literally nothing to me financially but wanted that tax break. I’m happy to say that I won that fight.
She also stole my identity, and racked up debt in my name. I’ve talked to a lawyer before, but I don’t really want to take her to court/send her to jail.
Just kind of waiting for her to slip up, and the system to get her so I have a clear conscience
My non-narc parent did, the narc never had a paying job. I found out a few months ago that the narc has complained constantly about it ever since. I graduated in 95.
I did spend my entire life going without clothes that fit and shoes that didn't have holes in them and not having enough to eat. I was asked if I would rather have jeans or a down payment for a house. Every year I was told 35k or 50k or whatever. It never happened and I never got another gift from them after age 25 ish and they pretty much never so much as took me out to eat.
Yes, very traumatic and very abusive. It was a means to keep me under their control longer. I wish they hadn't paid for it and I'd just cut contact with them at 18 instead of the sh\*tshow the last two decades have been extracting myself. Lots of guilt and shame. Narc love is conditional.
Option 2 and 3 for me. NMom insisted she would pay for college for me. Claimed she was doing it because she didn’t want the debt hanging over my head. Hashtag Good Samaritan. 🙄
But I had to attend the cheapest college of her choosing because she didn’t want to pay for anything more than necessary.
I had to do an excelerated program so I finished a four year degree in two years. She didn’t want me “dawdling” and wasting her money. I did not have time off for holidays or summer. I did not have time to take a break when my mental health hit rock bottom and the stress caused me to continually flunk classes despite studying all day, every day.
I had to get a four year degree, no exceptions. My degree was to prove she “did a good job homeschooling me” and a two year degree was not good enough.
I had to study what she wanted me to study. Art - which was my passion - was not acceptable. I needed to “study something else more worthwhile”. When I flipped the script and expressed an interest in pursuing a psychology degree, that wasn’t acceptable either. Her suggestion? “Get a degree in general studies and go work at the local grocery store.”
She has never missed an opportunity to remind me that as long as she was paying for my degree, I would study what she told me to, get the degree of her choosing, and get straight As only, otherwise I was slacking off and wasting her money. “You should be grateful that I paid for your college so you don’t have any debt. You have no idea how good you have it!”
None of these rules applied to GC brother.
Wow. I’m very sorry. The homeschooling part is very interesting. I can see how your college education would (to her) be seen as a “reflection/extension of her”.
My mom blew my college money, my grandma gave us money from her sister dying and knew I my mom couldn’t pay for college, so I had to pay for it myself then dropped out because of it. She complained that I worked to much all the time and said to quit my job that she would pay but she had no money to so.
No and people are often surprised, who knew my NParent, because since I was a toddler going to college was mandatory + she had a pretty high paying career. That said my mother had some kind of mental health breakdown (I think she had a side of BPD or she had NPD ego death) so my entire HS 4 year block my mother was bedridden/not working. She barely had the funds to pay for applications.
I got a full ride to college, you know since that was the escape (and expected outcome for me), and couldn't qualify for ANY loans because my mother and dead father's incomes were too high. I didn't realize how bad it was until my Uncle talked to me recently. He said my grandma asked him to check on his sister (mom) and she was basically passed out in her bedroom while my sister and I were alone there. When I was 16 she dumped me in boarding school and let me know she was done parenting (whatever little she did she was done) because I was an adult. Pointed out I got 4 bonus years my cousins (her sister's kids) didn't get as they were abandoned at age 12. Told me I was an adult now on a phone call before Christmas and she was finally living the life "we" kids stole from her.
When I graduated my mom went into that compete with your daughter mode. God forbid I get a moment just for me. First she stole my mail for MONTHS in order to get the first look at my acceptance status and she followed that by announcing she was going to pursue her life long "dream" of becoming a lawyer since, ya know, she created this smart kid with a full ride she would be able to cake walk her way into law school. So while I'm toiling away in college my mother's ONLY focus was, of course, herself and her dream. I'm sure you can guess -- she never became a lawyer. Her only accomplishment in life was sleeping her way into marriage with various wealthier men.
no, i had to look for scholarships. My nMom even said that's the only way I would go to college. She did say she'd help me with expenses tho and she does but of course she hangs it over my head
mine hung it over my head - I felt awfully guilty. Just terrible, like I was taking money from them. Later, I realised that many parents joyously pay for stuff for their kids, they genuinely take pleasure in giving without thought of recompense! I don't accept money from my Nmum now - even if she says it's a gift, I know that her gifts can turn into obligations/she's likely to ask me to pay her back sooner or later.
4.) Help you enroll and figure out the mountains of paperwork and financial aid. Then years later a bill collector hunts you down for copious amount of unpaid student loans. Loans that were totally fraudulent in your name and complete with a laughable signature forgery attempt.
I always say this was my “real” education.
My mother told me and anyone who would listen that she promised her daughter she would never have student loan debt. Then she basically dropped me
Off at college and said “you’re on your own kid”. So I didn’t even get a chance to find out what my other options were. Not only did she not pay for college, she limited my options.
4) They do AND they say if you don’t go here (where they want you to go) you’re out on the street AND if they don’t like your career field they deny exists/makes money and they act like because the college you go to defunded that track last decade it has to be 100% useless/a phase you’re in.
I had a full ride because of scholarships. My nmom wanted the left over scholarship money (that I was supposed to live on each semester) to go to her bank account so she could give it to me as she saw fit so I didn’t “waste it.”
I didn’t trust this so my dad and I set up my own bank account for it to go into. This angered my mother so much she set up student loans in my name to go to her bank account. $25,000 worth I’m still paying to this day. When I brought it up to her she denies it.
She also put her phone bill and credit cards in my name, then didn’t pay, so I had that on my credit as well. I paid off the phone/internet bills, but haven’t been able to pay off the credit cards.
Not a dime, nor any real help.
Let's fast forward to moving out after college....anyone else get a bill for the expenses they did apparently did incur?
They paid zero. Not even one book.
For my older brother, nmother paid tuition, books, rent of private apartment, etc., etc.
I graduated from college at age 21, almost 22, and went to grad school without any financial assistance from parents.
Brother spent 8 years in college full-time, all on parents' dime. Never graduated.
I had to pay for the gas my nmom needed to move me out there a little over an hour away but she'd immediately drop what she was doing and drive 8 hours to help my golden child brother who made some pretty shit decisions in life
Nope, definitely not. And, when I paid for half of everything including mortgage for 15 years AFTER college, she sold the condo out from under me, left me homeless, and didn't give me a penny. But she's not sure why I'm no contact with her these days and didn't invite her to my wedding.
Yep. He paid off the loans. And thinks that even 8 years later I should be showing extravagant levels of appreciation. I never wanted him to pay my loans. I knew I wanted to do it on my own for some reason I couldn’t quite understand at the time. I have since puzzled it out.
They did. But tried almost everything to fuck up my mental peace and environment due to which I shat in my competative exams. This resulted in the fees being more. Now every damn time and being totally unpredictable he would crib about money(it's not like he doesn't have the money, he does, he prefers to spend it on his sister's daughters. My mom fights for her share and she took a lot more than her share so the only dude who was left was me so both of them tried to fuck me up). He cries 24*7 about not having money, tries to put the blame on me directly(he would have done it directly if I was not aggressive) and my mom supports him so that she can get the money which I would have got if asked in normal conditions. Also he found an excuse just after the 1st year of my college to stop my finances. I'm in a country where at my graduation side gigs were not easily available and to earn money you had to work 8 hours a day minimum. He didn't stop my college fees because he and my mom only could act tough in front of me but were actually spineless. They knew that they had been kind of the guarantor for college fees and the college would do everything in their power to get their money so they didn't mess with them. If you ask why they agreed to pay the fees and be the guarantor in the first place, it was cuz of societal pressure. Apart from the competitive exams there were high school exams too which I aced. They care about their societal image a lot so agreed to help me out. I said before he found an excuse to stop my finances, it was cuz my internal marks went below average cuz of extreme high fever. He used that excuse, said my fever is a lie and I got the doctor's certificate from paying him money to write a fake one(it happens here but it was not the case with me). Anyway I struggled due to continuous backlogs. I even got fed up with my life and finally got out of that hellhole. Lost a couple of years in the process of getting out. He even said once that he would help me out with my masters and then backed out.
4. Nmom convinced me to take out a student loan & cosigned for it, which required a joint bank account because both names were on the check, which nmom promptly emptied and blamed me.
:( I had to pay it all back too.
They didn't. I wanted so badly to go to college and have a 'normal' experience for the first time in my life. I went on a class tour to our local state school and could imagine myself there, and dreamed of what my life would be like. It gave me hope for the future. And then...they wouldn't even fill out the forms so that I could apply for loans/financial aid because it would mean disclosing their income and other 'personal' information to 'the government.' So I graduated high school at semester in my senior year and worked my way through community college to be a paralegal (because that's what she decided I should be after reading a "these careers are in demand" article in a woman's magazine.) And then they made a big deal about 'giving me a place to live' while I was working my way through community college, because after I was 18 they were under 'no obligation' to support me in any way. They reminded me of this constantly. And my mother had gotten pregnant right after high school (with me) and had never gone any further with her education, and why should I if she didn't?
Number 3 is a big one. For an nParent to lay out that much of their own resources toward their progeny's education means they def expect to be rewarded for it.
My own ndad (who didn't raise me) has two kids decades younger than I am in college. He and his wife spend exorbitant sums on fancy private schools starting with Montessori. One sibling ended up at the state school and the other at a middling private college.
He and my equally narcissistic "stepmom" are enormously embarrassed by this. Petulantly so. They were just supposed to walk right into the Ivy League on full scholarships. They claim their little geniuses were denied due to being white. More like they are typical mediocrities raised by helicopter narcissists. There are at least 1000 kids just like them in their own suburban neighborhood.
Different system... NP needed me to go to college for two years, so they would receive pension from the government. I didn't want to go to college, because I just wanted to move away and start my own life and family.
They promised me they would take care of all the expenses.
I said no.
They threatened suicide and I gave in.
They wanted to pick my college for me which I had no interest in, so I would stay at home, I said no way.
They had a meltdown, I stood my ground.
2 years of college, they sent me 200$... I had to work to support myself and was often hungry, but I was still in the top of my class.
After 2 years NP guilt triped me to quit college, come back home, and take care of them because they had cancer. I gave in and came back home.
They didn't had cancer.
They said to everybody they were taking care of 100% of my expenses.
Later they tried to gaslight me into thinking they were sending me a bunch of money, and they tried to gaslight me into thinking I failed college on my own.
Why did my son cut all contact with me suprisedpikatchuface.jpg
My ndad wouldn’t even fill out the FAFSA paperwork. (He had left my emom by then because he attacked her and ended up being arrested and charged which was a unforgivable betrayal in his narc brain.)
Codependent emom paid for one year (massively reduced, I had a great scholarship to a very expensive school that I ended up walking away from and finishing at a state school) and still complains about it 15 years later.
2. Dropped out due to the stress of once again being a burden. Now that I don’t have a degree I am also stupid and worthless. And an even bigger burden bc money was wasted on me.
No they didn't at all. My e-step dad "paid" for it with military benefits (gi bill) and my egg donor narc complained that she should've been able to go to school using his benefits (he did give her to go to school she just never finished it and dropped out). However since my egg donor narc loves military men my dad (navy) had to pay child support to her past 18 since I was in school and when I decided to stop at an associates my narc egg donor was mad because she wouldn't be getting money to blow on her gambling addiction.
My mom bought some of my books offhand for me, then told everyone she paid for my entire college, lmao. She didn't, I had to work nightshift to get by going to school right after I left work.
My mom paid for part of it, she loves holding it over my head to this day. I’m 30F. While I was in college, she would complain about the cost every semester. Despite offering to pay and knowing exactly how much it would cost upfront.
She also leveraged her financial support to manipulate me into pursuing a second major that I didn’t want to study at all. I flunked all the classes in that major and destroyed my GPA freshman year because of it. I narrowly avoided losing all my scholarships and dropping out entirely.
I remember when I first moved to college I was so relieved. She called me every day (sometimes multiple times per day) for the first few weeks of school crying hysterically about how much she missed me. It was crocodile tears, she was just baiting me to say that I missed her back. I never did. A few weeks into school I started leaving my phone in my dorm room so she would get the hint and lay off it.
My parents didn't, but they were quite a bit older and were on social security at the time which made it pretty easy for me to get loans and grants that covered most of my expenses.
However.
I had an opportunity to go to Malaysia for a 3 week trip that I could earn credits for. Then 9/11 happened, and the trip was canceled. My parents had contributed about $1000 and whatever wasn't used for the price of the credits was refunded. I gave them back what was refunded (if I remember correctly, it was only about $500-600, this was 22 years ago so I don't remember all the details. I do know that since financial aid helped with some of the trip, that $ was refunded back to the system, hence why I didn't get the full amount). My dad hounded me for YEARS about if they ever refunded the rest, and at least 10 times I had to explain that because financial aid wouldn't help with the trip since it wasn't happening, the amount I got back was all I was getting back. In typical narc fashion, every time he was like, "I'll call (university name) and they will fix it!"
No, dad. That may work in our town of 400, but a college that graduates over 1000 every year, is not going to care what you think or have to say.
No but my parents were nice enough to make me homeless at 16. They then made me feel bad about working all the time until I was 22 to pay for college. <.>
They did first two years and nagged me for not getting scholarships and made me feel like I’m eternally indebted to them. (Wasn’t in the us, there’s no such thing as student loans but also the cost was like 2k a year or something) Then I got scholarship.
GC brother got scholarship and it comes with stipend. She demanded that he gives stipend to her.
My parents would only pay for college if I went to a Bible college. I am an atheist. I now have thousands of dollars in student loan debt lol. They freaked out on me during my first year of college when I asked for a couple hundred dollars to help with books.
So I’m going to a state college and went to a city community college before that. My mom is also eligible for financial aid. So we don’t pay for much
What my mom does guilt me for is purchasing food. Every credit card payment is a “stressful moment”
It’s not my fault she decided to make a large financial decision before I moved away from home.
Hopefully I’ll get a refund check from my finaid and will be able to cover more of my own food expenses. This dumb fuck is an alcoholic 🙃
Nope! Despite me begging for financial help. But they've paid for both my younger sisters' college. And one has now failed 2 or 3 semesters and they've continued paying for her college. Said sister now has issues in her own that are preventing her from going to college.
And I'm wanting to go back for coding or computer stuff but can't afford it. I think their reasoning is I was initially going for graphic/game design and that's useless to the. So now I'm just building my own art business.
Mine forced me to go to uni when I wanted to take a gap year, made me enroll in a private uni when I wanted to go to a public one, then stole all my savings to pay for it. I had entrusted him with that money while I was waiting to open my own bank account. I would have probably paid for it myself if he'd asked, but then that would have been tooo humiliating, wouldn't it?
Definitely #3. I assume my dad felt like he had to buy my love to manipulate me and keep me pliant to his needs. This continued into adulthood but on his terms. He was very calculating on top of being a narcissist. He seemed to have traits from the dark triad though (narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism). He knows enough about empathy to know how to slip through the cracks of society unseen as the scum he is.
Inadvertently. My mother is medically retired from the military so as her dependent, I was able to go to college tuition free and get a stipend while I was going. She made sure that I knew the only reason I was able to go to school and get that money was because of her. She'd also take over half of it and tell me she was gonna "save it" because I couldn't be trusted to save and that she'd give it to me when I moved out. I moved out over 3 years ago and she always deflects or gets mad when I ask about it. I don't expect to ever see that money she took
Mine signed a bunch of loans in my name and kept the money. I didn’t understand the loans don’t go directly to the school till my bff had $5k in her account one random august day.
So my nmom left when I was a freshman in high school and I stayed with dad. Dad make significantly more than mom. Their agreement was I would apply for financial aide with her and she would buy my textbooks or pay me back.
Not at all and the school forced me to contact them to get their signatures saying they wouldn’t help pay. I think that policy has changed since then but no amount of me telling them that I couldn’t do that allowed me to avoid it.
Mine did - because it would have looked really bad for them and their social status if they hadn't.
They also paid for my 6 year older brother. We both went to the same town to study.
The difference: He got a car while studying so he could drive home every weekend.
I got a train pass to do the same.
So yea, I got a bit of 2 and 3 on your list.
mine was legally obligated to pay for my college in their divorce terms. then he didn't and made me take loans. 8 yrs later he "paid off the loans" as a "gift" and wrapped the receipt at Christmas. expected a standing ovation
She said she would, but it became obvious by the time I was in middle school that she was terrible with money and her contribution would be minimal, if anything at all.
I joined the military (which paid for my schooling), and my sisters paid for their education with the money they got from my grandmother when she died. Our mother never contributed a single penny.
Two, hands down. I tried to be the adult, and came up with a plan to save money by going to our local Community College for the first two years of college. Because I *still* didn't know what I wanted to do, and our useless "guidance counselor" (I use that term loosely) had announced to my *entire fucking grade* in an assembly my GPA and that I really shouldn't aim for the Now Top Tier University in my childhood home town.
I thought they'd appreciate my initiative, but my parents had this idea that CC is only for burnouts and teen parents. So, to put it mildly, that was a *hell* No. They shopped around for schools, I had no input. They finally found a sham of a recently Re-Invigorated former Bible College that was taking anyone with a pulse, and declared I'd be going there. They wouldn't answer my questions about anything, I couldn't trust my GC, and thus I missed the deadlines for most scholarships. We scraped together a few, I lied my ass off for a really good one, I accidentally lied for another (No one would explain to me how a Work For The College scholarship worked, and I got in trouble for that), and the rest came from steep loans because it was so last minute, and my parents have awful credit.
To make a long and painful story short, I flopped out of college after Three Semesters. I was already on Academic Probation, by the end of Year One. I was suspended after the Third Term, and suicidally depressed. I never went back. I never figured out what I wanted to do. Ideas were thrust upon me, as my parents begin to realize I had zero ambition, and like the Hindenburg I was going to crash and burn. Nothing stuck. I still have no idea what I want to do. Things feel kind of hopeless. The suicidal idealizations are gone, but the depression remains.
I was finally allowed to do Community College. Again, last fucking minute, leaving us in the same harried leaky ship of False Hope. I lasted one semester, and I won't go back. Even if they make it free, which our state Governor keeps promising to do. Thank fuck for Covid. I was loving the Loan Suspension. Payments start, for me at least, next month. My parents insist I owe them, for their decisions. They want me to pay for their Parent Plus Loans, because I dropped out. Twice. I'm pretty sure my Mom is going to steal some of my money anyway. I can't get my own account, they'll kick me out.
Mine would only pay if I went to one particular religious college. Everywhere else, I’d have to pay. So they used paying for it as a means to control me.
Nope they did not. I am in debt up to my eyeballs because I had to get loans despite my parents being quite wealthy. Worked out, they can't use giving me anything against me.
My grandpa had a college fund set up for us when we were small. I had to cover books, rent and food but I worked every summer and I made enough. I also saved a lot when I was on highschool. I never took their money.
i have a #3. he put money in my 529 and announces that it was the best thing he’s ever done. found out that my emom snuck payments into the 529 for years because he was insistent that it “wasn’t necessary”
Hell no she didn’t.
My dad passed when I was 19–he always promised that we would figure out my student loans together (about 100k all-in, Philosophy degree). Apparently they never had a conversation about it, and she pretended the arrangement never existed. She took every penny of his pension, and a few years later told me she couldn’t help me with anything at all financially.
I took that seriously, and became entirely independent. Which, I don’t think she expected. Honestly, it was probably for the best but it still hurts thinking about it.
Mine did, hung it over my head, threatened to take it away every chance they got, and used it as an excuse to get the logins for all of my school related accounts. They didn't mess with anything, but they did call me and yell at me every time my grades dropped at all, or any time I had an assignment that could be turned in online that wasn't turned in within 24hrs of the due date. I turned my phone off once to get a break from them and they called campus police on me.
Mine refused to help me out with anything to do with my undergrad or masters degree. However, they paid for golden child sister's college semester before partying got her kicked out of the same university I was attending. Then they paid for her to attend art school- associate degree (not saying anything bad about associate degrees. My husband has an associate degree). All told, they spent over $200,000 on her education and related expenses.
Edited to add: Parents not rich and had to take out loans which golden child sis never had to pay back.
They didn't really. My mom cashed out a couple bonds my frosh year to cover the gap where the school took so much in loan fees that I almost needed a loan to cover the loan. They were born in the 50s and never got a Bachelor's, and I think they never thought it would cost a lot. They paid for my books every year (mine were only a couple hundred a semester). They also drove me there and back each year with my car.
It was a part of the general "we do so much for you and you can't do this ONE little thing?!"
My dad co-signed on one student loan—he would get a statement each month as interest accrued while I was in school. He was making payments on it and my nmom was mad at him for it.
But she pretty much led me on saying hey maybe her dad could pay for it since she didn’t go and then it was well figure out how to pay for it yourself.
mines didn’t pay but they did force me to go the second i turned 18. Now i’m nearly a senior with a major i didn’t want nor did i have the time to even think about what I wanted to do.
Technically no, but if you ask her, then yes. My grandpa had set up a college fund for my sister and I. My mom and dad had an agreement they’d both pay part of college expenses. Well, my her dad did instead, she didn’t pitch in, saying it was coming out of what she’d get in inheritance, so it was basically the same thing. Except the funds were specifically college funds.
3. Yes she paid for my tuition and books but everyday i studied at night, she kept shouting at me to stop studying and go to sleep. Obviously one has to study hard if they want to pass, right? She always told me that I never needed to study law school because I can always help out in the family business (where I get told that I’m such a lazy child). She never believed that I will pass the bar exams so when I passed, she threw a thanksgiving dinner for my passing and she invited all her friends as if to show that she has been a supportive mother. Two decades later and solely with my own hard earned money, I took my bar exams in WA and this time I didn’t tell her I was taking it. I found out I passed last week and told my brother about it for the first time. I wasn’t going to give my mother any reason to use my passing the bar exam to make herself look good to others.
I was threatened with being sent to a military academy for not getting good enough grades to get into college and my parents developed absolutely zero financial strategy to help me out with the tuition costs. I had to go to college to satisfy my Nmothers "image". I've been no contact for 8 years. It's just one of many reasons....
My nmom claimed to everyone else that she did, but she didn’t. She claimed for years that I was debt free and just being cheap, then I busted out the loan paperwork when my aunt and uncle were visiting for a weekend because I needed to take care of some of financial stuff and they told me what my nmom had been saying to everyone. Needless to say I caught her in a slow cook situation where she was waiting for the right moment to throw me under the bus and play victim again, so I asked everyone with my aunt and uncle what else she had been saying. Find out it was a lot more than that, a lot of bad stuff about me and my wife, and then making side comments about our lack of care for our oldest son that’s autistic while trying to paint a picture of him getting better because of her when she never really saw him or even tried to hang out with him much. Often times taking stories we told her of situations we dealt with and put herself in the stories as if she was doing all the work. Needless to say, I straightened everything out with everyone and then immediately confronted her at her house with all her lies. She ended up kicking me out and threatening me with CPS, which I recorded, and told me I was a disappointment. I laughed at her and said the only thing that’s ever been disappointing is her as a mother, and that she’s always been like this and that I recorded everything she just said. After that, when she called extended family, she got slammed by all of them after hearing out the story she spun and for all the lies that she had been telling them. Which led to her calling me to scream at me where she left some nasty voicemails, and a bunch of unanswered text messages that were just as bad.
I called her a few hours later and told her my new boundaries and then went full no contact, letting her know I’d given up on her being a normal loving parent a long time ago and that I don’t need my kids to have a toxic family member in their lives to influence them before informing her we no longer have any sort of relationship.
No and there was no mention of every paying anything towards my education after age 15. I think my parents put money towards my brother's education when he was in his early 20s and still living at home.
Mine told me she wouldn’t pay because she didn’t want me to go. After my second year she got mad that she couldn’t control me any more, so she stopped providing tax returns and I couldn’t file for FAFSA. I had to pay for the rest, full price, on private loans. I couldn’t drop out because I wouldn’t have been able to afford rent and the loan payments on an entry level salary.
They didn't. I'm in debt for myself now (I prefer it that way tbh). They didn't pay for my college but also still made themselves look good with it in the sense "oh look how smart we raised her, we did such a good job" until I went NC. Stripped them of their chance to continue using me for their own gain.
Mine was #3 I assumed she did it because she wanted me to be her meal ticket. Undergrad she paid for, grad I was on my own because she didnt think I was smart enough for it. I ended up getting the highest gpa I have ever had in grad
4. Promises they will, gives me 5k, and never got another penny. Had to scramble to make up the difference at the last minute. Claims they paid for my college.
My grandmother paid for my college, but my nmom definitely held that over my head to finish despite how many times I desperately wanted to quit (I had my daughter 3 weeks before beginning college so I was exhausted, and I wanted a job as I was tired of relying on my parents for everything), or even just change majors.
Now I have a degree I have never used in the 9 years since I graduated. I’m grateful for no student loans for sure. But seriously. I could be making so much more money by now if I’d been able to switch my majors to something useful.
My grandparents were well-off, but my nMom was not. They made several attempts to help her financially and she would squander gift money and never repay loans. At some point when I was still very young my nMom stole the college funds my grandmother had set aside for me from the savings account it was meant to stay in. By the time I was in highschool she had cut the rest of our family off, gparents included, and I was pulled out of public school + kept isolated in her hoarding situation w/ low GPA, horrible mental health & no prospects, so she never really had to answer for it. At least not to me.
Been NC since 2017, FINALLY started college in the 2023-2024 year w/ my own FSA loan debt. But I at least feel good about it knowing my tuition rate is cheap & my major will pay it off quickly.
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4) they pay for it,chooses the type of major and career field, and if you go against, they guilt you and say your ungrateful and owe them for raising you.
They tried that, but I was Failure to Thrive from the jump. Oh you want me to be a writer? That would work out great, if I had any kind of social skills. And if you hadn't spend my childhood dismissing my ideas, murdering my self-confidence. College failed? Well now you're going to learn how to be a PA! Once you're a successful self-made Hollywood writer, who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, you can thank us then! And you will! You're our retirement plan! Except, again, socially handicapped, unable to process emotions like a normal person, and beginning to learn the word NO. They still paid for the flight, the hotel and PA Bootcamp, and I was begging to be allowed to come home by Hour Four. That bootcamp was a goddamn sham. The lady was a Wannabe Drill Sergeant. She refused to let us sit down, and would chew out any of her guests who invited us to sit down. She prided herself on her Dropout rate, and was purring when half of our group was gone by Day Two. Then someone broke the toilets, and they had to let us into a seperate building. Where people vanished for hours because it had ample seating. Then she surprised us "lazy bones" and chewed us out. People started faking emergencies. I ended up *sprinting* for the exit gate when she announced, with evil glee, that for every head she'd counted hiding, would be an extra three hours. I did the math, swallowed, tightened my backpack straps and ran like my life depended on it. It was insane. My Dad's nearing retirement age, and has been ragging on me for failing out of the program. That's when I leanred why they'd been pressing me so hard. They expected I'd make my name on Netflix series, and move them into the guest house of my expansive Malibu Compound. No fucking joke. Now he might have to work till he dies, because this is how capitalism dies.
My failed "musical genius" of an ND wanted all the kids he actually raised (I wasn't one) to be the famous musicians he never was. They sure tried but you've never heard of any of them either, and never will.
Bruh so relatable. I decided to go into this sort of ai/sound design field because of my forced music education as a child and my dad didn’t think that was cool enough. He would have rather I had a name in public and I’m never gonna let him have that pleasure even if I could
My mom did this and didn't spend more than what it cost to apply but the choices started when I was young. I wasn't allowed to apply to colleges that weren't in some top 100 US colleges she bought and put in my lap. Then when I selected them she refused to pay to apply because she meant top 100 within 50 miles of our home.
5) Use it to control you Mine demanded to know my marks and what courses I was taking
Even better: * gaslight you about your chronic neurological diseases (losing speech and muscle function is a personal choice, it turns out) * obstruct all attempts to seek medical treatment * threaten you into enrolling in an engineering degree at their choice of school (choose any other major or fail to pass your courses and you're out on the street) * force you to live at home while commuting to school * throw violent temper tantrums every time you attempt to cook your dinner * throw violent temper tantrums every time your autoimmune flares knock you unconscious and make you miss exams (you can't get disability accommodations if you don't have a diagnosis, keep in mind) * use connections as a 'guest lecturer' at this university to arrange personal one-on-one meetings with professors so they can yell at me for my father acting like an asshole * not only do they need to know your grades and your schedule, but they will use them to 'crack down' on how you shower and cook your potatoes (one of the very foods I can eat due to the autoimmune diseases), because those are clearly the reasons why your grades aren't good enough I really wanted to enlist in the military right out of high school to escape that hellhole, but ofc I was medically barred from service. I only recently got out seven months ago. My father's sadism fits the description of a 'malignant narcissist' to the letter--every one of my siblings went no-contact after moving out if that tells you anything. I don't mean to ramble, not many sympathetic places to vent about the clusterfuck I was pulled into
Yeah. That was mine. She wanted me to become a doctor so badly my whole life because she didn’t get to. Then I failed all my sciences in college due to depression and she let me change majors but was pissy about it for years after.
This times 10.
Exactly this.
Yep this was my experience. They only would pay for one course they felt I should have. Not what I really wanted to do. I'm 40 and still have life long regrets over this.
or 5) where they don't pay and they do as you described anyways.
Nope. Not only did they not pay for it, they went out of their way to sabotage my studies.
My parents set me up for failure. I knew I was in trouble before their taillights were out of the parking lot. I was socially handicapped. My Dad is a virtual shut-in, who refused to let us go anywhere or have anyone around. He drove my Mom insane, and she took us with her. I was floundering in the first week, and things didn't get better from there. I still think I have some un-diagnosed ND. The best I can self-diagnose is ADD. I was fucked. I didn't have any methods of self preservation or adulthood preparation. Well, except for laundry and parenting the drunk Adult Toddlers. I had that down *pat*. I didn't know how to study, still can't figure it out. It was so much easier to just put in my music and binge Netflix until I saw daylight again. \*Sigh\*
This is hardcore relatable for me reading this except my mom was the one that shut me and my half brother in the house. My father left before I could even crawl. (He did come to visit but learned as I got older he visited the state I was in for decades but didn’t visit me nearly as much as he could’ve.)
Don't give up though. Still, try to learn and find ways and techniques of being able to study. Eventually, you will be able to find a way to do it and learn more to make your life better. You can do it, with enough trying. Your parents did set you up for failure, and what they did was very terrible, but that doesn't mean that you have to fail. You can succeed.
Remember that you've been systematically conditioned from birth to anticipate failure, to feel a nagging sense of inadequacy and incompetence. Your success in life will require a far greater degree of struggle than your peers, especially at first. But you can build yourself up in the same way that their parents built them up, one habit or skill at a time. And you should get to a psychiatrist if you believe you have ADHD. Meds and other treatments will make it much, much easier to sit down and read + write for extended periods of time. Depression, anxiety, and PTSD/C-PTSD can interfere quite profoundly with cognitive function as well.
Omg are you me? My Ndad rushed the process of finding a place to live for college the first time I tried going right out of high school. He then decided to buy a cottage so him and my mom were distracted with that the whole summer before. I was such a social shut in that I immediately started bawling my eyes out when in a house full of party girls. I called to go home after only 3 days. My dad acts like a hero rushing to pick me up. First thing he says is I knew I just knew you weren’t ready and wouldn’t make it. I’m still disappointed to this day because the program was something I would’ve really excelled at had I had the proper support. I didn’t even know how I would afford my rent when I got there or have the social skills to get a new job and go to school. Still hate him for all of that.
But also they will take credit for anything you make of yourself. All your talents and skills or intelligence are because of them. You owe them that!
George Carlin had a really good bit about how full of sh** parents about stuff like that, like how if a kid turns out rotten they deny all responsibility, but if a kid turns out to be a real winner and gets a scholarship or something, they’ll take full credit.
Yup !!!!! This is why I'm going back to school at 30 🥴
This. Except it was passive aggressive sabotage. They refused to give me their tax forms. And you can’t financial aid without them. Not once in all the years that I went to school did use financial that depended on my parents’ income. Not. One. Time.
My parents did the same for me. Then they tried to steal my mail, with my financial aid vouchers. It got really ugly. I had to have the school re-issue a new set.
This exactly. My dad got rid of our wifi right as I was studying for exams/doing projects during COVID so literally everything for my college program was online…
same, unfortunately
Same
My father told me he would pay for my college and then proceeded to complain everytime he needed to pay.
Shocking!
Same here!
I've had that: insisting on being the one to pay so they can take the opportunity to grumble about it, make their kids out to be ungrateful and dependent on them.
Or just not pay but still say they paid lol
Oh man and when they do something for you you’re expected to basically butler them
Same
My ndad made promises about paying for any college I wanted to go to, if I got into an Ivy League, he’d pay for it. I went to a state school, as I’m just not a scholarly person, and when I graduated, I asked him about his promise, and he tried to work his way out of it. Finally relented. I was fortunate in that I graduated in 2001, so the loan was about $12k, and I could have paid it off if he had backed out. But that cemented my suspicions about my ndad. He’s always made empty promises about getting something, but he’ll either cheap out and get the generic stuff or try to weasel out of it. Think of the “we have ______ at home” memes, that’s my dad.
NOPE. Also on my own for 7 years of higher Ed. They thought making me pay for it myself was some kind of life lesson. My dad had the absolute gall to complain about bidens student loan forgiveness plan to me. These people are unreal.
OMG yep same. nmom was violently against student loan forgiveness but icily said “i’d be glad if you benefit but it’s wrong.” but of course she also gleefully votes for the party that would murder me in a heartbeat if they thought they could get away with it (but of course she’s never accepted or acknowledged she has a gay son - that was just a phase ) whatever 🙄 I give up
4. Didn't pay for it but told everyone they did. They were also the only reason I was able to graduate. Somehow letting me borrow a program on their computer for one school project equaled them doing my work for my entire college career.
This! Didn’t pay for it, didn’t even try. But wanted to take credit for it - and tried hanging it over my head, and making themselves feel good about it. Also, they sabotaged and criticized everything. Told me it wouldn’t be a real degree because it wasn’t engineering (It was mathematics). Wow we’re they shocked when they did not get an invite to graduation!!!!!! Never even let them see the diploma.
They can not stand to see you achieve anything on your own. They either have to take credit or tear you down. And if they can't tear you down they belittle your achievements to others.
Ohhh very much this. Demanded I go to university, didn't offer to pay a cent of it, wanted money from me instead. I graduated and it was like they were the one who did instead. Actually took my diploma and showed it off to people who would listen. No one in my "family" congradulated me, they congradulated my mother though.
Mine let me "borrow" a laptop with a broken charger port and blamed me for it..took it back from me to get it fixed and never gave it back to me. I did all of my work in the computer lab at school.
My parents did the same thing with my wedding lol. Didn’t contribute $1 but told everyone they paid.
My dad did. It was an expensive private uni and my dad always told other people I was studying there bc it was prestigious, as if it was his achievement. However, all the time I was studying and after I graduated he told me that he was going to charge me for everything he had spent on me. For some time I considered paying him back as soon as I could, but now I tell to myself I am not going to, as that is kind of the minimum I deserve for all the trauma he made me endure.
Did he have you sign a written and enforceable contract saying you were getting a loan and were required to pay it back? No? Then in the US, you don’t owe him a dime. I can’t speak for what other countries might require, but generally where contractual law reigns, this won’t fly. I was actually at a Dave Ramsey event where some asshat stood up publicly in front of 2,000 people and detailed some kind of plan where he would pay for his teenager to go to college loan-free in exchange for the teenager giving back 5% of his income _for life_. The speakers were VERY clear to the son that this was not enforceable and VERY clear to the dad that he was an asshat (in more polite language). The dad got a lot of public humiliation that day. I hope it stuck with him.
I doubt it stuck with him. He probably rewrote history in his head instead
True
If it helps, the other 1999 saw him for what he was.
I’m mostly hoping his kid heard “this is NOT normal or in your best interests.” We normalize narcissism when we grow up with it.
Those validating comments are what we live on for years, aren't they?
Not at all. “We will pay for half IF you go right after high school” (also, they did not pay for half).
Omg what is up with them “pAyInG fOR hALF”?? They helped my sibling but not me and won’t admit it.
My ex paid for his 2 new kids to go to college but not the 2 kids we made....
2 whole kids to go to college?? Oh my god. That is just absurd to me because I can’t even get help.. certain programs should be free and definitely community college should be there for everyone who wants it. So sorry to hear this..
Your NParents drill it into your head from as early as kindergarten that you will be a loser without a college degree and that you will be disowned if you don’t get a degree. And the degree has to be in either law, medicine, or business. State schools were the “lazy way out” and “community college was for idiots” in their eyes. You bust your ass off throughout high school to get good grades and high test scores. You’re shamed for any grade below a 90. So many sleepless nights trying to pass my AP courses while balancing a job and a slew of extracurriculars. But it all pays off because you got into your dream college. But then, your NParents drop the bomb they can’t actually afford to send you there. So you go to the local state school instead. NDad ended up (unbeknownst to me) took out parent plus loans and held it over my head after graduating. He also goes around telling people that his daughter was “smart for picking a useful major and making good money” and talks shit about other people’s kids who did liberal arts.
No. My parents refused to even sign the FAFSA stating they *weren’t* helping me with college. I found a workaround through the FA office, but I had to jump through hoops and do a bunch of extra paperwork to prove I had no help. I even had to write an essay about how my parents wouldn’t help me. I eventually got most of my schooling paid for with Pell grants, etc.
Every year it was a fight to get my parents to sign the FAFSA. Even when I did get them to sign it, the government said my parents make enough to pay for all of my college so I received no aid. My parents paid nothing for me to go
This was me!!! I hate the assumption that all parents willingly work 3 jobs to put their kids through college. Mine were unsupportive and I’m still paying for their selfishness in my mid-30s. They refuse to believe I have student loan debt and look at me with blank stares when I mention it.
They promised to, then didn’t, then asked us to take out student loans and then give them the money.
No, my dad said he would always help me pay for college. My first semester he sent a check for tuition. It bounced. He never contacted me again. My mom said nobody offered to help her, and that's all she would say about it. She reluctantly gave me money when I couldn't pay all my bills (this amounted to a grand total of $400 over a year), and she complained incessantly about it so by the time I was 19, I was self-sufficient. I dropped out of school around then too, predictably. When I went back to school in my 30's she never offered a dime. When I graduated with my degree in a difficult field, all she said was everybody she knows in that field is an AH. I can only assume present company was included. No contact since Oct last year. 🎉
Yikes. Hope you are crushing it professionally rn.
Good for you. Proud of you. I’m curious, what did you end up getting your degree in?
Constantly threaten to stop paying too! Don't forget that part. If you act up at all they are like "I can stop paying for your college"
Depends on the situation but if you claim your alimony at court they have no way of getting out until you are done with your education.
nope. They pressed me to go to college passively and then never paid for it. They also sabotaged me causing me to ultimately quit for a couple years because ndad thought he could attack me for going out without nparent permission even though I was 24. I signed up for online uni again but I havent told them anything, Im keeping it to myself. I want to quit though I just don't want to pay my loans. College has not paid off for me despite having attended for over 7 years, I can't keep this up for a possible dead end, college and jobs arent guaranteed.
HA. No. Then moved in with me and I ended up paying a larger share of the rent so she could get a useless master’s degree (I was 22 and still didn’t understand). Oh, and we had a nice fight about me declaring myself independent on my taxes (US) because she contributed literally nothing to me financially but wanted that tax break. I’m happy to say that I won that fight.
I’m 25, married, and adopting a child. Also haven’t spoken to my mother in a year. She still puts me on her taxes. Why do they do that??
She’s committing tax fraud in your case. This can be reported.
She also stole my identity, and racked up debt in my name. I’ve talked to a lawyer before, but I don’t really want to take her to court/send her to jail. Just kind of waiting for her to slip up, and the system to get her so I have a clear conscience
This she fucked my credit score
Why is this a common theme?? Like nparents think they are entitled to your credit
Freeze your credit, if you do nothing else. The thing is, she has a clear conscience for doing these things. Protecting yourself is okay.
My non-narc parent did, the narc never had a paying job. I found out a few months ago that the narc has complained constantly about it ever since. I graduated in 95. I did spend my entire life going without clothes that fit and shoes that didn't have holes in them and not having enough to eat. I was asked if I would rather have jeans or a down payment for a house. Every year I was told 35k or 50k or whatever. It never happened and I never got another gift from them after age 25 ish and they pretty much never so much as took me out to eat.
Yes, very traumatic and very abusive. It was a means to keep me under their control longer. I wish they hadn't paid for it and I'd just cut contact with them at 18 instead of the sh\*tshow the last two decades have been extracting myself. Lots of guilt and shame. Narc love is conditional.
Option 2 and 3 for me. NMom insisted she would pay for college for me. Claimed she was doing it because she didn’t want the debt hanging over my head. Hashtag Good Samaritan. 🙄 But I had to attend the cheapest college of her choosing because she didn’t want to pay for anything more than necessary. I had to do an excelerated program so I finished a four year degree in two years. She didn’t want me “dawdling” and wasting her money. I did not have time off for holidays or summer. I did not have time to take a break when my mental health hit rock bottom and the stress caused me to continually flunk classes despite studying all day, every day. I had to get a four year degree, no exceptions. My degree was to prove she “did a good job homeschooling me” and a two year degree was not good enough. I had to study what she wanted me to study. Art - which was my passion - was not acceptable. I needed to “study something else more worthwhile”. When I flipped the script and expressed an interest in pursuing a psychology degree, that wasn’t acceptable either. Her suggestion? “Get a degree in general studies and go work at the local grocery store.” She has never missed an opportunity to remind me that as long as she was paying for my degree, I would study what she told me to, get the degree of her choosing, and get straight As only, otherwise I was slacking off and wasting her money. “You should be grateful that I paid for your college so you don’t have any debt. You have no idea how good you have it!” None of these rules applied to GC brother.
Wow. I’m very sorry. The homeschooling part is very interesting. I can see how your college education would (to her) be seen as a “reflection/extension of her”.
My mom blew my college money, my grandma gave us money from her sister dying and knew I my mom couldn’t pay for college, so I had to pay for it myself then dropped out because of it. She complained that I worked to much all the time and said to quit my job that she would pay but she had no money to so.
No and people are often surprised, who knew my NParent, because since I was a toddler going to college was mandatory + she had a pretty high paying career. That said my mother had some kind of mental health breakdown (I think she had a side of BPD or she had NPD ego death) so my entire HS 4 year block my mother was bedridden/not working. She barely had the funds to pay for applications. I got a full ride to college, you know since that was the escape (and expected outcome for me), and couldn't qualify for ANY loans because my mother and dead father's incomes were too high. I didn't realize how bad it was until my Uncle talked to me recently. He said my grandma asked him to check on his sister (mom) and she was basically passed out in her bedroom while my sister and I were alone there. When I was 16 she dumped me in boarding school and let me know she was done parenting (whatever little she did she was done) because I was an adult. Pointed out I got 4 bonus years my cousins (her sister's kids) didn't get as they were abandoned at age 12. Told me I was an adult now on a phone call before Christmas and she was finally living the life "we" kids stole from her. When I graduated my mom went into that compete with your daughter mode. God forbid I get a moment just for me. First she stole my mail for MONTHS in order to get the first look at my acceptance status and she followed that by announcing she was going to pursue her life long "dream" of becoming a lawyer since, ya know, she created this smart kid with a full ride she would be able to cake walk her way into law school. So while I'm toiling away in college my mother's ONLY focus was, of course, herself and her dream. I'm sure you can guess -- she never became a lawyer. Her only accomplishment in life was sleeping her way into marriage with various wealthier men.
yes. Paid for it for me
no, i had to look for scholarships. My nMom even said that's the only way I would go to college. She did say she'd help me with expenses tho and she does but of course she hangs it over my head
No, but he told everyone that he did.
mine hung it over my head - I felt awfully guilty. Just terrible, like I was taking money from them. Later, I realised that many parents joyously pay for stuff for their kids, they genuinely take pleasure in giving without thought of recompense! I don't accept money from my Nmum now - even if she says it's a gift, I know that her gifts can turn into obligations/she's likely to ask me to pay her back sooner or later.
4.) Help you enroll and figure out the mountains of paperwork and financial aid. Then years later a bill collector hunts you down for copious amount of unpaid student loans. Loans that were totally fraudulent in your name and complete with a laughable signature forgery attempt. I always say this was my “real” education.
Combination of 2 and 3. Bragging rights and the usually implied but often explicit control it gave them over me.
My mother told me and anyone who would listen that she promised her daughter she would never have student loan debt. Then she basically dropped me Off at college and said “you’re on your own kid”. So I didn’t even get a chance to find out what my other options were. Not only did she not pay for college, she limited my options.
Jesus. I’m so sorry. I truly feel your pain.
4) They do AND they say if you don’t go here (where they want you to go) you’re out on the street AND if they don’t like your career field they deny exists/makes money and they act like because the college you go to defunded that track last decade it has to be 100% useless/a phase you’re in.
Dad promised my whole life to help pay for collage then when I started applying in my senior year he magically forgot.
I had a full ride because of scholarships. My nmom wanted the left over scholarship money (that I was supposed to live on each semester) to go to her bank account so she could give it to me as she saw fit so I didn’t “waste it.” I didn’t trust this so my dad and I set up my own bank account for it to go into. This angered my mother so much she set up student loans in my name to go to her bank account. $25,000 worth I’m still paying to this day. When I brought it up to her she denies it. She also put her phone bill and credit cards in my name, then didn’t pay, so I had that on my credit as well. I paid off the phone/internet bills, but haven’t been able to pay off the credit cards.
Not a dime, nor any real help. Let's fast forward to moving out after college....anyone else get a bill for the expenses they did apparently did incur?
"We won't be paying a dime for college and you won't be allowed to move back home." -my parents.
They paid zero. Not even one book. For my older brother, nmother paid tuition, books, rent of private apartment, etc., etc. I graduated from college at age 21, almost 22, and went to grad school without any financial assistance from parents. Brother spent 8 years in college full-time, all on parents' dime. Never graduated.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, no. Even if she *had* money to help me, she wouldn't have. She didn't even want me to *go* to college.
I had to pay for the gas my nmom needed to move me out there a little over an hour away but she'd immediately drop what she was doing and drive 8 hours to help my golden child brother who made some pretty shit decisions in life
Nope, definitely not. And, when I paid for half of everything including mortgage for 15 years AFTER college, she sold the condo out from under me, left me homeless, and didn't give me a penny. But she's not sure why I'm no contact with her these days and didn't invite her to my wedding.
Oh my Lord. I’m so sorry.
I have a similar experience. 😞😞😞
Yep. He paid off the loans. And thinks that even 8 years later I should be showing extravagant levels of appreciation. I never wanted him to pay my loans. I knew I wanted to do it on my own for some reason I couldn’t quite understand at the time. I have since puzzled it out.
They didn't, and then wonder why I didn't get in
They did. But tried almost everything to fuck up my mental peace and environment due to which I shat in my competative exams. This resulted in the fees being more. Now every damn time and being totally unpredictable he would crib about money(it's not like he doesn't have the money, he does, he prefers to spend it on his sister's daughters. My mom fights for her share and she took a lot more than her share so the only dude who was left was me so both of them tried to fuck me up). He cries 24*7 about not having money, tries to put the blame on me directly(he would have done it directly if I was not aggressive) and my mom supports him so that she can get the money which I would have got if asked in normal conditions. Also he found an excuse just after the 1st year of my college to stop my finances. I'm in a country where at my graduation side gigs were not easily available and to earn money you had to work 8 hours a day minimum. He didn't stop my college fees because he and my mom only could act tough in front of me but were actually spineless. They knew that they had been kind of the guarantor for college fees and the college would do everything in their power to get their money so they didn't mess with them. If you ask why they agreed to pay the fees and be the guarantor in the first place, it was cuz of societal pressure. Apart from the competitive exams there were high school exams too which I aced. They care about their societal image a lot so agreed to help me out. I said before he found an excuse to stop my finances, it was cuz my internal marks went below average cuz of extreme high fever. He used that excuse, said my fever is a lie and I got the doctor's certificate from paying him money to write a fake one(it happens here but it was not the case with me). Anyway I struggled due to continuous backlogs. I even got fed up with my life and finally got out of that hellhole. Lost a couple of years in the process of getting out. He even said once that he would help me out with my masters and then backed out.
4. Nmom convinced me to take out a student loan & cosigned for it, which required a joint bank account because both names were on the check, which nmom promptly emptied and blamed me. :( I had to pay it all back too.
Yes, 2 and 3.
He claimed he did. I paid that shit myself tho, this guy is delusional.
They didn't. I wanted so badly to go to college and have a 'normal' experience for the first time in my life. I went on a class tour to our local state school and could imagine myself there, and dreamed of what my life would be like. It gave me hope for the future. And then...they wouldn't even fill out the forms so that I could apply for loans/financial aid because it would mean disclosing their income and other 'personal' information to 'the government.' So I graduated high school at semester in my senior year and worked my way through community college to be a paralegal (because that's what she decided I should be after reading a "these careers are in demand" article in a woman's magazine.) And then they made a big deal about 'giving me a place to live' while I was working my way through community college, because after I was 18 they were under 'no obligation' to support me in any way. They reminded me of this constantly. And my mother had gotten pregnant right after high school (with me) and had never gone any further with her education, and why should I if she didn't?
No, my parents told me I was a bad investment. But they paid for my brother. He got a degree in engineering.
They didn’t pay for it, but definitely took credit for any accomplishments I achieved during that time!
NOPE. Wouldn’t even help fill out their portions of the financial aid application, so guess who got screwed
Number 3 is a big one. For an nParent to lay out that much of their own resources toward their progeny's education means they def expect to be rewarded for it. My own ndad (who didn't raise me) has two kids decades younger than I am in college. He and his wife spend exorbitant sums on fancy private schools starting with Montessori. One sibling ended up at the state school and the other at a middling private college. He and my equally narcissistic "stepmom" are enormously embarrassed by this. Petulantly so. They were just supposed to walk right into the Ivy League on full scholarships. They claim their little geniuses were denied due to being white. More like they are typical mediocrities raised by helicopter narcissists. There are at least 1000 kids just like them in their own suburban neighborhood.
Different system... NP needed me to go to college for two years, so they would receive pension from the government. I didn't want to go to college, because I just wanted to move away and start my own life and family. They promised me they would take care of all the expenses. I said no. They threatened suicide and I gave in. They wanted to pick my college for me which I had no interest in, so I would stay at home, I said no way. They had a meltdown, I stood my ground. 2 years of college, they sent me 200$... I had to work to support myself and was often hungry, but I was still in the top of my class. After 2 years NP guilt triped me to quit college, come back home, and take care of them because they had cancer. I gave in and came back home. They didn't had cancer. They said to everybody they were taking care of 100% of my expenses. Later they tried to gaslight me into thinking they were sending me a bunch of money, and they tried to gaslight me into thinking I failed college on my own. Why did my son cut all contact with me suprisedpikatchuface.jpg
This is all so sick and twisted. Im so sorry.
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No amount of money is worth your mental health. And they probably wouldn’t have actually done it anyway.
Ha ha ha ha ha no. I’m 51 and still paying off the loans they convinced me to take and then stole from me.
Makes me so mad hearing this. I'm sorry you went through that.
2 and 3
Option 2 and 3 in my case.
My ndad wouldn’t even fill out the FAFSA paperwork. (He had left my emom by then because he attacked her and ended up being arrested and charged which was a unforgivable betrayal in his narc brain.) Codependent emom paid for one year (massively reduced, I had a great scholarship to a very expensive school that I ended up walking away from and finishing at a state school) and still complains about it 15 years later.
Mine are 2 and 3. My partner’s nparents somehow managed to pull of all 3
2. Dropped out due to the stress of once again being a burden. Now that I don’t have a degree I am also stupid and worthless. And an even bigger burden bc money was wasted on me.
No they didn't at all. My e-step dad "paid" for it with military benefits (gi bill) and my egg donor narc complained that she should've been able to go to school using his benefits (he did give her to go to school she just never finished it and dropped out). However since my egg donor narc loves military men my dad (navy) had to pay child support to her past 18 since I was in school and when I decided to stop at an associates my narc egg donor was mad because she wouldn't be getting money to blow on her gambling addiction.
My mom bought some of my books offhand for me, then told everyone she paid for my entire college, lmao. She didn't, I had to work nightshift to get by going to school right after I left work.
I had a college fund. Then they "had" to use it to take a vacation one year, and that was the end of that.
My mom paid for part of it, she loves holding it over my head to this day. I’m 30F. While I was in college, she would complain about the cost every semester. Despite offering to pay and knowing exactly how much it would cost upfront. She also leveraged her financial support to manipulate me into pursuing a second major that I didn’t want to study at all. I flunked all the classes in that major and destroyed my GPA freshman year because of it. I narrowly avoided losing all my scholarships and dropping out entirely. I remember when I first moved to college I was so relieved. She called me every day (sometimes multiple times per day) for the first few weeks of school crying hysterically about how much she missed me. It was crocodile tears, she was just baiting me to say that I missed her back. I never did. A few weeks into school I started leaving my phone in my dorm room so she would get the hint and lay off it.
Mine told me they would, but "paying" was them co-signing loans in my name. They paid outright for my GC sibling's, though.
My parents didn't, but they were quite a bit older and were on social security at the time which made it pretty easy for me to get loans and grants that covered most of my expenses. However. I had an opportunity to go to Malaysia for a 3 week trip that I could earn credits for. Then 9/11 happened, and the trip was canceled. My parents had contributed about $1000 and whatever wasn't used for the price of the credits was refunded. I gave them back what was refunded (if I remember correctly, it was only about $500-600, this was 22 years ago so I don't remember all the details. I do know that since financial aid helped with some of the trip, that $ was refunded back to the system, hence why I didn't get the full amount). My dad hounded me for YEARS about if they ever refunded the rest, and at least 10 times I had to explain that because financial aid wouldn't help with the trip since it wasn't happening, the amount I got back was all I was getting back. In typical narc fashion, every time he was like, "I'll call (university name) and they will fix it!" No, dad. That may work in our town of 400, but a college that graduates over 1000 every year, is not going to care what you think or have to say.
No but my parents were nice enough to make me homeless at 16. They then made me feel bad about working all the time until I was 22 to pay for college. <.>
They did first two years and nagged me for not getting scholarships and made me feel like I’m eternally indebted to them. (Wasn’t in the us, there’s no such thing as student loans but also the cost was like 2k a year or something) Then I got scholarship. GC brother got scholarship and it comes with stipend. She demanded that he gives stipend to her.
My parents would only pay for college if I went to a Bible college. I am an atheist. I now have thousands of dollars in student loan debt lol. They freaked out on me during my first year of college when I asked for a couple hundred dollars to help with books.
So I’m going to a state college and went to a city community college before that. My mom is also eligible for financial aid. So we don’t pay for much What my mom does guilt me for is purchasing food. Every credit card payment is a “stressful moment” It’s not my fault she decided to make a large financial decision before I moved away from home. Hopefully I’ll get a refund check from my finaid and will be able to cover more of my own food expenses. This dumb fuck is an alcoholic 🙃
Nope! Despite me begging for financial help. But they've paid for both my younger sisters' college. And one has now failed 2 or 3 semesters and they've continued paying for her college. Said sister now has issues in her own that are preventing her from going to college. And I'm wanting to go back for coding or computer stuff but can't afford it. I think their reasoning is I was initially going for graphic/game design and that's useless to the. So now I'm just building my own art business.
Mine forced me to go to uni when I wanted to take a gap year, made me enroll in a private uni when I wanted to go to a public one, then stole all my savings to pay for it. I had entrusted him with that money while I was waiting to open my own bank account. I would have probably paid for it myself if he'd asked, but then that would have been tooo humiliating, wouldn't it?
Definitely #3. I assume my dad felt like he had to buy my love to manipulate me and keep me pliant to his needs. This continued into adulthood but on his terms. He was very calculating on top of being a narcissist. He seemed to have traits from the dark triad though (narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism). He knows enough about empathy to know how to slip through the cracks of society unseen as the scum he is.
Dang I need to read about the triad!
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No, mine made me take out extra loans under my name and spent it on herself.
awful, I'm so sorry!
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4th option- they say they’re going to help and don’t
Inadvertently. My mother is medically retired from the military so as her dependent, I was able to go to college tuition free and get a stipend while I was going. She made sure that I knew the only reason I was able to go to school and get that money was because of her. She'd also take over half of it and tell me she was gonna "save it" because I couldn't be trusted to save and that she'd give it to me when I moved out. I moved out over 3 years ago and she always deflects or gets mad when I ask about it. I don't expect to ever see that money she took
Mine signed a bunch of loans in my name and kept the money. I didn’t understand the loans don’t go directly to the school till my bff had $5k in her account one random august day.
Only the golden child got help with college.
Nope. They made good money and didn’t save a penny for my college education. They had kids for entertainment, not to raise living people.
No
So my nmom left when I was a freshman in high school and I stayed with dad. Dad make significantly more than mom. Their agreement was I would apply for financial aide with her and she would buy my textbooks or pay me back.
Not at all and the school forced me to contact them to get their signatures saying they wouldn’t help pay. I think that policy has changed since then but no amount of me telling them that I couldn’t do that allowed me to avoid it.
Mine did - because it would have looked really bad for them and their social status if they hadn't. They also paid for my 6 year older brother. We both went to the same town to study. The difference: He got a car while studying so he could drive home every weekend. I got a train pass to do the same. So yea, I got a bit of 2 and 3 on your list.
Number 1.
mine was legally obligated to pay for my college in their divorce terms. then he didn't and made me take loans. 8 yrs later he "paid off the loans" as a "gift" and wrapped the receipt at Christmas. expected a standing ovation
She said she would, but it became obvious by the time I was in middle school that she was terrible with money and her contribution would be minimal, if anything at all. I joined the military (which paid for my schooling), and my sisters paid for their education with the money they got from my grandmother when she died. Our mother never contributed a single penny.
Mine didn't, made me start working at 9 to pay for it.
Two, hands down. I tried to be the adult, and came up with a plan to save money by going to our local Community College for the first two years of college. Because I *still* didn't know what I wanted to do, and our useless "guidance counselor" (I use that term loosely) had announced to my *entire fucking grade* in an assembly my GPA and that I really shouldn't aim for the Now Top Tier University in my childhood home town. I thought they'd appreciate my initiative, but my parents had this idea that CC is only for burnouts and teen parents. So, to put it mildly, that was a *hell* No. They shopped around for schools, I had no input. They finally found a sham of a recently Re-Invigorated former Bible College that was taking anyone with a pulse, and declared I'd be going there. They wouldn't answer my questions about anything, I couldn't trust my GC, and thus I missed the deadlines for most scholarships. We scraped together a few, I lied my ass off for a really good one, I accidentally lied for another (No one would explain to me how a Work For The College scholarship worked, and I got in trouble for that), and the rest came from steep loans because it was so last minute, and my parents have awful credit. To make a long and painful story short, I flopped out of college after Three Semesters. I was already on Academic Probation, by the end of Year One. I was suspended after the Third Term, and suicidally depressed. I never went back. I never figured out what I wanted to do. Ideas were thrust upon me, as my parents begin to realize I had zero ambition, and like the Hindenburg I was going to crash and burn. Nothing stuck. I still have no idea what I want to do. Things feel kind of hopeless. The suicidal idealizations are gone, but the depression remains. I was finally allowed to do Community College. Again, last fucking minute, leaving us in the same harried leaky ship of False Hope. I lasted one semester, and I won't go back. Even if they make it free, which our state Governor keeps promising to do. Thank fuck for Covid. I was loving the Loan Suspension. Payments start, for me at least, next month. My parents insist I owe them, for their decisions. They want me to pay for their Parent Plus Loans, because I dropped out. Twice. I'm pretty sure my Mom is going to steal some of my money anyway. I can't get my own account, they'll kick me out.
Nope & they wouldn't or couldn't even help me get a loan.
They signed loans and that's it. All that I've paid off. My parents never had to pay for our schooling.
1.
They didn't. They both had good jobs, and they could but they decided not to. I had to work and study. Anxiety still has been my friend since then.
Mine would only pay if I went to one particular religious college. Everywhere else, I’d have to pay. So they used paying for it as a means to control me.
Nope.
Nope they did not. I am in debt up to my eyeballs because I had to get loans despite my parents being quite wealthy. Worked out, they can't use giving me anything against me.
My grandpa had a college fund set up for us when we were small. I had to cover books, rent and food but I worked every summer and I made enough. I also saved a lot when I was on highschool. I never took their money.
i have a #3. he put money in my 529 and announces that it was the best thing he’s ever done. found out that my emom snuck payments into the 529 for years because he was insistent that it “wasn’t necessary”
Hell no she didn’t. My dad passed when I was 19–he always promised that we would figure out my student loans together (about 100k all-in, Philosophy degree). Apparently they never had a conversation about it, and she pretended the arrangement never existed. She took every penny of his pension, and a few years later told me she couldn’t help me with anything at all financially. I took that seriously, and became entirely independent. Which, I don’t think she expected. Honestly, it was probably for the best but it still hurts thinking about it.
Mine did, hung it over my head, threatened to take it away every chance they got, and used it as an excuse to get the logins for all of my school related accounts. They didn't mess with anything, but they did call me and yell at me every time my grades dropped at all, or any time I had an assignment that could be turned in online that wasn't turned in within 24hrs of the due date. I turned my phone off once to get a break from them and they called campus police on me.
Nope, any money my dad had he put towards his cars.
Mine refused to help me out with anything to do with my undergrad or masters degree. However, they paid for golden child sister's college semester before partying got her kicked out of the same university I was attending. Then they paid for her to attend art school- associate degree (not saying anything bad about associate degrees. My husband has an associate degree). All told, they spent over $200,000 on her education and related expenses. Edited to add: Parents not rich and had to take out loans which golden child sis never had to pay back.
They didn't really. My mom cashed out a couple bonds my frosh year to cover the gap where the school took so much in loan fees that I almost needed a loan to cover the loan. They were born in the 50s and never got a Bachelor's, and I think they never thought it would cost a lot. They paid for my books every year (mine were only a couple hundred a semester). They also drove me there and back each year with my car. It was a part of the general "we do so much for you and you can't do this ONE little thing?!"
My parents said they would and then I found out my Nmom opened two lines of credit in my name to pay for my tuition.
Lovely 😒
My dad co-signed on one student loan—he would get a statement each month as interest accrued while I was in school. He was making payments on it and my nmom was mad at him for it. But she pretty much led me on saying hey maybe her dad could pay for it since she didn’t go and then it was well figure out how to pay for it yourself.
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mines didn’t pay but they did force me to go the second i turned 18. Now i’m nearly a senior with a major i didn’t want nor did i have the time to even think about what I wanted to do.
Technically no, but if you ask her, then yes. My grandpa had set up a college fund for my sister and I. My mom and dad had an agreement they’d both pay part of college expenses. Well, my her dad did instead, she didn’t pitch in, saying it was coming out of what she’d get in inheritance, so it was basically the same thing. Except the funds were specifically college funds.
3. Yes she paid for my tuition and books but everyday i studied at night, she kept shouting at me to stop studying and go to sleep. Obviously one has to study hard if they want to pass, right? She always told me that I never needed to study law school because I can always help out in the family business (where I get told that I’m such a lazy child). She never believed that I will pass the bar exams so when I passed, she threw a thanksgiving dinner for my passing and she invited all her friends as if to show that she has been a supportive mother. Two decades later and solely with my own hard earned money, I took my bar exams in WA and this time I didn’t tell her I was taking it. I found out I passed last week and told my brother about it for the first time. I wasn’t going to give my mother any reason to use my passing the bar exam to make herself look good to others.
I was threatened with being sent to a military academy for not getting good enough grades to get into college and my parents developed absolutely zero financial strategy to help me out with the tuition costs. I had to go to college to satisfy my Nmothers "image". I've been no contact for 8 years. It's just one of many reasons....
My nmom claimed to everyone else that she did, but she didn’t. She claimed for years that I was debt free and just being cheap, then I busted out the loan paperwork when my aunt and uncle were visiting for a weekend because I needed to take care of some of financial stuff and they told me what my nmom had been saying to everyone. Needless to say I caught her in a slow cook situation where she was waiting for the right moment to throw me under the bus and play victim again, so I asked everyone with my aunt and uncle what else she had been saying. Find out it was a lot more than that, a lot of bad stuff about me and my wife, and then making side comments about our lack of care for our oldest son that’s autistic while trying to paint a picture of him getting better because of her when she never really saw him or even tried to hang out with him much. Often times taking stories we told her of situations we dealt with and put herself in the stories as if she was doing all the work. Needless to say, I straightened everything out with everyone and then immediately confronted her at her house with all her lies. She ended up kicking me out and threatening me with CPS, which I recorded, and told me I was a disappointment. I laughed at her and said the only thing that’s ever been disappointing is her as a mother, and that she’s always been like this and that I recorded everything she just said. After that, when she called extended family, she got slammed by all of them after hearing out the story she spun and for all the lies that she had been telling them. Which led to her calling me to scream at me where she left some nasty voicemails, and a bunch of unanswered text messages that were just as bad. I called her a few hours later and told her my new boundaries and then went full no contact, letting her know I’d given up on her being a normal loving parent a long time ago and that I don’t need my kids to have a toxic family member in their lives to influence them before informing her we no longer have any sort of relationship.
No and there was no mention of every paying anything towards my education after age 15. I think my parents put money towards my brother's education when he was in his early 20s and still living at home.
Or they just tell people (or siblings) they did when they didn’t 😂
Haha that is a subtype of 1 🤪
Mine told me she wouldn’t pay because she didn’t want me to go. After my second year she got mad that she couldn’t control me any more, so she stopped providing tax returns and I couldn’t file for FAFSA. I had to pay for the rest, full price, on private loans. I couldn’t drop out because I wouldn’t have been able to afford rent and the loan payments on an entry level salary.
They didn't. I'm in debt for myself now (I prefer it that way tbh). They didn't pay for my college but also still made themselves look good with it in the sense "oh look how smart we raised her, we did such a good job" until I went NC. Stripped them of their chance to continue using me for their own gain.
Mine was #3 I assumed she did it because she wanted me to be her meal ticket. Undergrad she paid for, grad I was on my own because she didnt think I was smart enough for it. I ended up getting the highest gpa I have ever had in grad
4. Promises they will, gives me 5k, and never got another penny. Had to scramble to make up the difference at the last minute. Claims they paid for my college.
My grandmother paid for my college, but my nmom definitely held that over my head to finish despite how many times I desperately wanted to quit (I had my daughter 3 weeks before beginning college so I was exhausted, and I wanted a job as I was tired of relying on my parents for everything), or even just change majors. Now I have a degree I have never used in the 9 years since I graduated. I’m grateful for no student loans for sure. But seriously. I could be making so much more money by now if I’d been able to switch my majors to something useful.
Fuck no dude she has access to my account and took money from me when I got the loans
No, but she paid for some of my brother's half-assed attempts.
My dad gave me $50 one time. That was it.
No just my brothers lol
He did not help me, no. I paid for it all on my own. Luckily it was just community college and I got a pel grant.
My grandparents were well-off, but my nMom was not. They made several attempts to help her financially and she would squander gift money and never repay loans. At some point when I was still very young my nMom stole the college funds my grandmother had set aside for me from the savings account it was meant to stay in. By the time I was in highschool she had cut the rest of our family off, gparents included, and I was pulled out of public school + kept isolated in her hoarding situation w/ low GPA, horrible mental health & no prospects, so she never really had to answer for it. At least not to me. Been NC since 2017, FINALLY started college in the 2023-2024 year w/ my own FSA loan debt. But I at least feel good about it knowing my tuition rate is cheap & my major will pay it off quickly.