I have a cousin in medical school and she currently lives with me. We were really close but grew apart because of her personality. From a young age, she’s been using people and has been materialistic. She has a troubled history, full of drama that she brought upon herself. My cousin got married recently and 4 months after her nikkah, she was divorced (just 1 month before her rukhsati). She and her family started talking bad about her husband immediately and people are believing everything they say when there are two sides to a story. As much as I want to give her the benefit of the doubt, I know her well and I know she lies too. I recently found out that she had immediately changed her last name to her husband's name after the nikkah; however, despite the recent divorce, she IS still using her ex-husband’s last name in school and in legal documents pertaining to residency applications. I suspect she did this because of her troubled history. She was engaged in some malicious activities that ruined her reputation which is evident on numerous websites on the net if one were to look under her actual name. This is perhaps the reason why she is using her ex-husband’s name, to further herself, and hide her tracks (she has done similar things in the past to cover her past).
If it was easy to talk to her parents, I would have done that a long time ago. They blindly support their daughter when others know she's wrong.
Wow this sounds so similar to something in my own family...I also have a psychopath cousin, one who has all the same traits. I think he definitely has narcissistic personality disorder, and his sister shows traits of the same disorder. Narcissists exhibit:
"Behaviour or a fantasy of g*****osity, a lack of empathy and a need to be admired by others. As indicated by at least five of the following:
- G*****ose sense of self-importance.
- Fantasies of and preoccupied with beauty, brilliance, ideal love, power, or unlimited success.
- A belief of being special and unique and can only be understood or a need to associate with people of high status.
- A need for excessive admiration.
- An unreasonable expectation of being treated with favour or excepting an automatic compliance to her / his wishes.
- Will use others to achieve her / his goals.
- Lacks empathy.
- Believes others are envious of her / him or is envious of others.
- Contemptuous or haughty attitudes / behaviours."
It sounds like your cousin has some of these traits...being around this brother sister pair used to make me think something was wrong with me (e.g. am I taking their actions or words in a weird or paranoid manner making ME the abnormal one or is their behavior actually what I perceive it to be?) but it just made me realize its a part of their psyche.
To make a long story short, my cousin has been manipulative, a liar, extremely proud of himself, brags about the class or status of the people he associates with, how prestigious his job is, and has weird perceptions of how successful he actually is ("I'll be retired by the time I'm 30") Nothing he thinks is actually the way it is, which is what makes it so frustrating and with people like this, if you try and bring them back down to earth, they think you're jealous of them!
So its a neverending cycle of hurt that you're better off staying completely away from.
its a much longer and complicated story than this, but I basically found out my cousin had married an American illegally for visa status and despite him denying it, I have irrefutable proof that he has done so. With the way him and his family act (his parents similarly never admonish any of his wrongdoings), like you, I have often been tempted to out him to the US Government and send his ass packing back to Pakistan. I never have and probably never will do it because no matter what, I can't ruin someone else's life and I worry karma would come back to bite me.
