Do you think you might be married to a narcissist? By the end of this article, you’ll know the glaring signs that you’re married to a narcissist.
If you suspect that you are married to a narcissist, well then you probably are, but here are the actual warning signs. Before we dive into the actual warning signs, let’s talk about narcissism in general. Narcissism or narcissistic personality disorder is a legitimate personality disorder. It is a mental disorder that of course obviously manifests itself in a horrific way, but it is an actual mental disorder. Some people might not be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder. They might just have narcissistic tendencies or narcissistic personality traits, something like that, just the same as others who might have other types of personality disorders or traits of personality disorders.
But narcissism is an actual personality disorder where somebody has an inflated sense of themselves, a deep need for attention, and a lack of empathy for others. The thing about narcissists is that they have zero sense of internal value. They’re like the hollow chocolate Easter bunnies that you know, there’s the shell, but inside there’s nothing. They don’t feel anything for anything, anyone but themselves. They have a complete lack of empathy because they feel so empty inside all the time. So the only way that they get any sense of value whatsoever is through the external, through what we call narcissistic supply, which comes in the form of compliments, prestige, money, even control over others. Anything that makes them feel that external sense of value because they have no internal sense of value.
There are three different types of narcissists, but they all have basically the same traits. So you’ll see your covert narcissist, which is what I call the wolf in sheep’s clothing. Then there’s the overt or grandiose narcissist, which is your regular garden variety narcissist, the one that we normally think of with narcissists; the one that goes around telling everybody how great they are all the time. Then there’s the malignant narcissist, which are the ones that can be way more dangerous, and are way more toxic. They’re the ones that can tend to even be violent sometimes, engaging in stalking, or other scarier tactics. I call them the Darth Vaders of the narcissists.
So while they can be broken down into three different categories, the psychiatrists have identified what the seven characteristics are of narcissists and I believe they say that if you have five of them, then you can be actually diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder. But you know, the thing is, most narcissists are not ever diagnosed because they don’t go to psychiatrists because they don’t think there’s anything wrong with them. So it’s really hard to say how many people actually have been diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder or how many people just have the traits of narcissism or the traits of lacking empathy or feeling anything for anyone else. If each one of these people abuses five people in their lifetime, which it’s probably way more than that, but if they abuse only five, then you know we’re talking about a major piece of the population or a major percentage of the population have become victims of narcissists.
One of the other points that I want to make here before I go into what the actual signs are of narcissism is that narcissists and empaths do have a symbiotic attraction for each other. Empaths tend to kind of almost sense that insecurity in the narcissist and somehow feel like if you just love them enough, if you just give them enough, if you just do enough for them, that somehow that you’ll be able to solve whatever their problems are or heal them in some way. Or maybe your feel that they’ll see how wonderful you are. But what happens is that it just becomes a relationship of give, give, give, give, give and then the narcissist continues to just take, take, take, take, take.
It leaves you actually feeling empty inside. You actually feel like a shell of yourself because they’re just draining the life from you as they suck all the supply from you as they possibly can. Narcissists are attracted to the same people that everybody is attracted to. They want to be with people who have wonderful characteristics, who are giving and loving, or who are leaders or who have accomplished a lot or who are seen by others as wonderful. And you know, they want some of what you have. They want to attach yourself to you to take that from you. They attach themselves almost like pods, they’re like leeches or parasites that are just, they literally drain the life out of you. So if you are in a relationship with a narcissist, the chances are that you’re probably an empath, which means that you’re a wonderful person, a compassionate person, and you just have been giving, giving, giving to the point that it literally drains the life out of you.
Going back to the seven deadly sins of narcissism, the first one is shamelessness. Narcissists don’t feel any external sense of shame. They have a deep rooted sense of shame that’s inside of them, but they cover it up by being shameless to the external world. They’re not bound by things that other people are bound by. They’re not ashamed to just go after something that wouldn’t even normally be there, thing shtat aren’t even theirs, but they just do it anyway. They’re proudly and openly shameless. They’re not bound by emotional needs of others or wishes of others.
Within this realm of shamelessness, they also loathe criticism and they consider it toxic. They’re very easily slighted. They can detect the tiniest of tones in how someone says something or even if there is no tone or nothing meant by anything, they sense it anyway. It’s like a dog with a dog whistle. Only they can hear it, even if it doesn’t even exist. The sense any little whiff of anything that might indicate one thinks that they’re not perfect or that they need to change if there’s something wrong with them, then it triggers their narcissistic rage and their narcissistic injury and then you get the wrath of that.
Number two is magical thinking. Narcissists want to everyone to see them as perfect, so they distort and filter everything through that lens. What that means is that anything that you point out to them, that they’re not perfect, they’re going to project it onto others.
They’ll never take responsibility for their own actions. Even if you show them proof of here’s how they lied, they’ll distort it and make it your fault. Suddenly it becomes all about you or all about a different person. It’s always someone else’s fault, somebody else’s responsibility, someone else’s problem.
Number three is arrogance. If you’re dealing with a covert narcissist, you’re not going to see the arrogance right on the surface because covert narcissists are much better at hiding their arrogance. But even when you’re dealing with covert narcissist, they still have that sense of arrogance, that sense that everyone should kowtow to them, that they’re superior to others. So when they feel deflated or when they feel that sense of inferiority kicking in, the way they deal with that is re-inflate their sense of self importance by diminishing others, by debasing others, by degrading someone else, putting someone else down, being very judgmental and basically trying to take away any sense of value for the person that might be degrading them or debasing them or devaluing them in any way.
Number four is envy. All narcissists have a great sense of envy. They are very jealous of other people. They’re jealous of other people’s accomplishments. They try to minimize other people’s accomplishments, and try to bring them down in some way. They just don’t want anything to take away from them because if someone else is achieving something or if someone else is getting something, then somehow for them, they think that means that it’s taking away from them in some way.
Number five is entitlement. Narcissists feel entitled, they feel entitled to things that aren’t even theirs. They’ll take credit for projects that aren’t theirs to take credit for. They just feel like they should be having the best of everything. They should be getting promotions that they didn’t even work for or weren’t supposed to get. They have these unreasonable expectations and if they don’t get this favorable treatment or this automatic compliance that they think that they should have because they’re so special, then it is considered an attack. When you just want to move on with your life and have everything be split up normally like two normal people, and take whatever’s fair under the law, well they’re not going to want to do that because that’s considered an attack on them. Whether you want to leave or they want to leave, either way, you’re in for it because it triggers their narcissistic injury and narcissistic rage. They have to make it your fault, your problem somehow so that they come out being the one that looks good.
Number six is exploitation. This can take many forms but basically, they have no regard for others so they use others. They use them for whatever they think they need to use them for, whether it’s money, prestige, being associated with that person because they think it elevates their status in some way, using them to meet people that they might want to meet, using them to get a job that they want. People are only there for their use because your only value to a narcissist is whatever value you can bring to them. Then even when you bring value to them, that’s just like the privilege of being in their space. You’re not going to get any appreciation or recognition for bringing value to them. That’s just the cost of, payment for being around them. So if you can’t bring value to them, then that’s where they go into the discard phase.
Number seven is no boundaries. They recognize boundaries. It’s all part of the fact that they believe that everything is theirs and then there that whole sense of entitlement thing, but basically you have to respect their boundaries that they don’t respect yours. That’s how that goes. It can take many different forms: showing up at your place of business, calling you, texting you, expecting to know where you are at all times, expect you to answer the phone when they want you to or be right there. But they don’t give you the same thing in return,. They don’t tell you anywhere where they’re going or what they’re doing. It’s part of their narcissistic supply is that they exhort this control over you by not recognizing your boundaries.
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