If you live with someone who puts you down and insults you, there is information here that may help you bring peace and security back to your home and your life. Please take your time and read this page carefully as you will not find this information anywhere else.
Does Someone Close to You Suffer From Narcissistic Personality Disorder?
Maybe you know my husband Steve and I from “The Love Safety Net,” our popular online movies or radio show? Well today I will share with you some of our history which I believe may help if you are having problems with chronic fighting and/or abuse in your family or your marriage.
“Our story involves narcissism or NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder), a major factor in domestic abuse and chronic fighting and we have gone public with our experience to help others learn to recognize and deal with this all too common problem.”
After years of conflict, I was directed to read information on-line which led me to suspect Steve was suffering from Narcissism or NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder).
“When I talked to a professional mental health worker about my suspicions, he agreed and told me outright that I should divorce Steve and that there was no cure. Worse I was treated a complete fool for thinking he could get better.”
Despite this (and even though his behaviour was hurting me) I refused to abandon him. In my heart I knew that leaving was the wrong thing to do. There HAD to be answers. I received lots of professional help and advice, learned a lot about psychology (and made tons of mistakes) until I finally discovered (from a local police officer) the first of the steps I would take to end the fighting and bring peace to our lives.
First I will tell you a little about narcissism, but please note that I am not saying this was all Steve’s fault. Later in my story you will learn about codependence which I know now was my role in our problems. These are problems which, just like us, I believe that you can overcome.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder Looks Like This ...
“You and your children are treated very different in private than in public.”
In public you may be ignored while your partner gives all of their attention to others, pretending they are the perfect husband, father, wife or mother ...
“In private however, they will be sarcastic, haughty, insulting and put people down (even friends) behind their back.”
Someone with symptoms of NPD will show little or no regard for your well-being or feelings and may act as if they are superior and more popular than you (and show favoritism between their kids) while often being cold, arrogant, withdrawn and unavailable.
“The criticism, insults and lack of involvement or concern for your well-being and feelings may cause you and/or your children to feel rejected, hurt, humiliated, powerless, ashamed, and angry while also possibly leading to mental health and psychological problems and addictions within your family.”
A narcissist will act as if they should never be questioned and that they deserve things that they haven’t worked for or earned and trade on other peoples honesty and hard work while they lie and manipulate people for attention, perhaps acting a bit too good to be true.
“Indeed they can be very charming and even perhaps humble in public and this will fool people so they won’t believe you if you disclose how they talk to you in private or the things they often say behind other peoples backs.”
Both Men and Women Suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder ...
I write from our experience, but there are narcissistic women as well; the statistics say that there are more men than women with narcissism, our audience however is about 50/50.
“Female narcissists cause their male partners just as much pain and humiliation and cause just as much chaos and destruction in their own lives and the lives of the people close to them.”
If you are close to a woman who displays this behaviour, we certainly feel for you.
“It is not black and white or men versus women either. Most of us have narcissistic tendencies which can affect our relationships badly. Learning to deal with Steve’s narcissism helped me face my own narcissistic side too. It is easy to see in others but harder to see in ourselves. It also helped me face the problems which had seen me become a victim of bullying all my life”
A narcissistic partner or family member will lie and paint a bad picture of you. They do this to justify their own bad behaviour and try and gain sympathy while kidding themselves their lies are the truth.
“You may have no idea of all of the lies they are telling you or the lies and exaggerations they may be telling others about you.”
If your partner creates fights when you try to discuss money, you should be aware that they may be hiding credit cards or money transactions from you. They will pretend these fights are your fault, to cover their guilt by trying to put the blame on you.
Narcissistic individuals are obsessed with the fantasy of a perfect relationship, while being skilled liars, so if the above symptoms describe your partner you should be aware that he/she may have secret crushes or be having affairs, using pornography and/or conducting ‘cyber’ affairs (while lying they are single) all without your knowledge. If you notice their mind often appears elsewhere, and they show other symptoms of this disorder, this may be the reason.
“Obsession with fantasy is part of what makes a narcissist unavailable, impatient and angry and is a major symptom of narcissism. You may not want to consider this possibility, I know I didn’t believe it until the evidence was right in front of me ... and then I was shattered.”
Not all narcissists are physically abusive, it is a significant indicator
however that you may end
up part of a violent
marriage ...
“The physical abuse is not always perpetrated by the narcissist either. It is normal to become very angry with someone who manipulates and puts you down.”
After years of insults, rudeness and blaming you for everything wrong in their life it is even normal (especially if you discover that they have been cheating on you) for you to wish them harm or even wish them dead. This is obviously very serious and so getting (the right) help and support is very important, but can be nearly impossible to find. We care and are we are here to help, so if you face these problems, please bookmark this page right now (so you will be sure to be able to find it later) and continue reading.
“We want to see you moving past feeling resentful and wanting to punish you partner (or wanting revenge) to feeling secure and good about yourself and moving into a new time in your life where you are loved, respected and valued in your family, community and your home.”
If your partner is narcissistic there are people who will tell you that the only answer is to ‘leave and have no contact’, but this is very dangerous advice. This is exactly how to provoke and escalate rage and physical (and emotional) abuse and domestic violence in couples with these problems. It may also result in stalking. Even worse the perpetrator of the violence and stalking might be you, as partners of narcissists are often enraged by how callously their partners can ‘cast them aside' with no explanation.
“More people are killed or injured in domestic disputes when leaving their relationship or in the two months after leaving than at any other time.”
If you want to leave, of course that is OK, but please get our advice first on how to do this safely and how to get closure. You need to consider that setting up house somewhere else may put you on an even less sure footing than you already are and is no guarantee that the fighting will cease or that you will be safer. Statistics show that instead it will often make the fighting worse.
Confronting your partner with evidence they may have this disorder is NOT the solution
Do you sometimes worry that yourself or your partner will need years of therapy to get better? I once thought this was the only thing that would help Steve, but I was wrong and it was other very different things that turned our marriage around. I struggled with this problem for years on my own and it was one of the hardest times of my life.
There is little evidence of therapy being successful in treating narcissism, so you don’t need to try and coerce your partner into therapy. Personality disorders are best helped with a reparative relationship. This is why we sometimes call our approach ‘parenting the adult’; Just as learning new parenting skills can help your child feel safe and learn better behaviour, you can learn new ways of responding and relating to your partner that will help de-escalate the fighting.
I will share each step in detail, exactly what to do, and the common mistakes to avoid when you join my free email list.
I hope that sharing our experience will protect you from some of the mistakes we made and the bitter and nasty people I ran into when I first discovered Steve’s NPD. We have information to put to use immediately and advice on how to find the right professionals to help. I look forward to sharing the steps I took to fix our marriage even when everyone said it was hopeless.
“It took us a long time to go public with our story, but after things had been better with us for a few years we decided that we just couldn’t stay quiet any longer.”
We saw so many people suffering that we decided we just had to speak up. It was truly embarrassing at first, but getting thank you emails every day has more than made up for this.
3 Vital questions to know you are not the abuser and
3 Things to stop doing immediately (which only make the fighting worse)
Immediately after subscribing you will gain access to (free) private pages which will give you the 3 questions plus lots more information including a check list of points that will help you better see what narcissism (and codependence) looks like.
All of this is completely free!
I also want to share with you what I have learned about codependence (which our team also calls emotional dependence), which is a term used to describe people who are repeatedly attracted to people with NPD. Codependence and Narcissism are sometimes called ‘a dance’ (of destruction and despair) ...Have you had difficulty forming happy and peaceful relationships? Has attracting lasting love been painful for you? Do you often feel emotionally neglected and in despair? Have you had more than one troubled relationship in your life?
I want to share with you how I learned to stand up for myself and put a stop to the abuse and how this changed everything for me and also helped Steve.
Thanks for reading and please hang in there,
Your Friend,
Kim Cooper
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