Do you feel controlled, taken advantage of, or like you’re losing your sense of self? You may be married to a narcissist.
Does your partner have one set of rules and expectations for themselves and another for you? You may be married to a narcissist. Does your partner dismiss your feelings as “crazy” or “needy,” but no one else in your life sees you that way? You may be married to a narcissist. Does your partner act out sexually, act recklessly, manipulate you, or blame you for their feelings? You may be married to a narcissist.
It can be very confusing when the person you love constantly dismisses and ignores your feelings, wants, and needs, while complaining that you never do what they want. It can also be very difficult to feel safe, cared for, or even considered in such a relationship. You may feel constant pressure to say and do the right thing in the right way to please them or to keep the peace.
This pressure can lead to depression, low self-esteem, anxiety, fear of making a mistake, and lack of energy and enthusiasm. Basing your self-esteem on someone else’s opinions is always a poor proposition, but when you’re married to a narcissist, it’s devastating. A narcissist feels safer when their partner looks good and feels needed. So they keep you off balance with criticism, withdrawal of love, impossible demands, and lectures about how they know better than you how you feel and need. Ultimately, all of your attention is on the narcissist, trying to get and keep their attention and love, and your needs are stuffed and even ignored by you.
The only way out of this scenario is to start paying attention to your own needs and desires and doing something to fulfill them yourself. Stop waiting for the narcissist to notice and start responding to your feelings spontaneously. Start paying attention to your own desires and needs and make a plan to fulfill them yourself. Here are some ideas:
- Be present in your own life. Start noticing what you’re feeling and when you’re feeling it. Write down your feelings so you don’t try to minimize or diminish them later. Taking care of yourself makes you more in touch with your own experiences.
- Respect yourself. What you feel, want, and need is very important. These things are part of you. Choosing your preferences for yourself, your friends, your activities, your thoughts, and your feelings are all ways to validate your identity and respect your uniqueness. Increase your self-esteem, and you will reduce your dependence on the narcissist.
- Stop making impossible demands on yourself. You can’t change another person, so stop trying to get the narcissist to pay attention to you, listen to you, respond to your feelings, understand your perspective, or be more thoughtful. This is an impossible task, so it’s time to give up and focus on something that can work, which is doing these things for yourself.
- Stop taking things personally. Don’t take anything the narcissist (or anyone else) says or does as meaning anything about you. You are not the cause of what others do. You can’t make another adult think, feel, or act a certain way. That’s under the other person’s control, not yours. In fact, narcissists are so focused on themselves that everything they say is actually a statement about themselves, not you.
- Encourage yourself. Start saying, thinking, and believing good things about yourself. Self-criticism does nothing to make you feel better and it doesn’t help you be a better person or take better action. Being kind, gentle, and forgiving of yourself are the best ways to become immune to the harsh criticism and skepticism that a narcissist can dish out to you.
If you are married to a narcissist, what are you doing to take care of yourself? What are you doing to identify and meet your needs? What do you need to start doing to improve your life? Narcissists, by definition, only think about themselves. So it’s up to you to figure out how to take care of yourself.
