Marriage with a narcissist is a dysfunctional and toxic relationship that involves emotional abuse. The narcissist slowly destroys your mental health and self-esteem. It is difficult for you to recognize the dysfunction because the narcissist’s damage has continually made you believe everything is your fault. Instead of looking at the fault and actions of the narcissist, the narcissist has you constantly looking at yourself as the problem. The damage to yourself-esteem not only makes it difficult for you to identify that your spouse is a narcissist, but it also makes it difficult for you to leave the narcissistic spouse.
5 Signs that you are Married with a Narcissist
- Spouse Won’t Accept Criticism – A narcissistic spouse deflects any criticism of his/her behavior by criticizing you. The narcissistic spouse is quick to point out every fault or perceived fault in you but will not accept any criticism or blame themselves. Everything is always someone else’s fault.
- Spouse Has No Empathy for Others – A narcissistic spouse is incapable of understanding your emotions. This lack of empathy is why narcissists do not feel guilt or show remorse for their destructive actions. It makes it impossible to work on the dysfunction of the relationship because the narcissist believes it is all your fault so there is nothing for him/her to work on. It is you that needs to fix everything.
- Spouse Has an Inflated Sense of Importance–This grandiose feeling of self-importance is actually are action to his/her own hidden in securities. These insecurities are what makes the narcissist constantly demand excessive praise and compliments and lead the narcissist to fantasize about his/her own superior intelligence, beauty and/or achievement. Because the narcissist believes he/she is above all others they tend to believe the rules or laws do not apply to them. The narcissist believes that everyone, including you, are truly jealous of their perfection.
- Spouse Gaslights You – Gaslighting is how the narcissist destroys yourself-esteem. Gaslighting occurs when the narcissist causes you to second-guess yourself and accept blame when it is not your fault. The narcissist uses truth spinning and brainwashing to get you to accept the false story as truth. This causes you to question reality and, often even question your own sanity.
- Spouse is Manipulative and Charms Others – A narcissistic spouse would have no relationships if he/she were not able to manipulate and charm people, including you. When dating, the narcissist probably appeared to be the perfect mate that truly cared about you. The narcissist may have even seemed“ too good to be true”. This is because a narcissist can pretend to be interested in you when in fact, the narcissist is only interested in himself or herself. Once the narcissist has you under his/her control, the narcissist normally stops showing interest in you because he/she was really only pretending to be interested and attentive in order to gain control of you. The narcissist only surrounds himself or herself with people that the narcissist can manipulate, charm and control. These other people will often praise the narcissist and side with the narcissist, making you further doubt your version of the story or your ability to get others to believe your version of the story.
If your spouse is a narcissist, the only way you will be able to repair the damage done to you mentally, is to leave them. It does not matter that others may not believe you. You must get away from the narcissist. There is no way to make the relationship work. It is a one-sided toxic relationship.
If you are married to a narcissist you need to hire an experienced divorce attorney that understands how to deal with a narcissistic spouse. An experienced divorce attorney will partner with you and enable you to leave a narcissist. Call Robin R. Zegen today for a consultation because the emotional abuse needs to stop now.