How Can You Recognise a Narcissist
Narcissism in a partner looks like this...
Your partner treats you and perhaps your children different in private than in public. In public they may ignore you and give all of their attention to others, or pretend to be the perfect husband and father (or mother and wife), while in private they are sarcastic, haughty and insulting and show little regard for you or your children's feelings. They may criticize you and put you and your friends and relatives down behind their backs while being egotistical, negative and arrogant and pretend that they deserve things they haven’t worked for or earned. In public they may manipulate people and situations for attention while acting very charming and pretend they are more important than they are. This will fool people and few will believe you if you tell them how rudely they talk to their family in private. Your partner may treat you and the kids with loathing and self righteousness (and/or chauvinism) and display all kinds of conceit, acting like they are of superior intelligence, looks or physical prowess, and treat you like they are better (and more popular) than you, while often being cold, withdrawn, arrogant and unavailable. The criticism, insults and lack of involvement or concern for your well being and feelings may cause you and/or your kids to feel rejected, hurt, humiliated, powerless, ashamed and angry and can lead to mental health and psychological problems and addictions within your family.
The statistics say that there are more men than women with narcissism but female narcissists cause their male partners just as much pain and humiliation and cause just as much chaos and destruction in their lives and the lives of those close to them.
A narcissistic partner or family member will lie about you or paint a bad picture of you to gain sympathy from others. You should know that this is not because there is anything wrong with you; they do this to justify their own bad behaviour. You may have no idea of all of the lies they are telling you, as well as the lies and exaggerations they may be telling others about you.
If your narcissistic partner makes fights when you try and talk about money, you should know that they may be hiding credit cards or money transactions from you. They will pretend these fights are your fault, but really this is to try and cover their guilt by putting the blame on you.
Narcissistic individuals are also obsessed by the fantasy of an ideal relationship that is ‘perfect’ (and therefore fantasy!) and are skilled liars, so if the above symptoms describe your partner you should be aware that he/she may habitually have secret crushes, be having affairs, using pornography, and/or conducting ‘cyber’ affairs (lying that they are single) all without your knowledge. If you notice that their mind is often elsewhere, and they show other symptoms of this disorder, this could be the reason. This obsession with fantasy is part of what makes them unavailable, impatient and angry with you. It is a major symptom of this disorder.
Not all individuals suffering from narcissism are physically abusive, but it is a significant indicator that you will end up part of a domestic 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. It is even normal after years of this treatment (especially if you discover that they have been cheating on you, after years of them being insulting, rude and blaming you for everything wrong in their life) for you to want to harm them or 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 here to help! We want to help you move 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 of being loved, respected and valued in your family.
Trying to diagnose someone with a disorder is not always a good idea, if your partner displays this behaviour it is not so important to figure out the correct diagnosis (as there are no standard treatment protocols anyway), what is important is that you take steps to protect yourself.
My husband Steve was assessed as being NPD and yet still he got better and we have a great marriage now. We work now to help couples dealing with narcissism to save their marriages (or end them safely) too.
Kim Cooper
