Hi guys.
Geoffrey here and this video I'm going to show you how you can artfully respond
to your wife when she's showing these narcissistic behaviors and responding in a
way that will actually let you break through those behaviors.
And I really want you to stay until the end because I really want you to be
empowered with going beyond just diagnosing your problem and playing the victim
or simply running away from the problem and actually tackle the problem head on
and breakthrough, not hesitant and for all.
And I've shown this to all my students and I have practiced this myself as well,
and it's worked wonders for all my students and I'm sure it will work wonders
for you as well. Now before I begin this video,
I want to let you know that we'll be hosting a free master class on the five
proven steps to rebuilding your relationship from the ground up.
And if you're interested in joining,
be sure to stay till the end of the video for the announcement and how you can
get in on that masterclass.
And if you want more content that will empower you with the right skills and
knowledge to be able to thrive in your relationship,
then you want to subscribe and click the bell button as well to be notified.
When I post new videos three times every single week.
Now before I get to the artful ways you can deal with the situation.
I want to take you back to I think the two videos before this one where I showed
you that the true reasons why she's displaying this narcissistic behavior and is
that it's not really that she's a narcissist.
It's not a problem with character or a problem with their personality.
It's not a brain problem or a hormone problem.
It's more of a self preservation problem and a form of a defense mechanism and
that's caused by the lack of safety.
And if you look at the signs of narcissism here,
the signs include like being defensive.
You're pointing are pinning the blame on you or shifting blame on you,
reacting really harshly or really badly when you're suggesting something,
even if your suggestion is very innocent or very calm,
she's reacting really radically to it.
The other thing that could happen is you could have the covert or the vulnerable
symptoms like stonewalling, shutting down and being passive aggressive.
Now if you look at all these traits here, yes,
the all these traits can be assigned to a narcissist. Sure.
But it can also be assigned to that of self preservation.
The same way when you're pushed to the corner or when you're experiencing some
dire times in your life, when you were being accused. For example,
when you feel this lack of safety,
you will play out many of these behaviors yourself as well. So again,
like we said in the video,
this is a correlation is not causation problem where many people are
misdiagnosing these traits,
designs as narcissism rather than self preservation. Now,
I really don't want you to misinterpret anything I'm saying here.
So if you haven't watched a video from earlier this week on this topic that I
want you to go back to that video and really get a good understanding of what
I'm actually saying. What I'm actually meaning here,
because this goes against what I think a lot of people say about this topic.
So now that we have that cleared out,
and once we understand that this is really a problem with the lack of safety
here and nothing else, then we can get to the meat of this,
which is the five ways you can artfully respond to someone who is showing these
behaviors. No.
Number one is you gotta change the way you make your suggestions and the way a
lot of people make suggestions is they simply make statements.
I know I think we should do XYZ. I want you to be more XYZ. And so on.
Our suggestions are made in terms of statements.
The problem with Stevens is that behind statements are always a lot of
assumptions. You have to assume a lot of things before you can make a statement.
For example, if you're telling your partner,
please stop raising your voice at me. When you're making that statement,
the assumption that you could be making is that she is choosing to scream at you
to get angry at you because it's our choice that she has no choice but to that
or maybe she's doing it because she's trying to be mean to you is she's trying
to abuse you or simply trying to be childishly getting her way the way she
thinks or the way she wants you,
or perhaps you're assuming that it's a power game that she's trying to assert
her power over you. Whatever it is, your assumptions are.
Every statement has a set of assumptions before it. Now,
the problem is that when you start your suggestions with statements,
what happens is it tends to get people's guards up. Biggest.
What is implied in this statement is are your assumptions and when she
interprets your assumptions in the wrong way or when you have your assumptions
wrong about why she's doing something, her guard instantly goes up.
Safety goes down and that's when you'll see a lot of these self-preserving
behaviors that looks like narcissism,
but it's actually just self preservation again.
So that's the wrong way to bring up your own suggestions. What is the right way?
Well, the right way,
it usually comes in two parts and all my students do this has been working
wonderfully for them. I'm sure would work wonderfully for you as well.
Now it comes in two parts.
The first part is that you have to ask for her permission if she even wants to
hear your suggestions. So you might ask, for example, honey, um,
something's been on my mind for awhile. Do you,
do you mind if I share it with you?
A lot of men especially think that asking for permission,
like this is a beta male thing to do is a weak thing to do.
But it's actually a very smart thing to do because what you're doing is you're
priming her brain,
you're priming herself to be able to take whatever you have to say next,
more voluntarily. And it makes her more open to what you have to say next.
So this is not a weak thing to do.
It's not a beta thing to do is actually a smart thing to do because it gives you
whatever you're going to say next. A lot more power, a lot more impact.
And once you ask this question and she says, yes,
the next thing you do is give your suggestion,
but you don't just state your suggestions. You know,
I've been thinking about X and I think we should do Y, right?
Don't end it there. Don't end it with a statement. Instead ask,
what do you think? And once you ask, what do you think here,
it instantly turns that that suggestion into less of an imposition and it makes
it more into a dialogue, more into suggestion,
more into an invitation for her to take it or disagree with it.
And if you start to do this and you make this into a habit,
you'll find that she'll be a lot more open to what you have to say,
a lot more receptive to it.
And she doesn't feel the need to play out all this defense mechanisms to respond
to you. And you'll slowly figure out that, Hey, if I say it this way,
those narcissistic behavior really starts to go away as well. The second tip,
the second thing you can try is to gently call out their behaviors.
They're not necessarily behaviors straight on. Now in this part,
I understand that tone also really matters here. Your calmness,
your tone is going to matter more than what you say, but something you can say.
For example, if your partner is shutting down, you can say, okay,
I noticed you're shutting down. Can you tell me more what you're feeling,
and I think a lot of people hearing this will think,
you want me to ask more questions to enable those behaviors?
Are you kidding me? Right. Understand that when you ask questions,
you're not enabling her behavior. In fact, you're often disabling it.
One,
your questions and your tone will make her more calm and that will remove that
self preserving behavior as we talked about here.
Second of all by asking the questions you are putting it on her and putting her
on the spot to let her look within and see why she's behaving the way she's
behaving.
And often you're going to make a realize here that there's really no reason for
her to behave the way she's behaving. So a lot of people think that, you know,
the best way to respond to narcissistic behavior is to simply call it out and
say, stop being this. But if you do that,
what happens is you're appealing to their logical side of the brain.
You're making them even more defensive and they might understand what you're
saying, but emotionally they're going to resist against that.
But if you simply make it her decision to realize it herself of why her behavior
is inappropriate,
then that changes the game completely because now she's voluntarily coming up to
her own conclusion without you telling her to feel a certain way.
And not only that, it gets her to express a lot of the pen type stuff.
A lot of the painful memories she has that she's been penting up that is causing
this destruction of safety and causing all this self-preserving behaviors to be
let out. And that can be a very cathartic experience for her.
And when she feels that catharsis,
she will feel a lot more safer on you over time.
Now of course there's a lot more nuance to this. You know this,
it's impossible for me to give you all the tactics,
all the nuances in this particular video.
So be sure to stay till the end because I'm going to give you some resources you
can use too. That goes deeper.
That gives you more ways in which to tackle this yourself.
The third thing you can try is if you're trying to ask these questions,
if you're trying to give your suggestions,
but all you're getting is a non-response,
maybe the response is something that you don't want.
Maybe it's shifting blame again or maybe she's stonewalling you or just,
you know, trying to avert the question. Try to respond with silence.
And you know, most people,
what they do would do is when their partner doesn't respond to them in the
correct way or tries to skirt the question, they get angry. It's like,
let's stop trying to change the subject because I'm trying to avoid this.
Just just tell me your thoughts. Just spit it out. Right?
That's what they would say.
But here I want you to just deal with it with silence. So from my relationship,
if my partner says something and I think that it's not a very good answer,
it's just she's just trying to kind of avert the question,
I would just stay silent and silent for a very long time.
And what's funny is that the silence is a subtle but very clear indication to
her that the answer you just gave me wasn't good enough,
that I'm still waiting for the real answer. And this silence.
It could be uncomfortable, it could be anxiety provoking for you,
but understand that the anxiety,
that discomfort is giving her the stage to want to say something more and often
that something more is exactly what you need to better understand your situation
and to get her to calm down a little bit as well and understand here that the
silence can last a very long time, so sometimes the silence can be 45 seconds,
can be a minute. It can feel very uncomfortable,
but I understand that in the silence your punter is actually thinking about what
to say. Let her think,
let her synthesize and let her come to you with a better answer for your
question. Now, of course, you're in the silence.
The tone of the silence also matters.
If your silence is like very tense and you're breathing hard and you're angry
kind of silence, then that's not going to work.
The silence here needs to be calm, needs to be collected.
It needs to be you simply waiting for an answer,
waiting to discover more instead of you trying to pressure or coax her into
saying something more, or using that silence. And the fourth thing you can do,
this is a mental habit that you need to build as discover until you can say,
if I was you, I would have done and thought exactly the same thing.
So what most people do in their conversation is they would ask one,
maybe two questions, and they think that by asking one or two questions,
they have the answers already. And when they think they have the answers,
they will come with a new suggestion, new thing to say.
But really the one or two questions wasn't even coming close to understanding
the root of why she's behaving the way she's behaving or why she's,
she feels his lack of safety and it feels the need to self preserve.
So here's a mental shift that I want you to make every single time you were
talking to your partner and you're feeling impatient,
you're struggling to understand why are they acting the way they're acting?
If you're thinking that their actions are overboard,
are overdramatic are over-exaggerated,
that there's no reason for her to act that way.
It often means that you haven't asked enough questions and dug deep enough to
understand what that root reason is.
So we want you to really get into this habit of repeating and paraphrasing and
asking more questions until you get to the root of the matter.
And you know you got to the root when you can say,
I understand where you're coming from and if I was you thinking the same way you
do, knowing the same thing as you do,
I would have done exactly the same thing as you did.
And the way you keep digging deeper here is the same thing as number two here,
which is you can use the repeat paraphrase and clarify. So you can say, Oh,
something I said made you angry. Can you tell me more how you feel about that?
Oh, so you don't like my suggestions. Can you tell me what you feel about that?
Can you tell me more about that?
And you're going to continue digging deeper until you get to that root.
And this really works because all this discovery you are taking part in is going
to make her feel understood, going to make her feel heard.
And the same thing when there's someone there who really wants to understand
you, who really wants to discover you and not judge,
not impose or anything like that,
you'll feel safer around them and with the safety,
you'll feel the need that you want to feel the need to self preserve anymore
because you'll think in your mind, you know what?
This person's just trying to discover my thoughts turned to understand me better
known it to be defensive.
But if someone were to come to you and continue to accuse you,
continue to make statements and so on that are wrong and you don't feel
understood, you're going to feel the need to keep shifting the blame,
to keep justifying yourself, to keep stonewalling, maybe to shut down,
to be defensive, to be passive aggressive.
Basically all the signals that we talked about of what a narcissistic behavior
looks like, you're going to have the same impulse as well. So again,
this works very well because by your discovery, by your questions,
you are going to create that safety.
And number five here should be the last resort.
But this also works very well is that, you know,
in this journey you might find that when you're asking questions,
when you are trying to dig deeper, when you're using silence,
that you're going to continue to be met with resistance. You know,
more than necessarily behaviors that we talked about.
So maybe she keeps stonewalling you. She keeps being passive aggressive,
she keeps being defensive, she keeps shifting the blame on you and so on.
So what most people do here,
they would either walk away in a half and a puff and basically close their door
and walk away going, you know, saying, Oh, you're impossible. Walk away.
Or they would keep digging deeper and deeper and deeper and keep pressuring the
problem of, Oh, you're impossible. Just tell me, stop being so defensive.
Or maybe even asking more and more and more and more questions.
Making your partner feel very threatened.
So understanding here that if you simply walk away, you close the door,
you'll get huffy and puffy and you walk away.
That is going to remove safety even more because you're confirming to your
partner here that you didn't have the patients in the first place. So listen,
you don't understand what she's really going through.
You don't understand that this is not her just trying to be mean,
but trying to solve, preserve.
And if you keep asking questions to keep berating the problem,
you keep focusing on their problem and hounding her on it.
What happens is your questions no longer becomes an invitation.
No longer becomes nonthreatening, but it becomes imposing. You know,
it's like giving someone a wedding invitation and telling them, Hey,
can you please take a look at this wedding invitation and see if you want to
attend? And the person goes, let me think about it. And you go, no,
you have to think about it. Now, think about it. Now think about it.
Now if you do that, the invitation no longer becomes an invitation.
It becomes more of an imposition and people's guards go up and so on.
Instead we should do here is to simply stay calm. If she's stonewalling you,
if she's playing on all these narcissistic behaviors,
it doesn't mean that she doesn't want to tell you or she's just being difficult.
It just means that there's so much lack of safety.
There's so much guard and so much anxiety that she cannot lower the anxiety,
lower that guard enough within the context of this conversation and simply use
the repeat and paraphrase so you can say, okay,
it seems like you're not ready to talk right now.
I just want you to know that the door is open.
I'm ready to talk to you whenever you're ready and just simply walk away.
You know what's funny about this is that eventually during the most random time,
she would actually come to you and tell you something that's been bothering her.
Something that's causing this lack of safety here eventually, and if not,
and you keep playing out the script where you know,
trying to push further with questions whenever you meet this resistance,
whenever you meet this behavior by asking, you know, Oh,
it seems like you are stonewalling me or you are shutting down on me.
Can you tell me more what you feel about that? And if she keeps resisting,
you revert back to, okay, it seems like you're not ready to talk right now.
Just don't have the doors open.
You feel free to talk to me anytime that you want. If you keep saying this,
she will eventually get the point that, you know what?
Maybe I can talk to this guy.
Then she will start sharing and this time she will share with you in a much
healthier way as well. Now, the five steps that I showed you here,
what does it work so well? Well,
one is that you know you're showing her that no matter what she does,
there's no way for you to get unhinged.
No matter how difficult she makes it for you, you can still stay calm.
You can still be ready to listen, ready to discover,
and you're ready for a dialogue and your dialogue comes in a form of an
invitation, an position, and no matter what she throws at you, you won't judge.
You won't be quick to make assumptions. You're not quick to anger,
you're not quick to walk away.
You know you're not quick to get derailed and you're not rushing her in this
conversation. You're patient, you're calm, you're open,
and you're intent on discovering. Simply understanding.
And when you can show her this solely, she will start to realize, you know what?
I don't need to be so defensive.
I don't need to feel threatened in this conversation,
in this relationship because this person is just really genuinely trying to
listen to me, trying to help me out,
and that it's possible to actually have a nice conversation with you where she
feels understood, where she doesn't need to play all these defense mechanisms,
that you're a good listener, that you are a calm guy,
that you can find win-win solutions together. And when she realizes this,
that's when her narcissistic behavior will start to go away eventually because
again, often that behavior,
those behaviors are not a source of some problem with the brain or some problem
with the hormone.
It's a problem with situation and the situation is that she feels threatened,
she feels the lack of safety right now and the lack of safety is leading to this
self preserving behavior, which looks like narcissism. No, of course, you know,
this process is very, very nuanced. Now I all onto this five steps here,
but there's a lot more nuances to understand how to execute this properly and it
takes my students months to really master this stuff.
So if you want more resources on how you can lead your conversations in a way
that leads to more safety,
then you want to download the guide in a certain box below this video and this
guy will teach you how you can start progress and end conversations in a way
that actually creates more safety and removes these signs of these narcissistic
behaviors and self-preserving behaviors.
And if you want to join my free masterclass in the five proven steps to
rebuilding your relationship and in this masterclass in the five proven steps,
the foundation of this five steps is emotional and psychological safety,
which again is important to removing this behaviors.
Then you also want to check out the link in the description box below this video
and also know that I'll be extending to you a special offer during this master
class, but you can only get it if you show up to the masterclass,
so be sure to check out the link down below. Now,
if you want to connect with me and a more personal level,
I do have a Facebook group that is free. You can join it,
you can ask your questions and actually get good advice about those questions.
Then you also want to check out the link below this video. Now in the meantime,
I do want to hear from you, what did you find most insightful,
most eye opening from this video? Let me know your thoughts.
I'd love to hear from you, and if you liked this video,
find it to be valuable like it and subscribe to this channel for more content
like this one. In the meantime though,
I do want you to watch the other two videos I have on dealing with a
narcissistic spouse,
so you can equip yourself with the right mindsets and the right understanding
about how to interpret this whole scenario so you can respond to it in a more
empowered way, in a more effective way as well. Over the set.
I will see you in the next video.