Do you think you might be married to a narcissist?
By the end of this video, you'll know the glaring signs that you're married to a narcissist.
Hi, I'm Rebecca Zung, top 1% divorce attorney and the bestselling author of the books Negotiate
Like You Matter and Breaking Free: A Step-by-step Divorce Guide, and I share all my knowledge,
secrets, tips, and tricks right here with you on this channel.
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Now, if you suspect that you are married to a narcissist, well then you probably are,
but here are the actual warning signs.
Before we dive into the actual warning signs, let's talk about narcissism in general.
Narcissism or narcissistic personality disorder is a legitimate personality disorder.
It is a mental disorder that of course obviously manifests itself in a horrific way, but it
is an actual mental disorder.
Some people might not be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder.
They might just have narcissistic tendencies or narcissistic personality traits, something
like that, just the same as others who might have other types of personality disorders
or traits of personality disorders.
But narcissism is an actual personality disorder where somebody has an inflated sense of themselves,
a deep need for attention, and a lack of empathy for others.
The thing about narcissists is that they have zero sense of internal value.
I've talked about this in some of my other videos as well.
They're like the hollow chocolate Easter bunnies that you know, there's the shell, but inside
there's nothing.
They don't feel anything for anything, anyone but themselves.
They have a complete lack of empathy because they feel so empty inside all the time.
So the only way that they get any sense of value whatsoever is through the external,
through what we call narcissistic supply, which is what ... it comes in the form of
compliments, prestige, money, even control over others.
Anything that makes them feel that external sense of value because they have no internal
sense of value.
There are three different types of narcissist, but they all have basically the same traits.
So you'll see your covert narcissist, which is what I call the wolf in sheep's clothing.
Then there's the over or grandiose narcissist, which is your regular garden variety narcissist,
the one that we normally think of with narcissists, the one that goes around telling everybody
how great they are all the time.
Then there's the malignant narcissist, which are the ones that can be way more dangerous,
way more toxic.
They're the ones that can tend to even be violent sometimes, stalking, things like that.
I call them the Darth Vaders of the narcissists.
So while they can be broken down into three different categories, the psychiatrists have
identified what the seven characteristics are of narcissists and I believe they say
that if you have five of them, then you can be actually diagnosed with narcissistic personality
disorder.
But you know, the thing is, most narcissists are not ever diagnosed because they don't
go to psychiatrists because I don't think there's anything wrong with them.
So it's really hard to say how many people actually have been diagnosed with narcissistic
personality disorder or how many people just have the traits of narcissism or the traits
of lacking empathy or feeling anything for anyone else.
If each one of these people abuses five people in their lifetime, which it's probably way
more than that, but if they abuse only five, then you know we're talking about a major
piece of the population or a major percentage of the population have become victims of narcissists.
One of the other points that I want to make here before I go into what the actual signs
are of narcissism is that narcissists and empaths do have a symbiotic personality with
... attraction for each other.
Empaths tend to kind of almost sense that insecurity in the narcissist and somehow feel
like if you just love them enough, you just give them enough, you just do enough for them,
that somehow that you'll be able to solve whatever their problems are or heal them in
some way or they'll see how wonderful you are and it just becomes a relationship of
give, give, give, give, give and then the narcissist continues to just take, take, take,
take, take.
It leaves you actually feeling empty inside.
You actually feel like a shell of yourself because they're just trying to grab all that
supply from you as they possibly can.
Narcissists are attracted to the same people that everybody are attracted to.
They want to be with people who have wonderful characteristics, who are giving, loving, who
are leaders or have accomplished a lot or who are seen by others as wonderful.
And you know, they want some of what you have.
They want to attach yourself to you to take that from you.
They attach themselves almost like pods, they're like leeches or parasites that are just, they
literally drain the life out of you.
So if you are in a relationship with a narcissist, the chances are that you're probably an empath,
which means that you're a wonderful person, a compassionate person, and you just have
been giving, giving, giving to the point that it literally drains the life out of you.
Going back to the seven deadly sins of narcissism, the first one is shamelessness.
Narcissists don't feel any external sense of shame.
They have a deep rooted sense of shame that's inside of them, but they cover it up by being
shameless to the external world.
They're not bound by things that other people are bound by.
They're not ashamed to just go after something that wouldn't even normally be there, where
it's not theirs, but they just do it anyway.
They're proudly and openly shameless.
They're not bound by emotional needs of others or wishes of others.
Within this thing of shamelessness, they also load criticism and they consider it toxic.
They're very easily slighted, very easily slighted, like just a slightest amount of
tone or even if there is no tone or nothing meant by anything, they sense it anyway.
It's like a dog with a dog whistle.
Only they can hear it even if it doesn't even exist.
Any little whiff of anything that they're not perfect or that they need to change if
there's something wrong with them, then it triggers their narcissistic rage and their
narcissistic injury and then you know, you get the wrath of that.
Okay.
Number two is magical thinking.
Narcissists want to see themselves as perfect and so they distort and filter everything
through that lens.
What that means is that anything that you point out to them, that they're not perfect,
they're going to project it onto others.
They'll never take responsibility for their own actions.
Even if you show them proof of here's how you lied, or here's what you said, they'll
distort.
"Well, you know that it's your fault because blah, blah, blah," like they won't even address
that.
Suddenly it'll become all about you or all about a different person.
You can point out to someone, you know, "You said you were going to do this, you didn't,"
"Well, it's because I couldn't because blah, blah blah."
It's always someone else's fault, somebody else's responsibility, someone else's problem.
Within the magical thinking is gaslighting.
This is all a form of gaslighting, trying to make you think that you're the one that's
crazy.
I have a whole video on gaslighting tactics and especially gaslighting tactics in divorce
or breakups and the kinds of things that they do in those times and I will put a link to
that video below.
You definitely going to want to check that out.
Number three is arrogance.
If you're dealing with a covert narcissist, you're not going to see the arrogance right
on the surface because covert narcissists are much better at hiding their arrogance.
They're much better about not being so boastful and saying, "I'm the great one."
If you need to know more about covert narcissist, I will definitely drop a link to videos that
I've done on covert narcissism and the covert passive aggressive narcissist below.
You want to check those out.
But even when you're dealing with covert narcissist, they still have that sense of arrogance, that
sense that everyone should kowtow to them, that they're superior to others.
So when they feel deflated or when they feel that sense of inferiority kicking in, the
way they deal with that is re-inflate their sense of self importance by diminishing others,
by debasing others, by degrading someone else, putting someone else down, being very judgmental
and basically trying to take away any sense of value for the person that might be degrading
them or debasing them or devaluing them in any way.
Okay, and number four is envy.
All narcissists have a great sense of envy, they are very jealous of other people.
They're jealous of other people's accomplishments, they try to minimize other people's accomplishments,
try to bring them down in some way.
They just don't want anything to take away from them because if someone else is achieving
something or if someone else is getting something, then somehow for them, they think that means
that it's taking away from them in some way.
If this is sounding familiar so far, give me an "Exactly" in the comments.
Okay, and number five is entitlement.
Narcissists feel entitled, they feel entitled to things that aren't even theirs.
They'll take credit for projects that aren't theirs to take credit for.
They just feel like they should be having the best table, the best everything.
They should be getting promotions that they didn't even work for or weren't supposed to
get.
They just feel entitled to everything.
And if, you know, they have these unreasonable expectations and if they don't get this favorable
treatment or this automatic compliance that they think that they should have because they're
so special, then it is considered an attack.
You know, even if you just want to move on with your life and have everything be split
up normally like two normal people, like whatever's fair under the law, well they're not going
to want to do that because that's considered an attack on them.
Whether you want to leave or they want to leave, either way, you're in for it because
if you leave or you don't give them what they want, then it triggers their narcissistic
injury and narcissistic rage.
But even if they want to leave, they can't be seen as the wrong one.
They have to make it your fault, your problem somehow so that they come out being the one
that smells like the rose.
So entitlement is definitely one of the main personality traits for a narcissist.
Number six is exploitation.
This can take many forms but basically, they have no regard for others so they use others.
They use them for whatever they think they need to use them for, whether it's money,
prestige, being associated with that person because they think it elevates their status
in some way, using them to meet people that they might want to meet, using them to get
a job that they want.
People are only there for their use because your only value to a narcissist is whatever
value you can bring to them.
Then even when you bring value to them, that's just like the privilege of being in their
space.
You're not going to get any appreciation or recognition for bringing value to them, that's
just the cost of, payment for being around them.
So if you can't bring value to them, then that's where they go into the discard phase.
There's three different phases of a narcissistic relationship, which I will talk about in another
video, but it's love bombing, devaluing, and then discard.
So you see the discard once your value is no longer there anymore.
Anyway, the number six thing is exploitation, which is where they use other people for their
own gain.
Number seven is no boundaries.
They recognize boundaries.
It's all part of the fact that they believe that everything is theirs and then there that
whole sense of entitlement thing, but basically you have to respect their boundaries that
they don't respect yours.
That's how that goes.
It can take many different forms.
I mean, you know, showing up at your place of business, calling you, texting you, expecting
to know where you are at all times, expect you to answer the phone when they want you
to or be right there.
But they don't give you the same thing in return,.
They don't tell you anywhere where they're going or what they're doing.
You know, things like that.
It's part of their narcissistic supply is that they exhort this control over you by
not recognizing your boundaries.
If these are all sounding familiar to you or even some of them or most of them, then
you're probably married to a narcissist and you're going to want to make sure you check
out my next video which is going to be the effects of being married to a narcissist.
If you are married to a narcissist, definitely check out my video on self-care to cope with
a narcissist.
You have to take care of yourself.
As I said earlier on in this video, they do drain the life out of you.
I will drop a link to that video below as well.
If you are getting ready to negotiate with a narcissist, you'll definitely going to want
to check out my Crush My Negotiation prep worksheet that I will drop a link to that
below as well.
It is chockfull of tons of information and you will not want to walk in to that negotiation
without having that in your hands and having done the exercises that I suggest to do in
there.
If you feel like you need additional support, I have a free Facebook group.
It's Narcissist Negotiators with Rebecca Zung and I will drop a link to that below.
Feel free to join that if you feel like you want to connect with others who are dealing
with what you are dealing with as well.
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I'm so glad that you stopped by here today.
I will see you in the next video and remember that today is a great day to start negotiating
your best life.