Are you and your partner often fighting? 10 years into my fourth troubled relationship I had to face facts that if I did not ?nd ways to address my husband Steve’s narcissistic tendencies, we were going to hit skid row. So I swallowed my pride, admitted my problems to those closest to me and after a lot of research and study I found the answers. I am a ‘thinker’ personality type and a skilled problem solver, but this was the toughest challenge I ever faced, so when things improved with us, I decided to use this hard won knowledge, together with my professional web design and writing skills to help others in the same situation. This is when my eBook “Back to the Looking Glass” was born.

narcissism 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, father, wife or mother, while in private they may be sarcastic, haughty andcritical. They may put people down (including friends) behind their backs. Few will believe how they talk to you in private because in public they will be popular and charming. They will probably show little or no regard for your well being or for your feelings, unless of course they want something.

And you may find this even more upsetting …

They will lie about you or paint a bad picture of you to gain sympathy from others and to justify their own bad behavior. You may not know all the lies they are telling you and telling others about you… and whether you realize it or not, if truly narcissistic, they will be flirting and having either real life or fantasy affairs online or in real life or both.

I refer to the narcissist being male in my book, because mine is a real life story of me dealing with my husband (I am not a therapist but write from my own experience) and while narcissistic women are similar to men, how they behave is not similar enough for me to just write he/she throughout. If you are a man dealing with a narcissistic female partner I sympathize completely. My sister is full blown narcissistic and I have witnessed and experienced first hand the damage women with NPD cause.

Unlike most discussing this subject online, we don’t suggest that you “Hang your partner out to dry if they suffer from narcissism. Steve is better now and we have a great marriage. The ideas that helped us actually came to me from studying parent training. We are living proof that there is hope.

Steve and my message to the world now is to ‘parent the perpetrators’. If families continue to disintegrate without being educated about the solution, the problem will continue to grow. Abuse has ever widening cycles, including its children turning into abusers themselves. Most of the advice that I got when I needed it, was bad advice. I am glad that I didn’t leave … and entering marriage counseling (as I was often advised to do) with a narcissist is like swimming with a shark and asking it nicely not to bite you. We have better advice for
families - because we have been there.