Am I married to a narcissist?

Falling in love with a person happens so naturally when you come across someone with the qualities you admire, a bond that is created effortlessly. Until the “ I do’s,” everything goes perfect in your love life; when you are married and spend some years of togetherness, every couple comes across certain hidden traits that disturbs the relationship's harmony; this is normal. But when you are married to a narcissist, everything around you becomes messy on hand even before you realize what you are going through.

When you find out you are married to a narcissist, the straightforward advice people give you was “Just leave.” But it need not be; when you love someone, and you care for them, apart from the narcissistic behavior you feel deeply connected with them, you thrive to save that relationship. You definitely have a chance to solve your narcissistic marriage problems. But before that, you must ensure that your partner has Narcissistic personality disorder; not every self-confidence and self-esteem is narcissistic.

Who is a Narcissist?

A narcissist is a person who gives extreme self-importance, and they have a high need for excessive attention and admiration. A narcissistic person thinks of themselves as so special when compared to others and superior among their peers. They give very little importance to others' feelings and emotions; they even use them to reach their goals.

They simply believe that they are the ones who have all the abilities to achieve anything they want. These people usually have a troubled relationship because they are usually unsatisfied and unhappy with normal life things. But behind this mask of great confidence lies a fragile self-image, vulnerable to the slightest form of criticism.

How do I know if I am married to a Narcissist?

As we said, ensuring you are dealing with a narcissistic marriage problem is important in solving your issues. The first thing after understanding “who is a narcissist?” is whether your partner shows the visible signs of a Narcissistic personality.

The 7 prominent signs that show you are married to a narcissist are,

1. You start feeling isolated

The typical behavior is to isolate the partner from their friends and family straight after the marriage. They do this very slowly and methodically. They simply start finding faults with your friends and slowly make you dislike your own friends or otherwise they complain you for spending time with your friends.

2. Changes in behavior

When you are in love with them before marriage, they will do all possible things to make you feel the love bombs of them. They can overwhelm you with their love notes, flowers, and surprise gifts when you are dating, but after marriage, everything changes. They stop their love bombs and suddenly start acting normal. Narcissists know how to bide their time and make you feel exceptional. You will be deceived for a while until they know they have you, hook, line, and sinker.

3. Being Gaslightened

They create all kinds of circumstances that will make you doubt yourselves. “Why can’t you take a joke?” “Why are you always angry?” “Why can’t you let go of the past?” “No one will love you as I do,” phrases like these will always be used by narcissists in every argument.

4. Praises only before others

A narcissistic personality knows how to woo you when you are dating, but they stop doing that after marriage. They praise you only before others, just to create a perfect husband/ wife image before others.

5. Purposefully make you jealous

A narcissistic person tries to make you jealous by speaking about his ex or flirt with others right in front of you. They simply do this to make you feel insecure and take the upper hand of controlling you, adding fuel to their self-esteem fire.

6. Criticizing your parenting skills

A narcissist partner often blames the spouse for the mischievous or bad behaviors of children. They usually want to insult them before the children and others, make them the reason for every other activity of the children. They usually show their career as an excuse for neglecting their responsibility as a co-parent.

7. Confide with your family

When dealing with such a problematic spouse, you usually tend to get moral support from your family and friends. Still, before you reach them with your problems and complaints, the narcissistic partner confides with your family and shows off as though he is the one who suffers in this relationship. You are the reason for all their problems, and they are lagging for love because of you. This makes you lose your family support, and in many cases, it turned against the victim’s spouse.

Ways to solve your Narcissistic Marriage problems

The answer for how to solve is straightforward, you must first accept your spouse's personality. The same self-confidence which made you fall for him now turned to be one of your major issues, so you can’t do anything about it. Until you face physical violence or extreme mental stress, you can avoid quitting this relationship.

1. Accept the way they are; they need self-admiration and adoration more. If you could give that constant compliment and keep their self-esteem high, it helps maintain your relationship’s harmony.

2. Accept insults, Insults are bait. A narcissist wants you to take them, react to them, and engage in a fight. But if you refuse to play, a fight can’t happen.

3. Get support from outside, talk to your friends, family, or therapists who can help you cross this phase of your life with their own advice and recommendations.

Conclusion

After following this, I am not going to fake you a happily ever after; one thing you must know is living with a narcissist is never going to be an easy go, but if you really in love with the soul that is beneath that narcissist mask then you must definitely give it a try to make your life a smoother ride.