Relationship Radio: Marriage, Sex, Limerence & Avoiding Divorce
Relationship Radio: Marriage, Sex, Limerence & Avoiding Divorce
Is Your Spouse A Narcissist?
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In today’s episode, we tackle one of the most emotionally charged topics in relationships: narcissism. Whether your spouse has called you a narcissist, or you're wondering if they might be one, this conversation cuts through the confusion and cultural noise.
Kimberly Beam Holmes is joined by Meredith Ball, a Marriage Helper certified coach, to unpack the real meaning of narcissism—what it is, what it isn’t, and why it's become the go-to label in so many hurting relationships.
🎯 We cover:
What the term narcissist actually means (and why most people misuse it)
The danger of self-diagnosing or labeling your spouse
How trauma and attachment wounds shape narcissistic behaviors
Why being called a narcissist doesn’t mean you are one
What to do if your spouse weaponizes this label against you
The powerful role of empathy and acceptance in healing
How to grow—even if your spouse doesn’t change
You’ll also hear insights from clinical research, personal coaching experiences, and real-life stories of hope and transformation. If you’re trying to save your marriage, feeling unfairly labeled, or just want to better understand this complicated topic—this episode is for you.
If you're struggling in your marriage, don’t wait. Get our FREE resource: The 7 Steps to Rescue Your Marriage 👉 https://marriagehelper.com/free
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So in this episode we're talking about narcissism what to do if your spouse thinks you're a narcissist, what you can do if you think your spouse is a narcissist, and we're going to have a colorful conversation all in between.
Speaker 2:I don't want to overpromise. You don't have to.
Speaker 1:I'll overpromise because I'm a narcissist, so I'll go ahead and make the grandiose claim You're the D in the bond here.
Speaker 2:That's right no-transcript.
Speaker 1:This was probably two or three years ago and he was talking to me about all these different like how, what narcissism is, and it's similar to self-esteem too high of self-esteem not healthy. To low of self-esteem, also not healthy. And the same is true of narcissism. Like. We all have narcissism in us. It's just been, over the years, used in a negative like, in a negative connotation way yeah. Yeah, it wasn't. It wasn't like that.
Speaker 2:And it is a diagnosis in the DSM, and so I think that's why people maybe have started leveling it against each other is that it can reach a form where it's extreme enough and persistent enough that a person could be diagnosed. Now it's an extremely small percentage of the population that would qualify. Maybe somewhere around two or three percent of the population would qualify for an NPT diagnosis. And I'll tell you, if I had to pick one thing that I hear the most in my coaching and counseling career, every single week I have somebody who tells me. Usually it's either I think my spouse is a narcissist, my spouse thinks I'm a narcissist, or my mom thinks I'm a narcissist, or I think my mom is a narcissist. That's another one I hear.
Speaker 1:My mom thinks I'm a narcissist. I cannot fathom a mother like I can't fathom my mother saying Kimberly, I think you're a narcissist, I don't think your mom would say that she wouldn't.
Speaker 2:I don't think she thinks that I don't think so. There's a lot of messed up family dynamics out there and it's an accusation that people are leveling against each other. The number of times I hear that in my office far exceeds the two to three percent of the general population that the DSM says would qualify for that diagnosis.
Speaker 1:Why is it so popular? Right now it's like the hot topic.
Speaker 2:It is the hot topic. When our relationship dynamics are complicated and when we're hurting. It seems to be one of those things. Narcissism seems to be one of those things that's easy to grab as an explanation and level against somebody. Is it really? It can be an excuse to work on a relationship, which is super sad to me, like, oh, you're such a narcissist, you could never exist well in a relationship anyway, so I'm checked out. You could never exist well in a relationship anyway, so I'm checked out.
Speaker 2:This idea of narcissism and the fact that your spouse may be covertly suffering, or your mom or your dad, like oh well, this was never going to work anyway and become really over-boundaried and so it's a super important topic because it comes up all the time. In my work here at Marriage Helper and I had earlier this year I had a string of clients. I mean I think it was a week in January I had like five or six clients in a row that all were at Marriage Helper doing the solo workshop path, doing all the things we tell you to do, showing up for coaching, leaning in, taking all my feedback and they're like my spouse says, I'm a narcissist. When they found out I was coming to marriage helper, they were like well, that sounds like something a narcissist will do, you know. So it's like they could interpret all of their behaviors. Once you put that label on somebody, it's almost like anything they do can be interpreted in the worst possible light.
Speaker 1:But it doesn't sound like something a narcissist would do to seek individual help. Oh it's crazy making yeah, it is.
Speaker 2:It is crazy making, because once somebody has put that label on you, then it's like oh, I can never. You're trying to manipulate me, you're trying to look good, you're trying to earn my trust on false premises, I can see right through you. It's not in every case and I don't want. I don't want this to like, I don't want to universally bind this, this up on everybody, but in many cases it's an excuse to give up on a relationship.
Speaker 1:Maybe they're the narcissist.
Speaker 2:Well, interesting that you say that, because my supervisor in my counseling work I'm working on licensure for my counseling license and my supervisor says if you are married to someone with a personality disorder which narcissism, is one of 10, I believe 10 personality disorders that the DSM identifies If you're married to somebody who has a personality disorder, it means one of two things about you Either one you also have a personality disorder, or two you're codependent.
Speaker 2:So if the person truly has a personality disorder, which means they don't have the flexibility and the adaptability that they need to function in the world when stressful situations come up, then it means you have a bad picker when it comes to picking a spouse, essentially, or you're codependent, which means you have such a fragile sense of self that you're willing to enable really bad behavior for the sake of making yourself feel okay. You don't feel okay unless they're okay. So essentially, maybe you interpreted some of their personality traits as a strength or a strength, but it was because your own sense of self and your own sense of worthiness wasn't there and you essentially kind of got duped, bought into it. Either way, point being, if you're married to someone with a personality disorder, it means you have some pretty serious work to do yourself.
Speaker 1:I love that as the opening for someone who's like I'm here because my spouse has a personality disorder. It's like okay, great, so let's go through your entire workup and see all of the things that are wrong with you, because it just frustrates me so much, because it's so just like the opposite of growth minded. What do they?
Speaker 2:call that, yeah, like a very fixed mindset of like this is the problem.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's just what you've said. This is my reason to just honestly do what I want to do and not do the hard work to fix the marriage or continue moving forward. Okay, so let's start with the first one my spouse is a narcissist. If someone's here and they're thinking well, maybe they're still with us at this point, maybe not because we've just maybe accused them of some pretty hard things, but if you think your spouse is a narcissist, why Like? So define for me as well what do people mean when they're saying narcissist?
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's a really good question to ask. So if somebody tells me I think my spouse is a narcissist, I do say tell me what that means to you. So and I did. I had my trusty little DSM here because I was actually going to read a couple of the criteria Grandiose sense of self-importance.
Speaker 2:Preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty or love. Believes he or she is special and unique and can only be understood by other special and unique and high status people. Requires excessive admiration. Has a sense of entitlement. Is interpersonally exploitative. Lacks empathy, often envious of others and believes others are envious of him or her. And shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes. So you know, we were kind of laughing before we started recording because, if we're honest, we can all identify with that list of criteria, at least at some points We've all displayed those kinds of behaviors. So what makes a person eligible for an NPD diagnosis would be they have all of those things.
Speaker 2:And excessive and persistent. It's excessive, extremely excessive and persistent, right, unrecognized, unrepented of. I've had people before in coaching say I'm afraid I'm a narcissist. Do you think when I do this I'm coming off as a narcissist? And my answer to that would be. If you're asking the question, you're not a narcissist because you care about the way you're, the things you're doing, how they make other people feel. That's not a characteristic of narcissism. Now, at times, have you been reckless or careless and not thought about the effects that your actions were going to have on other people? Sure, you have, because you're a human being. But it would have to be persistent, unrecognized, not trying to make any changes, not trying to do anything differently. That's what would make one eligible for an NPD diagnosis.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:So there's a section in the marriage helper workshop we teach it on Friday afternoon and it's about control. And I think it is brilliant because I think it has a way of kind of deep pathologizing control and the fact that nearly all of us have controlling tendencies and the reasons why people control. Most of us control out of fear. And what I love about that section of the workshop is it doesn't. First of all, it kind of universalizes the fact that we all have controlling tendencies and it can be really damaging inside our relationships and we may not realize we're doing it right. So it puts you in good company there. But it also holds open the possibility that people can change. Like if I can start to recognize that.
Speaker 2:And it hit me like square between the eyes the first time I went to the workshop because I was like I am very controlling because I'm trying to protect myself and my family from all these threats outside in the world that I perceive, and so I end up being very controlling, trying to tell other people what to do.
Speaker 2:Try to tell my husband what to do when he can think for himself right, he'll ask for my input if he needs it but for me to tell him what he needs to do, even if I mean well, and even if I'm trying to protect him from something that feels like a looming threat, is very controlling. So I think a lot of times it's just how do you think about this? What kind of language do you use? Are you using pathologizing language or are you actually trying to understand what's going on and actually kind of universalizing it, commercializing it? Because I think that you know control and not letting you know, not letting your spouse have their own thoughts, feelings and beliefs, not giving them the benefit of the doubt, all of the things that does destroy relationships, and I think at the heart of that, that's the heart of where a lot of relationships get off track, and I think that might be something that people actually mean when they say I think my spouse is a narcissist, like I think they're controlling, yeah, and that they have been controlling.
Speaker 1:I think there's also an aspect of it too, of like they have a personality very different than mine and it's hard for me to understand them. Yeah, absolutely Right, because, whether you felt like we use disc a lot, a lot of people use Enneagram, but some of these things not to their fullest extent, like not a 10 out of 10, but you know, power wanting admiration, um, not coming across as very warm and friendly like that. If you're thinking Enneagram, that's very much like the eight, the eight and the three and the three right on.
Speaker 2:The disc.
Speaker 1:It's like the D or a DC um or even an eye at some points, and so, especially like wanting admiration, like eyes really fear rejection and so just understanding how people are wired and if someone's wired differently than you, you can like we have so many ahas in our workshop right Of people when they're like, oh, my spouse isn't crazy.
Speaker 2:They're just. They actually didn't have ill intent.
Speaker 1:There's something about their hard wiring that inclines them that way, the way they're motivated the way they process the world around them, and oh, there's like 25% of the other people in this workshop who are just like them, right? So it kind of also normalizes normalizes it Absolutely. So I think it's a combination of a lot of those things. The other thing, though, that we were talking about was how I mentioned, narcissism is a self-protective measurement, like.
Speaker 1:That was one of the things that Dr Ziegler Hill said. He said it's unhealthy for someone to not have a high level of narcissism, because they become a doormat and they just allow people to walk all over them and they don't stand up for themselves or fight for themselves or anything like that, and that's its own type of narcissism that he talked about, that someone could suffer from, where they're just really trying to like people please and make sure that everyone's always happy and absolutely, and that's actually a form of like narcissism. He doesn't call that. He's not talking about like personality disorders. He's just saying it's a scale, just like having high self-esteem and low self-esteem is a scale. So narcissism is like a self-protective part of us Right.
Speaker 2:And narcissism narcissistic personality disorder is thought to come from childhood attachment wounds, personality disorders. And sometimes when people say narcissism, I think they're kind of conflating several different personality disorders. But that is thought to come out of childhood attachment wounds. And what I love. I love doing attachment work because it asks the question of what's happened to you. You know your disc or your Enneagram gets at your hard wiring. That's really important to know.
Speaker 2:Attachment is the study of how has your trauma molded and adapted you and it's been reinforced along the way as you're an adult. If that's the case and I'm inclined not that I'm an expert, but I'm inclined to believe that that's the case and people develop personality disorders because of childhood attachment wounds, well that's fully treatable. And if a person has developed narcissistic tendencies as a way to protect themselves from the fact that they felt very vulnerable and insecure as a child, well there's a lot of hope and help for that Right. And it really reframes the picture to like oh, my spouse acts like that because they're still a wounded little boy or a wounded little girl that didn't know how to express vulnerability and be accepted. So they swung to the other extreme and adapted these like highly protective behaviors. If that's the case, then there's a lot of hope for change.
Speaker 1:One of my favorite research studies I read about, like how do you cure narcissism? That's not how it was worded, but like what are the best treatment options for narcissism? And it kind of at the beginning covered all of the disheartening like the people who say there is no hope for change, but then it summarized a lot of the positives. Anyway, the way that it ended was, um, empathy Like the way that someone heals or changes from being a narcissist is for someone to deeply empathize with them and through that is how they learn to change. And I was like that's not what's happening to for these people.
Speaker 1:People are labeling them as narcissist and then, you know, throwing them to the side, which?
Speaker 2:Which causes them to dig in their heels on the self-protective behavior and the aggrandizing behavior, right, right, like if you're being put in your place for your vulnerabilities, you don't want to respond with more vulnerability, you're going to bow your back, and that I mean. That reminds me of the marriage helper principle of acceptance. It's attraction, then acceptance. When I accept myself as I truly am, then I can change. When I accept others as they truly am, then I can change when I accept others as they truly are, then they can change.
Speaker 2:What if I asked the question of what happened to you instead of what's wrong with you? So powerful, that would open up the door for some really meaningful work. Yeah, powerful change.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. What can someone do if they're listening to this, but their spouse is the one who thinks they are a narcissist?
Speaker 2:I don't know that the plan really changes. It's to focus on the things that you can control Work your pies it is. It's it's a difficult position to be put in and I really empathize with it because it's asking like if someone calls you a narcissist, they're essentially asking you to defend yourself against a straw man argument. It's like prove to me you haven't been beating your wife. When you haven't been beating your wife, like, how do you prove that? So I wouldn't so much get focused on. I'm going to prove to them that I'm not a narcissist I would be focused on. I'm going to become the healthiest version of myself. I'm going to relate to others.
Speaker 2:Well, I've had some people that I've coached and I think I've been this person before too. That was pleasantly surprised, because things were so tense for a time between me and my spouse. It really wore on my own sense of self-worth. When I started doing my own Pies work. I was pleasantly surprised at how well I could relate to other people and it was like, oh okay, this might have something to do more with what's going on with him and not so much about there being something intrinsically broken with me.
Speaker 2:I'm doing the work and I'm reaping the rewards of having meaningful relationships.
Speaker 1:Do you ever have clients who say I've been doing the work and I'm feeling great, I'm feeling so much better and such a better headspace.
Speaker 2:But my spouse is so mad at like how I've grown and they try and yeah, because I have had clients tell me that because the spouse if, especially if they're in a state of cognitive dissonance or limerence which limerence is a kind of cognitive dissonance in my mind if their spouse is in that state, they may deeply need the standing spouse to be really broken and out of control to justify the narrative that they're trying to tell themselves about why they're leaving the marriage. So, yes, that is a reaction that your spouse can have and it can be really, really disheartening and discouraging when you're like I'm making all these changes, thinking it's going to catch their attention in a good way, and then it actually pisses them off Right.
Speaker 1:And then they'll say to themselves like, oh, maybe it's a push and I need to stop working on myself. And that's where we have to keep resetting and say, no, you are doing the right thing.
Speaker 2:Right and your baseline motivation has to be I'm doing this for myself. It was always the right thing for me to be growing and becoming a better version of myself, so I can't. It's making it too much of an agenda. If you're like, the end goal has to be for my spouse to notice, we hope they do great. But if they don't, the worst thing that's happened is you're a really good version of yourself.
Speaker 1:Right. People see that all the time, our clients for sure, which is always amazing. I did. I've the past couple of weeks I've been doing some focus groups with some clients and every one of them said I am a different and better person now because of the work I did to work on my pies and to be more accepting, like with my kids and with my spouse and just all these other horsemen.
Speaker 2:you know all of this kind of stuff Like it's all applicable and, and you know it, it it takes the cooperation of two people to ultimately save a marriage and not everybody gets that luxury. But um, there there are some guarantees if you put it to work for yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a hundred percent. What are the key takeaways you want people to have from this episode?
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%. What are the key takeaways you want people to have from this episode? Yeah, I think my takeaways would be boiling it all down Don't write your spouse or anyone off as a narcissist until you can hold your head up high and feel like you've given them a chance to change. Acceptance and empathy over time can make a tremendous difference for a lot of people.
Speaker 2:You know and I don't want anybody to feel like I'm trying to minimize their pain there is it may be a small portion of the population, but there is a portion of the population that is diagnosable with a personality disorder and if that is the case, they may be so rigid that it may be it may be very hard or even impossible to be married to them.
Speaker 2:So I don't want to just write that off, but that is the minority and I would not want to put all of my eggs in that basket until I've really exhausted all of these other avenues for engaging, leaning in, trying to change the relationship. And I would say and I'm saying this gently and without shame but remember, if you truly are married to someone who's a narcissist, it says something about some work that you need to do as well. So you know, I think one of the things that we do really well around here is giving people a safe place to say I have some things that I need to own and I'm not going to do it with shame. I'm actually going to do it with a lot of dignity, knowing that I'm trying to make a better life for myself and the people around me.
Speaker 1:And it's that heart set too, it's. You know, one of the things that can get me on my soapbox real quick is the person who comes in and just blaming left, right and center, Like they've done this, that or the other. Maybe they have, Probably they have. But also, where's the extreme ownership on our own part?
Speaker 2:And there are three sides to every story. There's at least three sides. There's his side, her side and the truth, and if there are any other witnesses, then there's a fourth side.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, jesus the truth.
Speaker 2:Jesus was there. He knows, he knows what happened, that's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I love that and overall, I love just the belief of okay, well, even if that's true, even if one of you is a narcissist, hope and change are still possible. The marriage can still be saved. That's right. Love it. Thanks for joining me again, meredith. Thank you for having me. Until next time, remember there is always hope.
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