- Welcome to Thriving Your Love, a podcast
where we will guide and help you improve your most
precious relationships in life.
This podcast is produced
and hosted by certified emotionally focused therapist,
Claudio Vargas Silva, licensed Marriage
and Family Therapist, and Trisha Kim Walsh,
also licensed marriage and family therapist.
- Welcome back, viewers and listeners.
It's Trish and Claudio.
And today's topic is, is going
to have us reflect very deeply.
And Claudia, we just mentioned that this is probably a topic
that we're gonna be talking on for a few episodes.
And the, the name of our focus is how
to understand a Narcissist Partner.
So let's all take a deep breath.
'cause when, and then let that breath out.
Because when we think about narcissistic personalities,
there's a lot of reactivity we have.
I I, I've heard so many partners I've worked
with an individual therapy come to me, Claudio,
and say, I think I'm dating.
I think I'm married to a narcissist.
And then I know it's going to be an interesting session.
So we are dedicating this time to talk about
how do we understand this partner?
And we wanna be mindful that we're not labeling,
but we're again, trying to understand
when you're in a relationship with someone
who has these features, what do you do?
- Yes, Tricia. And,
and I wanna normalize, as you mentioned before,
and I liked this, uh, this word normalizing
because, uh, when we think about narcissism,
we feel something kind of negative.
No one wants to think that they are a narcissist.
And we know that we have the pathological
narcissism that we are gonna talk about later.
But I want to, uh, normalize that
everyone has a little bit of narcissism
because, uh, if we think about a spectrum from
zero to 100 with zero, you don't have any
pride, any narcissism.
You don't feel like you need to be. Right.
You can listen to people, listen to their opinions,
you can listen to feedback.
You think you can take ownership of your mistakes.
That would be like a, a perfect known narcissist.
And then we think about a a hundred percent narcissist,
someone that, that is really a pathological narcissist.
There is no zero.
All of us are in some point in this spectrum.
I would like to talk about this with a lot of humility,
acceptance towards people understanding
not in a judgmental way.
And the purpose of this is really to help couples
to understand each other, to be more loving
and empathic and compassionate.
So that is the purpose,
but not to diagnose someone
and judge someone in a negative way. Trisha.
- Right, right, Claudia? Yeah.
Our efforts are that in a loving relationship, clearly
we wanna name some of the reasons for why people
who have narcissistic tendencies, including ourselves,
can be people that we're drawn to.
The most common trait I see is confidence is that someone
who has narcissistic features
or someone who could be charming and charismatic.
These are often people that are in pow, powerful positions,
whether that's in a company or even a political office.
They could be even on a date, someone who seems
as though they really have an understanding of
who they are and what they want.
And they're not at all hesitant to get what they want.
And that may be you as a partner, which again, this is
where my partners who I see individually
and then eventually come into couples therapy to say,
I didn't see this coming.
They were so charming.
They seemed like they were really invested in me.
And then things started to change,
where they seem more focused on their own needs.
They're selfish, they're arrogant, they're controlling.
At times I feel that they don't even care about
what I'm thinking or what I'm feeling.
It's always all about them.
- And continuing this normalizing, uh,
I even wanna mention that in my previous marriage,
I had a lot of conflict with my first partner
about my daughter because I thought
that I knew everything about parenting.
I thought that she was very soft with our daughter.
I thought that we, we should be more authoritative.
But actually, I didn't realize
that I was becoming an authoritarian
like my dad was with me and I didn't like,
and I wanted to be different than my dad.
But I ended up being like him until
when I studied marriage and family therapy.
And then I started reading books about parenting
and also doing trainings.
And then I realized, oh my goodness, I was wrong.
And my ex-wife, actually, she was a better parent than,
than I was at that point.
And I remember that I talked to a supervisor
and I said, you know, I, I think I am a narcissist.
And then she told me, Claudio, you are not .
Because the very fact that you're saying
that you are a narcissist, that means you're not,
because for a narcissist would be very hard
to take ownership of something, to have the humility
to accept that they have a problem.
So we see the difference between we being, uh,
having narcissism traits that all of us have.
It's absolutely normal because we are human beings.
And as I said, we wanna be right.
Uh, we are competitive sometimes.
And if we've, we have become defensive.
And if we have opposite opinions,
we always wanna prove our opinion.
We wanna be right. We wanna fight for our needs to be met.
And sometimes we don't realize
that people have their needs as well.
That might conflict with us.
What my supervisor was meaning is that the very fact
that I was wanting to look into myself
and understand what was wrong with me
and change that meant that I was not a narcissist.
So we can already start to understand
how we can change the dynamic in our relationships
by being able to listen to our partner's opinion,
to look into ourselves with humility
and seeing what we need to change
and how we can be more empathic, how we can listen better,
how we can be more compassionate, how we can pay attention
to our partner's needs.
Trisha.
- Hmm. Yes, Claudia, I really appreciate you
for naming your own personal experience.
And as we talk about this, I'm struck also by
my own experience as a child growing up in a household
where my father, uh, was Korean identified.
Um, he's no longer with us anymore,
but I do recognize something that we've not had the chance
to talk about is that sometimes in certain upbringings
there can be cultural factors into this.
My father coming from a household himself where there was a,
a bit of a patriarchal understanding of
how children were raised.
So my father could be very rigid and very critical of me,
and it wasn't reflective of my internal experience.
So what I found is, as I was dating, I was more drawn to men
that were very confident
and often had a certain level of confidence and control.
And as I got to know myself, I realized
that I wanted a balance.
I wanted vulnerability and wanted empathy.
But there was always a pool of the qualities
that I found most attractive.
And again, having such great respect for,
for my father from a cultural lens
and being my father that I felt to be safe
and to be loved was also to be controlled.
And I see that some of those tendencies
of my dad growing up in a household where he was told,
you are the son, you know, you are, you are meant to be
a caretaker to the family.
That there were some narcissistic expectations placed on him
that made him a difficult father to connect with.
And the reason I'm mentioning this is that a lot
of my clients like to ask, where does narcissism come from?
They do some research, they go on Dr.
Google, they try to make meaning,
because often they say, I love this person.
I wanna be in this relationship.
But I feel that there's no room in the relationship for me.
And I can really relate to that
because there was a point in which when I was in a
relationship that I would identify as dysfunctional, where I
started to get controlling
because as you said, Claudia, we're, we're all human.
And so those narcissistic tendencies have kept us alive.
It's what, how babies get the nourishment they
need when they're crying.
They're saying, I have a need. I'm hungry.
I'm, I'm lonely, I'm tired.
And then caretaker comes to them.
But too much or too less can cause these traits to
diagnostically that can lead to severe narcissism.
You know, in this case, for me, um, I would say I think
with therapy and the fact that you are a therapist
and you've gone into therapy, these are many examples of
how you can respond.
If you in fact are a partner
that recognizes you have narcissistic tendencies,
or you are in a relationship with someone
who has narcissistic tendencies,
therapy can be a really powerful place
to process and understand.
How was your upbringing?
What was it like in your relationship with your caretaker?
And we've talked a lot about this, right?
Claudio, we love talking about attachment theory.
It helps us to understand the world that we came to know
too much, too little often has its tendencies diagnostically
to lead into present day challenges in a
loving relationship.
- Yes, Trisha. And it was good that you pointed out to
the way we are raised
and how it can affect us being raised by someone
with narcissism or narcissist tendencies.
And what I have seen,
and by the way, I had a girlfriend that I believe that
she was a narcissist.
And she said that she suffered a lot in her childhood. Hmm.
She had a very traumatic childhood.
She couldn't tell me actually what happened,
because for her would be very painful for her
to talk to me
and tell me what had happened
would be in some way very humiliating
and would be very painful, would be very vulnerable as well.
So she didn't wanna mention,
but it helped me to have some acceptance, understanding,
and even compassion.
Hmm. Because when you feel heard
by a narcissist person, it's very, very hard.
You, you can feel extremely hurt
and angry and resentful.
But what helps you is to see that
behind all that appearance of pride
control, they someone who feels so weak
and so fragile.
Hmm. And what happens is that
this person is a born leader.
Hmm. This person has the ability, you know,
the capacities to be a leader, but
because of the trauma that the person suffered,
the person had to become a more assertive
than they naturally are
because they leader is by nature assertive.
But as they feel so put down, so humiliated,
then they try to be assertive to show
force, to show power.
And they go over the board.
And what is interesting is that when we see them from the
outside, we see confidence.
Mm-Hmm. , we see pride.
We don't know that in the inside they feel very weak.
Hmm. They are always thinking
that we want to put them down.
Right. We want to humiliate ridicule them. Yes.
Because that's what happened in their childhood.
And they carry that image.
They think people want to put me down, people want
to control me.
Right? People want to show off that they are better than me,
but I'm gonna prove to them that I am better than they are.
I want to prove that I am not, you know, someone,
that they were gonna step down, step all over me.
I'm gonna prove to them my authority, my power,
I'm gonna assert myself.
And then they don't realize
that they are becoming controlling.
They are becoming authoritarian.
They're becoming very selfish.
And it's so hard
because you want to tell them, yes, want
to show them what they are doing, how pr proud
they are, how authoritarian, how controlling.
When you do that, they feel attacked.
It confirms to them, oh, here they are trying
to put me down, but they're, they're not gonna put me down.
I'm gonna show who they are.
So it's so hard to have that relationship
because it pulls us towards that position
that we wanna compete with them.
We wanna show what they are doing.
And when we do that, it confirms to them
that we really wanna put them down.
And then we enter in this cycle.
And when we are into this cycle, it's
so hard to get out.
And by the way, this cycle that is created, there is
so much force ruling us
towards that cycle.
You know, because we, we feel this person is trying
to control me, is trying to humiliate me.
I'm not gonna accept that. So we become defensive.
And when we try to prove who we are,
and we try to defend ourselves, we are in the cycle.
We are in the cycle.
And it's so hard because
that cycle is not gonna take us anywhere.
Because the more we try to prove who we are
and defend ourselves, it just confirms to the other person
that we are really trying to put them down.
We are not really, uh, acknowledging them
and respecting them.
So, uh,
but the, what I wanna say is really
how it starts there in childhood.
How the person has suffered so much,
how we can have compassion
and understanding towards the person
and towards ourselves as well.
Because as I was mentioning, all of us have some narcissism.
Us and, and also as you were mentioning now, Trisha,
how you suffered in your, in your childhood.
And it was the same with me
because my dad, he had that machismo, a Latino,
he thought that being a father meant to have authority.
And, and if I was in pain, if I was crying for something,
asking for something who he would have with his authority
and try to stop me because I was just spoiled.
And then he had to come with his authority to stop my
being spoiled, you know?
But he didn't realize that he was
just not really being empathic and compassionate towards me
and just, uh, in, in some way I was learning with him
to be authoritarian as well as I did
with my daughter Tricia,
- Right?
As you're talking about this, Claudio.
And we said we knew
that this would lead into multiple episodes of us talking
about a subject that affects every single one
of our listeners and viewers, no doubt is I also am struck
by us being in a system in the world where we put a lot
of emphasis on confidence and triumph and achievements
and being on top, being first place, getting the gold medal
that we do look for perfection.
We do live in a world that wants to obtain
that which we cannot achieve.
None of us are perfect. And the qualities
and traits of a narcissistic personality
or someone who is in a world that rewards this,
it makes sense that likely you
and myself as well
as our viewers have been in a relationship.
Whether it's a romantic partnership
or someone you may have as a manager, you may have someone
as a, as a part, as as a parent,
the world really does reward those people.
And that would maybe, you know, I'm gonna be careful
with this not to get too political, Claudio,
that we do put the highest level
of responsibility politicians
with these kinds of personalities.
So just as a reminder, this is where a lot
of my clients say, I didn't see it coming.
The relationship went so well. Where did it go wrong?
Well, that which we really celebrate.
We also have to name the other qualities that are just
as important we'll speak
to in our next episode is compassion,
vulnerability, empathy.
And if someone is so focused on their own achievements,
they're not willing to make mistakes,
which actually helps us to be more successful, going
to therapy and saying, I need help,
makes you an incredibly brave, courageous person.
But to your, your supervisor's point, Claudia, when she said
by the very physician, you saying you,
you thought you might have narcissism indicated to you
that this was not a narcissistic trait
because you were being vulnerable
and you were being empathic to say, I've created harm
and I wanna understand how to do better.
That's what it means to be human in a world that's flawed
and a world where we have to make mistakes in order to grow.
And that's what this episode is about, is
continue tuning in.
We have more to share with you in just a little bit.
Thanks for following with us, everyone.
We can't wait to continue this
very stimulating conversation.
- Yes. See you at the next episode. ,
- Thank you so much for tuning in with us today.
We hope you'll join us soon again for our next episode of
Thriving Your Love.