Reply to Covert narcissism

Forum Index » Family Relationships

Reply to "Covert narcissism"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Covert narcissism is not a technical term (it's not in the DSM-IV, for instance) but it does describe some real behaviors that are useful to identify whether you are doing them or being impacted by them. While a true narcissist is relatively rare, all people display narcissistic tendencies at times. And if you are in a relationship with someone who is stuck in patterns of narcissistic behavior, this can be extremely difficult even if they don't meet the definition of a narcissist.

One reason I find covert narcissism a useful term is that it can force people to reckon with the impact of their behavior instead of fixating on intentions. The problem with focusing ONLY on intentions is that people tend to be very generous with themselves about their own intentions. Also people tend to act instinctually in their own self interest, which means they can do harmful things without ever thinking "And now I will screw over my partner by ignoring all their needs in favor of my own."

My DH is not a covert narcissist but he used to have a specific behavior that could be categorized this way. Whenever I'd criticize him in any way, he'd immediately make the conversation about how hurtful it was for me to criticize him. No matter what. Even if it was my first criticism in 6 months, even if the thing I was criticizing was a really hurtful behavior on his part. These conversations ALWAYS became about how unkind I was to say something "mean" about him. It became such a permanent feature of our arguments that I started to document it and very carefully laid it out for him during a time when we weren't in an argument. Once I had said it, my DH started to recognize he was doing it, and things started to get better. But if I tried to point it out in the moment ("Why are we once again talking about how it's mean of me to raise any issues with you and never actually talking about any of those issues?") he'd just get mad and defensive. It was incredibly frustrating and made it impossible for me to get emotional needs met for a chunk of our relationship.

It was useful for me to read about covert narcissism online when I was untangling all this for myself. It helped me recognize that this pattern is not uncommon, and also to pinpoint exactly how it was affecting me. And that made it much easier for me to explain to my DH.

I do think people get too hung up on labeling someone a narcissist when we should focus on describing behaviors. But to say that covert narcissism is not real is false. It's an apt way to describe people who use a specific set of techniques and manipulations to accomplish narcissistic goals. Even if they say that's not what the intended.[/quote]

Sorry, but you kind of proved my point. First of all, your husband is clearly not a narcissist because once you were able to articulate your issue to him, he agreed to work on it and resolve it. A narcissist would never do that. Though it sounds like your husband is overly defensive, a big part of the issue here seems to be that you were unable to understand or articulate what your husband’s behavior was and why it bothered you - aka, you have problems relating to people. Your husband is not a narcissist - you were just having trouble communicating.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics