Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - Is Your Partner a Narcissist? Here's What You Need to Do

Episode Date: October 12, 2022

Today on “The Language of Love,” I am sitting down to talk to a woman who says she is struggling in her long-term marriage. As the mother of 3 young kids, my caller says that she is beginning to examine her past and her current relationship and now realizes that she is co-dependent. As a child, her father was emotionally available and displayed narcissistic behaviour, and her mother always had to keep him happy and calm in order for the house to run smoothly. As a result, my caller also learned to fill this role of being a people-pleaser, always seeking to keep the peace and hide her own needs. Now, in her marriage, my caller says that she is tired of having her boundaries ignored and her emotional needs go unmet. Although she loves her husband dearly, she feels like she has minimized her own needs and go along with whatever he wants, even if it makes her unhappy. She is stuck in a pattern of placating him and always putting him first when she doesn’t feel that same support from him. These emotions have come to a head lately as she recently lost her mother and is not feeling supported by her husband in her grief. So what should she do? Is her husband a narcissist and is such a diagnosis even useful? On this episode I teach listeners: • How our early family systems shape the roles we take on in life (like being a people-pleaser or hiding our own needs to make other people happy) • How the universe offers us soul-mates that will encourage us to face these unhealthy patterns • What to do when you and your partner are stuck in a negative loop of fighting, silent treatments, and unspoken resentments • Why I think we are all a little narcissistic deep down…and why that is okay Check out this episode and let me know your thoughts! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm sex, love, and relationship therapist, Dr. Laura Berman, and for the last 30 years, I've been helping people learn to love and be loved better. Welcome to the Language of Love Sessions. This is where I get to work with you one-on-one, on air. You, my listeners, my goal in these sessions is to empower you to enjoy better relationships, both with others and with yourself and to help you embrace how precious and sacred your body, your love life, and your sexuality really is.

It's time we all become fluent in the language of love. Ella, thanks for reaching out. What's on your mind? Hello, I have some relationship issues with my husband. Okay. I'm 37. We have been married for nine years together since 15 years. we have three boys what age and they are seven and the twins are four oh yeah okay yes and since

the twins i'm a full stay-at-home mother yeah yeah it all started a little bit when my mother got sick and when she died a few months ago i'm sorry thank you so since then i've been going to therapy and since then i feel like i'm awakening and i'm starting to see all the red flags that have been there all of the way but I have not realized you mean in your relationship yes okay and maybe I should also say that I was raised by I can pretty confidently say a narcissistic father emotionally non-available um my mother very much codependent which is required to be with a narcissist. I had that set as well. Yes. And I have a younger brother, seven years younger, that is heavily disabled. So I have been taking the role of a caretaker from very early on.

And yes. So you are the parentified child and the codependent child with your codependent mother and with your narcissistic father and with your brother out of necessity. And so my guess is the red flags that are starting to come to your attention are some narcissistic qualities in your husband. Yes. And I know I'm not my mother. I know he's not my father, but the dynamic is. Can you give me some examples of what these red flags are? What are the examples? Because here's the thing, and I know this as a recovering codependent myself. Once you become aware of this, it can be kind of scary because you start to question your compass so hugely. And so when you start to see those qualities, it's like, oh, I must not be in my power. Oh, I must be

letting myself be controlled and I don't even know it. And so sometimes you ascribe or attribute issues where there aren't any, because let's just start by saying we're all a little narcissistic. It's just that some of us are much further down the continuum, right? And then that's when it becomes an issue. So I want to understand from you, like two or three that you can think of, of some of the issues that are really bothering you in your relationship or in the red flag capacity. I'm not talking about things 15 years ago, but really up to date, gaslighting, like not talking to me for days unless I unless I approach him after a conflict you would never come to me

when you do approach him yes so you it sounds like you get into a conflict he shuts down and is angry and isn't acting normal anymore and then you say okay well I'm not going to be the first one to go and so you hold out as long as you can right for several days or however long it takes and then you go to him and do you have to go to him apologetic or can you go to him in a gentle, loving way and kind of work through the issue more calmly? Or do you have to go and say, you were right, I was wrong, let's make everything okay? No, I can go in a calming way And he would start to talk to me again and, but it's, it's always me. And so also really boundary, like not respecting my boundaries.

Also, can you give me an example of that? Well, we are planning to go on a family holidays and he just, without me knowing, invites other friends and he knows I don't want to go on holidays with them. And then he says, well, I already asked him and they already booked. Oh, not okay. Things like that. And also, he was not very supportive all this year that my mother was sick. Like on really the most horrible day of my life, he has really not been supportive.

Like saying things like, well, think about where you should be now. Is it really with your father who just lost his wife 10 hours ago and your brother and your sister or with me at home with the kids? The correct answer being in his mind at home with the kids? Yeah. It sounds like he's not very supportive. Are there any ways that he is supportive? Yeah, it's, oh.

Yes. And that makes it so hard for me to. Yeah, to navigate. Yeah, I'm losing my compass, really. I know anything he says, I really put it on the scale. Yes, and that's a dangerous thing, too. Okay, so let me just ask you this. Would he ever, do you think he'd ever be open to therapy?

Well, we started couples therapy a few months ago. and he now also is starting to do a single individual therapy with that same person but then at the same time like the first time he went there by himself and or let's say the session after that like I open up with all the his behavior that I really thought was so disrespectful so he lost his kind of facade with the therapist and then after that he says well the last time I there I completely lied to her about myself and stuff like this so I I really have also trust issues can I trust him that he really wants to change can a person really change like this and how much time do I have and I know that a crucial part of my mother's illness was a dynamic with my

father and I'm so afraid to get into the same yes well so here's the thing there's really two tracks to take when you're with someone who doesn't respect your boundaries doesn't respect you gaslights you and doesn't honor his agreements right no one's that way across the board but in lots of significant ways that matter right one is that you leave right which is what you're struggling with. The other is that you change yourself and you see if they can rise to the occasion. Okay. So this in my mind, I mean, you have two young children. I think I'm not going to tell you to leave your relationship now because I don't think you're ready to. My job as I see it is if I can save a relationship, I'm going to try to do it. And if it's going to be saved in a

healthy way for both parties. And I really know with every cell of my body from my 30 years of experience in my own personal life that every partner, even those partners we leave, even those partners that turn out to be abusive or toxic or whatever, are greatest teachers. And you have an opportunity here with this person you've chosen for the wounds he was going to trigger, by the way, because that's why we choose people really, because their baggage goes with ours. You have an opportunity to really have a master course, master level course on healing codependence. So the goal in my mind, because the narcissist, it is really hard to heal a narcissist in treatment. I can tell you as a therapist, my oldest son, who is 26 now, went through a lot of emotional

mental health issues growing up and lots of things that were beyond either of our control and some probably that were in my control as his mom, but he ended up going into intensive treatment and learning. I wouldn't have even known to diagnose him with this. I would have thought it was more anxiety and depression, but that he had narcissistic personality disorder and it took him a long time to really, he had to like read the diagnostic statistical manual with his therapist and like really, he did not want to buy that. And he is an anomaly. He is, you know, most people I know with narcissism with that diagnosis or worthy of that diagnosis would never, I mean, the nature of the narcissism is the perfection and grandiosity. They would never own that, right? He

owned it. And he's very, the only reason I'm talking about it is because he's very open and out about it. Like he'll mention it in passing. I'm a recovering narcissist. Like, so let me know if I talk about myself too much. Let me know if I change the subject. You know, he did a lot of work on himself. That is so rare because I think if you've been learning about narcissism, you probably already know, but I'll say this for everyone else too, that the core wound of the narcissist is that they experienced severe emotional trauma as a child. They weren't protected or didn't feel protected or seen, or they didn't feel like the grownups were smarter and more caring and able to direct them. And so they had to do everything. There's no substitute

for their own independent judgment. They know better than everyone else. The way that they digested, and we all digest these childhood traumas in different ways, right? You became a codependent with your childhood drama and trauma. He became narcissistic, right? But the narcissist does that because they have such horribly low feelings of self-worth and self-advocacy that the only thing they can do is adopt this mythological grandiosity and this mythological story that they are perfection personified and they are extremely charming and they know how to love bomb and they know how to make a good impression. And like he was doing with the therapist on his individual session, he knows exactly what to say. So they're really hard

to quote unquote treat. But, and there's a big but here, that doesn't mean they can't change Because what I have found having many, many, many, many narcissists in my own personal life and working with innumerable couples where there's one narcissist, one codependent, is that you have to kind of think of a narcissist as a bully. You know how like bullies in school, you say to your kids, the reason this kid is bullying you is because they're really being bullied themselves. And the only way you stop a bully is by standing up to the bully. It's the same thing with a narcissist. It's not about calling attention, although that can be part of it if he's willing to be honest and go to therapy. It's not about calling attention to what's wrong with him or expecting him to change

his behavior on his own. It's about you deciding how you want to be treated, how you want to live, that nothing is more important than that. and I am going to put very calm, very loving stakes in the ground along these lines and see what happens. You'll either rise to the occasion or you won't. I'll give you an example, okay?

Here's a big one, you ready? He knows that you don't wanna go on a vacation with these friends. He knows you expected this to be a family private vacation. He invited those people and expects you to be codependent just go along for the ride and suck it up, right? Someone who is a recovered or recovering codependent, living and loving a narcissist who has beautiful, wonderful qualities and a very sweet teddy bear heart underneath all the fear and scarcity that makes him act out, right?

There's no everybody. Hurt people hurt people. Nobody is inherently bad, right? And I know you can see all the beautiful qualities he has beyond this, right? So you go to him and you say, look, all right, so this has happened. I've been very clear that I don't want to go on vacation with these people and I'm not going to. So either you can disinvite them. It's not my fault that they bought the tickets. I didn't even know they were invited and you knew that they weren't. You're not yelling at them or making them wrong. This is just the consequence, right? Either you would disinvite them and we go as a family or you can go with your friends and I'll stay home and go somewhere else with the kids but I'm not going on this vacation because I didn't sign up for this

I'm really sorry well I think I've been doing this like really also being very clear with my boundaries for maybe a year almost a year and what's happened well sometimes he it's okay with him and then he gives in to sometimes he still like says that's ridiculous what you what you're asking for. And that's okay if he says it's ridiculous. And then what happens? Because he's going to try to gaslight you. He's going to try to bully you into changing your mind, right? That's why for a codependent, discernment and clarity and holding onto your own truth is the most important thing, right? So he makes you wrong or tries to gaslight you into changing your mind. And you just lovingly and calmly, without pointing the finger of blame at him,

just say i'm not going to change my mind i'm sorry yeah not going to change how long is that okay for me to like i feel like if it's going to be too long i will nevertheless give up on myself and lose like lose myself again in this relationship but if you were to leave this relationship now because of that you're just going to get into the same pattern in a different flavor somewhere else. Your job, your soul work, and my guess is, and I'm getting the truth chills as I think this and it's about to come out of my mouth, so I know it's true. Your soul came here to learn this because what's going to happen for you right now, it feels uncomfortable and like an effort. And you're like, oh, I can't do this for the rest of my life. And eventually I'll give in because

I'm about to give in anyway, and I'm holding on by the skin of my teeth. But you keep doing it, and it gets easier and easier and easier. Because right now, your core wound is abandonment, emotional, physical, literal abandonment. That's the codependence core wound, right? So that's what you're working against when you set these boundaries. My goal for you is that it becomes effortless, that this isn't a how long can I hold these boundaries. This is, I am someone who holds my boundaries no matter who's coming up against them and what they're trying to do.

And if that makes him leave or he is repeatedly refusing to respect my boundaries, now I'm really in choice, right? But what's happening is that he's just making it hard and painful right now for you to hold your boundaries. He's had how many years? 11 years, 10 years, right? 15 years of not ever having to respect your boundaries, it's going to take him a little

while to learn that you are serious and that if he wants to be with you, he has to respect your boundaries because your boundaries are not going to change no matter what threats he makes, no matter what gaslighting he does, no matter how wrong he makes you, you will calmly and clearly and lovingly and hold your boundary, right? Calculating route to avoid seeing poverty. Turn left to bypass the unhoused youth sleeping on the street. Then keep right to skip by the lines of people waiting for food. Steer clear of the crowded shelter turning people away.

Then take the next exit. Let's stop looking away and get in the way of rising poverty. Your donations help the United Way fight poverty in thousands of ways, like providing food, shelter, and crisis prevention. donate today at unitedwaygt.org and one of two things is going to happen first of all it will just separate from other two things it's going to get easier and easier for you okay as you do this and keep telling yourself this but one of two things will happen he will either rise to meet you there's going to be bumpy stuff along there'll be sometimes he doesn't and he's a complete

asshole and so you know but he will for the most part start rising to meet you or it will be untenable and he will leave or blow up the relationship or you will finally say, you know what? It's so clear to me that the pain of being in this situation is greater than my fear of leaving it. So I'm leaving it. But at that point, you will be ready to continue your healing and eventually attract in and be attracted to someone who you can have healthy love with, right? So if If he can't rise to healthy love as you hold the boundaries of healthy love and respect, then he will go away eventually, one way or the other. And you will have done everything you could to keep your family together, teach him a different way of being, claim your own worth and power, and be set up for success moving forward. You follow what I'm saying?

Yeah. And what do I do with all the resentments I have so far? And I feel like I'm not invested anymore that much emotionally in the relationship. Well, do you want to leave the relationship? I mean, maybe you do. Are you hoping I tell you to leave it? That's the other thing. I'm waiting for like an outside instance telling me you are allowed to leave.

That's the codependent. No, no, no, no. If someone tells you to leave the relationship, I don't want you to listen to it. Not because you shouldn't leave the relationship. I don't know. But because that answer, more important than your average person, is crucial for you. You knowing your truth, claiming your truth, standing in your truth and acting on your truth is your work in the world.

And whether you stay in this relationship or not, that's going to be required. And so I don't want you to give this power away to anyone but yourself. And the resentment you feel is about your father, is about your mother, and is about all the times you've given your power away. That resentment can be shifted into power of clarity and holding your boundaries and can fuel that. And as you hold your boundaries and are unwavering in those and aren't giving yourself away and aren't giving up your truth and aren't giving up your boundaries and aren't doing and saying

things you don't want to do and say, your resentment will diminish because resentment comes from powerlessness. It's a passive aggressive feeling, right? It's not an assertive feeling. What I want is for you to live in assertiveness, not passive aggression, which is where you've been living for the past decade plus. That's just keeping the system in place. So if you can think of this, like give it a year, okay? Kids are still small. You've got time. You've invested all this into this relationship.

I would encourage you to do a couple of things. First of all, start trying as much as you can to look at him through the lens of appreciation. And there are things, even though he's a complete asshole a lot of times, there are a lot of things he does right, correct? Yes. with the kids, with you, with the house, with the things he takes care of, whatever it is,

right? I want you to start imagining like Wizard of Oz, the Tin Man, when Dorothy is squirting oil in his joints. I want you to lubricate him. And this is the way you lubricate a narcissist. Their love language is words of affirmation. So I want you to seek things to appreciate about him and verbalize them. This is the opposite of passive aggression. This is reaching out to him with love. This is about oiling the joints so that when and as you continue to set clear boundaries, there is more receptivity. Because a narcissist can't be with being bad, wrong, evil. That's what they really think about themselves. And they will push against it and fight it and make you wrong and become enraged and distance themselves so far from

the truth of that they can never try it on. It won't serve anyone, including the potential in your relationship or your healing. Calculating route to avoid seeing poverty. Turn left to bypass the unhoused youth sleeping on the street. Then keep right to skip by the lines of people waiting for food. Steer clear of the crowded shelter turning people away. Then take the next exit let's stop looking away and get in the way of rising poverty your donations help the united way fight poverty in thousands of ways like providing food shelter and crisis prevention donate today at unitedwaygt.org so if you can start just like look for three to five things that he does right or you can appreciate about him even like the shirt he's wearing brings out

the color of his eyes i don't care but just verbalize it to him okay two things are going to happen. One, you're oiling the joints, right? And making him more soft and receptive. And two, you are changing some of the lens that you're looking at him through because you're so scared you're going to lose your truth that you're holding onto him being all wrong and all bad because that's the only way you feel you can hold onto your truth. That is like another form of codependence in a different way, right? Do you understand what I'm saying? You have to hold the duality. This guy is a million, amazing, beautiful. He has a heart of gold underneath all that resentment, anger, and defensiveness. He's not an evil person. He's just run by his shadows

and he acts from his shadows and he can be manipulative and he can be unconscious. And we can't throw, it doesn't serve you, him, or anyone else to throw the baby out with the bathwater and think that's going to allow you to hold your boundaries because you have to be able to hold your boundaries in real life without someone being, can't be that the only time you hold your boundaries is because you're dealing with a complete and utter 100% asshole. You are holding your boundaries, not because the other person deserves it, but because you deserve it. That's the only reason you hold your boundaries. Okay. So as you are able to hold the duality that he is both amazing and a pain in the ass, that's real life. That's true codependence recovery.

So you follow what I'm saying? Yeah. So I want you to give him those compliments and seek ways to connect with him and hold your boundaries. And when he doesn't speak to you for three days, is it really a boundary that he has to be the one to come talk to you first? Does that really matter? Like, keep asking yourself, what is my end game in this scenario and in general?

Okay. My end game is to hold my boundary on this thing we were talking about and not give in. Okay. But it doesn't mean I need him to be wrong and me to be right in order for that to happen. I can be magnanimous and loving and come to him. I mean, this is going to serve you with your kids as well. And you can almost look at him like he's a grown up kid because that's what he's acting like. So, you go to him and you say, listen, I know we got in an argument last night. I don't want to do the silent treatment thing. This is how I'm feeling about it. I'm very clear on this thing. I want to talk about it. So, stop getting into the power plays with him. This isn't a game.

This is just you being clear in what you want and what you deserve and how you want to be treated, saying what you need and want, and requiring it. I mean, obviously, you have to compromise on some smaller things. But the thing with the vacation or other things, that's clear. And then you have to, when he pushes your boundaries, like, okay, and then invites the other people anyway, he's going to test you because he's not used to you holding. If you do put a boundary, it's a flimsy little unmoored picket, one picket thing in a picket fence that he can just knock down.

And it goes, you know, that's what he's learned. So he has to learn that when you put down a boundary, it's not moving. and then we'll see what happens because i don't think you've fully done that yet do you think you have i've definitely like did a lot in this regards but yeah definitely still to lose it's becoming easier and easier but then if i do stay the boundary and then i get gaslighted it's hard you just say you know what i i feel like you're gaslighting me right now this is not the case. You don't argue with a gaslighter because you're arguing with an insane person, right? And he's going to run circles around you in this regard. He's masterful at this. This is

one of his gifts for good or for evil, right? It serves both purposes because he probably is really good at convincing people of things. So you just say, listen, I feel like you're gaslighting me right now and I don't like it. I get that this is how you feel, but this is the truth and i'm clear on my truth and i love you and i'm not changing my mind all in his court right so you it's up to you whether you get gaslit or not yeah the other thing is that i have three small children and then i have the feeling i have another fourth kid what do you mean you think you're pregnant again no no like him like my husband i have to think oh he oh i thought you said you were having another fourth kid. Okay. So yeah, you do have a fourth kid. Yes.

Yeah. And I'm just so tired of it. Yes. So does he not help with the kids? He has not taken his responsibilities till my mother got sick. Yeah. He has really not done much. And I was, yeah, complicit in it. Yes. Yeah. Well, so that's a boundary that has to change too. And you may have to be really specific. It's not going to be, if someone is not prone to stepping in with the kids, You can't just say, I want more help. You have to say, listen, I've been thinking I'm drowning here. I'm overwhelmed. I'm exhausted. So what I'm thinking and, you know, also you stay at home and he works and that creates a dynamic, especially with a narcissist that he thinks, well, that's your job. It's not mine.

you know? So you have to be able to say, okay, these are the things that I need you to help me with every day. Are you willing to do that? Because I really need support and I'm drowning here and it's a lot to take care of. And if you could do these things on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, you take this one to the, or on Saturday, you take this one to soccer while I, you know, whatever, you get very specific. You even make a schedule, right? You don't just make this amorphous request that he doesn't want to meet and is going to skirt out of. Yeah. So that's the other thing with men in general.

But definitely with a narcissist, you have to be very clear on what you want and require it. Yeah. And once again, this is all an exercise that is only going to serve you in the long run. Either it will save your relationship or it will set you up for success moving forward. But you will see. Just get curious. Make it almost like not a totally detached exercise because we're hoping it works out. But just be curious, knowing that no matter what happens, you're going to be okay.

If he can't rise to the occasion, you're going to leave, right? That's what you kind of want to do now anyway, even though you're not ready to, right? So either, despite all your boundary setting, he will be so volatile and so unwilling to rise to the occasion and so committed to gaslighting and ignoring your boundaries that the pain of being in this marriage will be greater than your fears of leaving it and you will leave or you will rise to the occasion and surprise you and i can't tell you how many times they surprise you but you're not going to know that truth until you not only set the boundaries but set them not from a passive aggressive place but from a place of clarity and grounded power

and your own truth and this is such an amazing training ground for you to start to be able to hold on to your own truth no matter what yeah and the best thing you can do honestly in your therapy in my mind yes you can talk about some of the things going on with your husband but I don't want you to get too caught up in demonizing your husband. What I would love for you to focus on is the wounds underneath the dynamic with your husband, which is your father and your mother and you

and the roles and the ways that impacted you and the things you internalized and the stories you internalized and the anger you have about it and the resentment you have about it towards your father, for what he did to your mother, to what he did to you, to your mother, to letting him do it, you know, all of those things, if you can start working through that

and even your own guilt and shame, which I'm feeling that you had as the parentified child that somehow you should have been able to rescue her or fix it, that all of that to me is what's so much more needed for you to heal and release and is going to give you so much more power because you already know what to do with your husband. I mean, I think this conversation has clarified it, right? It's really about dealing with the wounds and the stories underneath from your childhood that make it hard for you to do what you need to do in your relationship. Yes. Makes sense?

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I can feel it. Yeah. Where do you feel it? In your body? Throat. Yeah. Yeah. And that's about having a voice, right? Yeah. It's about having a voice. And I saw you get a little choked up. I could feel it too, talking about the guilt about your mom.

First of all, there's a tremendous amount of guilt when someone you love dies, even if there wasn't a thing you could have done to stop it. It's still such a loss. And I can tell you even just personally, when my mother died and she died 10 years before my dad, he was the narcissist and she was the codependent. And yeah, she had breast cancer. It was the same thing. It was grief. It was giving her power away. It was holding all of that anger and resentment and transmuting it into dis-ease. There's so much guilt and shame, especially when the parent you kind of identify most with dies, you know? And so not only are you having the loss of someone you very deeply love, but you have all of those residual survival guilt feelings and also guilt that maybe because she died of this, if you could have done something or stopped it sooner or empowered her or something, which, by the way, you can't do right. And you couldn't do as a child, but here's what I learned because Lord knows I did some

heavy duty healing after my mother died. And that's when I really fully started my codependency recovering journey from a, I don't know if you've read my book. This would actually be really good for you. If you haven't read quantum love, it really helps when you're in a relationship with narcissists because they match your frequency so easily. So if you learn to move your body, which you'll do with quantum love, into the energetic frequency of the boundary you're setting with love and clarity, it'll make it so much easier for him to match you there. It's a huge upshift in your power.

But here's the other thing that I really learned in quantum love and studying all of this and experiencing it myself. And you're going to hear what I say right now, but I think it's going to really land fully later. So for now, just listen. When you do this healing that I'm talking about, about your childhood, about how you learned or didn't learn to be in your power, about your guilt and your shame as the parentified child, as you heal that in yourself, you are not only healing yourself, you are healing everyone who comes after you in your line because your mother came from another mother, came from another mother.

This goes back generations, right? But here's the cool part about the quantum universe in which we all exist. Because there is no time and space, when you heal yourself, you are not only healing everyone who comes after you, you are healing the whole line of women that are behind you. I just keep seeing this image of woman behind woman behind woman of your ancestors, just all like in a human chain with their arms around you, just like you are the one that is going to break the chain of disempowerment, boundaryless, codependence, giving your power away, living in dis-ease and passive aggression and pain. Like so many of them, my mother did that too, said her mother and her mother, like so many of our mothers did that, right?

But you are changing that. And you don't yet, you maybe never have to, but you certainly don't yet have to throw the baby of your marriage out with the bathwater in order to do this. In fact, you're going to be able to learn it and practice it in vivo in a way you wouldn't if you weren't in this relationship. So consider this relationship soul school for your whole line behind you and in front of you. And you're doing the work of healing that's going to heal everyone on both sides. yeah how does that feel besides overwhelming yeah it's overwhelming and at the same time it makes it makes sense yeah that's your homework my love seek opportunities to express appreciation and consider it connecting with the loving parts of him cultivating the loving flexibility in him

planting the seeds of open-heartedness in him as you do that so that he's less defensive so that he remembers you love him so that he remembers he's not all bad that you can maybe hold up a mirror to the beautiful soul he is and help him expression express it more by giving him those mirrors throughout the day and set hold your boundaries verbalize and announce that the gaslighting when you see it. Hold your truth, including natural consequences when he breaks, like, nope, I'm not going to do that. Or I guess I'm just leaving the house or whatever. If he starts yelling and screaming at you, you say, I don't want to be talked to that way. If he keeps yelling and screaming at you, you say, you need to stop yelling at me or I'm going to leave the room

until you can talk to me calmly. And it is going to feel like you have a third child for a little a while. But he my guess is because narcissists are super smart. I know he loves you and loves his family and doesn't want to lose it. So he very well might surprise you once he feels the unarguableness of where you stand. And so far, he hasn't fully felt that. Yeah. So read Quantum Love, really, because I think it will really help too. Okay. So you have your marching orders. We are cheering you on. And I would love for you to reach back out in another few months and let me know how you're doing. Okay. Yeah, I will. I wrote me a prescription, but there is no cure.

Calculating route to avoid seeing poverty. Turn left to bypass the unhoused youth sleeping on the street. Then keep right to skip by the lines of people waiting for food. Steer clear of the crowded shelter turning people away. Then take the next exit. Let's stop looking away and get in the way of rising poverty. Your donations help the United Way fight poverty in thousands of ways, like providing food, shelter, and crisis prevention.

Donate today at unitedwaygt.org. Don't you wish you could just hit skip on the worst parts of your life? You know, the same way you can skip an ad? I get it. I'm Siaya, and I live in Ice Cove. I've made some questionable decisions that didn't end up the way I planned. And today, I'm still figuring it out. Somehow things usually get worse before they get better.

Apparently, that's how I roll. So bundle up and come along for the bumpy ride. Stream a new episode of North of North Tuesdays on CBC Gem.