Healthy vs. narcissistic relationships

hey everyone it's dr romini welcome back to this youtube channel on all things narcissism narcissistic people narcissistic relationships interestingly we're going to go a little bit off script today we're going to talk about healthy relationships this is something that a lot of people have asked for like what is a healthy relationship what i'm going to do is i want to hope to teach you what a healthy relationship is by sort of contrasting it to some of the patterns we'd see in a narcissistic relationship in this video i'm really going to stay focused on um on intimate relationships not get so much into the family space certainly we'll do that in a future video and even as you're sitting here thinking about this video would love to hear from those of you who've been in both been both in a narcissistic relationship and a healthy relationship if you want drop in the comments some of the big differences you noticed between those two relationships but in order to be in a healthy relationship you need to recognize it so let's start talking about healthy relationships and if you're new to this channel please hit that subscribe button and join us because while we typically don't talk about healthy stuff you can use what i'm telling you to learn about healthy stuff so let's talk a little bit about again this interesting issue and this interesting sort of compare and contrast we're going to do today today what i hope to do with you is a comparison and a contrasting of the sort of like sort of a natural history of at least what the early faces of a relationship looks like with a narcissist and then compare that to what the same relationship would look like if you were in something healthy not with a narcissist it kind of gives you a sense of where the similarities and differences are and the differences can be pretty stunning now in the past i've talked about some variations on this theme and again we are so accustomed to talking about unhealthy patterns on this channel i really do believe that sometimes you need a booster shot and a reminder of what a healthy relationship looks like and again those of you who've been in both share those differences in the comments so in a nutshell a healthy relationship is characterized by respect compassion kindness reciprocity patience empathy and gratitude a narcissistic relationship is characterized by contempt invalidation dismissiveness minimization gaslighting devaluation and entitlement to name a few in a healthy relationship there is trust in a narcissistic relationship there's lying and deceit a healthy relationship leaves you feeling centered a narcissistic relationship leaves you confused and riddled with self-doubt a healthy relationship is characterized by a sort of serenity a narcissistic relationship is characterized by fear after a narcissistic relationship you often feel like less than what you were than when you went into the relationship you're rattled to your core again riddled with self-doubt self-loathing confusion and you start to doubt your own reality in that sense in a narcissistic relationship you learn to gaslight yourself you just never know if you're coming or going in these relationships it can take people months or even years to recover from these relationships especially if they don't know what they're dealing with so let's get to that sort of compare and contrast i want to do with you so often in relationships with narcissists especially when i'm working with people on a consultation basis or clinical basis when a relationship is coming into the end we start doing what i call the post-mortem sort of breaking down what happened because by the time you're in my office things have started to go south if they haven't completely demolished and the goal is to sort of figure out where the did this start turning south so you don't make the same mistakes again and i'm going to tell you right now in most cases it probably happened as early as the first date so let's begin by talking about what a first date might look like with a narcissist now remember phase one of a narcissistic relationship is idealization and seduction that love bombing a grandiose way to get you on the hook now please keep in mind i am giving generalizations here now every dating story is going to be a little different not every history is going to be identical i'm really talking about patterns and probabilities right now so let's take on that first date with a narcissist that first date may be a home run they may make a reservation at the sort of the right restaurant or you're gonna meet maybe at a cool bar it may be well thought out it's probably gonna be interesting or at least you might be taken with the fact that they put in the effort they're most likely going to pay for it they're going to show you a great time they're probably going to look really great it may very well feel really really exciting it's going to look and feel the way a dreamy first date should and the narratives about what people have what they should be like now there are a couple of things that might happen on a first date that could be settling with a narcissist unsettling i should say with a narcissist for example pay attention to how how the how your day interacts with servers or other people who are working in that restaurant or bar how they interact with the person who greets you at the door the the host or the hostess or whatever the maitre d whoever's waiting at the at the front door the front gate to get you settled they may either act really overly familiar with this person to the point where you're almost like do you know this person or they'll go the other way and be contemptuous dismissive or rude of this person if you ended up having to wait in a line or something wasn't up to the narcissist's liking they may behave in a somewhat entitled manner like i said it's either going to be one extreme or the other either too familiar almost flirtatious or too too friendly or something that seems on the other extreme entitled and maybe even a little bit grumpy and income uncomfortable you can have sex on the first date maybe maybe not in some cases narcissists are clever enough to not push it or not or not just simply agree to it and in some ways that can play out this seduction so cleverly that it's you who ends up hoping for some kind of physicality in the early days narcissists are actually quite clever when it comes to courtship where it can get problematic are the sorts of subtly controlling behaviors you may see in the beginning that are easy to romanticize and can be the early echoes of a more dangerous pattern that may bother you throughout the relationship they may try and frame the first date as a surprise maybe having you meet them or taking you to a very unfamiliar place or an unfamiliar part of town it's a subtle thing but it leaves you a bit more ungrounded it's not collaborative there may also be hyper communication they engage in the initial initially it might be quite appropriate goodnight did you get home okay and then lots of good morning texts and then those texts and emails may increase in frequency initially it may be exciting to get those messages in the midst of the mundane stuff of life but before long it's going to start feeling like they may be checking in on you and they may get angry if you don't respond quickly enough and these narcissists as we know they're they're creatures of the extreme so if they aren't hyper communicative then they may be a different kind which is very inconsistent you'll be on the edge of your seat are they going to text are they not going to text you'll be perched sitting on the edge of your seat staring at your phone jumping at each notification hoping it's them again they are already pulling the strings of the relationship and perhaps playing on your own vulnerabilities and core issues around attachment and anxiety there may be a flurry of text from them and then radio silence which they rationalize by they're just really busy and can't stay in touch and you buy it and in that way the cycle of cognitive dissonance and justification begin with a covert narcissist this early courtship idealization cycle can look quite different around the first date you may actually be with someone who overwhelms you not only with what feels like a very mirrored empathy but also with their own dramatic stories of victimhood and pain you may hear how life how hard life has been for them all the things that have gone wrong they may be very self-deprecating and you may feel compelled to rescue them in fact you may even be on the fence about them but don't want to hurt their feelings and thus just on that first date you may have launched an enabling cycle that may last for the duration of the relationship you may feel you're with a fragile soul and don't even have your narcissism or red flag detector go off because it's not grandiose but that desire to rescue someone means you need to be careful so now let's talk about that first date with someone who's healthy and not narcissistic it'll feel human maybe even a little bit ordinary maybe expect more of a neighborhood place maybe not that over the top maybe they're still wearing the clothes they wore to work or something kind of casual it may not be that glitzed out it may not be that well thought out it'll just sort of be like hey there's a great restaurant in my neighborhood would that work for you are you familiar with that part of town again it may even feel a little ordinary and maybe not even exciting in fact if you decided to critique it you might even think was there even that much thought put into this perhaps though the thought really was they just wanted to get to know know a new person and the bells and whistles didn't matter anyone who's been on a first date knows that they can take a thousand different forms they can be anything from a concert to a coffee date to a picnic to a lunch date to walking through a museum but in a healthy relationship there'll be something sort of ordinary when it's not narcissistic and while ordinary is a word that's horrific for a narcissist it's actually normal for the rest of us a first date with a healthy person might actually feel really easy you might find yourself talking to this person for hours maybe about a lot of nothing you might have those sorts of fumbly moments where you don't feel graceful but nobody gets particularly frustrated entitled or angry in fact you may not even feel that much in terms of lightning bolts or sheer excitement but rather maybe more of a sense of comfort maybe not the stuff of fairy tales so let's fast forward a little bit let's talk about your tenth date you get to the tenth date and things are still going fine what does that add up to let's see tenth date what is that about a month or six weeks into the relationship with a narcissist by about the tenth date you probably may still very well be in that love bombing idealization seduction phase remember that love bombing is that technique used by narcissists where it's this sort of blinding and overwhelming tsunami of courtship where the texts and the calls and the gestures may come in really steady they're trying to wean you over in fact they may insist on spending lots and lots of time with you and get a little bit put off if you don't agree to it you might even be astonished at how intense some of the experiences are you're having early on and your friends may be cheering you on oh you found a prince or a princess many people say that the first four to six weeks with a narcissist almost feels like can feel like some sort of modern romantic fairy tale where it's just on on on all the time in the midst of that red flags may be popping up and they could be unsettling but by your 10th date you may have done intense stuff really fabulous dinners maybe even a vacation or a road trip or this like personal chef coming to someone's house or maybe having met their whole family but it's probably going to be something quite intense now if this is a covert or vulnerable narcissist then you may not be having those big grand seductive experiences but you may already be all in on rescuing this person perhaps you may have moved them into your house loaned them your car introduce them to people who could help them professionally and you may be very very protective of them and their fragility and victimhood that they keep putting out there however whatever narcissist you're in may have already started sliding into some bad habits by about the sixth week maybe this is the second or third time you've had to reschedule getting to see them maybe they're constantly late it could be that you're starting to see pretty consistently some of those patterns of entitlement you may have noticed that now you drive together and when you do drive together he or she is a very erratic driver cutting people off and speeding up to them by the way bad driving is a major narcissistic tell and supported by the research you may notice that while you're trying to talk to this person on your tenth date their attention sort of wanders or looking around the room not always listening to you intently the way they did on those first few dates they may even interrupt you get distracted by their phone may even look at someone else or constantly steer the conversation back to themselves love bombing tends to be on more superficial big ticket stuff but it doesn't seem to result in that real connective tissue of what makes a healthy relationship which is really being present and respecting and getting to know the core of a person but with a narcissist by around the 10th day you might be saying this is exciting i'm having a lot of fun and that lot of fun may be so seductive that you're thinking of staying in it but already the little rumbles have been rumbling they're almost so quiet you can't hear them the rumbles of doubt keep creeping in he doesn't really listen to me or like she has a little bit of a temper but i do see that she's under a lot of stress you're already when these red flags pop up continually making excuses and justifications for this person now let's contrast this to the tenth date with that healthy sort of non-narcissistic person so you've been in it for four to six weeks so something about the first nine dates was enough to keep you in for the tenth listen the relationship may actually still be quite ordinary it might feel like sort of friends and fun but it might be very thoughtful it may be that you go to a local concert venue where you can bring a picnic and they remember the picnic you may watch movies together there's an ordinariness to this there is a pacing to this it doesn't have that intensity that this the frequency of communication feels appropriate you may not have gone away for a weekend or a long weekend or a vacation or anything that sort of fancy or intense but the time when you're with this person feels connected you look forward to the next one there may have even been evenings when you're making dinner together or watching watching a streaming video or something like that but again it doesn't seem to have that same sort of tsunami feeling but it feels comfortable many times in those first sort of ten dates with your healthy person your non-narcissist you may just start feeling like you found a soft place to land it's interesting because a lot of people feel that the early courtship phase is supposed to be characterized by fireworks and excitement and something that feels very cinematic and fairytale this can sort of feel like a very slow independent film or like a very meandering short story it's moving it's slow but like an old sweatshirt it's really comfortable you feel a lot of respect mutuality back and forth you feel heard you've learned a lot about this person they've learned a lot about you they've apologized when they've made mistakes and so too have you and that's what we're hoping for right healthy so let's turn to the dark side what do fights look like in a narcissistic relationship if you have to put it in one word ugly narcissists are masterful fighters they argue like lawyers they are always able by the end of it to always make you feel like you're doubting yourself that they've won they're very clever at arguing it's weird they have these almost encyclopedic brains where they can keep tossing stuff back at you now they're able to do that in an argument but they can't remember anything that's important to you at other times but in an argument they remember all kinds of stuff they'll sort of fake left and turn right they're very good at arguing and they love to win so an argument is a place for that to happen for them to dominate they're really willing to even be mean just to win because they lack empathy they don't think about how much it might hurt you any fight with a narcissist is a dirty fight and as a result those fights can become really really aversive over time you might even find yourself avoiding any kind of argument because they feel scary they feel disrespectful you might initially have a lot of them because you might be advocating for yourself you might be wondering why isn't this person telling me the truth or i'm going to ask them why they're always late or why are they so often distracted or why do they have one set of rules for themselves and one for me you actually ask the questions the stuff that anyone would normally call out of another human being in any kind of relationship but then after weeks months or even years of these fights you can start to feel so helpless and hopeless you don't even get into the fights anymore you just sort of get resigned to i am too tired this is how it is i am never going to win at these arguments and the self-doubt that creeps in can kind of keep you in this relationship almost enabling their bad behavior without advocating for yourself when we think about having an argument with somebody who's not narcissistic the entire flavor of an argument takes on an entirely different tone first of all there's no such thing as any kind of long-term committed relationship where nobody ever argues healthy arguing is very very possible you can argue with someone respectfully without insulting them personally without being contemptuous of them without gaslighting them or manipulating them or stonewalling them or giving them the silent treatment when arguments are healthy you don't dread them you may not love them but you don't dread them and in fact there's been some really interesting research on relationships that show that arguments might actually mean that when people are arguing it means that the relationship's got some health to it means you've got skin in the game that things are actually worth fighting for that this relationship is important enough to keep strong emotions coming from you the key is to resolve it talk it through and do it in a way that's empathic and respectful that's very possible with a healthy person so let's throw out some events that could happen let's say for example with a narcissist you're in a relationship and you accompany them to a work event or some other event that relates to them or it's about them what might you expect i can tell you what you'd expect you can expect being treated like a second class citizen because when something is about them it's about them this is gonna be really bad and i'm gonna age myself when i share this with you i remember years ago watching the television series sex in the city i know i'm sorry i have to hate to admit this the main character in the show carrie had been dating a bit of a bit of a temperamental russian artist and he was having all kinds of panic and narcissistic injury about this art show he was going to have so she cuts a very important evening to her short that related to her own writing in books to be at his side at his art opening and then when people see his his work he gets nothing but applause and ex acclaim and then he lets go of her hand and she leaves her alone and he walks off into the sunset with all of his admirers when things are going well for the narcissist they are more interested in their admirers than they are in you when things are not going well for the narcissist they're looking for a punching bag so you get the bad without the good now let's turn this example around let's say it's a work event and you're in a relationship with somebody um who's narcissistic and they come to your event okay so now the narcissist is coming to your event be prepared for them to be sullen silky and a lot of how much longer are we going to be here it can feel really hurtful because it may be your night you're launching something maybe you're getting an award or you got a promotion or something or maybe it's just something that you've volunteered on and worked towards and you're celebrating it with other people who put the work in with you it can feel really hurtful to recognize that when it ain't about them they're not interested so anything having to do with your working or volunteering or anything about you can be a really tense space in a narcissistic relationship now in a healthy relationship that's not with a narcissist you know when you accompany each other to work events it can be really lovely there are few things more wonderful than being proud of the person you love and watching them get an honor or give a speech and being there by their side but also giving them their space to really enjoy it and knowing that they they see you and knowing that at every moment in the evening when they catch your eye they're smiling and basically saying thank you thank you for helping me get to this place there's actually very interesting research that i've talked to my students about in this it's called the michelangelo phenomenon and in the michelangelo phenomenon it really can characterize what happens in a healthy relationship remember a healthy relationship is predicated on two secure enough people two people that are secure enough that they're not threatened by a partner's success or have fear that their own success will trigger their partner's insecurity and get the partner all all kinds of upset in this relationship in a healthy relationship in the michelangelo effect one person in the relationship sees the tremendous potential of the other person even when the other person doesn't see it for example it would be like let's say i i don't know i thought i'd never be able to finish my book and it would be a partner saying you know i can already see that book on the shelf it's going to change the world or how can i help this weekend and clear things out and clear the errands out so you can work on this book because it's so important that belief in you by a partner can actually not only leave you feeling 10 feet tall but it can help you grow beyond what you ever thought you could grow into that's what it looks like in a healthy relationship when you do support each other and accompany each other to work events and support the other one's professional growth it makes you feel better and then you want that person at your side i can tell you this now this so-called michelangelo michelangelo phenomenon would never happen in a narcissistic relationship however they will expect you to uplift them forever now let's talk about another transition in a relationship moving in together that's another really big relationship moment now let's talk about when that happens with a narcissist let me tell you this right now if you're going to move in with a narcissist you want to be careful about moving into their space because you're likely to always feel like a visitor it will probably take you years before you can annex enough spaces in that house for your stuff you're often going to feel like you're being squeezed into the space rather than feeling like moving in is a space of growth or a collaborative venture and be prepared for criticism when you move in narcissists always care about appearances and they may actually give you a hard time about your taste your choices your stuff the way you want the house together to look you may want to hang up things that are important to you now if they move into your space if the narcissist moves into your space then you can be prepared that they're going to criticize your space your space is too small it's not in the right neighborhood in an ideal world if you're having to go through this with a narcissist getting a space that's new to both of you together but then again there's that real potential for contempt and criticism and their grandiosity about the choices that the two of you are making or what this place represents and it doesn't feel collaborative sometimes for people that's the wake up call to like yikes is every decision gonna feel like this in this relationship every big ticket decision is gonna be where it's their way or the highway and everything that i bring to the table is mocked yeah it is and their grandiosity may lead to them for example wanting to acquire a place to live together that's not a prudent financial decision or something that you can't really afford in a healthy relationship let's say you decide to move in together it actually can be a rather important and wonderful transition though a little bit stressful it's the melding together of two lives in a healthy relationship if you're moving into the other person's space that person would create space for you and say hey this is a closet i cleared out for you or i cleared out half the drawers or do you want to put your dresser over there do you want to work together to move the art around or pictures on the wall or the way we can bring your stuff into our home and organize it together it becomes a real good faith attempt to knit two lives together rather than feeling like you're a long-term visitor in someone else's space in a healthy relationship there will be more clear communication about how household expenses might get split up whereas with a narcissist that can be a very complicated uncomfortable and entitled conversation in a healthy relationship it feels respectful and it'll really start like feel like starting a home together now i bet some of you are wondering about other things like what happens when you have a wedding with a narcissist what's the difference between that and a healthy relationship i promise you more on this topic comparing and contrasting healthy and narcissistic but you can see the differences i have to say that the big difference is is that there's none of that pit in your stomach stuff in a healthy relationship there's none of the ultra justifying and if something feels like it needs to be justified instead of justifying it you might actually feel more comfortable in a healthy relationship to go up to someone and say hey you know what this being late thing is actually a bit of a struggle for me can we talk about this in a healthy relationship a person will say i am so sorry this is a pattern i've had since forever i do need to work on this this is disrespectful of your time these become things to talk about rather than things where for example with a narcissist if you said that they might become very defensive they might become very pre they might project onto you and they may gaslight you so when p2 people come together in a relationship there are lots of new things to communicate about and nothing is ever going to be perfectly smooth as silk the difference is how those red flags manifest and what you do with them in a narcissistic relationship and that calm sense of well-being but something that often throws people off is that when it doesn't feel like a roller coaster a lot of people feel like well this isn't very exciting i'm falling asleep in this relationship maybe that's not always such a bad thing maybe not fully falling asleep but understanding that a healthy relationship feels like a very very flat road that has a few bumps and little ups and downs but those ups and downs are made beautiful by the human experiences of respect kindness compassion but this is never going to be the healthy landscape of a relationship so i hope this gives you some sense of some of the differences between what those two things feel like and that yeah this is what a healthy relationship looks like pay attention because when it doesn't feel like this ask yourself what is it what is compelling you to justify another person's toxic and disrespectful behavior thanks again for tuning in we'd love to hear some of the contrasts you've noticed especially for those of you who had the beautiful story of survivorship where you actually left an unhealthy narcissistic relationship got into a healthy one lay out some of those differences because there's some people out there still struggling who like to hear your stories of hope thanks again

Channel: DoctorRamani

Views: 551,787

Keywords: yt:cc=on

Id: o8U321uCcvc

Length: 30min 55sec (1855 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 29 2020