Why do narcissists get married?

hi everyone its dr. Romani welcome back to this YouTube channel on all things narcissism this is an interesting channel it's involving in so many different directions because not only is it sort of the little nuggets that bounce around my little head but also increasingly this is a channel of your ideas we get dozens some weeks 50 plus ideas for new videos and take those into a sort of a long list and consider them all and many times many are asking for the same thing it's such a pleasure to research the topics people are interested in and do more reading and look at the empirical literature and construct these videos on the basis of what you need on this topic this is one of those sorts of crowdsource kinds of ideas today we're gonna have some very basic question that so many people wanted to know why would endorse this is to get married before we answer that question come on over subscribe because as you can see I'm going to respond to your suggestions hit that subscribe button hit that Bell and we'll take this on so let's beg this question why on earth would a narcissist get married many of you married to narcissist thinking why do they do is why did I do this more importantly why would they do this it's a very interesting question because when it comes down to it it's really a bit paradoxical but then again it's not which is why it's so complicated and why narcisse's are actually drawn to something that they're really not made for them so let's break down some of the reasons we would think that a narcissist actually would probably never really be down with marriage narcissists tend to be novelty seekers they are what we call reward sensitive meaning that they like new shiny things and they just like they like new things that are very rewarding from this why they like to gamble and spend money and marriage I hate to say it it's sort of the opposite of novelty seeking they also need lots of narcissistic supply and the more varied the narcissistic supply for them the better they also don't tend to do well at intimacy meaning that narcissists are not good at going nor do they even really want true emotional closeness they're looking for something more superficial narcissistic personalities tend to have contempt for people for a people's emotions and for people's vulnerability all of this together doesn't really seem to add up to the stuff of marriage which is a very long committed game but on the flip side there are other themes that can draw a narcissistic personality to marriage even when it may not be the right path for them I mean let's face it right or not marriage is still very much viewed as a cultural expectation and although we're seeing some deviation from this around the world there's still a pressure to get married so that one can fulfill that family or cultural expectation and perhaps look good to the world that's a very superficial motivation for a lifelong commitment but it's congruent with the narcissus insecure need to always fit in and always look good to the world there is also a theme in narcissism that often gets overlooked now although the narcissistic relationship cycle is classically characterized by yeah love bombing or idealization and then devaluation and then discarding they also maintain an underlying fear of abandonment marriage may reassure their abandonment fears and may sort of give them that sense that they are in something permanent that can't leave them it's on paper I'm in a relationship see and a wedding can also play into their grandiose fantasies of putting on a show and even although we think of this as a gendered pattern even narcissistic men can get caught up in the big wedding story and while many people may wonder why would a narcissist with all their egocentricity why would they want to take it on the demands of a child or children once again that desire to fill a role to fill an expectation of what society wants for them or to generate these little extensions of themselves little minimis or having an accessory in a baby that's often some of the reasons that narcissistic individuals go into Parenthood and can't always carry the baby around in a carrier just note to note to you now even though what we know about the narcissistic personality pattern does not bode well for marriage they still regularly get married for all the reasons listed above and obviously for their own personal reasons we can't list all of those out I mean everyone has their own personal reasons and that right there is a big problem now marriage the institution of marriage whether you're a fan of it or not is in fact consists considered a rite of passage a cultural requirement a place that holds family it clearly means very different things to different people most people in good faith do enter it with the assumption of it being a long-term commitment perhaps even a life long-term commitment and as a place to develop a foundation for having children sharing a life and growing old together the fact that narcissistic individuals are often unclear on their own motivations means that they are often not that clear on why they are even entering into marriage in the first place now if you have married a narcissist you may have been clear on your side about what you wanted that was you know what you wanted and that might have been children it might have been the belief that you have shared values with someone it may be to create connections to an extended family and community it might be about growing something together it may also have been feeling the pressure to be married because all your friends were getting married whatever your thing was it's why you signed up for this long-term lease now this lack of clarity around intention and motivation that plagues people who are narcissistic means that they may not understand because they often don't understand their motivations but they're not going to understand why they are entering into such a complex commitment and that means that from the jump you are not likely to be on the same pages of narcissistic spouse like I said you may not even be fully clear on all of your motivations they sure as heck aren't clear on theirs marriage is a lot of things some of the things that should be our commitment consistency compromise compatibility compassion kindness respect shared values empathy reciprocity intimacy vulnerability love and sacrifice these things on this list are not exactly a narcissistic personalities strong suits many people who marry narcissistic individuals are often on a long-term even a lifelong journey of cognitive dissonance one that manifests as constantly making excuses and justifications for other people making rationalizations not just for other people just to get to this wedding with this person and then to get through the marriage mistakes get made you make the wrong assumptions once we finally get married it's gonna be okay once his or her career settles in it'll be okay once we have more money it'll be okay once we have a child he or she will fall in love with the baby and it will be okay once the kids finally grow up it'll be okay once he or she retires it'll be okay it won't and the only thing more difficult than surviving a marriage with a narcissist is divorcing one most people in narcissistic marriages when they start doing the post-mortem on this relationship and trying to figure out exactly what went wrong they see those red flags were there all along and then that naive assertion that maybe getting to the marriage or getting the kids or getting the house would make it better was obviously a faulty rationale because the reasons for the narcissist getting married are never very clear obviously the end of a marriage where the narcissist can look a few different ways although it may be painful at the time I'm gonna be frank with you based on what I've seen the best ending is when they discard you and leave quietly you yes yes you will feel abandoned but if you didn't get that and on top of that you don't have to fight for custody you have won you may get a bit financially clobbered but avoiding that fight in the long term is the best thing that could happen to you psychologically the alternative is like the greatest cage fight of your lifetime expensive painful torturous divorces that hurt everyone involved that can cost vast sums of money that damaged the children that are caught in them that are refereed by court systems that are literally blind to these personality styles that's what the back end of this story looks like so if your endorses this actually moves on and replaces you with someone else yeah it's gonna hurt for a minute but you're also gonna see that marriage is just a way for them to control the next person - it is not unusual for narcissistic individuals to be serial barriers their insecurity means that they prefer the sure thing quality of marriage and they also like the validation of a wedding and people say oh you're engaged we're so happy for you the next marriage and the marriages they have after that will be equally divided and empathy and intimacy the same way that your marriage was why because they're not really made for marriage the rush to get married in our society in general and the societal pressure for marriage means that many people will often blind themselves to their partner's narcissism or overlooked red flags they don't even pay attention to their own partner's motivation for getting married the enabling of society to cheerlead people to the altar even when the relationship is not healthy doesn't help when you're not sure on what is going wrong in this relationship and yet you still get married now if you're seeing red flags my advice is talk to someone who is or has gone through a divorce or the narcissists listen very carefully and take it in as a cautionary tale I think marriage can be an extraordinary human experience when it is thoughtful intentional empathic and collaborative but a narcissistic marriage can turn you upside down and not only test your faith in love and all things associated with relationships but can actually do a real number on your mental health just because someone wants to marry you doesn't mean it's a good idea it's really important before you make this commitment kick the tires and force yourself to speculate into what a future with this person might really look like take off the rose-colored glasses and really speculate be clear on your motivations on why you want to get married because the challenge with the narcissist is you're never going to get clarity on what their motivations are that's a long long long way of me telling you why do narcissist get married often for very superficial reasons that have nothing to do with the long-term staying power you need from a relationship and let me also say this because I think there are still many cultures in the world where marriage is still very much overseen by other people in a community and family members and people feel a pressure to sort of marry people who are on a short list of those who have been chosen for them folks in those situations are even more challenged because they they may very well be dealing with a short list of narcissists and not even having the opportunity to really again do what I say proverbially kick the tires and really think about we actually pay more attention like huh well this car lasts me five to ten years people need to make the same kind of conjecture about a spouse will this marriage be healthy in 20 30 or 40 years so why they get married they get married for a false sense of safety but they don't really want to do the work and it is work to make a marriage work but if both of you are on board the work can be very rewarding and healthy just not gonna happen with a narcissistic partner hope that answers the question for those of you who are struggling with it obviously this isn't giving you much comfort your lingual this is all good and well but I'm still suffering and I get that and hopefully some of this other content and books and information can really help you sort of sort some of that out thank you again for tuning in as always please hit that subscribe button welcome to this YouTube channel if you're not already a part of this community as I said a lot of these video ideas are very much crowd source drop your ideas here in the comments drop us an email let us know we'd like to see a video on this topic and then if it can turn into something that makes sense absolutely we'll do it hit that Bell also if you want notifications each time we put up new content thanks again bye

Channel: DoctorRamani

Views: 756,615

Keywords: yt:cc=on

Id: 06BYJEuJFoA

Length: 14min 8sec (848 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 20 2020