A narcissistic husband can make marriage a nightmare when you don’t have the tools to manage expectations and meet your own needs. Dr. Ramani Durvasula is on The BTR.ORG Podcast offering empathetic, expert advice for women married to narcissistic husbands.

If you need support dealing with your narcissistic husband, check out our daily online Group Session Schedule.

5 Tips For Surviving A Narcissist When You Choose To Stay

Knowing what to do when your husband is narcissistic is difficult. At Betrayal Trauma Recovery (BTR.ORG), we offer compassion and empowerment – not judgement. Women sometimes stay with their narcissistic husband for a variety of (often) complex reasons.

It’s important to have specific tools in your emotional arsenal so that you’re equipped so that you can thrive no matter what.

Dr. Ramani’s 5 Tips: How to Deal With a Narcissistic Spouse

1. 
   
2. Recognize They Won’t Change
   
3. Avoid Arguments
   
4. Have Realistic Expectations
   
5. Have Compassion For Yourself
   
6. Invest In Healthy Relationships
   

“If you choose to stay in proximity to your narcissistic husband, the safest course of action is to keep things very surface level. Talk about the weather, talk about your new lawn mower. You’ll never be emotionally safe with a narcissist.”

Anne Blythe, M.Ed. – Host of The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast

Transcript: How to Deal With a Narcissistic Husband

Anne: I’m so honored to have Dr. Ramani with me on today’s episode, she’s a licensed clinical psychologist. You’ve most likely seen her on YouTube. She’s a professor of psychology at California state university, Los Angeles, and the author of lots of books.

One of them, should I stay or should I go is amazing.

The link is available on our books page. Later in the episode, I’ll be calling out Dr. Ramani’s five tips for dealing with a narcissistic husband. So stay tuned for when I start calling those out for you.

Anne: Dr. Ramani received her ma and PhD degrees in clinical psychology from UCLA, and her research on personality disorders has been funded by the national institutes of health.

At BTR, we’re talking a lot about how sexual addiction is abusive to a spouse.

https://youtu.be/gvxpK9yloco

What Tools Can A Woman Use To Survive A Narcissistic Husband?

Anne: So my first question for you is, while narcissistic behavior patterns seem to be a hallmark of sexual addiction, those who get into and maintain recovery tend to cease those behavior patterns, indicating lasting change is possible, at least for those who choose to do the hard work required to get into and maintain recovery from their addiction.

Yet for some, no amount of recovery work seems to bring change on. Maybe they’re not doing it right.

Anne: I don’t know, but short of investing years to wait and see, are there indicators that wives can look for to determine if their loved one with narcissistic behavior patterns is capable of change?

Dr. Ramani: It’s a great question because when you have something like sex addiction, tangled up with narcissism, just like if it’s sex addiction, substance addiction.

Survive A Narcissistic Husband: Learn To Recognize Manipulation

Dr. Ramani: That’s an entanglement of two patterns. Now, if you had someone, sex addict for example, but not narcissistic, then those are the clients where, whether it’s 12 step, trauma wor. Ongoing therapy, that’s going to work well. They’re going to commit to whatever they’ve promised to or promised to themselves in terms of their growth, in terms of distancing themselves from these patterns.

Dr. Ramani: When you have both patterns present, The sex addiction and the narcissism, you’re not going to see as much change. You got to remember that the sex addiction pattern is very much focused on the other patterns. The, the lack of empathy, the entitlement. I have a right to do this, I have a right to five orgasms a day.

I need lots of people who tell me I’m sexy like a spoiled child. So, I would then argue that the sex addict, who also has significant comorbid symptoms of narcissistic personality, is not going to get much better. What you might be able to do is less time spent on pornography.

They may be less likely to engage in another infidelity, especially if the stakes are high. For example, an expensive divorce, potential loss of custody of a child, a financial hit, shame in the eyes of their community. So dealing with both a sex addict and a narcissistic husband is a real double whammy.

A Narcissistic Husband Has A Barrier To Treatment

Dr. Ramani: But when you have that narcissism, because that tends to be what’s driving the compulsive sexual behavior and the compulsive need for validation, that’s often going to be the reason treatment doesn’t work.

So I would view narcissism as the barrier to it working, because there’s very little evidence, other than in the most rare of cases, that narcissistic patterns are amenable to significant change in treatment. And please note the use of my word significant. So a narcissistic husband has a real barrier to treatment.

Empathy and Narcissism

Dr. Ramani: What you might get is a partner who actually stops cheating, or stops going to sex workers, or stops going to massage parlors, or stops watching porn.

But, they are still un-empathic, they are still entitled, they are still full of rage. So it’s sort of like, choose your poison. Some people might say, okay, the sex addiction part’s gone, but this is still a really not nice person. That’s where it starts to get complicated.

Anne: Was that from Epstein? The quote, the five orgasms a day?

Dr. Ramani: Now that you’re saying that, yeah, I guess I read something and he said, I’m a great guy, I’m a hard working guy, king of the world, I have the right to five orgasms a day. I’ve heard that before.

Anne: Exactly. Yeah, entitlement to sex .

Recognizing Narcissistic Traits

Anne: So, is there any way that a woman can see if he has those narcissistic traits while he’s using porn or does he need to stop using porn for a little while and then see if it’s related to the porn. How can you kind of separate that out?

Dr. Ramani: If you’re going to try to determine whether you have a narcissistic husband, then you’re looking for things like, are they non-empathic? Are they entitled, grandiose, superficial, arrogant, prone to rage, or controlling? That’s what you’re looking for.

Anne: So what they’re looking for is do they have the ability to empathize with me?

Surviving A Narcissistic Husband: Don’t Cut People Into Parts

Anne: Now, when women are looking for that, how can they separate grooming from actual real true empathy, because so many of these men, they seem like they’re very empathic.

They can say the right things and do the right things, but that’s just grooming. So what would you say to women who are like, man, he really is empathic and kind and generous. Like my ex, for example, he did the dishes and he helped out with the kids.

And he was what I would say amazing person. Then he’d fly off the handle and rage. Over and over again. What would you say to women who are like, well, there is this part of him that is so empathetic.

Dr. Ramani: We don’t cut people into parts. It’s holistic.

Judging People on Their Abuses

Dr. Ramani: What I’m about to say is going to sound incredibly cynical and I apologize for it, but sadly I do judge people on their abuses and not on their virtues.

Because you’ve now shown me what’s in your wheelhouse. I have heard the saying hurt people hurt people but that doesn’t qualify me or anyone else to be your punching bag. So the first time somebody goes off into a rage it’s time to go.

I mean, it’s that simple and yet it’s that complicated. So no doing the dishes doesn’t obviate going into a rage. The rage always be more important than emptying the dishwasher. We’re 10 years from a robot emptying a dishwasher.

Dr. Ramani: The other thing a lot of people confuse is generosity.

They’ll say, but he took me to so many nice dinners, and he bought me an airplane ticket, and he took me on a vacation. Any fool can do that. Anyone who has enough money in a bank account, that’s just pulling money. That’s easy. It’s the heavy lifting. It’s how does this person cope under conditions of stress or frustration?

Generosity vs. Genuine Care

Something at work doesn’t go the way they want, you’re running late, you take a trip with them and things aren’t going right. How does this person handle themselves under those conditions? That kind of stuff shows up in the first four to six weeks of a relationship. If you find yourself making excuses for this person be very careful because those excuses at four to six weeks are the excuses you’ll be writing in 40 years.

Anne: I love how you said a robot will be doing the dishes in 10 years when things were really devolving in my relationship right before my ex’s arrest. He said, I just want to connect with you and I said, well, what do you do to connect with me?

He said, I mow the lawn.

Dr. Ramani: See, there’s all those books out there, the Men from Mars and Women from Venus and the love languages and all that. I’m not a fan because those books run the danger of writing off as an excuse like, well, his love language is doing the lawn.

I think doing the lawn is perfectly fine, but only if it’s embedded in a larger framework of empathy, kindness, compassion, respect, mutuality, patience, serenity, and compromise. And you know what? I’ll cut my own lawn if I can have all that other stuff.

Co-Parenting with a Narcissist

Anne: So talking about co parenting, let’s go that direction for a minute.

When co parenting with a narcissistic individual, what measures can a healthy parent take to reduce the risk of the behavior traits being passed on to the next generation?

Raising Healthy Kids with a Narcissistic Co-Parent

Dr. Ramani: The one thing that’s most important to note is that it takes one good healthy parent to raise a good healthy kid. We know that. A lot of parents panic thinking, Oh my goodness, I really chose a bad person here.

I’m going to pay forever. But what it means is that good, healthy parent now has to do the work, not of two parents, but of three parents. Because you have to do the work of you being a good parent. And then you have to do the work of dodging the bullets of the bad stuff that the unskilled parent is doing and then step into their role.

That’s like a third job here. And I tell people that the key is, is to stop waiting for justice, but they should be doing this. They’re the other parent. It’s not fair. No, it’s not fair. And sadly, the only thing that many people can do is look in the mirror and say, I made a lousy choice, but this is not this child’s fault.

And so I’ve got to step up.

The Role of a Healthy Parent

Dr. Ramani: I’ve got to do right and not get caught up in what’s fair, what’s not fair, but to do the heavy lifting of parenting.

Which means teaching your child how to tolerate frustration and disappointment, teaching your child empathy, allowing your child’s emotional vocabulary to develop and grow. Never shame them or humiliate them for feeling anything for engaging with them being mindful with them.

You have to be everything, you have to be the one that the soccer game, you have to be the one teaching them to wash the dishes. Do their chores and compromise and play nice and all of that. You have to be super person if this is the case if you’re co parenting with a narcissist. I have worked with many clients who had one deeply narcissistic parent and one very loving parent and the loving parent saved them.

The only downside to this is if a child grows up with a very narcissistic parent, even if they have that very loving parent. Something I do often see in is that these people grow into rather anxious adults.

Parallel Parenting and Exhaustion

They still live under the specter of, I’m not good enough, or what could I do to win them over, or the tension or anxiety that a angry parent brought into the home. Even if they had that loving parent, it may not translate into narcissism in that person that when they turn into adult, it may turn into anxiety.

Anne: I can’t be super person. So that is a little bit discouraging, but I will try.

Anne: I think about that and I’m like, Oh, I parallel parent so that I hold a no contact boundary and that helps. But I still get exhausted. Being a super person is impossible.

Dr. Ramani: It is impossible in some ways.

It’s also having like those standards of like being the good enough parent, but also also.

Validating Children’s Emotions

Dr. Ramani: Never gaslight your own kids, and by that I mean, you don’t have to say, well, dad’s your hero, and that’s great. Like, if dad humiliates, for example, that child showing an emotion, then you can say, sweetie, that wasn’t okay.

Emotions are wonderful, but some grown ups don’t always understand them. What’s amazing about you as a little person is that you’re actually brave enough to show your emotions. So you don’t have to say, dad’s a jerk who doesn’t even have one emotional bone in his body and is a narcissist. You don’t have to do that.

What you can say is that what’s amazing about you is you’re able to do something and actually dad’s not able to do that. And that’s hard for him. Acknowledge it and it’s a struggle as it is, but also that it’s not okay to ever have their emotions shamed. Never let your kids say, Oh, that’s okay. Dad didn’t mean that or that’s just how dad is.

Dad did mean it. That’s why dad did it. That doesn’t make it okay. You don’t, again, it’s that fine balancing act of not throwing dad under the bus because that’s not good parenting, but also not signing off on it and saying, that’s just how dad is.

Charm, Charisma, and Confidence

Anne: So, you refer to charm, charisma, and confidence as the three C’s of narcissism, yet acknowledge not all who possess those are narcissistic.

In the early stages of dating, before the traits which comprise the pillars of narcissism begin to reveal themselves, are there other clues to watch for which might indicate whether the three C’s are red flags rather than positive traits?

Dr. Ramani: I actually talk about this in the new book and I hinted this and should I stay or should I go?

If you can find someone who’s charming, charismatic, and confident, and also empathic, kind, reciprocal, serene and patient and all of those things. You just won the human being lottery is what you did. Because I think that somebody may be very charismatic because they’re telling you a story of what they do for a living or about their life or something like that.

Early Red Flags Of A Narcissist

You can get so caught up in that story that what we don’t pay attention to is are they listening to other people or are they merely holding court. Acting as sort of like an entertainer rather than as a human being.

The fairy tale. I’m not a fan of fairy tales. I think that in that quest, the larger than life people, we can get lost in them. It’s almost as though you have to in your head saying, if I’m talking about myself, is this person listening? Sometimes charming people are actually really good at that. So you have to be careful.

It’s not just that they listen. Are they interested? Are they asking questions? Pay attention to how they talk about other people. Are they contemptuous? Are they belittling? People give you more clues than you think. You just have to be on. Now, not all of us want to be sort of a shrink the first time we meet someone at a party.

How To Survive A Narcissistic Husband: His Real Character Will Emerge

I get that. And it may very well be that the charming, charismatic, confident person is beguiling enough that you do go out on that first date or that second date. But notice what happens in those first few weeks, those love bomb weeks. Slowly but surely you’ll see their interest levels start to fade a little bit.

You’re gonna see, again, real life happens. They might have to wait in line at a restaurant, or their order may not come out exactly the way they want it. Or, They may be barraging you with text and you can’t always answer. Watch how they answer when things aren’t perfect. We so desperately want the charming, confident, and charismatic person to be the whole package, that we try to ignore it when the other parts of the package don’t show up.

And so, I think that if you can get those three things with all of the other stuff, then it’s fine. But those three things without the empathy and all the other good stuff, forget it. That’s where you have to pay attention. And empathy is one of those things people should pretty much lead with. So if it starts to wane, if the people can’t handle things like frustration and disappointment, those are the kinds of patterns that bring a relationship down.

Hypersensitivity Is A Red Flag Of A Narcissist

And another thing to pay attention to, no matter how charming or charismatic someone is, how sensitive are they? Hypersensitivity is one of those red flags that shows itself off early because people are trying to impress you when they first meet you, right? So if you say, Oh gosh, you know, I never knew that school was that hard to get into.

And they’re like, what do you mean? That school’s really hard to get into. That’s a red flag. That they’re so hypersensitive, they’re like, yeah, whatever, I had a great experience. And they can’t be a bit easy breezy about it. That tension, that when they feel that they’re at all being slighted, that’s a very big red flag.

And a lot of people write that off to like anxiety when they first meet someone. Uh uh. That hypersensitivity is usually a sign of more problematic things lurking.

Anne: That’s interesting.

Anne: When you said they’re listening, but are they really listening? It reminded me of my ex when I would talk. I thought he was the best listener because I could just sit and talk and he would just sit there and listen.

But looking back, I realized he was never really engaged. He was just there in body, but not actually engaged with his mind.

So he wouldn’t ask me follow up questions or ask me how I felt about it. I’m very I would say independently descriptive. I would just sort of say all the things I wanted to say without needing prompting. I thought he was a good listener, but I know now that that was not good listening.

Listening Vs. Engaging

He was probably daydreaming about bike parts or something.

Dr. Ramani: Yes. And also pay attention to how much they remember. I mean, well, ah, well he has ADHD, so he doesn’t remember stuff. I don’t know. When you care enough about a person, you remember stuff. And if you do sort of feel like it’s a soliloquy and many times when we first meet someone, we’re anxious.

So some of us talk too much when we’re anxious. So a narcissist might actually cut you a wide berth to keep talking and talking and talking and talking. We think that’s good listening. Actually good listening means that every so often they say, and how did that feel? What happened next? That their punctuation into the conversation means that they’re actually tracking what you’re talking.

Anne: On that same note, when I would interrupt my ex. When he was talking to track what he was saying, so you mean this or, oh, this is what happened. He would get angry with me for interrupting him. And I was like, wait, I’m practicing active listening skills. You know, this is what people do when they’re listening to people.

And he would get really mad and tell me that I needed to be completely quiet until he was done. Do you see that as that common?

Survive A Narcissistic Husband: It Doesn’t Matter Why He’s Abusive

Dr. Ramani: Yeah, that’s a real problem too. There’s a lot of places that could come from, it can come from arrogance, it can come from entitlement, it can come from family of origin issues. That that’s how they did it in this family, that you kind of did your little speech and then sat down.

Here’s the thing. People say, well, if that’s how they grew up and I feel bad for them, I feel bad for them too. But if that doesn’t work for you, this is how it’s always going to be, you know? So it’s like, I get that people feel bad for where people came from and that’s lovely and compassionate, but you’re not going to change that.

You can’t unring the bell of their history. So yes, I think narcissists, like I said, they hold court. Everything’s a soliloquy. You say this long speech and then someone else has a long speech. It’s parallel play. It’s not the interactiveness of a relationship. And so, that idea of stop interacting, if that happened early enough in a relationship, that’s usually a red flag of a problem.

Anne: Wish I would have known that before. That would have been helpful. But hopefully our listeners will think about that as they’re interacting.

Often, a narcissistic man will attempt to deflect his own behavior onto the healthy partner, his wife or girlfriend. Causing the healthy woman to question whether it could be true, whether she herself is the unhealthy person, if she is abusive.

Do you recommend any self assessment tools to provide a reality check for a victim?

Deflection And Gaslighting

Dr. Ramani: Yes. This pattern of deflecting their behavior to the healthy partner reflects two things. In part, it’s something we call projection, so when something is uncomfortable in us, we don’t like it, and so unconsciously we’re projected onto other people.

For example, somebody might have a forbidden sentiment, like they have racial prejudice or something, they’ll accuse someone else of being racist. You know, when that’s not at all true. Projection is one of the key defenses of the narcissist.

Secondly, deflection is also gaslighting. So it confuses the other person. Anything that confuses someone else and denies and twists and contorts the other person’s reality is gaslighting, which is emotional abuse. So when all of that’s happening, sometimes people say, you know, it’s almost like my reality changed.

I was getting sort of sucked into this alternate universe.

Dr. Ramani: We know that one of the main tools of the abuser, and controlling partner is to cut that person off from other people, from friends, from family, because one of the most important self assessment tools for a reality check are the other relationships you have.

The people that far predated this partner, the people who know you and love you and get you and unconditionally are behind you that you can go and check this out and say, you know, it’s interesting. My partner accused me of la la la, whatever it is. And it’s not something you believe about yourself. A good honest friend will say, yeah, sometimes you can be like that.

Isolation from Support Networks

Or they might say, goodness, no universe we occupy, are you that thing? That’s so strange that this person would say that. We all need those safe reality check spaces to go to. Like I said, in a lot of times a narcissistic husband detects that there are other people around their new partner that are going to be healthy and slowly but surely, they distance themselves from them.

They say negative things about those friends like, Oh, your friend, she doesn’t have your best interest at heart. Or, Oh, your sister was flirting with me or whatever it may be. To create mistrust in those relationships to take away that support network. But we need those spaces. So it’s having these kinds of, like I said, unconditional accepting spaces where your reality is not being twisted.

That can be very useful. Ultimately though, ultimately what I want for everybody is that they have within themselves. A space where they know who they are. The challenge with a narcissistic husband is that narcissists prey upon vulnerable people. As soon as they see that somebody’s not falling for their game, they’re going to get out pretty quick.

A narcissistic husband is uncanny at figuring out who a good target is and running with it. And so I think that that’s another thing that it’s so important, especially for young women.

To do the work of knowing who they are and what they are about. The problem is many people start dating and getting into relationships long before they do that kind of inner psychological work. So they’re building the airplane in the sky. You’re learning about yourself while you’re in this relationship, but this relationship is actually twisting your reality.

What Are “Flying Monkeys”?

Anne: What would you say to women who are worried about their abusive. husband spending time with unhealthy people around him. So they’re like, Oh, I don’t like it when he spends time with his family or these friends because they just sort of support this like entitled kind of mentality that he has.

What would you say to women like that who are actually attempting maybe to isolate their abuser from the system that enabled him to be an abuser?

Dr. Ramani: It’s an interesting idea because obviously these enabling systems around this person are adding fuel to this person’s fire, right? There’s no dissenting voice. They are empowering him, they’re enabling him, and he gets away with it. And this can happen.

Anne: In some circles called flying monkeys.

Dr. Ramani: Yeah, but flying monkeys to me are also people that a person enlists at the time a relationship ends. So the flying monkey model to me is like, let’s say a marriage is falling apart or someone’s breaking up. The narcissist will then go and poach everyone, even the people close to their partner, their friends, other family and say, Hey, did you know that she cheated on me?

Hey, did you know that she was doing this? And so they bring everyone over to their side. and then they’re all doing the bidding. Like, what are you doing? Why are you breaking up with him? He’s such a great guy. Or why did you do that to him? Of course he’s hurt. They enlist people. I think that the people around them before that kind of rupture happens are just merely their enablers.

Narcissists Will Buy Their “Good Guy” Image

One of the classical models of the narcissistic person is they’re often very generous because they use money and they invite people on trips or they buy the round of drinks at the bar. That’s their way of keeping people close. It’s a lot less. effortful than having to actually listen to people. And people never want to kill the golden goose, right?

So like, ah, he’s a good guy. He buys the drinks. That doesn’t make him a good guy. That makes him somebody who wastes money in a bar, but they then fall for that thinking. Like, well, he’s a nice guy because he buys the drinks. So then they can find a lot of people that enable them. It could be their boss.

It could be somebody who’s very powerful in a small town, it could be any number of reasons. The fantasy, though, becomes, if I could just get this abusive, controlling, hostile, difficult, un-empathic guy away from his enablers. He’s going to turn into a nice guy? That’s a fantasy. That’s absolutely a fantasy.

Because even a person in the midst of any group of people, if they’re good and solid, That goodness and that solidness will shine through. Maybe not as brightly as it would if they were around good people, but a person who’s just sort of not a nice person is going to be not a nice person. These people make his voice louder, but getting him away is not going to silence that voice.

A Narcissist Doesn’t Change By Changing His Friends

Anne: Yeah, it also made me think as I went through that, because after his arrest, he was quote unquote free, to hang out with whoever he wanted. Because he had a no contact order and I couldn’t influence him at all. And Then from a safe distance, I was able to observe who he chose to hang out with.

He was just choosing to hang out with people who I thought were super unhealthy and abusive and just people I would never want to be around. That’s who he was choosing to be with when he had all these options. So that helped me realize, wait a minute, why am I trying to get someone who is acting this way away from other people who act this way when that’s really who he wants to be with?

I just need to let him be free. Fly! I even told him that at the very end. I said, fly! Go! Go do what you want! He refused to leave. He wouldn’t leave the home, so that was fun. So you acknowledge that some women may not be able to walk away, and for them, managing expectations can protect them from individuals and the effects of ongoing abuse.

Survive A Narcissistic Husband: Maintain Realistic Expectations

Anne: Can you expand on managing expectations with a narcissistic husband and how it can protect a victim from ongoing abuse?

Dr. Ramani: There’s so many reasons people cannot leave narcissistic relationships. Financial reasons, cultural reasons. They have children, religion, fear, anxiety, and that they still actually love elements of this person.

They want to be married. Even on some of the good days are enough. They want that person around, and all of these are valid reasons, and I, nor anyone else, can stand in judgment of that. In this group, though, I am not counting people who are victims of severe psychological, emotional, or physical abuse.

Obviously, that’s an entirely different game, where safety becomes everything. But in your sort of garden variety, narcissistic relationship, There’s a lot of reasons people stay in these sorts of invalidating spaces.

Dr. Ramani: So if you’re going to stay though, then you’ve got to maintain realistic expectations and by that I mean you’ve got to recognize this is not going to change.

This pattern is how it is. So do not expect that all of a sudden, if you lose 25 pounds, they’re going to be happy. When your kids are growing out of the house, everything’s going to be happy. If you kept the house a little cleaner, it’d be happy. He gets a promotion. It’s going to be happy. Nothing’s going to change.

Survive A Narcissistic Husband: Expect that It Will Get Worse After Having Children

This is who this person is, who they were when you met them. This is who they are now. A lot of narcissistic relationships get worse after you have kids. So some people will say we were kind of going along. And then we had kids and then it got really dark. You got to remember for a narcissistic husband, a kid coming along, kids are inconvenient.

They’re noisy, messy, demanding, and magnificent. But the fact is they’re demanding. And for a narcissistic husband, that feels like a competition. They’re not always the greatest source of the narcissistic supply and they pull the partner away. So that’s often where a lot of narcissistic relationships start changing.

Not to mention a woman who has a child, her body changes, You know, there’s a period of time where it’s not what she wanted it to be, and unless she has lots of resources, she’s not going right back to her pre baby body ever, quite frankly. So, all of those things can make it complicated. So in terms of managing those expectations, this ain’t gonna change.

Tip 1 To Survive A Narcissistic Husband: Recognize They Won’t Change

Anne: So calling this out for you, this is tip number one on how to deal with a narcissistic husband, recognize that they won’t change.

Dr. Ramani: This is it. You are going to live a life devoid of empathy. With someone who’s arrogant. You are going live with someone who’s full of rage. You are going to live with somebody who’s constantly needing validation. So from what that means then is that you know that they’re going to insult you.

You know that they’re going to invalidate good news. When you get a promotion, they should not be the first person you tell. You call your people, you call the people you trust and love and who will be thrilled for you. Call a few of them first. And then, and only then, you can tell your partner, Oh, by the way, I got a promotion.

They’ll insult you. Oh, but it’s just a new title with no more money or who cares, or that’s not even that important a job. But by then you’ve already heard good things. from the people who matter. So you’ve got to learn not to engage. You’ve got to learn to totally dial it down. To make sure that you’re keeping it literally all the things you talk about, the weather, the first day of school is next Wednesday.

Did you see that the guy across the street got a new tractor to mow his lawn? Like that’s it. The conversation can’t go any deeper than that. You want deeper conversation, you need to do it with other friends, people close to you, people you can trust. You have to engage in radical acceptance. This is how it’s always going to be much like the managing expectations.

Tip 2 To Survive A Narcissistic Husband: Avoiding Arguments

Dr. Ramani: You have to get out of patterns like defending yourself, that many times people who are in relationships with narcissists are always explaining themselves. No, no, no, but actually remember, but no, no, no, remember when it, no, there’s no defending. There’s no explaining. You’re never gonna win at that game because narcissists argue like lawyers and so you can’t win.

So don’t bother. There’s no defense.

Anne: This is tip number two for how to deal with a narcissistic husband. At least in our community, we’ve noticed that these narcissistic husbands really enjoy chaos, and they trapped victims into thinking. We need to defend ourselves, when they really just love the energy of the argument. They’re not trying to resolve things, but we are, and they know that.

And so they trap us this way. So when Dr. Ramani says don’t defend yourself, she doesn’t mean, don’t set boundaries or don’t work toward safety. She means they use arguments as a trap. And we talk a lot about this in The BTR Living Free Workshop. The Living Free Workshop teaches you about what to do to avoid their chaos.

Dr. Ramani: Yeah They like the argument for the sake of the argument. So don’t argue with them. Have the topics that you won’t talk about.

Tip 3 To Survive A Narcissistic Husband: Realistic Expectations

Dr. Ramani: If you do have to spend a lot of time with your narcissistic husband create a little bit of a detox period for yourself. Do something that’s pleasant for you, whether it’s a meditation, a book you like, exercise.

Something. But understand that sadly, once upon a time, you made a choice or a choice was made for you that wasn’t good for you. And for reasons that are important to you, you’re choosing to stay in it. Choose to stay in it with realistic expectations is very different than maintaining unrealistic hope that one day this is going to get better.

This is like, being in Chicago in the dead of February and walking outside in a bathing suit. You’re going to freeze to death. You know that. You live in Chicago. It’s February. You always wear a heavy coat. This is the equivalent of pulling on your coat when you know the weather’s going to be cold. You know it, so you prepare for it.

You don’t walk outside in a bathing suit. It’s the same thing with a narcissistic husband.

Anne: And so this would be tip number three on how to deal with a narcissistic husband. Have realistic expectations.

The BTR.ORG Living Free Workshop really covers what is happening so that you can see reality. And so many of our community members have said that The Living Free Workshop helped them to really see reality and that helps women have realistic expectations.

Tip 4 To Survive A Narcissistic Husband: Have Compassion

Dr. Ramani: Yeah exactly you know what, no matter whether you’re stuck in this relationship or you can walk out, please don’t lose your compassion.

Anne: And that’s tip number four to survive a narcissistic husband. Have compassion for yourself because you didn’t know what you didn’t know. I realize I’ve made the mistake of asking so many victims on this podcast. Like, what would you tell yourself if you could go back in time and you knew what you know now. Instead I think I should be asking, ask yourself, if you only knew what you knew, then would you have done anything differently?

That allows for so much compassion because we only knew what we knew and we did the best that we could.

Tip 5 To Survive A Narcissistic Husband: Invest In Good Relationships

Anne: And that leads right into tip number five to survive a narcissistic husband, invest more in good relationships with people who genuinely care about you.

Dr. Ramani: Exactly. Allow other loving spaces to occur in your life.

I don’t mean finding a new partner or finding a lover. I mean friends and family and people close to you. These relationships, people put so much of themselves in it that they get tunnel vision. Sadly, we tend to give 90 percent of ourselves to the most toxic people in our worlds, and then give the 10 percent to all the good ones.

We need to flip that math. Give 90 percent to the good people and give whatever’s left over to these really difficult, toxic people. I think a lot of people blame themselves for these situations.

A Heavy Burden To Carry

Dr. Ramani: The fact of the matter is, we do not do a good job, not as educators, not as a society, not as parents, to teach our daughters to choose healthy partners. So many people didn’t get that lesson.

Yeah, they threw themselves into these relationships with a narcissistic husband and it’s a heavy legacy to carry, but you don’t have to lose the best of yourself.

Dr. Ramani: We all have broader shoulders than we think, and you can carry this burden and see it for what it is, find meaning in that suffering, and cultivate the other meaningful parts of your life.

Our BTR.ORG Group Sessions meet daily – attend a session today and find a community of women who understand what you’re going through. You don’t have to do this alone.