You are asked by your spouse to help with the taxes. The entire job has been placed on your shoulders and your narcissistic husband does none of the tedious work. Day and night he hounds you to get it done so that the work can be mailed out in time. He looks over your shoulder and makes critical remarks. You are nervous but do your very best. When you have finished, he reviews the tax return with a microscope. He starts screaming; he has found a mistake. Actually there is no error—he was not looking at your notation correctly. He goes into a tirade even though you are correct and he is wrong. This happens all of the time with narcissistic spouses and narcissists in general. They are always right especially when they are very wrong.
They turn up the volume and assume that will intimidate you, that the truth will be reversed in their favor. Living with one of these characters is extremely stressful. I have know spouses who literally threw up after some of these ugly scenes which are repeated throughout the marriage. Narcissistic spouses are bullies. They are marauding thugs who take your peace away, crowd your thoughts so that you become confused, wipe out your adrenal glands, put your nervous system on crisis mood. There are many spouses who will never leave this prison of horrors. There are a growing number who now recognize the specific traits of the narcissistic personality disorder, know that this individual is never going to change and make the decision to sever the marriage and move forward with their lives. In doing this they rescue their children psychologically from living each day with a parent who can’t love them, who is completely self absorbed, selfish and cruel.
Take time to research the narcissist in all of his/her facets—their tricks, plots, schemes, vulnerabilities, treacheries. You will be able to spot them quickly and save yourself a lot of pain. To learn about the narcissistic personality in-depth, visit my website:thenarcissistinyourlife.com
Linda Martinez-Lewi, Ph.D.
Telephone Consultation: United States and International
Book: Freeing Yourself from the Narcissist in Your Life
Email: lmlphd@thenarcissistinyourlife.com