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This post is the first in a series. Names have been changed to protect the individuals’ confidentiality.
"Nothing is more deceitful," said Darcy, "than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast." —Jane Austen
Jane felt dazed. Breakfast had quickly escalated from a small disagreement over her husband's lack of follow through to his callous and hurtful remarks: "No wonder your mother abandoned you." "You were single when I met you; nobody could stand you."
His words sliced her. She breathed deeply to stop herself from crying. Dan stared at her menacingly. He told her she needed therapy, and not very nicely. Resisting the urge to reason with him, Jane confessed she no longer loved him and asked for a divorce. She braced for more insults but wished instead for stonewalling. Dan did choose stonewalling and left the apartment.
Over the next few days, Jane oscillated between fear and relief. She looked forward to leaving the man her husband had become after their son’s birth; yet the child abuse statistics in stepfamilies haunted and paralyzed her.
The following weekend, they were eating dinner in silence when Dan said, “I’m sorry, love. Please don't leave me.” He took full accountability for his cruel behavior and, with teary eyes, asked for a chance to "grow past the man he'd become after a childhood of abuse." He even agreed to go to marriage counseling. Jane was grateful for Dan's apparent humility. The couple reached out to several counselors and were scheduled to see one within the month.
When the counselor introduced the couple to Imago exercises, Dan’s willing participation gave Jane hope. She began to become convinced that they’d soon have the intimacy and friendship she longed for. Her heart raced anytime her husband looked into her eyes and held her hand. She had flashbacks to his tendency to leap from affection to rage when she dared to disagree with him, but she wanted therapy to work, so she pushed through the discomfort and misattributed her unease to her own resentment.
The pair kept their weekly sessions; they reminisced on happier times and reflected on the current state of the relationship. Dan started sharing how he “truly felt” about their marriage, while Jane listened, often in disbelief at his criticism of her. For the first two months, she resisted the urge to jump off the couch and yell “Liar!” Instead, she curbed her reactions; she didn’t want to be seen as argumentative and prove her husband right. As Jane listened to her husband's list of complaints, she noticed her mind wandering; she was dissociating. Marriage counseling was making her feel worse.
How narcissists sabotage marriage counseling
Narcissists bring their maladaptive behaviors into every aspect of their lives. In a therapeutic setting, accountability for the poor state of the relationship is presumed to be shared, making a narcissist’s self-focus and behaviors especially corrosive. Sometimes, these behaviors actively sabotage therapy.
They gaslight and lie. Telling half truths, narcissists lead the therapist to believe the false realities they’ve imposed on their partner. “Dan told our therapist that I spend my days cleaning every nook and cranny of the house, and that I expected him to do the same on his days off work. He made me look like I had OCD or control issues, and he’s a counselor so he knew exactly what to say to raise those flags," Jane said. "What he didn’t tell her is that our son and I are very allergic to dust so I have to wipe everything down once a week. While my husband sleeps in, I’m up at 6:30 AM tackling a pile-up of chores. I haven’t slept in a single day since our son’s birth. I’m practically a single mom juggling a full time job and a toddler; but worse, because he expects me to cook every night and clean up after him. Of course I’m going to be annoyed when he leaves his dirty mugs all over the house. It’s not OCD; I just feel exploited.”
They press their partner's buttons to make them appear irrational. Denial is a deeply rooted defense mechanism in narcissists. They may deflect, deny, and shift blame to protect and confirm the false reality that their partner is the problem.
They deflect and dodge accountability. Narcissists aim to steer the conversation away from the real issue at hand, by whatever means necessary. “I felt like I was losing my mind. He’d tell me one version of the facts in private and tell an entirely different one in therapy. One time, we were hiking in the woods when he shared that he'd never really learned how to validate and comfort others; his dad would either ignore or mock his mom if she started crying during an argument," Jane said. "We agreed to bring this up in therapy, but when I did, my husband claimed I was exaggerating. According to him, I was misremembering and he had shared a much simpler version of the story with me. The therapist fell for it. The session turned into a lecture on ways to relate to one another without falling into psychoanalysis.
“A month into marriage counseling, I told my husband that if he continued lying, I’d leave. That’s when he admitted he was ‘scared of getting diagnosed with something’. He never came clean so I stopped scheduling our sessions. I wasn’t going to pencil myself in for more gaslighting.
"We divorced a year later.”
If you suspect you’re experiencing domestic abiuse, call the National Domestic Violence hotline at 1-800-799-7233. To find a therapist, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.
References
Foster, J. D., & Brunell, A. B. (2018). Narcissism and romantic relationships. Handbook of trait narcissism: Key advances, research methods, and controversies, 317-326.
Patsiaouras, G., Fitchett, J. A., & Davies, A. (2016). Beyond the couch: Psychoanalytic consumer character readings into narcissism and denial. Marketing Theory, 16(1), 57-73.
Holtzman, N. S., Vazire, S., & Mehl, M. R. (2010). Sounds like a narcissist: Behavioral manifestations of narcissism in everyday life. Journal of Research in Personality, 44(4), 478-484.
Huprich, S. K. (2014). Malignant self-regard: A self-structure enhancing the understanding of masochistic, depressive, and vulnerably narcissistic personalities. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 22(5), 295-305.
March, E., Kay, C. S., Dinić, B. M., Wagstaff, D., Grabovac, B., & Jonason, P. K. (2023). “It’s All in Your Head”: Personality Traits and Gaslighting Tactics in Intimate Relationships. Journal of Family Violence, 1-10.
Määttä, M., Uusiautti, S., & Määttä, K. (2012). An intimate relationship in the shadow of narcissism: What is it like to live with a narcissistic spouse. International journal of research studies in psychology, 1(1), 37-50.
Richards, B. (2018). Exploring malignancies: Narcissism and paranoia today. Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, 23, 15-27.
Wittenborn, A. K., Woods, S. B., Priest, J. B., Morgan, P. C., Tseng, C. F., Huerta, P., & Edwards, C. (2022). Couple and family interventions for depressive and bipolar disorders: Evidence base update (2010–2019). Journal of marital and family therapy, 48(1), 129-153.
