A psychologist has revealed the three telltale signs that suggest you could be in a narcissistic relationship.
Appearing on Dragons’ Den star Steven Bartlett’s The Diary of a CEO podcast, Dr. Ramani Durvasula, professor of psychology at California State University, revealed the three Rs that she believes are the hallmarks of people who have narcissistic relationships.
Dr. Durvasula, author of Surviving a Relationship with a Narcissist, said it’s “rumination, regrets, and flashbacks.”
She said: “The first is rumination, which is obsessive thinking about the relationship initially in an attempt to try and fix it.” Trying to make sense of something that doesn’t make sense.
‘Next is regret, that regret leads to bigger issues like grief. The regret that: “This is the marriage I created and my son will never have a healthy marriage model; the regret that: “I’ve spent 20 years in this relationship and all I have to show for it is a bunch of nothing.” and it hurts me.”
He continued, “The last R is recollection, really euphoric recollection, which means that people in narcissistic relationships have an uncanny ability to cherry-pick the good things that happen in the relationship to continue justifying them to themselves.”
‘They could be in a narcissistic relationship if the person has blatantly treated them for months. But one day that month, when the narcissistic person went to the supermarket and for the first time remembered to bring two muffins so they could have a muffin, the person would say, “Wasn’t that the best? We had muffins together.”
“Euphoric remembering is the excessive focus on those good experiences as a way to maintain confirmation bias.”
She added: “People in a narcissistic relationship don’t say, ‘I need to get out,’ they say, ‘I’m so confused, I’m not enough, nothing I do is enough, maybe there’s something wrong with me.'”
The psychologist explained that Only in the last 10 years have people who date narcissists been able to obtain information online, creating the revolution of people questioning the dynamics of their relationships.
He added: “The sooner you identify it, the less tied to the trauma you will be, which will make it easier for you to make clear decisions about how you want to proceed.”
‘People in these relationships are confused, they blame themselves for everything that goes wrong, they walk on eggshells.
Pictured, Dragon’s Den star Steven Bartlett appears on The Diary of a CEO podcast with Dr. Ramani Durvasula, professor of psychology at California State University.
‘In essence, they have been modified to be exactly what the narcissistic partner wants, but it is a very slow indoctrination process; We say that these relationships are death by a thousand cuts.
“It’s almost like they woke up one day and said, ‘What have I become? I’m literally living in service to this other person.'”
He also suggested that the narcissist creates that insecurity as a tactic to control the relationship.
He added: “Part of the reason narcissistic people are so successful is because they are socially perceptive. Which is being able to read the room, understand what people need, what motivates them, and then give it to them strategically to keep them in the mood.” a chain.’
Next, Dr. Ramani suggested that all domestic abusers are narcissists because they have no empathy.
She explained: “Having the ability to tell someone ‘I love you’ and then emotionally, physically or sexually assault them, zero empathy, is tremendous entitlement and incredible arrogance, that’s narcissism.”
‘There’s a lack of self-awareness, there’s a lack of other-awareness and I think that’s why a lot of the domestic violence intervention programs don’t work, because how are they going to undo someone’s narcissism.
Dr. Ramani Durvasula revealed the three telltale signs to look out for that point to a narcissistic relationship.
Does narcissism excuse behavior? Never. “If the behavior is unacceptable, it’s unacceptable, I don’t care about the backstory, because it means it’s going to happen again and it always does.”
The psychologist noted that while people can never be happy within a narcissistic relationship, those who remain in a need to “accept” things will never change.
She explained: “If you’re going to stay in a relationship like this, it’s going to be harder because you’re still exposed to his manipulative behavior; however, the key step is radical acceptance, that’s not going to change.”
Dr. Durvasula said a narcissistic person’s only weak point is if others stopped interacting with them or if someone was much “more powerful than them.”
She explained: “Not engaging with a narcissistic person is the ultimate kryptonite and not complaining about them because they’re used to that.”
Finally, the psychologist explained that people can recover and ‘cure’ from narcissistic relationships and ‘become themselves again’.