To ask is this is a narcissist

[GinaGee3]

I feel like recently people are quick to call somebody a narcissist but what is the true meaning of one?

My ex husband could never ever say sorry, he was always right, wouldn’t even take a small amount of blame for the reason we split. Acted very selfish to the point where I planned a night out with my friends after stopping BF at 18 months so hadn’t been out in years due to pregnancy etc. he was out on the same night and we agreed he would be back in time for me to go out. I got myself all dressed up and was really looking forward to it but he didn’t turn up until 11pm and didn’t answer my calls. He said I knew he was out and couldn’t just leave but I thought it was really really selfish.

Ah OP I do sympathise my mum was similar to this and yes I think narcissist - or certainly going that way

I dont think that's being a narcissist (although i appreciate everyone is a narcissist now), i think it called being a good old dickhead.

Yes I do think people call everybody a narcissist now but he never saw anything wrong with his behaviour. Our relationship was brilliant until the kids came along and then he became a selfish pig who was out all the time, leaving me to everything and his excuse was your life doesn’t just stop because you have kids.

Sorry don’t mean your mum was with a narcissist?

Everyone has narcissistic traits, but NPD is when it's extreme.

It's also pretty rare, despite the fact that pretty much everyone thinks they have a narcissistic ex.

Being selfish and being a narcissist aren't the same thing. I've met one person who I knew had a diagnosis of NPD, and his behaviour wasn't just selfish or unkind, it was bizarre, cruel and egotistical in the extreme. He left a string of ruined lives in his wake. I considered him a friend for a while and we'd be having a normal night and then he would do or say something which sent a chill down my spine. True narcissists are dangerous.

No she was one

Everybody ,who posters on mumsnet don't like are called narcissist, s very few will be that doesn't mean they can't be selfish and unpleasant though.

It’s hard to know just from one instance, it’s likely if there’s other behaviour similar.

My ex was (is) a classic narcissist. Everyone we knew thought he was incredible, he was so willing to help anyone at work or friends, but at home he did NOTHING, because he wasn’t getting the public recognition with me. He presented as very capable and somewhat egotistical, but did breakdown at home and was obviously so insecure. Caused arguments every single birthday or Christmas, even our DD birthday, to make it all about him. Every argument was turned on me. Gaslit me so badly I genuinely thought I’d either need to be sectioned or k*ll myself. No empathy for anyone, at all. My dad died and he was just blank.

Usually it means most or all of these things together (as an adult)

Self-importance
Needing to be seen as successful/famous
Need to be admired
Lacking in empathy
Exploit other people

I say as 'an adult' because anyone who knows a teenager knows that they all pass through these😂as they are part of growing up. But, that's the point - if it's an adult, say, your manager, and they are consistently like this, then they are narcissistic.

A narcissist demonstrates 5 main traits
Grandiosity
Entitlement
Exploitation
Impaired/motivational empathy
Impaired self awareness

Your ex ticks the "entitlement" box based on your OP, but not clear if he is narcissistic or not. He clearly behaved in an unpleasant way, and it's good he is an ex, so does it matter?

There are some truly awful and shitty people in the world but true narcissism is actually rarer than people seem to make out.

I am not entirely sure that your ex is a narcissist based on your examples. Selfish entitled twat though? Definitely.

It is true that there can be a lot of overlap betwen Selfish Entitled Twats and narcissists. The fact that you say he genuinely couldn't see that he had to take any responsibility for anything does push him more towards narcissist to me but realistically, a person can have plenty of narcissist traits without actually being one. The point is that either way, the behaviour is shitty and difficult to live with.

As others have said, we all have narcissistic traits and need some level of it to be healthy.

I have been in a relationship with an NPD individual and it is truly perverse and chilling.

I get tired of people describing selfish and mean partners as narcissists. Or describing the lies they tell as gaslighting.

Full blown narcissists I think are actually best described as an unstable void or a black hole. They will literally feed on other peoples good qualities and empathy by destroying them

Yes he is just selfish and manipulative

lots of behaviours can signify Narcissism, lots of personality traits that can vary between examples of Narcissism, I would say from my experience, the inability to empathise is the main common trait of all Narcissitics. They just cannot put themselves in your shoes.

Having been in a relationship with a narcissist for 5 years (most definitely malignant) I can safely say a lot of people use the term for simple traits. My ex ticked every box in every way, he was cruel, calculated, mean (physically and emotionally), excessive liar and cheat. Addiction issues (including escorts).. I could go on and on. It took me 40 years to truly understand what narcissism is. He actually slept with our married neighbour in our bed then encouraged her to leave her husband and kids for him. It’s hard to say if your ex is a full blown narc but the mask does usually slip when their partner is pregnant as they have to be the one with full attention

Having been with and married to a narcissist for 28 years, I can pick the traits up in a flash.

Your example doesn’t demonstrate narcissism imo, but it doesn’t mean he isn’t one.

If you start to question your own sanity when you’re gaslit into thinking he hasn’t done anything wrong, if he clearly has, then that’s a big red flag.
This was the big one for me.

My EH would claim he didn’t email something to me, even when I had the email in front of him!
When he’d done something very clearly awful that I raised with him, he’d say, ‘we’re both nice, decent people and we both love each other we just have to be a bit nicer to each other’.
It’s taken me many years to even start to ‘heal’ and listen to my own voice and not question my every sense of being.

I’m not sure I’ll ever properly get over it.

If you want more advice, do you have any other scenarios.

Narcissism means extreme self centredness. The narcissistic persons own needs and perspective goes above all else and they have an inflated sense of their own value and importance. This will all manifest in various ways including being a user, being mercenary, relating to others only in ways which ensure their own needs are met, lack of empathy, inflated ego, extreme selfishness, running down others to make themselves feel better but this might be in quite subtle, underhand and gaslighting ways ie turning it round to look like your fault/issue so they can evade responsiblility and make it a ‘you’ problem.

I see 'narcissist' use so often for any partner that cheats or demonstrates selfish behaviour which is just not correct.

NPD is a cluster B disorder, I had a malignant narcissist ex that ticked all the boxes and he was quite mentally unwell. Extremely charismatic though. The main trait with them is emotional abuse, they really enjoy inflicting emotional pain, they get high off it! They're bullies, they play mind games, they triangulate and aim to break you apart bit by bit.

A relationship with a true narcissist can psychologically destroy you.

Narcissism is a recognised psychiatric disorder, it's extreme and not your common or garden lying selfish wanker. It's such an overused term these days!

I think specific psychological diagnoses like narcisssism, EUPD, antisocial personality disorder etc an are far less helpful to the average person than the concept of “high conflict personalities”.

High conflict personalities are simply people who are typically uncooperative, unempathetic, tend not to hold up their end of bargains, won’t take responsibility (again, “responsibility” is a more helpful concept than “blame” I find), are argumentative, uses techniques like belittling, obstinacy and contempt, etc.

You want to avoid relationships with these people and if you can’t avoid a relationship with them for some reason, you follow a system of BIFF responses: Brief, Informative, Friendly (or civil at least) and Fair.

Narcissism is subtle and confusing. The narcissist often love bombs you ( both friends, relatives and partners) for periods of time, then will be quite cruel when there are no witnesses so you cannot prove their behaviour and are often not believed. My DH was the scapegoat in his family and so would always question me when I spent time with his mother who is a classic narcissist. A lifetime of conditional love means he struggles with relationships. But is now very low contact. He keeps visits short but they impact his mood for days.

To the outside world she is quite lovely, generous and kind, but it’s a different story behind close doors. She has no concept of unconditional love and often demonstrates this. At a recent get together she politely admonished DS for not visiting her for a while, he’s at Uni so we don’t exactly see a lot of him. He won’t get a Xmas gift this year because he hasn’t been attentive. He sussed her out years ago and is very good at deflecting the narc behaviour. He also is not materialistic so doesn’t stress if she is trying to make him toe the narc line. Like my DH he calls her out.

Over the years she has tried very hard to draw him in but he understands conditional v unconditional love. She hasn’t subjected him to the “rage” that I have seen but she has tried to make him the “golden child”, buying him expensive gifts then showing off to his other cousins to make them “realise” that they are not special.

Most of the punishment is unspoken. She can be off with you for weeks expecting you to know what you have done wrong. She once admitted that she ignored people until they realised why they had upset her.I was out of favour and cold shouldered for several years. I had no idea why, by this stage I had realised her narc tendencies so just accepted that I may never know. It turned out that I had ruined Christmas because we had decided to have Christmas on our own. My SIL was heavily pregnant, I had had a miscarriage a couple of months before Xmas and both DH and I were still recovering ( 5th miscarriage) so just didn’t want to spend a whole day with constant baby talk. We thought MIL would understand, she was the only one who knew, we were wrong. Apparently she was unpleasant all day blaming us, but at no point did she explain our decision.

My mother was a true narcissist. Extremely charismatic, self-centred, violent, manipulative, a pathological liar, needed to be the coolest person in every room, a user, addiction issues, thought herself better than everyone else, cold, and utterly without empathy. She was an extreme person.

I remember once she had a “friend” over that she’d recently made. This lady thought the world of her already. My mum was all charisma and jokes and smiles, then saw the “friend” off with an errand for the next day (“go to the shops and buy me 4 red bull and bring them at 8am tomorrow”). As soon as she left, my mum’s face went blank and she said “I can’t fucking stand her, I only keep her around because she’s useful”. One of many examples.

What I see being described as narcissism are selfish, unreasonable people but the label is so much more.

Your ex’s behaviour sounds selfish. Based on what you wrote I wouldn’t think narcissistic.

I think it’s 1 in 6, so not that rare.