This Is What Happened the Day My Husband Was Diagnosed as a Narcissist
The difference between what he heard and what I heard
I had never even thought of the word narcissism. At least not eighteen years ago. Narcissism didn’t have the familiarity it does in today’s world. I just knew something wasn’t right.
I am sitting in our marriage counselor’s office.
My husband sits beside me.
I don’t realize that today will be the day. The moment all the confusing emotional dots in my world are connected. The day everything finally makes sense.
And that it will include the moniker of narcissism.
We have spent many months in marriage counseling getting to this point.
What my husband and I are about to hear will be received completely differently. He will hear one thing and I will hear another. But I’ll get to that in a moment.
Our therapist starts with me on this day.
“Colleen,” he says. “You’re not an enabler. You are a major, major enabler. Enablers are overly caring people who tolerate repeatedly bad behavior.”
Our marriage counselor then turned toward my husband.
“You lack empathy,” he says. “It’s a critical deficit. Empathy is a developmental stage you receive in childhood and you are missing it.”
What do I hear?
“Oh thank God,” I say to myself. “I knew something was terribly wrong. I knew something wasn’t right even if the whole world thinks I’m married to the greatest guy they’ve ever known.”
My secondary thought?
“It all makes sense now,” I say to myself. “I never knew what was going on with his mother but this is what is missing in her. She lacks empathy.”
I don’t yet know what my husband hears.
I will find out that when we return home.
But he is visibly angered and annoyed.
“What do I care,” says my husband. “If some dog falls through the ice on the evening news or if some guy I don’t know loses his job.”
My husband is referencing a battery of hundreds of questions we have both answered weeks before. Our marriage counselor is a psychologist and he has evaluated our written test results.
Our counselor is making his assessment based on a combination of nearly eight months of marital counseling and this written test.
“Ralph,” says our counselor (Don’t worry name changed to protect the not-so-innocent), “These tests are industry standards in the field of psychology.”
But my husband Ralph doesn’t care.
He’s having none of it.
Not unusual for a narcissist.
We leave that appointment and head home. My husband makes it clear he is done with marriage counseling. Today’s diagnosis has sealed the deal. Interestingly, our psychologist marriage counselor has been smart enough to say only one thing.
He tells my husband only that he lacks critical empathy.
Our therapist never uses the word narcissist with my husband.
He is smart enough to understand my husband might not return to counseling. Even with a delicate delivery of the diagnosis.
“Please go back to counseling,” I plead with my husband.
“No,” says Ralph. “You get told you’re caring and I get told I’m an asshole.”
Of course, our marriage counselor never said any such thing.
He didn’t call my husband an asshole.
But this is what my husband heard. He takes in nothing about his critical lack of empathy, nor does he inquire as to what that means. This is typical because a narcissist does not believe they are a narcissist.
But the narcissist never heard the word narcissist.
Even I don’t yet understand a lack of empathy is a nod to narcissism.
I go back to counseling alone.
I will continue alone for several years while I struggle as one, to save my marriage of two. I discover that my husband is considered on the far end of the narcissistic spectrum.
My therapist hands me several books.
One is about living with a narcissist.
I now understand the full diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder.
And the other book is about living with a passive-aggressive personality.
I have attracted myself to what is known as a covert narcissist. They can be even harder to detect because their control is manipulatively passive-aggressive, not overt.
They appear seemingly laid-back.
My husband slips deeper into his passive-aggressive tendencies.
He ignores the fact I attend marriage counseling for one.
One day he sees the book I am reading about living with a narcissist. Unbelievably, he picks the book up. What comes next is shocking.
“I’m going to read this book,” he says.
“Okay,” I say.
I take this as a positive. Again, remember I have not yet spent more than a decade in the counseling and research of a narcissistic personality disorder. I believe this means my marriage may be saved. My husband may be cured.
Our marriage counselor is equally as shocked that Ralph is reading the book.
About a week later my husband enters the room.
He throws the book down on the table.
“Yeh,” says Ralph, aka my husband. “This isn’t me.”
It makes sense. I now know what I didn’t know then. A narcissist will never believe they are a narcissist. It’s attributed to their crucial lack of empathy. A narcissist can’t see outside of their own world or into the world of another.
A lack of empathy prohibits a narcissist from self-reflection.
A narcissist isn’t capable of any type of inward analysis.
A narcissist will never believe a diagnosis of narcissism.
As I continued to attempt to learn about myself in counseling, Ralph’s narrative never changed. He continued to play the victim. He repeatedly said he wouldn’t back to counseling.
He kept saying, “You get to be caring and I get to be the asshole.”
This is what happened the day my husband was diagnosed as a narcissist.
I heard one thing and he heard another.
I didn’t realize that day would be the day. The moment all the confusing emotional dots in my world were connected. The day everything finally made sense.
Nor that it would include the moniker of narcissism.
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