12 Tips For Living With A Narcissist When Leaving Is Not An Option
If you are stuck in a similar situation where you cannot leave the narcissist; but you have to live with them. Then leave your worries aside as here are some of the most effective tips for Living with a Narcissist when Leaving is not an option!
Tips for Living with a Narcissist When Leaving is Not an Option – 12 Tips
Living with a Narcissist can be strenuous and arduous, but you have to bear the narcissist when there is no option left for you, besides living with them. When you do not have any possibility of leaving the narcissist, you live with them. But how do you make that process smoother?
To live peacefully with a narcissist when you don’t have an option to leave them, you need to know a few tips that can make the co-habitation placid and trouble-free.
Living with a narcissist needs patience and practice, but this living together situation can be made simpler, less complex, and effortless by implementing these tips that can make the living arrangements more manageable and facile.
1. Learn about Narcissism
When you are living with a narcissist, the primary footstep here is knowing more about narcissism and acknowledging yourself regarding their traits. Knowing more about Narcissism can help you understand anybody with NPD(Narcissistic Personality Disorder) better. This is the best and utmost way to cope with a narcissistic person.
You can know ways and tricks to handle the narcissist conveniently and not upset them. Learning elaborately about narcissism can help you to know more traits of a narcissistic individual and also help to adapt to their ways of dealing. You have to know more about narcissism when you have a narcissistic family member.
Fortunately, the concept of narcissism is much more familiar now and has gained a lot of attention, thus many sources of information are available. You can also consult a therapist regarding the same.
2. Learn their Common Behaviors
You can know more about a person and their character, personality, or their conduct by researching more about them. The more you know someone the easier it becomes to deal with them.
Narcissists are often characterized by their boosted sense of self-importance, self-pride, and self-needs. With a narcissist, everything is just about them. They thrive upon the attention, adoration, and validation that they receive from others, and what makes them distinguished from others is the way they think and the way they behave, which is totally selfish and mean.
Narcissists have huge egos to satisfy and when someone hurts their ego, that someone is doomed. Narcissists seek revenge, or at least they would humiliate and devalue you for hurting their pride and ego.
Make a note of how the narcissist behaves publically and then compare that with how they behave with you. If you are aware of the common narcissistic traits then you can be prepared to deal and respond appropriately.
3. Being Mindful of Grandiose Promises
When you have a narcissist in your life, you might have developed a lot of expectations from them due to their exciting, imposing, and magnificent promises about the future. Narcissists make these promises sound so promising and faithful that you might not even have a fraction of a doubt.
But little do you know, that these promises are only “talk and no action”. Your heart would want you to believe them but let your brain make the decision here to review the situation more practically. Remember the instances from the past where the narcissist might have made promises but those were just words and no visible action or improvement might have taken place since then.
Narcissists might have made promises to implement changes in their behavior just to keep you in the relationship and make you committed. Once they are able to convince you regarding the improvement and changes, they might lose the motivation and fail to follow through on the promises.
Be mindful of their words and measure their promises not by words but by actions and implementations.
4. Identify Gaslighting Behaviors
Narcissists have a tendency to gaslight others to make people disregard themselves. Narcissists can change the reality of the situation and they are capable of proving themselves innocent when you blame them for their wrongdoing. Thus gaslighting is a technique that can allow an abuser to create such an atmosphere where the victims question their own reality and it forces the victims to doubt their own sanity.
They would constantly put you into situations where they gaslight you, and eventually, you may believe that they are correct and thus start doubting your own self, degrading your self-esteem.
Gaslighting is a completely cyclical incident. It does not just happen once, it is a repetitive abusive cycle of multiple events for which you are a victim. Some common gaslighting phrases used by the narcissist are,
- “What I did was not that bad, and you also know that.”
- “Whatever I have done, is unintended, it just happened to be so.”
- “You are not able to understand what I am trying to convey. It is you who is misunderstanding the situation.”
Thus when you are constantly being gaslighted by your partner, you start doubting your own sanity by degrading your self-worth. It no longer feels that you can trust your self decisions and thus always end up trusting the narcissist for all matters. This is exactly what they want from you.
So if you are facing such incidents in your relationship, then know that this is clearly them gaslighting you to get their way with you.
5. Implementing consistent Boundaries
Narcissists hardly respect other people’s boundaries and often try to cross them thus it becomes crucial to mark your boundaries clearly as their behavior is ego-driven. Setting boundaries might upset the narcissist at first, but with time this would ensure your mental peace, individuality, privacy, and worth.
Narcissists fear losing you, so when you set boundaries, they feel that you are creating a barrier between them and yourself, thus making them realize that they have either upset you or that their behavior is not appropriate. They can also realize how badly they have been treating you.
Be less accessible to them so that they cannot abuse you emotionally. You decide for yourself what behavior is acceptable and what is not. Setting boundaries would allow you to not break them thus preventing you from giving into narcissistic manipulative tactics.
6. Disengaging from Emotional Tantrums
Narcissists often express intense emotional tantrums which include rage, jealousy, gaslighting, projecting their insecurities through lies and false promises, being fake, and more.
Narcissists are always ready to provoke a reaction out of others, so refusing to engage in an argument, can save you from getting emotional and believing what they want you to believe. This can be an effective way to avoid giving them attention. Not engaging in any kind of drama, heated arguments, or disagreements just to mirror the reality of the situation may help you maintain your cool.
Riling up situations just to aggravate you is their power move just to get on your nerves. It is just a part of their toxic game, to get a reaction out of you as this provides them a narcissistic supply.
How to remain calm and disengage from their emotional drama?
It is difficult to maintain your cool in such riled-up situations. Just ignoring their comments, criticisms, and reprovals would help you remain calm. You can also think of some comic incidents that may help you calm down at that particular time.
7. Learn How to Ignore Their Criticisms
Nobody would like constant criticism, judgments, and condemnation while living together. But narcissists have a tendency to do to boost their egos and gain their narcissistic supply. So the best way to deal with their criticism is by remaining neutral, calm, and not defensive. Also to make a point of internalizing their comments and criticism and just ignore them calmly.
Ignoring them would save you so much trauma where you would be safe from them draining you emotionally and mentally and also dealing with them becomes far more easy, when you just start feigning ignorance.
If your narcissistic partner is complaining about your cooking day and night, you might feel the urge to say something like “You cook for yourself” or “I am not cooking anymore for you”, instead Just ignore their complaints and criticism and enjoy your meal by yourself in peace and just see them go dumbfounded.
8. Avoid Blaming Yourself
A narcissist blames everything on others for anything that goes wrong with them. Narcissists are experts at blame-shifting or gaslighting others for their abusive behavior. They struggle to be accountable for their wrongdoings and own up to their mistakes.
Constantly being with a such person can affect you and you may always blame yourself for everything whenever something goes wrong around you be it with a friend, a family member, or a colleague. You may always feel responsible for what is happening around you even though those things have nothing to do with you.
You must realize here that it is not your fault and it is not your responsibility to fix every problem around you. So if a situation does not involve you, try not to be obligated and involved with it. Blaming yourself can only reinforce the narcissist’s abuse and degrade your self-worth.
9. Learn how to Negotiate
Narcissists are natural manipulators. They have this trait ingrained in their behavior. So to hold your ground firmly, you need to learn ways to negotiate with them neck to neck. Though you can not win always with the narcissist, you may need to compromise in indefinite situations.
Identifying your emotional needs, boundaries, and absolute requirements can help you ensure those at least. Make sure that you remain firm with what you must have. Refrain from becoming emotionally engaged in any engagement with them and identify your needs first.
10. Accept what you cannot change
Narcissism can be overwhelming and you wish that your loved one could change. You wish that they could be reasonable with you. However, controlling them and expecting changes is usually futile with the narcissist. So here the only option left is to accept what you cannot change. This does not mean you need to bear their toxicity too, this just means you need to learn coping mechanisms that may protect you from the abusive and toxic behavior of the narcissist.
11. Practice self-care
When a narcissist is involved in your life, they can totally invade your self-respect, self-esteem, and your self-pride. You start feeling worthless as they make you believe so. They shatter your self-image and make you completely dependent on them to seek validation before making any decisions. They always prove that they are superior to you and thus sabotage your self-esteem.
Self-esteem can be developed by working on yourself. Self-care makes you strong-willed and thus helps you in developing your self-esteem and self-pride. Working on your self-confidence, your goals, and mental peace can be your initial steps toward self-care.
Protect your physical health by opting for exercising, gymming, doing yoga, and all such options. To protect your mental health focus and prioritize your own needs love others, seek help, and involve yourself with other people to save your self-worth.
12. Try seeking support from others
It is emotionally and mentally draining when you have a narcissist in your life. You need to vent out and discuss the pent-up emotions, hurt, and all your suffering with someone. That way you can seek help from people who care about you and also find ways to cope with the narcissist by getting some professional help.
So do not hesitate to reach out to friends and family for emotional support and also join some social groups, or join some communities or therapy groups that help in healing and dealing with trauma. You may also join a prayer if you are a believer. You may also seek help from therapists and mental health experts in such cases. You may also seek online therapies, learn more about narcissism, and teach yourself through the internet or some self-help books.
Why is Emotional and Mental Healing important?
- Emotional and Mental healing is important for stabilizing the beneficial behavior for the emotional and mental well-being of society.
- It can enhance mental stability, productivity, and confidence and improve relationships.
- Helps to cope with stress.
- It increases work productivity.
- It helps in maintaining healthy relationships.
- It helps in maintaining balance in life.
- It enhances self-esteem, self-worth, and positivity in life.
- It helps eradicate stress, depression, and negativity from life.
Emotional, Mental, and physical Healing becomes very important when you live with a narcissist. A narcissistic relationship tends to deteriorate your mental, physical, and emotional health along with decreasing your confidence, willpower to live, and the simple joys of life.
Final Thoughts
Living with a toxic person can be difficult, but boundaries, awareness of their character, and being connected with others can help you cope with their behavior and live together with them.
When you are so done with the narcissist constantly manipulating you, taking advantage of you, and bringing toxicity into your life, then applying these tactics would be beneficial to you. You can beat the narcissist by giving them a taste of their medicine.
Emotional, Mental, and physical Healing becomes very important when you live with a narcissist. A narcissistic relationship tends to deteriorate your mental, physical, and emotional health along with decreasing your confidence, willpower to live, and the simple joys of life.
From Relationship, Depression, and Personality Disorder to Narcissistic problems, I have helped a lot of people find their solutions. Upon gathering a number of common problems that people face, I decided to put the information on this blog so that anyone can get their answers easily.
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