Should I Stay or Should I Go: Surviving a Relationship with a Narcissist

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I expected this book to be about determining if you have an awesome, healthy, marry-this-person kind of relationship or if it's like "hey, maybe this isn't your forever stop." You know, in the more subtle ways.

As I’ve said before, perfect situations are rare. We might never get all of what’s important to us. But if a work / partner / group meets enough of what’s really important to us, we might just choose to tolerate what’s not being met, and stay. Only you can say how much is enough for you, so be honest with yourself. Eurochart Hot 100 Singles" (PDF). Music & Media. Vol.8, no.18. 4 May 1991. p.25 . Retrieved 13 July 2020.

8  What do you not want anymore? What do you need next?

Perhaps what’s important to you in a relationship is loyalty, fun, emotional or physical closeness, respect… Perhaps in work, you really need to feel a sense of meaning, the right level of challenge, harmonious and stimulating working relationships, flexibility… Perhaps in a group, you want to feel included, share a sense of pursuing a cause, feel mutual support, have fun together… Upravo zbog znakova upozorenja koji nas upućuju na to da imamo posla sa narcisom - preporučila bih ovu knjigu svima, a naročito ženama, jer se na ovim balkanskim prostorima uloga žene u braku često svodi na to da se sve podredi mužu i da se živi život da bi se njemu ugodilo i olakšalo, što samo po sebi ne mora biti loše ako imate posla sa mentalno zdravom osobom, sposobnom za empatiju, uvažavanje i zrelu ljubav... ali, kada se ugađa narcisu (a njemu je nemoguće ugoditi) onda se to svodi na to, citiraću autorku - da se umilostivi zvijer... Zbog izuzetno devastirajućeg uticaja života i rada sa narcisom na naš zivot i zdravlje, bilo bi dobro da pročitamo ovo, da se pobrinemo da našu djecu odgajamo da ne budu poput njih, ali da ne budu ni njihove žrtve... This book is not so much about leaving or staying but understanding patterns, managing expectations and getting to know yourself to figure out what your options are, what you can handle and if you even want to. It‘s about understanding narcissism and understanding your reactions to it. Taking care of yourself and finding joy again. Dr. Ramani Durvasula’s Should I Stay Or Should I Go? How To Survive A Relationship With A Narcissist is an absolute must-read for anyone who is suspicious he or she is in a toxic relationship with a narcissist.

If you are or have ever been in any type of relationship where something feels off, where you’re constantly walking on eggshells and only existing to validate, please, and give attention to the other person, then this book might be eye-opening, insightful, and even lifesaving. To paraphrase Dr. Ramani, unlike the story, the beast won’t change into a prince, and there’s no special place in heaven for trying to rescue abusive people, who in all likelihood are never going to change. As someone who wasn't in the target audience, it was mind-boggling to contemplate continuing to put in enormous amounts of emotional, spiritual, psychological, and actual labor to attempt to Fix A Man. To me, detaching, safety planning, investing that energy in yourself, and leaving is obviously the best move. The book moves in that direction toward the end, which is a natural progression of this process. If a woman in one of these relationships has done the earlier exercises, she probably realizes that detachment is the healthiest option for her. To be honest, I didn't finish this book. I borrowed it from the library thinking it was actually what it was advertised to be - a guide to assessing your relationship and determining whether it can be saved or not. What if I stay in my relationship / work / group? Imagine yourself staying, and picture what it would be like in vivid detail, with the environment you’d be in, with what your days would look like, and with all the things you and others would do, think, say… Sometimes we avoid conversations in which we honestly voice our needs and ask for them to be met, because we’re anticipating the other person to turn us down, or become awkward or hostile.

Success!

It doesn’t matter what you think or are being told that the impact should be, or what you believe you should be able to cope with. Ask yourself what the impact of your situation is on your happiness, health and wellbeing – and that of your family. And be honest.

We might feel it as a general unease, unhappiness or dissatisfaction, or experience full-blown stress or anxiety symptoms that affect your health and wellbeing, making it difficult for us to function well. It might get our mood down and make us feel hopeless and despondent. It might affect our confidence. Or, on the other hand, perhaps it has no impact on us at all. Now, I am recovered from my codependency and this narcissist relationship. It takes me years to be in this state. To start believe in myself again. To show what I feel, what I think and what I want to be, after years I learned to be silence so that I wouldn't make my narcissistic partner feel inconvenienced. My mom and my siblings use tools that we learned together to cope with my father. We manage our expectation and stop believing that narcissist will change. A friend of mine experienced this when she started talking to her long-term partner about their relationship, which had become stale, directionless and conflicted. She said that she loved him and wanted to stay with him, but also wanted them to move beyond their current way of relating to each other. That she was starting a process of envisioning the future she wanted and invited him to join her. That she would move forward, and would still love him, whether he decided to participate or not. She found that her partner heard her and stepped up to work on his part of their situation. They started talking about their future together. Within six months, her partner proposed to her, and they got married shortly afterwards. 🙂 Whoosh, whoosh. After a massive stroke in 2015, my mother can’t walk. She can’t use her right hand. She’s incontinent. Her body has grown plump and soft. She can still talk – sort of. That is, she can form words, but rarely has much to say. Much of her scant discourse comprises polite vacuities. Asked how she is, she’ll say: “As well as can be expected.” Our sparse, formal phone conversations are full of silences.We might tell ourselves that, if we just endure for long enough, the situation will eventually change or resolve itself. Yes – that sometimes happens, but rarely in the way we would want. So why not grab our own power and decide for ourselves, rather than giving it away to circumstance and hope for the best? Dr. Ramani received her B.S. in Psychology from the University of Connecticut, and her MA and Ph.D. degrees in Clinical Psychology from UCLA. I'd say this is really helpful for dealing w/ 3 of the 4 types of narcissists and kinda helpful for the 4th kind, which is what's been called shy/introverted/vulnerable/covert narcissist. I was hoping it would have more info on that since my last relationship was w/ a vulnerable narcissist and I'm seeking more info on how to identify these types but from what I've read thus far, they are quite hard to spot until quite a bit later into the relationship as you keep observing the patterns of behavior. I did just reach out to the author though and she responded w/ a few other options for reading about these types of narcissists from the works of Dr. Elsa Ronningstam and also Dr. Craig Malkin, who wrote Rethinking Narcissism. Waiting and seeing has its merits, of course. Sometimes a situation has to mature – or we have to mature the most helpful point of view on it within us – before it can be resolved. But if we’re using waiting and seeing as our excuse for not making a decision which is long overdue, it will not help us, and indeed will have an impact on us, too. (See point 4) Zadeh, Joe (4 August 2011). "Jean Spirit: The Music Behind Levi's Adverts". Clash (magazine) . Retrieved 8 August 2017.