The Personality Type That Always Fails At Marriage Counseling, According To Relationship Expert Of 20 Years
Therapy can't change this type of person.
dragana991 | Canva What is narcissism? According to research, it's a personality style that involves being excessively self-centered and preoccupied with one's own needs, often at the expense of others. Someone with narcissism has little to no empathy, an unbelievable sense of entitlement, manipulation, and lies.
This person once proclaimed that the two of you were soulmates, promising that you would live happily ever after. Now, you desperately hope that couples counseling will bring back the magic. Don't count on it. Couples counseling with a narcissistic partner typically doesn't work — and may even backfire on you.
The narcissist personality type always fails at marriage counseling, and this is why:
1. Narcissists have no desire to change
The term "narcissist" has become a catchall for anyone who engages in abusive behavior in relationships. If your partner does have a diagnosable condition, it could be a narcissistic personality disorder. Or it could be antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), or in extreme cases, psychopathy.
According to statistics, 1 in every 100 people are psychopaths. People with these personality disorders engage in exploitation and manipulation, especially of partners and family members. In relationships, they are emotionally, psychologically, financially, sexually, or physically abusive — or all of the above.
According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-5), personality disorders are enduring patterns of inner experience and behavior that are pervasive, inflexible, and stable over time.
If your partner has a personality disorder, it's integral to who they are — and that's unlikely to change unless they seek intensive individual therapy themselves.
For therapy to work, you have to want to change. People who truly have narcissistic personality disorder often see no reason to change. They sometimes even consider themselves superior to the rest of us.
2. Narcissistic partners may try to control therapy and ally the therapist against you
What happens when people who are in abusive relationships seek therapy? That's exactly the question my colleagues and I explored in the Lovefraud Therapy Satisfaction Survey.
A total of 544 people completed it. Of them, 281 respondents, including 26 men, described their experiences with one or more sessions of couple therapy. So, if you were to go to couples counseling with a narcissistic partner, what should you expect?
Of the survey respondents, 30 percent reported that their partners were cooperative, while 28 percent said their partners were not.
Sixty-five percent said their partner was charming, while 51 percent said their partners were blaming. And 53 percent said their partners tried to take control of the session.
Timur Weber / Pexels
We also asked if the abusive partners tried to ally the therapist against our survey respondents.
Thirteen percent said "no," 19 percent said "sometimes," 17 percent said "moderately," and 52 percent said "very much."
Narcissists, people who exhibit anti-social qualities, and more rarely, psychopaths, are manipulators — and that's exactly what they do in therapy. They charm the therapist, blame you, attempt to control the session, and work to get the therapist on their side, against you.
Unfortunately, they are often successful.
One respondent wrote, "I was so unstable during the sessions and he was so calm and charming, it was easy for him to get the therapist to think that I was the problem."
Why do some therapists fail to see the manipulation?
3. Many therapists don't understand abusive personality traits
In the same survey, respondents were asked whether their partner showed traits of ASPD or psychopathy, as defined by the initial draft of the DSM-5 Alternate Model for Personality Disorders (AMPD).
The traits measured included callousness, aggression, manipulativeness, hostility, deceitfulness, narcissism, irresponsibility, recklessness, and impulsivity.
Survey respondent ratings indicated that for the most part, the partners were high in these traits of the disorder.
But only 20 percent of respondents said the therapists "got it" — identified the disorder — and a further 24 percent said the therapist either somewhat or moderately recognized their partner's disorder.
Fifty-five percent of respondents said their therapist did not identify a disorder in their partners.
Further analysis showed that when therapists were knowledgeable about narcissistic personality disorders, the survey respondents felt more positively about the therapy they received.
"The fact that the therapist identified the behavior was very helpful," one respondent wrote. If you're thinking about couples therapy, it's likely because there's strife in your relationship. You want it to be more harmonious and loving. You want change in your relationship.
But people with narcissistic personality disorders don't want to change. The evidence is in the following survey questions: One survey respondent wrote, "Clearly, I was the problem. He did not need to change."
Another revealed, "My partner was one way with the therapist in our meetings, and then back to the usual behavior as soon as we walked out the door."
This is further evidence that couples counseling with a narcissist won't work. If you realize that your partner is disordered, the best thing you can do is end your involvement.
If you think you may be experiencing depression or anxiety as a result of ongoing emotional abuse at the hands of a narcissist, you are not alone.
Domestic abuse can happen to anyone and is not a reflection of who you are or anything you've done wrong.
If you feel as though you may be in danger, there is support available 24/7/365 through the National Domestic Violence Hotline by calling 1-800-799-7233. If you’re unable to speak safely, text LOVEIS to 1-866-331-9474.
Donna Andersen is a writer and author who offers advice on escape and recovery from sociopaths, psychopaths, or narcissists. She has appeared on TV shows like ABC 20/20 and The Ricki Lake Show, as well as in digital and print media publications like Psychology Today, Marie Claire, Thought Catalog, and Daily Mail.