She Called Me a Narcissist for Leaving. Was She Right?

Okay, if you're a frequent listener of the Dad Starting Over podcast and you find yourself saying, "Yeah, that sounds like me," well, you don't need another podcast episode. What you need is support. The Help for Men Brotherhood is where men go when they're done pretending that they got it all handled. You know, your dead bedrooms, your divorce, your loneliness, your rebuilding life. We have private forums, frequent live Zoom meetings, one-on-one coaching, courses, all my books at no additional charge. And yes, we get together in person. Real men and real conversations. So stop doing this alone and join the Help for Men Brotherhood today at help4men.com/join. I look forward to seeing you in the next member meeting. You left a miserable marriage, and to your credit, you tried everything for a period of years and nothing seemed to work. One day the wife suggests to you, maybe you'd be better without me. And you know what? You decide you're right. And so you leave her. And then you do what a lot of guys do post-divorce, and eventually you date again. And one of your dates suggests to you, based on some of the things that you say to her, you know what? I think you're a narcissist. And you're left thinking, holy shit, is she right? Am I? Because that's something that the ex said too. If any of that sounds familiar to you guys, stick with me here. I think by the end of this video, you're going to feel a lot better about the situation. So an email from a follower came into me here recently, and it goes like this. He says, Ralph Brewer Brewer, I was married for over 20 years. The last 2 were basically a slow death. After my wife went through menopause, she completely shut down. No affection, no intimacy, nothing. She kept telling me I was asking too much, and whenever things got really tense, she would suggest that I just leave if I was so unhappy. And eventually I did exactly that. I initiated the divorce. I started dating again, and I met a woman who seemed sharp and interesting. We were talking about our previous relationships, how they ended, what went wrong. I told her my story, and she listened, and then she said, "Why didn't you stay longer? Things might have improved with more time." I said to her, "If my wife doesn't bring me joy and comfort instead of constant anger and negativity, why would I want her in my life?" She looked at me and said that's something a narcissist would say. Here's the thing, Ralph Brewer Brewer Brewer. My ex-wife threw that word at me too. I dismissed it then, but now hearing it from this woman who has no connection to my ex, I'm genuinely starting to wonder, am I a narcissist? Did I do something wrong? Did I give up too soon? All right, let's get into it, shall we? No, let's call you John. No, John, you're probably not a narcissist. I can say that based upon just the email that you sent me here. So narcissist is not just some little insult that people throw out. It's just not something you throw out and say, like, if you're an asshole, you must be a narcissist. No, narcissism or narcissistic personality disorder, NPD, is a clinical diagnosis. It falls under the umbrella of a Cluster B personality disorder, right alongside borderline personality disorder. A lot of us guys know that one, unfortunately, or histrionic Personality disorder. Narcissistic personality disorder doesn't just mean that you hold yourself to high standards or that, you know, you think you're better than everybody. It goes a little bit deeper than that. A narcissist has very specific set of behaviors. One is that they have a grandiose sense of self-importance. Two, they have a need for constant admiration. And three, they have a complete lack of empathy for other people. And 4 is that they have a pattern of exploiting other people for their gain. And here's the thing that's important, John and others that are wondering, am I a narcissist? Most narcissists don't sit back and worry about being a narcissist. A guy who lies awake at night and wonders, man, did I cause this? Am I a jerk here? Am I to blame? What could I have done differently? Is probably most likely not a narcissist. A narcissist in that kind of situation just immediately says, I'm not to blame. It's all them. I'm perfect. If they were more like me, the world would be a better place. And then those people get busy convincing other people that, you know what, my ex was a complete lunatic. Self-doubt, to put it succinctly, is not a narcissistic trait. Accountability, not a narcissistic trait. Caring about whether or not you hurt somebody, most definitely not a narcissistic trait. Let's look at the specific sentence that you said to this date of yours, the one that got you labeled as a narcissist. You said, quote, if my wife doesn't bring me joy and comfort instead of constant anger and negativity, Why would I want her in my life? That is not a grandiose statement, not by my estimation. That is not entitlement. That is a man that is describing the very basic elements of a relationship in order for him to be in said relationship. That is not you saying she wasn't meeting my needs, I deserve to be worshiped 24/7. You, John, described a marriage that was an ongoing source of pain and discomfort in your life. So much so that you asked a very basic question. What am I getting out of this? Why am I here if this is just constant suffering for a period of years? What am I doing here? That's not narcissism. That's not being a dickhead. That's not being an asshole. That's self-preservation. That, my friend, is mentally healthy. Now, is it possible that a statement like that can be, can come from like a very selfish source? Sure. But context is everything here, guys. John was in a relationship where a wife for a period of 2 years said, buzz off, beat it, maybe you should leave me. And this was such a source of turmoil and stress for the guy that he hung on and hung on, and it just felt worse and worse. And eventually he said, you know what, you're right, what am I doing? That is not a narcissist who bails on his wife because like she gained 10 pounds or she had a baby or something real shitty like that. This is the guy who said, wait a minute, this is awful. The word narcissist is the term du jour, it seems. It seems like anybody who sets a boundary, anyone who says, I don't like that, anyone who shows any kind of selfish behavior, even if it's really positive selfish behavior, looking out for yourself, is erroneously labeled as a narcissist these days. It's very clinical sounding. It's a broad brush. You just put that label on somebody and nuff said. And if you unfortunately are one of these people that is labeled as a narcissist, anytime you try to defend yourself and explain like, no, that's not the case. Here you go. Here's what's going on. You just sound what? More narcissistic. Now let's get this out of the way. Real narcissists obviously exist, but it's a really small portion of the population. Not nearly, you know, what your popular culture would seem to dictate right now. If you listen to everybody, it would seem like, oh wow, it's like 75% of the assholes out there are narcissists. No. And John and others, if you're in this kind of position and you're telling your story to somebody, a woman that you've known for a matter of minutes on a date or just casually talking or whatever, and they throw out that term narcissist after sitting down with you for relatively short amount of time, just hearing your story, that says way more about her than it does you. In a way, we can look at that little response from that woman as a test. This is how a lot of men go through life. We look at a lot of these things that come at us, whether it's the boss saying a certain thing, whether it's life saying a certain thing or doing a certain thing to us, such as maybe, you know, god-awful thing like you're diagnosed with cancer. A lot of us look at that as, God or the universe or life in general is testing us. Let's see how we respond to this test. So at a very micro level, that's what we can look at this response from this lady friend that we're on a date with. She says, that sounds kind of narcissistic. We can look at that as a test in a way. She wants to see if you will throw yourself under the bus and apologize for your behavior or whatever it may be. You see, a lot of people out there have this erroneous belief and it stems from a lot of different things. A lot of societal cultural thing is that if a man leaves a woman after a long-term relationship, he must have done something wrong. He is inherently suspect when it comes to these kind of situations because he should have hung in there for years more. Because dude, that's the mother to your children. That's your wife of almost 3 decades. I mean, come on, man. The insinuation is he should put her needs above his own. And if his actions veer in the opposite direction, that doesn't show that he's just looking out for his own mental, physical health or whatever it may be. It shows that he is flawed. His character is deeply flawed. He's an asshole. And when you are bombarded with this information, it could come immediately from your immediate family, it could come from your friends, whatever it may be. If you take all that in and you don't fold and you say, no, I'm going forward with this path, this is the right thing for me, that's when a lot of people whip out the old term, you must be a narcissist. Now let's be fair here. You know, I like to be fair in these situations. It's not so cut and dry. It's not so black and white. There are some women out there who have been hurt by men in relationships. And these women become very hypervigilant, if you will, about everything that they see. And guys, men do the same damn thing. Do you know, in my comments on my videos and posts across social media and so forth, I see men literally on a daily basis, dozens of times a day, throw out the old N-word, narcissist, when it comes to their ex-wife. Guys and gals, you can't all be right. The stats don't bear it out. You may have a person who's selfish. They may do things that make you go, what the hell? But it doesn't mean that they are technically a narcissist and they have narcissistic personality disorder. That's just not the case. So for John and others, you hear this from a person that you just casually meet, let's say, and then you say, you know what? My ex said the same thing. So now you got two little pieces of evidence here from two different angles coming to the same conclusion. What the hell's going on here? Well, John, I think with your ex there, it's pretty simple. Like, she didn't want to have any kind of accountability. She didn't want to face all of her deficiencies as a spouse. Maybe she was really in denial about age and what she was going through or whatever it may be. It's way easier to just say narcissist and turn the page. People tend to gravitate towards what is easy. The easiest thing is to not look in the mirror. The easiest thing is not to take accountability. The easiest thing is not to say, I'm responsible for me. And my behavior is very hurtful to the person that I love, to the father of my children. That is, that's tough stuff, man. A lot of people just don't have it in them. They can't do that. It doesn't help that they have a chorus of people behind them saying, you go girl, or dude, or whatever it may be. That person, narcissist, can't do anything about it. By the way, that line of thinking, that, that line of behavior, if you will, that works. It keeps people on the hook for a long-ass time. Kept you on the hook for years, didn't it? It must be me. It must be me. I must do more. I must research. I must keep working. Sometimes there's some truth behind that. Some of you guys are deficient in how you come across as a husband or a boyfriend or a boss or a father or whatever it may be. You need to work on yourself. But at some point you have to have a timeout and go, hold on a second, what's the other side doing here? And if you do that and the other person comes back to you with narcissist, you know, like, oh shit, here we go. And John, you asked the question of, did I give up too soon? Man, 2 years of zero interest from her, of zero intimacy, of zero connection, of a woman saying, get away from me, dude. That's, that's a lot of evidence that, yeah, she's done. I mean, look at it this way. What does more time look like for her? Are you— for a lot of guys, what I find is that they are just waiting for that magic moment where some kind of switch flips and they just go, oh, there's my wife. She's back again. And guess what? It don't work that way. Time is not on your side when it comes to the old thing like menopause and hormonal issues and whatever it may be. Things get exponentially worse with time if they are not attended to and treated. And during that process of not so good stuff, we find that, um, it's not just the physical, it's not just the intimacy and the sex and everything else that goes down, but there's a lot of other bad stuff that goes along with it. You two just grow more and more farther and farther apart. And what, John, what it sounds like, you and others that go through this, it's what you're describing is a guy who is genuinely invested in the relationship. You held on longer, dude, than most human beings would. I know you don't believe it, but it's true. And you made the very painful decision of ending something that just was not working. And then you took that energy out into the world after, you know, post-divorce, after the marriage ended, and, and carry that into the discussions with your prospective mates there. And you can see that some of them kind of, they're going through their own thing too, and they have their own baggage and they bring that to the table. And what you see, or what you hear rather, is feedback showing like, oh wow, she kind of went through the same thing. She may in fact have had a spouse who in turn was very selfish in his behavior. He was done with, you know, what he was going through in their marriage. And she in turn, just like your ex labeled him a narcissist, because again, it's the term du jour. So what do we do with all this, dudes? If you're hearing this, stop letting terms like narcissist destabilize you and, you know, knock you off your course, off your mission. If you're trying to be a better dude, a better husband, whatever it may be, you can't let these things bother you too much. Understand what it is. It's pop psychology horseshit. It means nothing. And for John and others, you're out in the market again and you're dating and you share this story with this person. You're being vulnerable and open like, yeah, my relationship was faulty and here's what happened. If they come back to you with that kind of response, that says a lot about them. That shows you how that person processes conflict, how they internalize or don't internalize things, how they don't have accountability, all that stuff. This is not good. I don't care if it's a romantic partner, friend, or whatever it is. You just stay the hell away from people like this. And guys, asking questions like this, questioning your worth and your fault in all these past relationships and so forth, that does not make you a weak dude. It doesn't make you a simp or whatever term you want to use here. You know what it makes you? A good dude. Self-examination, hugely important. Nothing wrong with that. You, John, you're not a villain. You're a guy who wanted a real marriage. God forbid. You tried. Years you tried. It didn't work out. And you finally said, "I get the message," and you left. Don't beat yourself up over this. Guys going through something similar, I want to point out you don't have to go through this alone. There are hundreds, thousands of other dudes out there who are going through the exact same thing. And we have a group just for men to talk about this kind of stuff. We call it the Brotherhood, and you can learn more at help4men.com or jump right to the join page at help4men.com/join. We get together in private discussions, live Zoom meetings, we get together in person, over 1,600 hours of audio, all my books, all kinds of cool stuff, coaching courses, you name it at the Brotherhood, help4men.com. Narcissist, the word of the moment, and most of the time, 99.9% of the time, Complete horseshit. Wanting joy in your marriage is not narcissism. Having high standards, not narcissism. Leaving when a relationship is clearly, with documentation, with evidence, broken and there's no way out of it, and there's— and your spouse tells you, this ain't getting any better, dude, you might as well leave me, not narcissism. If you have ever had this label thrown at you guys, do me a favor, leave a comment down below. Give me a like, give me a subscribe, give me a follow, I would really appreciate it. Helps me out a lot. Thank you so very much. And guys, we'll catch you on the next one.