I’m back after two weeks of dealing with appointments for my daughter and meetings with my attorney because of the endless list of motions my husband keeps filing against me. And we’re also getting ready for arbitration. But let’s get to it, shall we?
I came across a video from Lisa A. Romano from Breakthrough Life Coach. If you still haven’t checked her YouTube channel, I highly recommend you do so. Lisa provides so many tools and incredible insight for NPD survivors.
In this video, Lisa shares 5 phrases you can use to disarm and confront the narcissist in your life when you get into a verbal altercation with him or her. What I like about these phrases is that they give you back control, at least over you, because we all should know there’s no controlling a narcissist. Actually, we cannot control anybody else but ourselves and how we react to what other people do to us. But with these phrases, I feel we can go like “Wahm!”
(Little side note, it always cracked me up that Batman and Robin wore their underwear above their pants and not inside.)
It feels empowering once you use them. And I am talking from experience. The first time I said to my husband “I’m sorry you feel that way,” oooh, the rage! How I dared throw it back at him, imply that it was him and not me? I will forever remember how good I felt about it. How I felt like I was finally starting to find myself again!
I was not aware of the other phrases until I came across this video. I have yet to use them. However, since I’m minimum contact with my husband, I am not sure if I am going to be able to use them. I might eventually. Because I’m sure he will create more situations where I may need to bring these ones out of my increasing arsenal.
The phrases are, as follows,
- I’m sorry you feel that way
- I can accept your faulty perception of me
- I have no right to control how you see me
- I guess I have to accept how you feel
- Your anger is not my responsibilty
The beauty of these phrases is that you’re sending a clear message to the narcissist that you are no longer willing to allow your fear of what he or she may think about you to control you. But I’m going to let Lisa do her job. You can watch the video right here on this page (scroll to the bottom) or on YouTube. I hope you can find them as helpful and useful as I do.
No More Narchole 
August 24, 2017 at 1:46 pm
I’m so sorry you’re going through this. I believe my dad might have been a narcissist with anger issues and it was living hell growing up. I’ll be praying for you and your daughter to have wisdom and strength through all of this! God bless!
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August 30, 2017 at 10:39 pm
Thank you so much for your kind words and your prayers, Heather D.! I’m sorry to hear about your father. No one should ever know what abuse of any kind looks like. I guess I will eventually feel sorry for these people because they were and are victims themselves for most part. But I am not sure if I will ever be able to forgive my husband. I might one day. Who knows. What I know is that I know what he is now and that has allowed me to start finding myself and my voice again. And that’s a start. I hope we all find ways to heal and eventually put it all behind, coming out of it stronger and an even better version of ourselves, one that they will be envious of even more. Because if there’s one thing I have learnt through all of this is that a narcissist hunts us down because we are everything they want to be but they know they can’t be. Therefore, they have a need to destroy us. Once I understood this, I started to see more clearly what has happened to me. I wish the best for you, too! Thank you once again!
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August 31, 2017 at 12:41 am
God bless you and keep you in His arms Maria!
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January 2, 2018 at 6:06 pm
I really identified with your story Maria. It is so similar to my own but then perhaps all our stories are similar. They do all seem to use the same playbook don’t they? It helped me to think I was dealing with an adult with the mentality of a three-year-old, complete with tantrums. Sometimes if you view things that way their actions make more sense but unlike three-year-old they never mature.
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January 2, 2018 at 10:32 pm
Yup. The day when I realized that my husband was a 4-year old in the body of a 44-year old I list the last shred of respect or any other feeling I was still feeling for him. I no longer had an emotional attachment to him, of any sort.
They are indeed children in a grown-up body.
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January 2, 2018 at 10:37 pm
And yes. We do have very similar stories. All of us. The one thing I didn’t have to suffer was physical abuse. However, last night I started to think out of the blue as if I had been sexually used. And I think I did since there’s nothing these guys do that is not for their own benefit. When I started to remember us having sex, I felt sick to my stomach because I started to remember how I used to feel after it. The longer we stayed married, the more used i would feel after sex.
So while he might have not beaten me up, he didn’t spare other things. And God knows that there were times when I prayed he hit me so I could file a police report.
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January 3, 2018 at 12:01 am
Wow I watched the same videos and I love Shahida’s book too. I also liked the Spartan Life Coach among others.. He really says it like it is.
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January 3, 2018 at 8:01 am
He’s awesome! Does not waste time being “politically correct” and says like it is, like you said.
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January 7, 2018 at 5:15 pm
I hope you are doing ok.
https://wordpress.com/post/familytreeourstory.com/9409
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January 10, 2018 at 10:15 am
Hanging in there. My husband started yet another one. I am dealing with that at this time and it’s giving me little to not time to write. I need to deal with that and the court, as well as my job and my daughter’s needs. I hope to be able to write something in the next few days. Thank you so much for your kind words and thinking about me! I appreciate it. ♥
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