I know you’re probably not a Narcissist. The problem is your wife, girlfriend, or fiancee might believe you are.

There are good reasons they might think this. If a man knows this, with some help and insights, there are ways to stop it from continuing.

That’s why I wrote this article, to share those with you.

Update: After hearing from many men reading this article, I decided to collaborate with Steve Horsmon (of GoodGuys2GreatMen) I’ve created a robust course and book to help men navigate these challenges.
“Narcissist! Or Not? A Man’s Guide To Transforming Hurtful Accusations Into Lasting Love & Trust” (do out very soon!).  Click Here to Join the Waiting List.

(Are you still worried that you might be a narcissist? Take my brief survey to find out).

What I’m going to tell you in this article

 

• Why women often call men a narcissist during periods of relationship conflict.

• Three reasons why the woman in your life is probably calling you one!

• Four ineffective responses most men have to being labeled a Narcissist.

• Five effective things you can start doing today to get her to stop calling you a narcissist.

• How you really feel to the woman in your life and why you feel like a Narcissist to her.

• Five essential character attributes a man must cultivate to flourish in a long-term relationship.

• How to grow in these five key attributes.

Why women often call men a narcissist during periods of relationship conflict

All long-term relationships experience stages that include conflict, disillusionment, and frustration. These are times when it’s a real struggle to overcome feelings of mutual gridlock. Each partner feels deeply frustrated and exasperated with the other, and neither partner appears to be doing anything to improve it.

In these relationship stages, a woman will often call a man a Narcissist.

No man likes to be called a narcissist! Most of the ones called such are decent men who have worked hard their whole lives not to be a controlling asshole. They are men who strive to be a loving provider, protector, and generally good guy.

Naturally, they get really bothered by this!

Being called a Narcissist hits our sense of masculinity and relationship pride like taking a big whiff of ammonia up the nose. We feel very frustrated, angry, and hurt to hear this.

Sometimes, it’s by her own curious Google searching. Other times, it’s because of sharing her frustrations with friends who point her toward Narcissism as an explanation. Other women hear it from irresponsible counselors or therapists who suggest a diagnosis for a person they’ve never met (which I personally believe is professionally inappropriate).

Regardless, a woman experiencing relationship conflict often stumbles upon the idea that her husband/boyfriend/fiancée is a Narcissist. It’s a ready-made explanation for the complex emotions she’s encountering.

The more she hears about Narcissism and common Narcissistic attributes, the more she becomes convinced that she’s in a relationship with one.

Attributes such as…

 

• An excessive sense of self-importance

• Having a sense of entitlement

• Expecting to be recognized as superior even without achievements that warrant such

• Monopolizing conversations

• Expect special favors and unquestioning compliance with their expectations

• Becoming impatient or agitated if not given special treatment

• Feeling easily slighted

• Take advantage of others to get what they want

• An unwillingness or inability to recognize the needs of others

• A lack of empathy

• Difficulty regulating emotions

(source: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20366662)

But I don’t do those! I’m not a Narcissist!

Brother, I know you’re probably not a Narcissist. Very few people would be diagnosed as having “Narcissistic Personality Disorder” or “NPD”.

I speak daily to men worldwide experiencing marriage and relationships conflict. I know the chances of you being one are infinitely small!

Why?

Because a true Narcissist seeks to discover if they’re genuinely a Narcissist about as often as a crooked politician seeks to know if they’re a dirty politician.

Allow me to be blunt for a moment.

You’ve got to get over being called one—today, right now. To move forward, you’ll need to allow your inner knowledge of self to be enough. The problem is, right now it’s not enough.

Keep reading, and let me explain.

Three reasons why the woman in your life is probably calling you one!

#1. She doesn’t feel seen, heard, valued, or appreciated

Every woman wants to be seen, heard, valued and appreciated. She wants to feel like she matters – to you and the world.

I’m betting if you’re like most of the men I encounter, you truly desire these things for her.

Unfortunately, most of us receive little meaningful instruction on how to love a woman effectively and in a way that offers her these things in a way she can deeply feel and appreciate.

So, let me fill in some blanks.

When the woman in your life shares how she feels, it is because she wants you to know her feelings! She desires that you see and hear her. She makes bids to connect with you as a man by sharing hard and unpleasant feelings. She’s sharing herself with you. This is a path to her feeling emotionally connected, which is necessary for a passionate, romantic, and intimate relationship.

She wants to feel your strength and that you can receive how she’s feeling.

She’s not looking for you to fix her or how she feels.

She’s describing her experience of her life to you from her vantage point and perspective and wants three specific things from you that I’m 100% positive she’s not feeling if she’s calling you a Narcissist…

Acceptance, Validation, and Love.

It would be fair to reduce those three things to one—love. But for her, love is felt as acceptance and validation – no matter how she is feeling.

But that’s not how you hear it, is it?

You hear these moments as badgering, nagging, complaining, critique, judgment, low regard, resentment, animosity, contempt, and more.

Because you hear it this way, you believe these feelings and response of yours are coming from her, and you shut down your heart while spinning up your defenses to those hard feelings. Here’s the thing… they’re not coming from her; they’re coming from within you.

And, when spin up those defenses in that moment, you lose. Often, you lose the very thing you’ve wanted all along –an intimate, deeply connected, emotionally authentic, and passionate connection with her.

She often feels your response as a rejection of her bid to connect with you and your strength. She feels unseen, unheard, unvalued, not unaccepted, invalidated, and unloved. (Now, in fairness here, her feelings come from within her, but that’s a story for another day!)

#2. When she shares her feelings, she feels like you try to change her mind and emotions to match yours

As I mentioned above, your woman shares with you because she wants to connect with you to feel your strength and, in that connection, to feel accepted, validated, and loved.

She’s desiring that you’ll be a mature, confident man who will have the strength to handle her wide emotional range. She’s longing for you to be so solid in your self-worth that you’re unperturbed by her emotions.

Instead, she encounters what feels like an adolescent boy triggered by her words and who responds with defensiveness, anger, rage, and contempt – even if only within. By the way, she’s intuitive enough to know that is your internal vibe even if you keep your mouth shut!

A triggered and defensive man has one pressing need that happens so fast that he does not usually notice it. He feels a need to end the unsettled feelings he feels brewing within. This manifests as arguing, defensiveness, and a need to “set the record straight” and defend against the perceived threat of attack. This comes in the form of sharing “his side of the story” or sometimes just offering a clear and straightforward explanation, alternative viewpoint, or something similar. If she has told you that “you always need to have the last word,” this is probably you.

Even if not accompanied by hard emotions and done so calmly, all of these actions miss the point.

She was sharing her story with you. She wanted your acceptance, validation, and love—not your explanation, defense, or correction.

When you respond with those, she feels you are not accepting, validating, or loving her. Worse still, she feels that you’re also trying to change her story and how she feels. This is a significant contributor to her budding belief that you’re a narcissist.

#3. She sees you get easily slighted, defensive, angry, resentful, or hurt

Whether you feel it’s unfair or wrong, the woman you’re in a relationship with wants you to be a calm, secure, confident man who can handle her wide emotional range.

She wants to feel and be in the presence of a man who knows himself well enough not to need constant coddling, reassurance, and affirmation. All her Google searches are also confirming to her that needing excessive affirmation and validation is a sure sign of Narcissim. I work with enough men to believe you probably aren’t, but your neediness is really convincing her otherwise.

Most women want a relationship with a man who feels like a lighthouse, not a rudderless raft adrift at sea.

Hopefully, you can deduce the connection between your way of being and her lack of desire for intimacy with you. When you’re easily triggered by the emotions you see her express, you don’t feel like a lighthouse to her. You feel like a reactive child.

To her, this reactiveness feels like you’re unable to handle the emotional and relational volley that a woman desires in a romantic partner. It’s a total buzzkill. It’s also making her very ripe for the attention of another man who appears more confident. (If she does cheat, the belief that you’re a covert narcissist because of this will become her “Exhibit A” to justify her infidelity.)

Worse, to her, it feels like the narcissistic traits she reads about.

Your emotional response can even feel like a form of punishment to her. It feels as if you demand unquestioning compliance with your way of thinking. She feels you will pull away from her if she doesn’t capitulate your tantrums.

When you’re triggered with hard emotions, to her, it feels like you’re trying to manipulate her to get her to change her feelings so you feel better.

Your resentful defensiveness feels like an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others.

The truth is, brother, you need healing.

We all do, and until we get some of those areas healed, we can’t hear her because we are too busy feeling our own complex emotions inside of us.

Not only are we feeling those complex emotions, but we’re also nearly always blaming her for them. Mature men don’t behave this way.

Four ineffective responses most men have when being called a Narcissist

#1. Trying to prove her wrong

Men often respond to their partner calling them a narcissist by googling, taking tests, asking friends, or even getting psychiatric evaluations done to prove her wrong.

None of these work or are worth the time. In fact, they seem like just one more way he doesn’t hear or understand her.

She’s not usually interested in proving he is a Narcissist. She’s interested in feeling a new reality with him (or wanting to move away from him toward a new one).

He’s looking for proof he’s not a narcissist. She’s looking for evidence that he loves her.

She’s trying to convey to him how she feels in his presence to see if he’ll respond with love. He responds with documentation.

When we treat her words as an attack requiring a defense, we miss the point and the opportunity to love her.

#2. Defending and explaining themselves even more

The next thing most men do when they’ve been labeled a Narcissist is to try to have more calm, slow, rational explanations where they deliberately explain to her in painstaking detail how they’re not a Narcissist.

They believe she’s just mistaken and needs some mansplaining.

As good, noble, and patient men, they believe they just need to slow down and be more thorough. This is especially common among the lawyers, doctors, engineers, and information technology professionals I work with. But now, they just look condescending and superior (another Narcissistic trait)

They review every point she makes and offer a counterpoint response to her words, explaining her errors and how each issue is unfair, wrong, or misunderstood.

They’re pretty incredulous afterward, despite their painstaking effort to cover every point when she doubles down on her assertion that they’re a narcissistic, controlling asshole.

This is highly ineffective for one main reason: to her, it appears he is more concerned with her understanding him and how he’s not a narcissist than what or how she feels or is experiencing. She’s usually right!

She was looking for him to open his heart and see how she felt. Instead, he shut his heart, opened his brain, and responded with something all about him. To her, his defense confirms that he doesn’t care how she feels.

He probably really does, but because he focuses on himself and not her, it won’t feel like it to her. That’s not empathy.

#3. Dismissing her as being ridiculous

When women express themselves with words, there are always emotions behind the words.

What she’d long for him to recognize more than the words she says are the emotions that gave rise to them.

As men, when we quickly dismiss a woman making an accusation like ‘you’re a narcissist!’, we’re dismissing the words. To her, though, it feels like we are ignoring the emotions.

The truth is that we are doing so ––because we don’t know better. We are ignoring her emotions. Why? Because we are getting hung up on her words.

We don’t realize that there are emotions behind her words. No one ever teaches us that. We’re listening to the words because that’s how men communicate with one another.

We’re not intentionally dismissing; we’re just being how we learned to be as men!

Regardless, ignoring a woman’s words is to dismiss her feelings.

Dismissing a woman’s feelings is to dismiss her person.

#4. Being hurt, pouty, angry, isolating, or punishing

When many men feel hurt, they resort to immature responses such as walking around pouty, hurt, and angry. They turn cold to their partner, leaving her isolated and even punished for what she said or felt. This is hurtful and isolating to her. What began as her desire to experience love and connection has led to her experiencing disconnection and rejection.

This is ineffective at resolving conflict and breeds resentment, hostility, and contempt in the relationship.

This immature and unhealthy pattern, left unchecked, becomes a significant predictor of divorce or relationship dissolution.

Men who do this don’t know better, and need more effective, and mature ways of handling their emotions.

If you find yourself saying, “Yeah, but… what about me?” and “Hey, that’s not fair…” you’re precisely the man who needs to grow in his emotional maturity and understanding of women. Or, you can remain hurt, find a new woman, and end up right back here.

More men have an understanding problem than the partner problem .

Brother, if this is you, I know you’re feeling pain.

You must learn that your pain is sourced within you and not coming from her. Learn more effective ways of handling your emotional distress (such as my robust mentoring experience – more on that later)

Five effective things you can start doing today to get her to stop calling you a narcissist and immediately improve your relationship

#1. Shut up and actually listen

https://youtu.be/QEPxUGDNirsBrother, you must learn to listen if you want a relationship with deep emotional connection, abiding romance, and intimacy. Not for merely the words, but learn to listen to the words’ emotions and feelings.

You must learn to stop going up into your head, story, and perspective when she shares hers. She needs you to be present with her, hearing her story, perspective, and emotions.

You can’t do this if you’re focused on yourself! If she’s coming to you with her emotions and story, and your mouth moves in response, you most likely have room to grow here.

#2. Empathize with her

If you learn to shut your mouth and focus on what she’s feeling, you’ll begin to create opportunities for yourself to empathize.

Empathy means being able enter into her point of view as a co-observer alongside of her; to be willing to see what she sees and feel what she feels. Not by abandoning your own perspective (which is what men think she’s asking for). You can’t do this without a calm, confident, and thus open heart, and you won’t have an open heart if you are afraid of her. Men don’t need to be taught to gain empathy. They need to be taught to lose insecurity. A secure heart is an empathetic heart (as any parent of tiny kids knows).

The truth is, most men are terrified of their female romantic partners!

They are scared that her different perspective threatens their well-being. They’re afraid that the difference in perspective might lead her away or lead her to conclude that they’re not lovable. They might lose affection, love, warmth, and more.

This is the sign of a man who has not yet made the journey to emotionally mature masculinity. You can learn to overcome this fear and make this journey to have empathy and make her feel heard (I can show you how).

#3. Accept that her experience is hers and valid

Many men struggle with empathy because they believe that accepting their partner and her point of view means accepting the words she expresses as factually accurate. They mistake acceptance with approval. They misunderstand that it’s not about the words but the emotions.

They also fail to realize that what and how someone feels is not negotiable to others. We each feel what we feel. Feelings aren’t right or wrong; they just are. No one has the right to tell another person what they feel is right or wrong or that they should or shouldn’t feel something. To do those things would indeed feel very narcissistic, and that is often why a man is called one.

Your partner’s experience of their life is theirs, not yours. It’s not open to interpretation or debate.

Accepting the experience of others—like your wife, girlfriend, or fiancee—doesn’t mean you have to adopt their point of view as your own. It just means you accept that they have their own unique life experience, including how they experience you! It means you need to imagine what it feels like to experience the story as she is or has experienced it and that you validate that she experienced it in this way. You won’t do this well if it’s more critical to be correct than to hear and empathize with her.

Note: I think it’s worth saying that it is no surprise that this a struggle for many men. As males, we’re conditioned our entire life not to feel, that feelings are bad, weak, or a liability, and that our feelings are invalid! Not knowing how to relate to the emotional landscape of the feminine, in some ways, is the fruit of the widespread, societal gaslighting of male emotions.

#4. Stop defending, explaining, and arguing

If you want to stop being called a Narcissist, you’ve got to let go of the need to be right, the need to explain, and the arguing that results from your urgent need to defend yourself.

All of those represent a lack of emotional safety within yourself. A man who is not emotionally safe within himself has no emotional security to offer the woman in his life.

“Yeah, but… I can’t help it Sven!”

Yes, you can. You’ve just never been shown how. No one has ever helped you with your own shame, fear, anxiety, and insecurity that lurks under the surface. As a result, you’ve not gained emotional resiliency.

It’s there, I promise! It just needs some guidance, and encouragement to get it working again.

#5. Learn to hold yourself and your partner in high regard

To build a great romantic relationship, a man must hold himself and his partner in high regard. This means becoming a man who chooses to view himself and others by the person’s innate virtue, value, and worth instead of their behavior.

A man who holds himself in high regard is a man who knows, accepts, and approves of himself. He’s pleased with himself regardless of who else is. A man who does such does not need to defend, argue, or explain.

It’s impossible for a man who holds himself in such high regard to hold his partner in low regard. He’ll naturally conclude that she is also worth esteemed for the same innate virtues, value, and worth he is.

This high regard for self becomes the basis for giving the same to his partner and what she’s wanted all along – acceptance, validation, and love.

How you really feel to the woman in your life and why you feel like a Narcissist to her

To briefly summarize, here are things women say or feel, and how they match the Narcissistic attributes she finds about online:

 

• Having an excessive sense of self-importance >> “I don’t feel as important to you as you are to you!”.

• Expecting to be recognized as superior >> “I don’t feel like you can ever get over your superiority enough to see and value me!”

• Monopolizing conversations >> “You never listen! You always make everything about you!”

• An unwillingness or inability to recognize the needs of others >> “Don’t you care about me and how I feel?”

• A lack of empathy >> “You don’t care about me. All you care about is you!”, “You never listen!” “

• Having a sense of entitlement >> “You always have to have it your way!”

• Expecting to be recognized as superior even without achievements that warrant such >> “puh-leez!” “Actions speak louder than words!” “You’re all talk and no substance”

• Monopolizing conversations >> “You always make everything about you!”

• Expect special favors and unquestioning compliance with their expectations >> “Ok, fine… you’re right. I guess I’m just an idiot and don’t matter”, “You make me feel stupid.”

• Becoming impatient or agitated if not given special treatment >> “You don’t have to be such a baby every time I don’t want to sleep with you!”

• Feeling easily slighted >> “You always take things so personally!” “You make me feel unsafe.” “I don’t feel safe with you.”

The five essential character attributes a man must cultivate to flourish in a long-term relationship.

Many men wonder… “Is there hope? Is it too late? Can my marriage or relationship be salvaged?”. 

Others suggest, “Maybe it would just be easier to start over again… this one feels impossible to fix or salvage.”

Brother… there is indeed hope. I’ve helped hundreds of men worldwide overcome this season of their relationships and go on to the best experiences of themselves, their partners, and relationships they’ve ever had.

I’m going to be straight with you: Only a tiny minority of men are willing to do the work it takes to cultivate these. It takes a special kind of man to do so.

The men I’ve worked with who have completely turned things around have needed more than hope for the future. They’ve all had five key mindsets they’ve used to lead their relationships out of this turmoil, beyond being called Narcissists, and on to better relationships than they thought were possible.

Humility

Every man I’ve witnessed turn his relationship around possessed the humility to stop seeing himself as a victim and her as a villain. Instead, he owned his lack of maturity, misunderstanding, and blame.

He has laid down all the “yeah buts…” and stopped waiting for her to be or do differently. He’s repented of the ideas that women should be easier and that she’s being difficult.

Instead, he turns his focus inward, narrowing his gaze to only himself. He’s concluded that the only person he controls changing is himself.

Want to be a man who can lead his partner beyond thinking you’re a narcissist? Start with humility. You won’t change your relationship without it.

Unconditional positive regard

As mentioned above, unconditional positive regard, or “high regard,” is a deliberate act of the will in which a man decides to treat himself and others according to values that he sees as secure and unchanging despite behavior.

It’s a choice not to treat himself or others based on transactional love but a more profound sense of value, worth, and significance that transcends fickle changes in behavior.

This regard becomes a solid foundation for accepting self and others and giving a woman acceptance, validation, and love.

Want to be a man who can lead his partner beyond thinking you’re a narcissist? Start holding her in such high regard that you offer acceptance, validation, and love. Start viewing yourself with such high regard that you lose the need to defend yourself.

Ownership and personal agency

A key attribute necessary to flourish in a romantic relationship and move past the conflict stages of being labeled a Narcissist is ownership or personal agency.

You can’t move forward in your life and relationship if you feel like a victim, especially if you feel like a victim in response to your partner’s emotions, feelings, and points of view. That would make her a villain, and seeing her as a villain isn’t going to earn you goodwill, vulnerability, connection, and intimacy.

Instead, you must choose to own yourself and your emotions, and you must be responsible for moving the relationship positively and upwardly. You must lead the way to where you want to go. No one is coming to rescue you! You must either rescue yourself and take responsibility for improving or experience the resulting death and disconnection that will result if you don’t.

To read more about ownership, read my article: An Ownership Manifesto.

Want to be a man who can lead his partner beyond thinking you’re a narcissist? Start taking ownership of yourself, your emotions, and your future.

Self-reliance

Healthy, mature adult men are self-reliant. That doesn’t mean they move off-grid and grow vegetables, but that they learn to be the source of their own sense of well-being.

A man who doesn’t have a self-reliant source of well-being is, by default, reliant upon someone else for their well-being. In a romantic relationship, that’s usually his female partner.

Brother, neediness is a stinky cologne!

When a woman is responsible for your well-being, she’ll decreasinglty feel like you love her, only that you need her. Turning into your “happiness gadget” objectifies her. It makes her believe you’re exercising the narcissistic attributes of having a sense of entitlement and requiring constant, excessive admiration and that you have an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others.

Needy men can’t provide for others because they start with a deficit.

Want to be a man who can lead his partner beyond thinking you’re a narcissist? Learn to be self-reliant! Address your neediness and seek maturity.

Emotional resiliency

Emotional resiliency does not mean becoming unfeeling or having no emotions. It does not mean not showing emotion.

To be emotionally resilient means to have the skills necessary to soothe yourself, rebound, and return to your normal state of well-being when something moves you away from your normal state of rest.

Mature masculine men are emotionally resilient men. Anything else in a man will be viewed as narcissistic and childish.

Want your partner to stop thinking you’re a narcissist? Learn to be more emotionally resilient!

How to grow in these five key attributes

Let me tell you a sobering reality… If the woman in your life is calling you a Narcissist, it’s improbable you have these five character attributes in a meaningful measure – at least not in the context of your relationship. You’re not alone! Most men haven’t learned to cultivate these!

Here’s another sobering truth… Men don’t acquire these attributes by simply acquiring information through books and articles, even this one!

Instead, men acquire these attributes through transformation. Specifically, transforming into their very best selves.

After witnessing hundreds of such transformations, it’s become abundantly clear that men experience the most meaningful and radical transformations in the company of other men who have experienced or are experiencing them.

Get connected with other men.

The first step I’d recommend to anyone on a journey to overcome relationship conflict is cultivating deep, meaningful relationships with other men who possess these. Men need community because masculinity is imparted through the initiation of other men. It’s not imparted by women, blogs, or books.

If you don’t have such a community, I personally invite you to join me in mine. It’s called Masterful Men, a private global brotherhood of initiated men who have, are, and continue to overcome significant relationship challenges common to all of us.

We’re a tribe of men, lovers, husbands, fathers, and friends, all striving daily to be their best and experience fullness. Men who relate more profoundly and intelligently than any men you’ve ever experienced, I promise! Masterful Men is a community of men on a journey of cultivating more humility, unconditional positive regard, ownership, personal agency, self-reliance, and as a result – deep, passionate, romantic, intimate, and flourishing relationships.

Get Emotional Resiliency

Masterful Men membership includes a five-stage mentoring journey that shows men like you how to become unshakable, masterful men who can show up in life and relationships with a calm, confident, open-hearted and empathetic presence.

This program will guide you from looking and behaving like a unsafe, reactive, narcissist to becoming a truly unshakable emotionally mature, strong, safe, and resilient man. You’ll learn to be less reactive, more present, and more prepared to be an empathizing spouse – all in the company of other men like you!

Best of all, you can get started right now, with a 14-day FREE TRIAL.

Get one-on-one help

If you feel you need more than merely an epic mentoring experience based in strong brotherhood, I invite you to get in touch for a complimentary free mentoring session where we’ll dive right into what’s going on in your life and relationship.

You’ll experience feeling deeply connected to another man who will care, listen, and offer encouragement and suggestions.

No sales, no special offers, no kidding!

To schedule a free session with me, click here to get started.