Quora: When a narcissist becomes self-aware how can they live with themselves?

 This doesn’t happen. May as well ask what happens when the Unicorns reach the top of Gumdrop Mountain.

Some people with Borderline Personality Disorder (often mistaken for Narcissistic Personality Disorder) seem to occasionally have flashes of self awareness, it makes them depressed, self-hating, and suicidal. They can’t bear to see themselves and their behavior so clearly, so they will switch to denial, possibly over indulge in an addictive behavior, and/or rage-out , shame and blame someone else for whatever horrid thing they glimpsed oh-so-briefly in the mirror of their soul.

Don’t wait around for the disordered person in your life to wake up, become self-aware, and try to do better. That’s not likely to happen. Move along without that person in your life and do what you can to be self-aware, self-respectful, and do better for yourself.

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Editing to add:  Posts tagged 'quora' were originally my answers to peoples' questions on quora.com.  They were monetized but I am giving them away for free here. 

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Quora: Why do narcissists never obey their spouses?

 Narcissists are just people; they are sick people, with emotionally stunted behavior, but they are people. And generally people do not like to ‘obey’ or be controlled by others. If you are in a relationship and expect to be ‘obeyed’ or expect to control your partner, I would say that’s probably not a very healthy relationship. Talk about what you want and need in order to feel safe, respected, loved, and cared for, and see what your partner thinks about that.

I would say that a healthy relationship is a ‘team’ and we do what we can for our ‘teammates’ . A relationship with a narcissist is always a struggle—it’s them AGAINST everyone else, including partners, children, friends, and family members, who should (in my opinion) love and care for each other, and work towards building mutually-helpful and mutually-beneficial arrangements with one another.

With the narcissist, it’s not so much that they have to always WIN, but they have to make sure that everyone around them LOSES. If your relationship is one in which there must be a winner and a loser, it’s probably not very healthy.

There are very traditional religious people who do tend to have a belief that the female spouse should obey the male. I feel this outlook is outdated and malignant in and of itself—a woman who is not allowed to have thoughts, opinions, or desires of her own is likely to become a very twisted, harmful and manipulative person in an attempt to get needs met that they aren’t even allowed to acknowledge that they have in the first place.

I would gently suggest that you examine your beliefs to see if they can be expanded to allow each spouse in a healthy relationship to have his/her own thoughts, needs, and desires, to be able to express them without being punished or shamed by their partner and to be able to talk about things openly rather than manipulate and behave in underhanded and maladaptive ways. If a healthy, mutually respectful and mutually beneficial relationship cannot be built, then it is possible that one or both partners is a narcissist, or that one or both partners are too damaged to be good relationship material at this time.

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Editing to add:  Posts tagged 'quora' were originally my answers to peoples' questions on quora.com.  They were monetized but I am giving them away for free here. 

If you feel inclined to support my writing, here's my paypal 

And if you prefer to pay it forward, I recommend Safe Place as an excellent place to support.