Love Bombing, Hoovering, and Crazy-Making: Discussing Narcissists' Manipulation Tactics with Sherry Gaba and Carla Romo
Overcoming Narcissistic Abuse in Relationships
This week's episode dives deep into the warning signs of narcissism, how to protect yourself if you're in a relationship with a narcissist – or trying to get out of one – and the journey to rediscover your self-worth after experiencing narcissistic abuse. Seth and Pete's guests share from their expertise as therapists and life coaches that specialize in healthier relationships.
Questions we answer in this episode:
What are some common red flags in the early stages of dating a narcissist?
How can you safely leave a narcissistic partner?
What does the healing process look like after dating a narcissist?
Key Takeaways:
Narcissists often love bomb their partners in the beginning of relationships.
Setting boundaries triggers rage in narcissists.
Rebuilding your self-esteem is crucial to recover from narcissistic abuse.
This compassionate and insightful conversation offers real tools to identify narcissism, enforce boundaries, and rediscover self-love after trauma. Listen in for an empowering discussion about overcoming narcissists' manipulative tactics.
Links & Notes
Got a question you want to ask on the show? Click here!
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Pete Wright:
Welcome to How to Split a Toaster, a Divorce Podcast about saving your relationships from TruStory FM. Today, what do you do with a tiny wounded narcissistic toaster?
Seth Nelson:
Welcome to the show, everybody. I'm Seth Nelson. As always, I'm here with my good friend Pete Wright. Today on the show, it's all about narcissism. How do you help yourself working through narcissistic abuse? What do you have to learn about yourself when it comes to your own relationship choices? This week, the fix is in. Sherry Gaba is a licensed psychotherapist, life coach, author of Love Smacked: How to Stop the Cycle of Relationship Addiction and Codependency to Find Everlasting Love.
Carla Romo is the author of Contagious Love, speaker, and a certified life coach specializing in dating and relationships. Together, they host the fantastic Love Fix Podcast and they're here today to share what they've learned about these damaging relationships. Carla and Sherry, welcome to the Toaster.
Sherry Gaba:
Yay! Thank you. I love that.
Carla Romo:
Woo-hoo. Thanks for having us.
Seth Nelson:
Pete, I think that's our first other ever woo-hoo.
Pete Wright:
That's the first woo-hoo and we got it when talking about narcissism?
Carla Romo:
You just had to bring the love fix on.
Sherry Gaba:
I love the narcissistic toaster. That's hot.
Seth Nelson:
That's the only type of toaster I get at the store.
Pete Wright:
I'll tell you. You know what? So I've been listening to Love Fix, awesome show, and you have obviously done your fair share of podcasts on narcissism. I was looking at our last eight seasons of shows. We've done some topics on narcissism, and by far and away, our most downloaded episodes are on narcissism. Why are you nodding your heads too? We're broken as organisms. What is happening right now?
Carla Romo:
Well, I don't know. Sherry and I always talk about this with the whole narcissistic abuse or narcissism is such a buzzword where only what, less than 1% of the population are actual narcissists if you look it up, right? And so I mean, Sherry, you always talk about since a presidential election that happened years ago, it's become such a buzzword.
Sherry Gaba:
It just started trickling down. And we got to be careful, right? Because as a clinical therapist, not everybody is a narcissist. There's a lot of people that have the traits of being a narcissist, but not necessarily a narcissist.
Seth Nelson:
Well, that's begging the question right there, right, Pete?
Pete Wright:
Please, Seth. Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
How can you have traits and not be one?
Sherry Gaba:
So to be one, you actually have no empathy whatsoever. True narcissist is wired differently than the rest of us, and that's the hardest part for someone who's in a relationship with a narcissist to get. Like, why doesn't he get it? Why don't I get that validation I need? Why is he not understanding me and knowing me? It's because his brain is not wired correctly. It's wired differently. He has no... He or she. I will not just say he, but being a female here I'm saying he, but the he or she, they don't...
Seth Nelson:
You can just blame it on the men.
Sherry Gaba:
Sorry. The he or she in this situation.
Pete Wright:
We're doing great. You know what? Pronouns hurt everybody right now in our brains. It's rewiring.
Seth Nelson:
Just blame it on the men.
Pete Wright:
We can take it.
Seth Nelson:
My wife bashes the male race all the time. I got lots of points by never defending the male race. I just say, but there's exceptions to the rules.
Carla Romo:
Women can be narcissists.
Sherry Gaba:
Absolutely, women can be narcissists, and we get called on that all the time if we accidentally post something that doesn't say such. But they can't understand you. They don't know what you're saying. They don't get it. They just have no empathy whatsoever. That's a true personality disorder of a narcissist.
Seth Nelson:
So is there a study that is out there that might prove that marriage causes narcissism? Because everyone says, "I got married, I was happy, and then they turned into a narcissist."
Pete Wright:
Now they're a monster.
Carla Romo:
Okay, no. Nobody can just turn into a narcissist. You're pretty much like... I mean, people can develop narcissistic personality disorder, but the problem is is that narcissists do a really great job in the beginning of love bombing. So they tell you how amazing you are. They've never felt this way. There might be some covert or overt narcissism.
Especially if it's a covert narcissist, you don't really see the signs really of what's going on. And then eventually something can start to... Well, the personality disorder starts to get triggered in that person, and then somebody starts to really see it and it can progressively get worse and worse.
Pete Wright:
Carla, you got to help me here. In terms of just setting the table for the conversation, somebody's listening to the show and is like, "No, I'm not," how do you be a covert narcissist? What does that even look like? Because I feel like that's the emotional entrapment piece that you're talking about, right?
Sherry Gaba:
Yeah. It's insidious manipulation. It's gaslighting. It's saying one thing and meaning something else. It's like under the radar, it's passive aggressiveness, but it isn't like this crazy verbal abuse necessarily. I mean, it's emotional abuse, but it may not be name-calling, but it's all that stuff underneath. The holidays are coming and all of a sudden they're sick during the holidays. They're ruining the holidays. Things that you wouldn't even think about. And Carla's right. They start out, it's fast and furious, love bombing.
You think you have this amazing person, and you keep wanting to go back to that person. You keep wanting that person that you first met, and that's what makes it so crazy.
Seth Nelson:
Sherry, what are some signs, red flags that might be occurring that people won't notice? Like for example, being sick on the holidays, that would not have been on my list.
Sherry Gaba:
Well, it's passive-aggressive stuff. It's coming around the bend, right? It's not being upfront and honest. It's very manipulative.
Pete Wright:
Actually, Sherry, I really like your sick on the holidays because I'm like, Seth, I didn't think about that. But really isn't that the form of manipulation? It's maybe not that you're sick on a holiday. But when you're sick on a lot of holidays, all that's doing is bringing the attention back to you in a time when it should be shared. That's the manipulation part of it to me.
Sherry Gaba:
And that's the narcissistic piece because it is all about them.
Carla Romo:
And the other piece too when Sherry talks about the lying or whatever, you can think that your partner, you guys are having these conversations, you guys are on the same page, everything's good, it's moving forward, and then you find out that they're cheating. Sure, there's lots of infidelity that happens in marriages and whatnot, but in terms of the narcissist is really lying and living this separate life behind your back.
And that also you wouldn't know because you're just thinking, "Oh, they're on a work trip, or they're staying out late for drinks with coworkers," or whatever, but they're also living this other life behind your back as well and doing all the manipulation around it.
Sherry Gaba:
Things like saying to someone, "Do you really like your hair that way, rather than saying, "Your hair looks like shit." Do you think that that's a great hairstyle for you?
Seth Nelson:
I don't know any guy that's ever looked at his wife or girlfriend and said, "Your hair looks like shit." They might as well say, "I don't want to get laid for a year."
Carla Romo:
Well, I will say this though, narcissists will do anything and everything to tear somebody down. So there are people that say shit like that.
Sherry Gaba:
I mean, I had someone say to me, "Have you had to blow dry your hair?" I mean, listen, I live in Florida. My is a frizzle. It just is.
Pete Wright:
How to blow dry your hair?
Sherry Gaba:
How about you're trying to clean the sink, "Who taught you how to clean?" Did you know that when you clean a sink, you open up the paper towel and you go like... Well, no one can see me, but you don't go in circles. You go like... It's very, very insidious, but it starts to wear at you.
Seth Nelson:
All I know now, Sherry, is our listeners are going to be like, "I'm going to be checking out what happens on flag day, if this guy's sick on flag day with these holidays. And I'm going to be looking at what I'm doing on cleaning the sink and see what he says. I might use a sponge, not a paper towel, and just move the germs around. I'm good."
Pete Wright:
We're doing the Lord's work here on the Toaster Podcast right now. I'm telling you that.
Carla Romo:
It's happening.
Pete Wright:
Okay. This gets to I think, Sherry, that point, what is it that defines the manipulation? It's that insidiousness. But again, Carla said something earlier that really piqued my interest that you can develop narcissistic personality disorder. When do people become narcissists? Are they narcissists at... Is there a nine-year-old narcissist out there who needs to be interviewed on a podcast?
Sherry Gaba:
I mean, I tend to disagree with Carla just on that one point. I mean, I think you're born with a personality disorder. I think you see those things in children, the ones that are doing terrible things to animals.
Pete Wright:
I saw the bad seed. Jodi Foster tried to kill her mom.
Sherry Gaba:
Okay. I didn't know that.
Carla Romo:
Didn't know about that either.
Pete Wright:
I'm telling you.
Carla Romo:
You think that's something I should be Googling?
Pete Wright:
You guys, I just added a movie to your movie list. Look at that. You're welcome.
Carla Romo:
There you go.
Seth Nelson:
There you go. There's the movie.
Carla Romo:
You know, kids that are super entitled.
Seth Nelson:
But this is the whole nature versus nurture argument, right?
Carla Romo:
We interviewed somebody on our podcast, The Love Fix Podcast, where the woman said that if a child experiences a big enough trauma, that can cause narcissism. That's where I pick up the yes, somebody could be born it, but you can also have a significant drama happen at a very young age. And as a result, that can make somebody also a narcissist.
Sherry Gaba:
Right. You're correct. You're correct. I mean, think of this, the narcissist usually has major abandonment issues. Someone has left. The mother's left. The father's left. There's been parentification where the child's made to feel like a little parent, like a little adult. These are the big trauma pieces that create a narcissist.
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Carla Romo:
There's a fun thing too with this. If anybody likes Halloween stuff, narcissists are also psychopaths. So psychopaths are the overarching umbrella. And then underneath psychopath, there's different divisions of it, and narcissist is one of those that falls under it.
Pete Wright:
I feel like I see them dressed on Halloween all the time because they look like everyone else.
Sherry Gaba:
Well, this year they'll all be Barbie and Ken. So is Ken a narcissist? He could be. I don't know.
Pete Wright:
He's just Ken, Sherry. He's just Ken. Hi, Barbie.
Sherry Gaba:
Hi, Barbie.
Seth Nelson:
Talk about dating a narcissist or being married to one and what does that look like and how do you get yourself out of that and evaluate your own relationship choices?
Sherry Gaba:
Well, the dating part, so I'll give you some red flags. They start out, like we talked about earlier, love bombing, lavishing you with these amazing gifts, making you feel so special. And often codependents or people with low self-esteem are attracted to a narcissist because they want that attention. They thrive on that attention. So it feels so good to them. The narcissist saying things like, "I love everything about you. I've never met anyone as perfect as you. You're the only person I want to spend time with."
And so you're just soaking that in. That's part of the beginning of a narcissistic dating relationship. Controlling behaviors. They want your undivided attention. They don't want you to have friends. They're isolating you. I mean, I went out with one person. I invited them to go to lunch with some other friends of mine, and this person was like, "Why did you invite these other people? This is my time with you. I came all the way out here to be with you. Why are these other people here?"
They're very insecure. They project back onto you their own insecurities. They want to make you feel insecure, so they can be up here and you can be down below here.
Carla Romo:
They also probably talk about their exes too in a way that makes it... It uses manipulation. Oh, I couldn't stand when my ex used to do this or used to do that. So then you feel like, oh gosh, I can't do that. I don't want to be like the ex, because you already have such low self-esteem around it at this point, or your self-esteem is dwindling because of them. So it's also talking poorly about exes. That's a huge red flag. Or, oh, my divorce, it was all her fault, whatever, his fault, whatever going on there too.
Sherry Gaba:
And one of the big telltale signs is boundaries. As soon as you try to set a boundary, they're not going to have it. You cannot set a boundary. They're going to get very angry, very rageful. And then finally, just looking at yourself, are you giving up parts of yourself? Are you losing parts of yourself? Are you no longer taking care of yourself? Have you lost your self-care habits? You're not going to the gym anymore. You're not getting together with your friends. You're literally trying to turn yourself in a pretzel for this person for them to love you.
Seth Nelson:
And I like that one probably the best because it's totally internal looking and you know how you were before being in this relationship, and you can compare and contrast that to how you are now. So you don't have to be like, well, giving him the benefit of the doubt. He was just wanting to spend time with me, like making the excuses to kind smooth over what might be red flags. Mixing metaphors there. But if you look at yourself, you can certainly say, "Yeah, I'm not going to the gym as much. What's going on there?"
Sherry Gaba:
Right.
Pete Wright:
The question that comes to mind though is what does it take to learn that? Because it seems to me like when you start talking about some of the insidious digs, the things that start to shape your behavior as a result of this relationship, what are the long-term impacts of being in a relationship with a narcissist on you, right? Because I imagine it's pretty easy to get lost in the changes that have been made to your own behavior before you even recognize it happened.
Carla Romo:
Yeah, and that's actually something that's really big. Your friends or family or even coworkers that know you well will notice these changes before you probably do yourself. They'll start to maybe say, "Hey, I'm concerned, or this seems weird." You start to make excuses for them because it's part of the denial process of what they were, what their potential is, or you're so afraid if there's codependency and things like that or self-esteem at stake that you're so afraid of being alone that you're like, "I'm willing to do anything to salvage this."
However, when you get to that point, it's loss of self, low self-esteem, no confidence, you're second guessing yourself, isolation from friends and family, not making choices for yourself, zero boundaries, any type of hobbies or interests are just thrown out the door. I mean, this is really the bottom of it. You might even be physically ill, that can also happen, the stress.
Sherry Gaba:
PTSD. Most people that have been in narcissistically abusive relationships have PTSD. I mean, PTSD isn't just from a tsunami or a divorce or earthquake. I mean, you can actually get PTSD by being abused, of course.
Pete Wright:
Of course, yeah. Well, let's talk about the flip side of being in a relationship with somebody, and that's getting out of a relationship with a narcissist, right? How do you get out of it? How do you excise yourself from a relationship? In our case, divorce, that has to be, it seems to me, a very threatening loss of control for the narcissist.
Carla Romo:
And it is. Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
All right, that's a wrap.
Pete Wright:
We won the podcast.
Seth Nelson:
We'll fix it in post-production. That's what Andy always says.
Pete Wright:
Right, right.
Sherry Gaba:
I mean, that is the worst when you abandon them. And then what they're going to do is, the thing you have to watch out for is the hoovering techniques.
Pete Wright:
Okay, what is hoovering?
Sherry Gaba:
They're going to try to start sucking you in again. They're going to go back to what they were doing in the beginning, the love bombing. So you being with the narcissist, oh my God, they're acting like they were when I first met them. Oh, I love this. They're sending flowers. Oh, he's back. The crazy making is the trauma bond that is created when you're with a narcissist. You're addicted to the up and down, and now they're suddenly throwing you a bone or throwing you a carrot, and now you're like, oh, he's back.
So you got to be really careful of that. That's why they talk about no contact. If you really want to leave this person and you know this is a really unhealthy relationship, you must go no contact. If you have children, of course, and you can probably talk about this, Pete and Seth, co-parenting stuff is a little different, but there are techniques even when you're co-parenting to have as little contact as possible with the narcissist.
Seth Nelson:
Well, that's the thing in a divorce that makes it harder than if you're not married is... If you're not married, hopefully you can get your shit and leave, right? If you're not on the lease, you move out. You just block them on social media. You do what you can not to have any contact.
Sherry Gaba:
Absolutely.
Seth Nelson:
If you have to get a divorce, there is going to be contact one way or the other. Because if you're in court, they'll be sitting there. If there's a deposition, they'll be sitting there. If they're at a mediation, they'll be in the building. They might be in another room, but they're there. That's the problem that happens in divorce. And if you are communicating with them, they will use that fear in trying to gaslight you and change the topic of, if you do this, you'll have nothing. I'll kick you out on the street. You'll have no money.
They will tell you what they want to say about the outcome of the case to get what they want, not because it's true. They will also tell you that anybody else other than them does not have your best interest at heart. Oh, that lawyer's just saying that to run up fees. That lawyer doesn't care about you and doesn't have our kids' interest at hand. That lawyer has 30 cases. How could they possibly care? They just go on and on and on, and that causes problem after problem.
Sherry Gaba:
That's why you have to limit the discussions with them. I mean, if you're not just talking about when your son coming over, your daughter's coming over, why do you have to have these... You don't have to justify. You don't have to explain. You don't have to defend. You don't have to have these conversations. Just talk about custody stuff. I mean, I don't know. You're more the expert in that area.
Pete Wright:
Well, and this was my question. We've talked about parallel parenting a lot, which seems like the strategy for dealing with a narcissist, but also impossible to do with a narcissist. And I'm wondering, Seth, how these relate. Is this a high jump, low ceiling kind of a matchup when we're talking about no contact in parallel parenting?
Seth Nelson:
Oh yeah, absolutely. It's very, very difficult, especially if you're in litigation, because one of the things in Florida, check your local jurisdiction, is do you have a united front when it comes to the children? How do you do that if you're not communicating, right? So they're like, well, I have to talk to them because the court's looking at whether I talk to them, I'm bending over backwards, and they go on and on and on.
Sherry Gaba:
But talk to them with one of those...
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, OurFamilyWizard, TalkingParents, we've talked about some other ones, so you can have it, but there's still that communication. And one of the things that we've talked about, Pete, that I work with my clients on and we do here at NLG is that we will help teach our clients how to communicate more effectively with their soon to be ex-spouse or their already ex-spouse, whatever it is, so we can get through all the "crazy" and get to the issues.
And when an email or communication through these apps and online platforms come through and it's just white noise, you just don't respond. You say thank you for your information.
Sherry Gaba:
You don't engage. You don't engage. You try to keep it really short. You can have a separate email address, a separate phone just for the ex, so you're not constantly being bombarded by emails. I mean, they have to know that this will be a special email, special cell phone, so I don't have to hear from you all the time. I'm only going to hear from you over here so I can have my regular life over here, because otherwise, you're going to constantly be triggered.
Pete Wright:
Well, that's it, right? It feels like when I'm thinking about what would be triggering behavior to a narcissist, it would be you're taking actions to limit, to put a wall up around the communication that is allowed from somebody who just wants to have all the communication and have it be all about them.
Seth Nelson:
So Carla, I got a question for you on this about what Pete's talking about. Is doing that kind of triggering them? And I'm not defending them. But if narcissists can come about from abandonment and now we're abandoning, they now get triggered, but ultimately you have to protect yourself. Do I have that right, Carla?
Carla Romo:
Yes. So here's the thing, I actually always like to make this point. If there's been domestic violence going on, the most dangerous time to leave is to leave in the relationship, whether that's you're deciding to get divorced or you're literally coming up with a plan with hopefully a therapist or a friend who can help you literally escape your situation because of that trigger. They try to control. I mean, you can look at statistics speaking of murder rates that happen because after somebody has left domestic violence situation, and a lot of times that's due to narcissism.
But I will say this, you cannot control the narcissist. There's nothing you can or can't do. You have to look out for yourself. So their trigger is going to be their trigger, and what you need to do is have boundaries and safety protocols in place in case it gets out of hand or gets out of control, and that's how you protect yourself. So yes, pulling away in the sense of not answering or blocking them and doing things like that is going to spiral them. Yeah, 100. But that's because they already have that.
It's not a doing of your own, right? You've got to protect yourself and look out for you. Like I said, having the safety protocols, having people you trust there to help you through it is going to be key.
Pete Wright:
It seems like what you're talking about is the start, the step one on recovery from being in a relationship with a narcissistic personality. Say you get all that action in order. You get all of your ducks in a row, and you admit to the fact that you've been in a relationship with a narcissist and now you need to move on. You've got the burner phone. You've got all the things you need. What does it look like to make yourself whole again after a relationship like this?
Carla Romo:
Well, I always talk about self-love because this saying you might've heard before, but it's true, the most important relationship you're ever going to have is the relationship with yourself. And self-love is a complete journey. And so it's starting to really build up yourself again and what that looks like. And it's a journey, so it's not just a quick fix.
There's not just a magic program that you can buy and boom, everything's great again. But it can start with getting help, going to somebody like Sherry, who's a psychotherapist, who's licensed, working through the trauma, hiring a coach to start building out your life again in terms of how you define self-care, what are your interests.
Seth Nelson:
Get back in the gym, working out, all those things you gave up.
Carla Romo:
Yes, all of that. Yeah, finding yourself.
Sherry Gaba:
And often you're probably a codependent, so you can find some 12 step meetings on codependency, looking at why do I keep getting into these relationships? Why do I keep thinking I can fix, manipulate, and change someone?
Seth Nelson:
Why do people do that? We all do it. Why do we do that?
Sherry Gaba:
It starts in childhood. If you felt invisible, if you were neglected or abused or abandoned, you're going to end up being attracted to that kind of person. Not always. I mean, anybody can bump into a narcissist. Some of the most successful people in the world can end up with a narcissist, but often it's usually because you felt invisible. You didn't know what your preferences were. You don't know what you want.
And so then you meet someone and it looks all good on the outside. You're attracted to what you know. If you've been hurt growing up, neglected, like I said, abandoned, had parents who were addicts, alcoholics, that's what you're usually going to be attracted to. So you got to start learning how to be attracted to not the fast and furious, not the crazy bad boy, bad girl, which is a whole other topic in and of itself.
Seth Nelson:
I was like, I felt like you just opened up a can of worms on that one. I almost started laughing. Pete's eyes lit up like, "Here we go."
Pete Wright:
You got to look around you, Seth, and wonder, somebody said bad boy and they're all laughing, maybe they're talking about me.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, exactly. Because when they see me, that's what people think, Pete.
Carla Romo:
Uh-oh, watch out. It's Seth and Pete again.
Seth Nelson:
There you go. With our motorcycles. Not to stereotype anybody.
Pete Wright:
Oh my God.
Sherry Gaba:
We got a lot of that in Central Florida.
Carla Romo:
Well, I was going to say, now the bad boy type is... Instagram has a lot of like... Okay, I'm about to go into whole other subject, but follows all the women on Instagram and is liking all their photos and then totally is posting all photos of himself and how cool he is.
Pete Wright:
That's the modern bad boy.
Carla Romo:
That's a modern day bad boy.
Pete Wright:
Instagram bad boy.
Seth Nelson:
What you just described to me, maybe it's just because I'm old, that just sounded exhausting.
Pete Wright:
It's totally exhausting. It got me too. Oh god.
Seth Nelson:
How do I get that done before I get in bed at 8:00? I don't know.
Pete Wright:
As this episode drops, we've just passed the high holy days of my birthday, but that's not what I want to talk about. What I really want to talk about is holidays as we get to wrapping up. Holidays are hard. I'm curious in your experience and what you've learned over the years of talking about it on your podcast, what's triggering for the narcissist in the holidays, especially as you are on the far side of a relationship?
Sherry Gaba:
It's not about you. It's about the kids. It's about having a party. You're busy. How holidays are, you're stressed out. You're no longer getting all the attention, meaning the narcissist. That is the biggest trigger.
Seth Nelson:
So is that family time? You're going to the Thanksgiving table and dinner. Does a narcissist hate that because it's about everyone else other than them or everyone collectively?
Sherry Gaba:
Yes.
Carla Romo:
Yeah. Because if you've been in a relationship or married to a narcissist, think back to your holidays, think back to even your vacations. At some point, I bet there was some kind of blowout fight or something big that happened because it was no longer about them. They got upset and the focus wasn't on them, so they needed to throw their fit or whatever to have everybody look at them and the attention was on them because nobody else could be happy. The narcissist doesn't actually care about being with the family. The narcissist cares about being the center of the attention.
Sherry Gaba:
And they're moody. They're so moody. They could be excited for the vacation, and you're driving, and you're holding hands. And then you walk into the hotel and they throw a fit because it's not the room that they thought they were going to have. I mean, they're so unpredictable. It's crazy making. And that, again, is the trauma bond and that's what keeps you stuck, because you keep hoping for that honeymoon phase again. You keep hoping for them to be sweet and charming. They're awfully charming. Ask anybody who's been with a narcissist. They're so charming until they're not.
Pete Wright:
Until right up to that point. Because Carla brought it up and because I'm feeling old too, how do narcissists use and manipulate social media? What do you need to be looking out for if you're in a relationship with the social media narcissist?
Carla Romo:
Okay, I'm just going to use this as an example. Anybody that you see who looks like they have the perfect life and perfect family and relationship on social media is probably hiding something. There's probably more to it. Now, if things seem genuine and great, okay, but when you see certain posts and there's all these comments and it's like this whole facade really that's going on. So a lot of times people who are with narcissists, the narcissist wants everything to look perfect on the outside.
So they might post pictures of their partner and make them seem like the hero, like, oh, I found this perfect person. Then they're getting all the praise, wow, you really are so amazing. I'm so happy for you. Their partner is this little toy, figure that's kind of like, "Hey, look at me. I've got a trophy here," in that sense, or also another way is that this person is cheating on you in some kind of capacity, starting out emotionally on social media. DMing other women, getting on dating apps while the other person is in...
Like I said, this doesn't have to be a narcissist. There's lots of infidelity and things like that that go on in relationships, but these are some pretty big signs, using dating apps as a way to meet people, talk to people, have affairs while also being in a relationship.
Sherry Gaba:
Remember, the narcissist needs narcissistic supply. They need attention. So when you start figuring out who they are and they realize, "Uh oh, I've been caught. She knows now," they're going to start looking for attention elsewhere. And so Carla's absolutely right, they're going to start going on social media apps. They may not even be necessarily cheating physically, but they're looking for attention wherever they can get it.
Carla Romo:
This is also another sign. If you're on Instagram and somebody who's got a partner or wife or whatever is always liking and commenting on your stuff, that's odd. There's something odd there, right? And so that person wants that attention. I'm not saying they're a narcissist, but that can be narcissistic behaviors.
Pete Wright:
I cannot tell you how much I love narcissistic supply. That term framed everything for me.
Sherry Gaba:
Attention whore is what it is.
Pete Wright:
Right, totally. You got to get your fix. You got to figure out where your next hit's coming from.
Sherry Gaba:
My dog must need narcissistic supply. My dog needs so much attention. She just needs so much petting and loving. Never thought of that. My dog could be a narcissist.
Seth Nelson:
Dogs are narcissists.
Pete Wright:
They're totally narcissists.
Seth Nelson:
So here's the thing I'm a little confused about, and I will confess, admit, acknowledge any one of those words you want to pick, is, Carla, a lot of stuff that you just described, I always think that everyone feels like they have a great Facebook life. Everything's wonderful and great. Some people post bad things that happen and people are liking shit all the time. And I'm like, why do you like that? And they're like, oh, and then they tell me something that I don't really listen to.
Carla Romo:
It's the motive for posting that you want to look out for. What's the motive for somebody posting? Sure, everybody likes validation. That's what social media does. People go there, whatever. But a lot of times narcissists will make it look like they curate an image. The motive is that we have this perfect life. Look how amazing I am as a husband or as a wife or as a partner, whatever, and they post things to get that validation.
Sherry Gaba:
And so does the partner though.
Carla Romo:
Well, that's the thing,
Sherry Gaba:
The person with the narcissist has to kind of own their part. They know they have a crappy relationship, but I'm going to look good. I'm going to post on Facebook. Things are great. Meanwhile, they're miserable, but they want everything to look good as well.
Seth Nelson:
This is actually interesting because I've used this in court before and it's now fallen on deaf ears with the judges. And I think this has a lot to do with the arc of social media and how our society changes. And I'll give you another example as well. At first, people would bash my client in court and I'd be like, look at what you're saying to the world on social media, how wonderful and great they are. And now judges are like, yeah, that's bullshit. Everyone says great things on social media.
So that argument kind of fails a little bit now because we're just attuned to it. We almost know that it's a bullshit life that people are posting. And another example that I had a long time ago when I was trying cases, the father did not have a landline. And I made a big deal in court about, well, how is your kid going to dial 911? Where do you put your cell phone in the middle of the night? Up on the nightstand. Is it always in the same space? Did you tell him where it is? Oh my God, he can't reach the top of the dresser. That doesn't fly in court anymore because no one has landline.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right, right.
Seth Nelson:
Right? So it's just how things change, and I've seen that in social media where I think a lot of people don't believe what's posted.
Carla Romo:
Fascinating.
Pete Wright:
One of the things that's so interesting as an outcome of that is it lets the narcissists hide.
Carla Romo:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Right? Because we're all doing it in some way, shape, or form. And that's why these red flags are so important. That's why looking at patterns of posting and liking and the way those patterns take shape over time are so interesting because it's all just another mask.
Carla Romo:
Seth, I have to say, it actually feels really good that people are seeing past the bullshit on social media, because I mean, I see past it, right? I look at this and I'm like... I don't know if that's because I do a lot of work with people in regards to insecurities and what's really going on in people's lives, and they're not going to just post that. They're going to talk about it in a coaching session, but they're not just going to post about it. But I think it's good that people can see through that, whereas I don't know if everybody does though.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, I don't know. We call it here in the office, oh, they have a great Facebook life.
Carla Romo:
I love it.
Sherry Gaba:
That's funny. That's really great.
Seth Nelson:
Right. We say it on a Thursday. I'm like, oh, I got a potential client. Yeah, I know that person and they have a great Facebook life, but down beneath, we see what's going on. And we only see the tip of that iceberg of what's really happening. Underneath that water is not always very good.
Pete Wright:
You guys are fantastic.
Carla Romo:
Thank you. You guys are awesome.
Sherry Gaba:
Thank you for having us.
Pete Wright:
You both are doing so much stuff. Each of you are doing so much stuff. I don't even know... I almost feel like I should make it a game, like let you guess what the other wants to plug, or do you just want to plug the show? I'm going to let you go for it. Carla, where do you want to send people to hear about your stuff?
Carla Romo:
Go to thelovefix.com. That's thelovefix.com. We've got a group coaching program. We also have a really awesome freebie which is, Are My Relationships Healthy? It's a quiz. And with that quiz, there's also a workbook that goes along with it. And then our podcast is out everywhere, The Love Fix. You can listen anywhere.
Sherry Gaba:
Yeah, we are just going to promote The Love Fix today.
Carla Romo:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Well, look at you guys. It's fantastic. Well, I'll tell you what, we're going to put the links to all of your stuff.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, Pete, that's the tip of the iceberg.
Pete Wright:
That's the tip of the iceberg.
Seth Nelson:
Now, there's a lot of shit going on elsewhere. It's not bad though. It's not bad.
Carla Romo:
It's not bad. It's all good.
Sherry Gaba:
If you want to look up our names, that's fine. Go ahead.
Carla Romo:
Yeah, Sherry's got an awesome website. She does therapy and coaching, and I do coaching with clients as well. You guys can find us individually as well, but check out The Love Fix because we got an awesome coaching program there.
Pete Wright:
Sure do, and the podcast is great. Subscribe. Show Carla and Sherry some love there. Thank you guys so much for hanging out. Thank you everybody for downloading and listening to this fair show. We sure appreciate your time and your attention. And don't forget, you can ask a question. If you want to get your questions in on the show for Seth or our guests, just head over to howtosplitatoaster.com, hit the submit question button.
It's right there. It'll come to us. We'll talk about you on the show. We sure appreciate that. On behalf of Sherry Gaba and Carla Romo of The Love Fix Podcast and Seth Nelson, America's favorite divorce attorney, I'm Pete Wright, and we'll see you next week right here on How to Split a Toaster, a Divorce Podcast about saving your relationships.
Outro:
How to Split a Toaster is part of the TruStory FM Podcast Network, produced by Andy Nelson. Music by T. Bless & the Professionals and DB Studios. Seth Nelson is an attorney with NLG Divorce and Family Law with offices in Tampa, Florida. While we may be discussing family law topics, How to Split a Toaster is not intended to, nor is it providing legal advice.
Every situation is different. If you have specific questions regarding your situation, please seek your own legal counsel with an attorney licensed to practice law in your jurisdiction. Pete Wright is not an attorney or employee of NLG Divorce and Family Law. Seth Nelson is licensed to practice law in Florida.
