Are you embarrassed and ashamed to socialize with Npartner?

[clara]

Is anyojne hear married to an Npartenr with whom they hate socializing with?

My husband is just awful to be with in the company of others.  He brags, gives lectures, and (what bothers me the most) he tells stupid jokes and tehn laughs at them.  Or maybe the worst part is that he puts me down in a "humourous" way. He even jumps into conversations that have nothing to do with him. If someone asks something about MY work, of course HE is the one withthe expertise to answer.

I've been married to this man for 20 years.  I didn't see his terrible socializing skills as bad as most people would see them, because this is what my parents were like, and that's what I knew.

Unfortunately, I used to be very similar. Like my parents and my husband, I used to do teh same obnoxious thins with friends.  And like my parents, I could make friends easily and quickly enough, I just couldn't keep them.

Well, except for my husband. He stuck with me, but it all makes sense now.

The other reason that I could emotioannly tolerate Nhusband's rude behavior was that I was so lonely. For years I worked out of my home, and latched onto any opportunity I could get to mingle with otherrs (usually we just socialized for his social functions at work).

Nhusband is not ugly, does not stink, is not declasse, or any of the other traditional reasons that may cause embarrassed for spouses.  He is just socially self-absorbed and insecure.

I think his social idiocy bothers me now more than ever because my social skills have come so far, and so I don't need to socialize with him his office to see people (I also have a job outside of home).  Also, I have tried sharing what I have been learning about friendship skills and convesational skills.

I have pointed out to him that the reason I have close freinds now is that I have changed (hint, hint!!).  I have blatantly called him on times when he dyssed me in front of friends or answered for me (I tell him in private). He seems to "get it" on these obvious infractions, but he still does them!

Bottom line from my heart is that I am embarrassed to be seen with such a social loser.  I would never host a social function for my work because of him. I feel like I would lose respect or look like a loser myself if people at work ever met him.  My favourite socializing is with my friends, without Nhusband.

My question:  Does anyone think that it is narcissistic of me to feel ashamed and embarrassed when going out with my husband?  Am I erroneously seeing him as an extension of myself?  Is it wrong to be disappointed in someone who makes us look bad in front of others (after all, perhaps I should just be concerned about how I make myself look in front of others, and let himself take care of himself.) Should I really care about how he behaves with others?  Has anyone else worked through these feelings?  Would love your thoughts and feelings.

[mary]

My husband is just awful to be with in the company of others.  He brags, gives lectures, and (what bothers me the most) he tells stupid jokes and tehn laughs at them.  Or maybe the worst part is that he puts me down in a "humourous" way. He even jumps into conversations that have nothing to do with him. If someone asks something about MY work, of course HE is the one withthe expertise to answer.


I have been married to an N for 33 years and only recently have found out that he is an N.  The way you describe your husband could be me describing mine.  I don't have any answers for you but  as the years go by I just don't care to go out with people very much anymore.  It is not pleasant and sometimes it is embarassing  for me   We have always had to have older people than we are for friends because it has taken mature people and tolerant people to get along with my husband.


Sadly we are told over and over that they are not going to change.

[Anonymous]

Yes! Clara. i have felt embarrassed and hadn't really focused on it until i read your post and Mary's and realized i hide a lot as a result of avaoiding more embarrassment with J, husband with narcissist traits, and that also i used to hide even before I had a narcissist to embarrass me.  

And i recognize the self questioning about what and who is narcissistic and what and who isn't.  By asking that question of myself i am learning a lot about how i fit in with my husband. And it takes such energy. Know what i mean?  This is work!

Did you see Jim Carry in the Grinch Who Stole Christmas? That scene where the Grinch moans “I am feeling!” was so filled with the angst of braving feelings.  Just what the Narcissist avoids (tries to anyway) via an image!

If and when the Emporer with No Clothes braved the truth about his lack of clothing I bet he felt em-bare-assed!        

Mary, sometimes "tolerating" a N just means someone needs to feel older and wiser.  That is my experience.  I am older than J., my husband with N traits and i have needed to be needed excessively by him. I've aged faster as a result!     Tolerace seems so gratuitous in a way, like "put up with." Perhaps that is the best option some times.  Not sociallizing due to embarrassment was a sort of incubation for me perhaps, and you?  I got some strength, some private clarity with which to go out and face the world again and yet too i may have prolonged the shame and have been hiding.

Embarrassing moment:  J., my husband with N traits, scolded a complete stranger for parking in front of J.’s house (half a duplex actually).  It was a public street!  The stranger was parked legally.  J. acted as if the stranger knew it was J.s place and parked with total disregard to J.’s entitled spot!  There are more incidences.  Suffice it to say I see embarrassment as a sign of life.  At least I was aware something was very wrong with the situation.  Was I narcissistic?  If we care what other’s think about us are we Narcissists?  I don’t think so, nor do I feel so.  We are social beings.  It does matter what others think.  I am begining to see embarrassment as similar to guilt – early detection warning signs not truths.  That is on a good day when I have time.  Otherwise, I just react as if the guilt or embarrassment or whatever is true instead of a sign to be explored and felt through.

I also sat through a lunch with my "mom" (very part time title) who i hadn't seen in 20 years and her new husband.  Narcissist extrodinare! And i was surprised she wasn't apparently embarrassed at his arrogance and saddened by his insulting her in indirect ways such as questioning her joke. (he interrigated her about each part of the joke.  It was a laborious way of insulting.  worth it though for him because had he been direct i or my husband (or even my mom perhaps) would have called him on it directly as it was we looked on stunned and confused and then J. (remember he is a "narcissist" too, just different degree) made an indirect yet confrontational comment to my mom's new husband.  Aggressiveness aimed at her AND comming to her defense.  That is part of the attraction to a narcissist perhaps.  Mine too?  Thats another topic.  She did not appear embarrassed.  

As i started discovering the Narcissist/Echo issue this last month (lived it for years just didn't have a name for it until now) N's started coming out of the woodwork of my past and present.  Eeee Gads!  THEY are everywhere.  I hear it in song lyrics, see it in my culture (the US),  even the clouds breezing by in the sky started looking like big N's!      

I even discovered a little one in me.    Not as fully developed as my husband's narcissism and yet my "looser" judgments of myself are the exact inverted replica of his "grandiosity".  Hand in glove, the photo and its negative etc. etc.  It is an all or none perspective.  His is the ALL mine is NONE.  We are like some waked out seasaw!  Let me off!  

And, what is Narcissistic AND ECHOistic (what I call my correlate to his Narcissism) is the either/or, good/bad, impersonal judgment that I carry inside and therefore believe IS “the world”, world of other people, world of work, etc.  So I assume other’s judge me as “a looser” and I hide out.  Meanwhile, J. puts up a proactive, preventative shield, his false image to guard against that judging world before it gets a chance to “attack” him.   He and I share a worldview and we just react very differently.  I get embarrassed   he gets even   , often before any judgement has occured. We are both seeing ghosts, running from our shadows.  I am aiming for realizing (feeling not just thinking) that yes I am not with the man I would be with IF I had known myself better (felt myself better is more accurate but that sounds kinda weird. LAUGH ) AND that is who I was and I can’t hide that I was the person who married him and was once mostly numb to his antics and to myself.  Often I just want to get away and start all over.  But as the Narcissist knows too well, where ever I go there I am meaning we can’t run from who we are, no image can protect us, no mate can absolve us.  I am not saying stay with him.  I am just suggesting that a deeper look is a good salve for narcissism and its accomplices.

If I am embarrassed and I feel empathy for the stranger who was sort of accosted out of the blue unjustly, and empathy for the desperateness lurking deep inside j. and for myself for being a women who is changing and growing and who may be growing out of where I was then I don’t believe I am being narcissistic.  If I feel, ok well J. is being sad and silly and annoying and I am going to kindly ask what is going on with him and then move on (and perhaps move out.) then I am also not being Echoistic.  That means too that I empathize with the stranger’s ability to move on and shake it off.  They can and will just walk away from the situation.  I can walk away from the situation too.

My fear has often been that I might see people later when and if I have left J. and they’ll still see me as the old me.  Like I am locked into a life I can’t get out of.  It is, I am too late.  I fear I will loose the opportunity to be with other people I’d rather be with.  So I am either using j. since I am staying and don’t want to be with him (has been true and is not the case right now) and/or I am imagining that in my potential new life if i leave my old life will be invisible.  I imagine that is all or none thinking AND I still feel that way often.  

glad to be in the company of you all who are braving questions and feelings!  

take care, read ya later...

[Acappella]

That last post was from me - i'd been logged out and didn't know it.

[Karin]

Hi Clara,
Once again you seem to have echoed me and my soon to be exN husband. I have also wondered about the same thing, whether it was just me being picky about his social mores, why was I embarrased for him, etc.? I noticed it fairly early on in our relationship and in hindsight it should have been a huge warning sign. The thing is, our adult children (and others) are also embarrased by his social behaviour now, so it's not just me. In a healthy relationship, you should not be embarrased by what someone else does, indicating of-course that N's simply don't know how to behave. When they transgress negatively into your world, then you have to make choices and stand up for yourself. Clara, I get the feeling that you're still trying to change him; you won't. Of-course he's responsible for himself. It has taken me a long time to realise that for myself.
Nurture yourself and those that genuinely need it!

[annabelle]

Yes Clara, I have often been embarrassed socializing with my N husband.  And, in my opinion, there's nothing narcissistic about this embarrassment!  Here's how it is...........................

Either he's off by himself not talking to anyone - if there are kids there, he'll be playing with our kids and nobody else - if there are just adults, sometimes he'll just sit in a chair and not talk to anybody.

Or, he's talking on and on and on about his business, himself, and not reciprocating questions about the others in the conversation.

If we're at a party where he knows anyone, he ditches me from the get go, even if I don't know anyone there.  He tells me this is bc he sees me all the time, and bc he's so proud I can hold my own.  He never comes over and "checks in" with me.  I am not clingy by any means, I just hate feeling invisible to him when we're out together (as well as when we're by ourselves).

One particularly disappointing and embarrassing time, a few months after we were married, he spent the whole time at a friend's wedding flirting wtih and dancing with another woman - his family friend's little sister.  

I have found that going places and to parties alone can be more fun and more satisfying for me.  
Good luck to you!

[cindy]

I was complaining about my (then) Nhusband to a friend.  He would do practically anything to call attention to himself, then he'd do these really inappropriate things.  He went through a booger picking time - always at his eyes and nose.  When I complained to a friend, saying I didn't want him known around town as the booger man, she put it all in perspective.  She said, "Just as long as you're not known as wife of boogerman."  LOL.

[Kate]

Dearest Clara,

YES!!!!!!!

About twice a year my N-husband decides to change his professional appearance, and look like Captain Hook.
He grows out his curly hair, spends about 4 months looking like Albert Einstein before he can put it in a ponytail. Now try to envision this....
He's 49 years old, salt and pepper, balding in his crown, has a walrus like mustache, and wears cowboy clothes.
He belongs to a 'Mountain Man' re-enactors club. So his excuse is....I'm trying to look like my persona...
So sad and strange....

Kate

[bunny]

Clara,

I'd certainly be embarrassed in the company of someone with poor social skills. I'd think it reflected on my choice of companion, and worse, that I condoned this person's behavior. I feel mortified! Is this narcissistic? In a small way. But it's also a survival instinct. We don't want to be socially ostracized if people think, "Oh, do we have to invite her, then her husband will be there!" Even if they like you very much, you may be socially excluded at times because of him. So your fear is not unrealistic.

[clara]

Since I posted this question I have separated from my N-husband.  Sad thing is that since I left him I asked three of my friends how they perceived him, and they all remarked on how frequently he would put me down -- either in front of me or when I left the room.  Oh, he was always dissing me, usually about my spending habits, which were nothing out of the ordinary.  This just makes me cry.  I guess I am receiving the validation that I really was married to someone who had problems, and yet it also throws into question my judgement of people.  On the other hand maybe my judgement is improving since I am finally getting it about how much of a problem my N-husband was.  Gad, I should have left him years ago...