I had the privilege of speaking with Dr. Shami Barathan on her women wellbeing focused podcast about marriage, motherhood, and the fantasies we internalise from the Fairtytale Industrial Complex™. The target audience of this episode are married women and women in committed relationships who struggle in their marriage/relationship with a non-narcissistic man from time to time. This episode is also helpful for men to understand what might be behind husband blaming and their wives’ distress.
I was inspired to write on the topic after reading about the phenomenon of women ending their meh marriages. I had another opportunity to dive more deeply into the source of the distress in this interview with Dr. Shami. I open up about my experiences of marriage, the difficulties embodying my identity as a mother, and what helped me overcome those difficulties.
There isn’t sufficient discussion about matrescence, identity shifts, and the seven year itch beyond being one-off events, when they are necessary components of a maturation process. My hope is that this conversation can spark reflection and discussion about transformative processes that we are invited to enter into throughout a marriage and relationships that involve a long term commitment.
Dr. Shami showcases women who offer wisdom and practical tips on topics such as parenting, physical and mental health, relationships, effective communication and workplace wellbeing on her Six Hats Podcast.
This is probably the most I’ve shared about myself with the intent to illuminate and help women take an honest look at themselves, their expectations of others (and themselves), and consider other options to alleviate distress to salvage their marriages/relationships.
I also describe how distress can make women narcissistic; controlling, domineering, demanding, and entitled while negating important contributions from their spouse/partner.
I hope you enjoyed this conversation. Comment below with your questions about anything we discussed or start a thread in the Hacking Narcissism chat.
Thank you for reading, sharing, commenting, subscribing and supporting my work,
Nathalie
Hack narcissism and support my work
I believe that a common threat to our individual and collective thriving is an addiction to power and control. This addiction fuels and is fuelled by greed - the desire to accumulate and control resources in social, information (and attention), economic, ecological, geographical and political systems.
While activists focus on fighting macro issues, I believe that activism also needs to focus on the micro issues - the narcissistic traits that pollute relationships between you and I, and between each other, without contributing to existing injustice. It’s not as exciting as fighting the Big Baddies yet hacking, resisting and overriding our tendencies to control others that also manifest as our macro issues is my full-time job.
I’m dedicated to helping people understand all the ways narcissistic traits infiltrate and taint our interpersonal, professional, organisational and political relationships, and provide strategies for narcissism hackers to fight back and find peace.
Here’s how you can help.
Order my book: The Little Book of Assertiveness: Speak up with confidence
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Why woman implode their marriages