How To Get Over A Relationship With A Narcissist

• David Tian Ph.D. shares the easiest way to get over a break-up.
• In this Man Up episode, David Tian Ph.D. tell us what we should learn before going back to a narcissist ex.
• If you are attracted to narcissists, David Tian Ph.D. emphasizes that you need to understand your attraction to them first.

David Tian: Boom, stop! I’m David Tian, and in this video, I answer the question: How to get over a relationship with a narcissist. Welcome to Man Up.

Masculinity for the Intelligent Man. I’m David Tian, Ph.D. and this is Man Up!

Hey, welcome to Man Up. I’m David Tian. For over the past 12 years, I’ve been helping hundreds of thousands of people in over 87 countries attain success, happiness, and fulfillment in life and love, and here I am back in my hometown, a suburb of Toronto. It’s Mississauga, Ontario. Beautiful view of a suburb. So, you can see how low-rise all of this is, and it’s interesting to take this view. Anyway, so let’s get into it. A question here from Ahmad from the Man Up Facebook group. Join the Man Up Facebook group. Lots of goodies in there. He asks:

Can you make a podcast? I’m recovering from a female narcissist, and how to spot Cluster B personality disorders. I believe it’s more devastating to men than regular break ups. I experienced it myself and it’s nothing close to any breakup I have had before. Would love to watch you talk about it. Cheers.

This was about a month ago, and he has since been messaging me on private message to remind me to do this. So, I meant to do it and there’s a ton to say. And before I get to him specifically, I want to point out: The quick answer is that the only reason it’s harder for you to get over the break up with your narcissistic partner is because — the whole reason you’re in that relationship is that you are a fixer. Fixers and narcissists and fixers and Cluster B personality disordered people which include sociopaths, narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial, histrionic disorder… They’re all sort of a cluster of basically narcissistic disorders. It’s because you’re a fixer yourself. And if you don’t address your fixerness, your neediness, your neuroticisms, then you’re not going to be able to heal. And there’s a difference between blame and responsibility, and a lot of guys, they just blame. They blame they’re narcissists.

It’s her fault or his fault and I’m blameless. And they’re just trying to get over it, get over being screwed over, basically, and instead of learning from it and making it make you stronger. So, I refer to the DTPHD Podcast. We’ve just done one on being anti-fragile. We’ve done a lot on that theme, a lot of episodes on that theme of taking the failures in your life and learning from them. Because all of the greatest breakthroughs in your life will always be preceded by some kind of ditch in your life, some kind of great confusion, some great breakup, some great tragedy. And if you don’t get out of it by learning from it, then you’ll always just stay there. And a big part of guys thinking, “Oh, a breakup is simply: How do I just forget her?” Instead of, “How do I learn from this?”

That’s the easy answer. The easiest way to get over a breakup is to learn from it, okay? To learn from it, learn lessons from it, and move on, and start applying these lessons. Because then your brain will be like, “Okay, how can I apply these new lessons?” and will be looking for opportunities to apply. Here’s why I know Ahmad has not been learning from his breakup with this narcissist which is… It’s pretty strong of a statement to say that somebody’s a Cluster B disorder. That’s a pretty small minority of the population between one… Normally, in the general population, somewhere around 1 to 5%. In some other parts of the population like Wall Street or in some night clubs, maybe 10 or 20%. But just in general population, it’s like 1 or 5%.

I know why. Because it’s a lot easier to demonize the other person than it is to look at yourself and why you got into that relationship and your fixer tendencies, your white knight tendencies if you’re a male. And here are some examples of why this has not been the case for Ahmad. So, that’s a short answer and I’m going to get into a more detailed answer. Ahmad, about a week before he posted that question wrote, “Hey, guys. I have a second post about my ex. Got this message from my ex after speaking for two hours on the phone two weeks ago.” And then he posts this two weeks after this phone call with screenshots of the text messaging.

You’re not over your ex. I mean, you’re not actually doing any of the breakup recovery. There’s a whole master class I’ve done on how to recover from a breakup. It’s available for free inside the Man Up Facebook group or you can go to… Actually, there’s going to be a link to it right after this video and you just click to that link, or you can find it from any of my home pages, right? So, there’s a free master class on how to recover from a breakup. There’s also one on how to get your ex back. I don’t recommend it if she’s a Cluster B person. Obviously, you don’t want to get back with her. But he is trying, so he’s already… No wonder you’re having such a hard time.

You haven’t addressed your responsibility in this. So, blame and responsibility. You can blame whomever. It might be her fault, you might’ve been abused or whatever, right? So yeah, a lot of the blame goes there for how things worked out, but the responsibility for your life going forward has nothing to do with blame. So, wherever the blame lies, it’s still your responsibility to get up off the floor and move forward. It’s not somebody else’s job to pick you up and for you to get stronger and learn. But here’s the reason, one of the reasons why a lot of guys have trouble getting over relationships, getting over breakups: because they haven’t learned from it.

So, a week before, he posted the question about, “Hey, I’m having such a hard time getting over this narcissist.” He was trying to reach out to her and rekindle shit and gave a shit about that. If you’ve identified her as a narcissist and cluster B, you are done. You’re a fixer. You’re a fixer. That’s a real thing. And because of your fixer mentality, you’ll just keep going back. And it doesn’t matter if you do manage to forget her through some brainwashing, you’re going to get back into a relationship with another cluster B disorder because you haven’t fixed the actual problem. So, if you don’t know what all of this is talking about, narcissist, cluster B, I’ve created a whole other video series. You can start with the video called “Why Game Has Fucked Us Up.”

You can find it through a search, “David Tian why game us up.” So, there it’ll be. And in the beginning of that video, I canvassed and in detail what the clinical psychology research says narcissistic personality disorder is. There’s a whole checklist. An even greater checklist that’s really fun and easy to do is Hare’s checklist. Look up the Hare checklist for psychopathy and I think it’s 21 items that, the more items you check off, the higher likelihood that person is a psychopath, so then you learn to spot it. Here’s an easy example. Psychopaths and narcissists lie a lot.

So, if you’re having trouble spotting and telling whether somebody is lying, you’ve got bigger problems than a break up. So, I’m spotting people who are liars. This is just like a life’s skill, right? Hopefully, you know, you’re getting pretty good at this. Otherwise, hey, there’s an email from Nigeria, you should probably answer. There’s a million dollars waiting for you. So, hopefully, you can… So, if you’re not yet used to, if you’re very naive, you’re getting duped a lot, a great resource is books by Robert Ringer. There are many books as well on just catching you up to speed on the Machiavellian ways of the world. So, Ahmad, a week before was asking, “How do I get this ex back?” “My ex is trying to friendzone me, which is something I cannot accept.” A week before he posted that, “How do I get over her? It’s so difficult.” He’s showing evidence that he is not getting over her at all. He’s trying to get her back, so he hasn’t learned from it but he’s calling her a narcissist, which is scary.

It’s like you’ve termed her a narcissist but you’re still trying to get her back? What the fuck, fixer. And then a week before that, “Hey guys, I’ve been no contact for 75 days,” which sounds like a long time but that’s like two months, just over two months, “After a three years on and off relationship. I reached out to my ex by text first and she was very responsive and happy.” What the fuck? What are you doing? You’re not even following my free course on how to get your ex back because there’s no way that you’re supposed to be reaching out to her after just a measly 75 days. So, Ahmad is doing nothing that I’m teaching and yet says, “Oh, I’ve watched all these videos. David, please do a special video.” No, you don’t deserve it. You haven’t gone through the free course yet. So, get through the…

And in addition to the Why Game is Fucking Us Up video series, right after that video, go watch the Modern Mating Explained video. That explains to you what narcissists are and why you would be attracted to a narcissist. Because if you don’t address that, you’re still going to get attracted to narcissists and that’s why you’re having such a hard time: because you’re still stuck in your own neurosis, that fixer part of you that’s drawn to the narcissist. If you don’t understand that, you’re just going to repeat that pattern. And for me to explain that pattern, that just shows that you haven’t watched those videos. Watch the Modern Mating Explained four-part video series. After you’ve done that, watch the continuing video series called Practical Psychology for Extraordinary Living.

So, this is a three-video series you should watch if you’re interested in this, how to get over a narcissist. A big part is just understanding the psychology of you and why you would be attracted to that. You need to take responsibility for your damn life, not freaking trying to get her back if you’ve already deemed her to be basically evil. So, the first one is Why Game has Fucked Us Up, learn that, and then move to the Modern Mating Explained four-hour video series, and then move to the Practical Psychology four-hour video series. It’s all on my YouTube channels and you can find it on our website and so on. So, that’s the longer answer. I’ve created nine videos, but nine hours to give a detailed answer to this. And also, the Breakup Recovery master class, actually implement it, like please, like actually use it, and then How to Get Over an Ex. Watch that just so you know if you get weak and you want to get your ex back, at least get that right.

So, there’s a reason why I’ve been backing away from the Man Up, because the Man Up episodes are driven by user questions. And sometimes, the user questions aren’t the type of questions that I want to move towards. So, I’ve got a whole other podcast we’ve been doing about a year. It’s called the DTPHD Podcast. If you watch the DTPHD Podcast, you’d get a lot out of it, I recommend that you move to that as well. So, get into that material. Don’t just get stuck in the Q&A style of Man Up. Come check out the DTPHD Podcast.

Alright, got to get moving now. So, thanks so much for watching, and watch those free videos. Get the free video series and I’ll leave you with a view of my hometown. Man Up!