How do I confront a loved one who struggles with narcissism?

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Please realize that some narcissism, it leans toward the threatening, the controlling, and you stay because of fear. Please, in such a situation, you seek help, you ask for help. This particular question is a little bit different. Here is a person who is asking, "How can I speak to this person?" The person is not so much controlled by fear. The person is asking, "Is there something I can do that would be effective and would be helpful?" So it's that particular question that we want to consider briefly. The problem with narcissism is that it can reveal itself very slowly. For example, after a while, you might notice that you find yourself walking very carefully around the other person, always trying to please, but never successfully pleasing, always apologizing, and you begin to notice that this is not like all your other relationships. Sometimes you might hear accusations that include "always" and "never." Well, there's common knowledge here where we know that these are gross exaggerations and oftentimes the gross exaggerations of a person who's defensive.

As your awareness of the problems grow, you begin to realize that you are hearing someone who is acting and living out the life of a child. Perhaps you say something like this, you say, "That was unkind. What you just said was very unkind." And you hear in response, "Well, that's exactly your problem. That's exactly your problem." At some point it's going to strike you that that is the kind of language you hear on a playground. The language where a child would say, "I know you are, but what am I? I know you are, but what am I?" The throwing a comment back towards you and never listening. At a time like this, you begin to dig a little bit deeper. When someone else is always wrong, the person who is pointing the finger will indeed be a stunted child. We learn through our mistakes more than we learn through our successes. Dig a little bit deeper and we recognize that pointing and accusing is really the first obvious consequence of sin in Scripture. On the other hand, asking forgiveness is a sign that you do indeed belong to Christ. Let me bundle these concerns in perhaps a simple way: love listens to what is on another person's heart. Self-centeredness, for example, the self-centeredness of a child, will simply repeat to you that you did not give him or her the ice cream that he or she wanted.

So going back to the question, it's an important, it's a good question. How do you speak to a person who is a narcissist? It's an important question because if you can, you want to be able to say something. This is not going to fade over time. You begin this way: you get ready by standing in the very love and the righteousness and the forgiveness of Jesus Christ to you. Jesus must be this rock. He must be the one who steadies you. He must be the one in whom you have a growing trust. And then as part of getting ready, you also take courage by growing in discernment: what is right and what is wrong? Because it's going to become fuzzy to you. The other person's going to claim to be right. You seem like you're always wrong. How can you have a growing discernment? Perhaps another person will be able to help you with things.

Here's a rule. No yelling. Small emotions. Small emotions, not big ones. Almost as if you're reading a weather report. Large emotions will end up distracting from the words that you're trying to say. So the first thing you do is you prepare yourself, and that is essential to the process of speaking in a way that may possibly be effective. Second thing, assume that the other person has no idea what you are talking about, as if relationships are a foreign language to this person. Assume that they have no idea what you are talking about as if you're speaking a different language. This will help you to be more patient and perhaps more creative in the way that you appeal to the person. For example, let's say that you spoke about something that had been hard in your day to the person and it was thoroughly ignored. You could come back and say something like this: "When I talk about how hard my day has been, some of the things that you could do would be to just stop where you are, to listen. Here's one: you could even pray for me. Or you could simply ask, what was it that was so hard?" You could say something like this. "When you love someone, when they say something is hard, you stop and you try to listen. Perhaps you say, I'm that you had a hard day."

We're further in. "There are times when you have had hard days, but it's been hard for you to talk about it. It's hard for you to talk about your fears and your sadness. Perhaps you are concerned you would feel too weak if you said those things. Instead, did you know that when you speak about the things that are hard in your life, it's a way of drawing me closer? But oftentimes your words during those hard times are words that accuse and push me away."

These are just samples of how do you communicate to someone where relationships are a foreign language? The third thing: don't argue, don't defend. You can say something like this, if the person is arguing or attacking: "Please just try to listen to me. If I'm unclear, ask me to help you understand. Please, if you could try to listen." And then you return to what you know. Perhaps you ask how you can pray for the person. "How can I pray for you?" And you yourself, you insist that the Spirit gives you strength as you stand in the love of Christ. You stand in his righteousness rather than your own, and you know of your forgiveness of sins in Jesus.