What is Success?
My last article may have prompted ‘results-focused learners’ to ask, “If I shouldn’t focus on results then what is success?”
This is a good question that I hope I can answer clearly today.
To get an objective viewpoint on this, some time ago I asked my good friend Dallas Fell (who has a PhD in behavioural psychology) to tell me honestly whether I should claim our program will give anyone who seriously applies it positive results.
Dallas said, “Kim, I would say that anyone who made a serious attempt at applying even one of the skills you offer in “Back From the Looking Glass” or “The Love Safety Net Workbook”, couldn’t help but see a positive change in their life.”
There is a Catch
Over time I have come to see there is possibly a catch with this however and I want to be upfront about what that is here and now.
After thinking long and hard about this I believe the problems some people come across with our program might be helped if you understand this:
When I first started applying these new habits to my life I had no idea that they would eventually soften Steve’s heart.
I had determined I was going to be victorious in taking my life to a better place—but my focus was not really on Steve.
Instead, my goals looked more like this . . .
a. Regaining my sense of self to the point where my children could get to know who I really was (instead of the sad miserable person I had become).
b. Not allowing Steve to hurt me anymore (without us separating).
c. Becoming financially independent.
In the end, Steve did come to love and respect me better and slowly we have built better trust between us – but in a sense, I had actually let go of that as a goal before I got that result.
I talked about this in part 1 about letting go of the perfect picture we hold in our mind.
I decided to start doing what was right for myself and the kids whether Steve liked it or not. Further, if he reacted badly and tried to stop me, I would no longer be frightened of calling in outside help.
I believe it is this different focus that can cause problems for some people when they approach our work.
Seeing how Steve and I interact now – it’s easy for people who need our help to simply focus on wanting that result.
That may be possible, sure, but like any journey, you need to be focused on the steps ahead more than focusing on the distant goal.
Respect and trust are things that can only be built over time and will not happen overnight. It will be difficult for you to learn to become more emotionally self sufficient (which is vital) if your focus is only on building a loving rapport.
Most of all our program is a journey of self-discovery as you learn how to regulate your limbic system that governs your emotions and at the same time begin accessing your own source of inner balance, happiness and joy.
I admit that sometimes that place of inner balance and joy can be hard to find and staying connected with it requires ongoing dedication and faith.
I only just realised recently that in the past three months I have allowed a couple of people in close proximity to my life steal my joy.
One is a neighbour in our apartment who took over the body corporate committee that governs our building and then proceeded to level our apartments shared garden down to bare earth.
Sadly that garden was where I found my connection to joy, and now every time I have to walk past it and see the barren wasteland it has become—I feel furious at my neighbour and like a part of me has died.
So right now I am using my own tools and strategies to deal with setting the current power imbalance in our apartment block right.*
But if I ever hope to succeed, first I need to rediscover my own previously hard-won truths.
The first being that because I feel someone has stolen my happiness, it is time to dig deep and rediscover that my only true connection with joy lies within myself.
I cannot promise you will find the relationship Steve and I have.
Many people write to us and say that our work has helped them find this with their partner and many others write and say that we helped them find the strength to move on.
Ending the conflict and finding the confidence and trust in yourself that you will be okay either way, to me is the real sign of success.
Part 3 – When Magic Scissors Don’t Work
* Updating this story 2 years later—Steve and I eventually left that apartment and now manage a Motel where we have a lot more security and influence in the decisions that are made 🙂 How we landed that position with no experience in Motel management is a long story but had everything to do with the skills we teach 🙂
— A further 5-year update! The motel job ended up a bad deal for us financially in the end which took all of our resources to escape from. We did however continue learning from the process! We now manage 4 large houses (in a row in the same street) as private accommodation. We have long leases and good relationships with the owners. We have less work and much better returns than the motel provided. Our experience working at the motel made this all possible. The relationship skills we have learned (and taught) have also helped create a very stable and productive community of tenants 🙂
This is so good. I found the exact same thing to be true for me. I focused on a better rapport for years so I cooked his favorite foods, did his laundry, put soap in the shower for him, made sure he never lacked for anything, etc. It did nothing to help our rapport except make him demanding and me a slave to his wants. I lost who I was. That was my fault because it was my choice to become the slave. It works to take an honest look at yourself and see who you really are and find things you LIKE about yourself. That is not a sin – it is emotionally healthy. So much teaching – even by the church – has told wives if they love more, help more, please more etc. then the husband will become the man, leader, husband, and father he should be. I am here to tell you it does not work that way. A MAN HAS TO MAKE THE SAME CHOICES AS THE WIFE FOR IT TO WORK … He has to step up to the plate and take an honest look at himself and see what might need some help and get that help. None of us are perfect because none of our parents were perfect and this world is not a perfect place to live. When we set our goals on reality, we can attain them. If we are striving for the dream world of “perfect” we will fail.
Thank you so much for sharing honestly from your lives. It has helped me so much…
Thanks Debbie, You are exactly right. In my case I had to stop trying to fix Steve and let him know that if he didn’t start taking an honest look at himself and start working on the things he needed to, I was going to be forced to start letting other people know he needed help. Not because I was ready to throw our marriage under the bus – but because I cared about him and about us!!!
The ingredient you offer which is different is that it is not necessary to cut a partner or anyone else from ones life WHILE one seeks to change the learned patterns within oneself which exacerbate the lack of trust and emotional stupidity that prevents communication and understanding. It is right in a way to love more and to try to harder to consider other peoples feelings etc so when ones efforts to do that return with being despised and called a slave then it is bewildering and leads one to think it is something fundamental about oneself that is unloveable or if flight is the chosen option then one turns this outward and blame ones partner – often for very real things which one has formerly understood and now view as further evidence to oneself of how unworthy one is to have wanted to understand – then we think it is them and if we run all will be well. But instead the co dependence steps in and nothing is well . So this teaches us that it is neither us or them but engrained habits which block the paths to communication. We want more love and develop a pain in our back which might have brought us our mothers kindness but turns the world and our partner cold. But we don’t have to destroy all relationships to learn that we need to take care of ourselves until the pain in the back is just a fact not a claim for affection. And a gift might be that our partner seeing us change and simply look to solve the pain rather than use it – might actually take a practical step to solve it too – so in a sense giving the love we had wanted to claim. But none of this can happen unless the focus shifts to practical new habits and steps to solve practical problems. And as we choose to solve our own stuff and not manipulate – we take steps to ensure our partner needs to do the same and has no option but to step out I of the way of our path to recovery all the while ceasing to blame them even as one is firm and determined that they will deal with their own stuff and not leave you the chips — but rather than leaving a relationship – we let go of our learned patterns of living a relationship and build new patterns – how the new patterns emerge is a journey – making them is the effort and not acting them as temporary clothing until our dream partner emerges – the latter will not work. The former is the best thing that has ever happened to me even if I have long to go.
Yes Julia it is certainly was the journey that mattered to me 🙂 Believing in a perfect partner who would save me was really at the heart of my sickness.
I know my faith in God led me right to you. I was reading from your list of free articles and help. I began reading the article entitled Read this First-Part 1 . This paragraph: “In the end you need to decide of you want a fairy tale romance or if you want to live peacefully with someone instead.” Lol. Because I have Soooooo, wanted the ‘Fairy tale.’ However, I do want to live peacefully with the man I love more. We are not married but this relationship is worth fighting for and I am on the fast track. I just found this site a few days ago literally. It has made a big difference .
Hello Kim. I’m so glad I found your website a few years back. I couldn’t decide then if I was more narcissistic or more codependent – now I know that in my marriage I was more dependent and he was more narcissistic. Before my marriage, I lived with another narcissist – my mother. I guess getting married was a way of getting out of that (very difficult) situation; unfortunately, I just went from the frying pan straight into the fire. Very soon I started feeling like I married my mother – the same criticism, insults and put downs; the more effort I put into the marriage, determined to “make it work”, the worse it became. I stayed at home with the kids for almost 12 years, in a foreign country, with no income, no family and no close friends. Cooked, cleaned, took care of the children and him. He controlled me with money and punished me with his moods. He wasn’t happy with me having any interests; even tried to stop me from reading books (which I love); demeaned me in front of the kids. Told me I was unemployable, ugly and fat (I’m not) – in front of my mother… Curiously, I’ve always had a feeling he is like a drowning person I have been trying to save – only that he was dragging me down with him more and more. On top of that, his jealousy was simply just suffocating. We ended up in a tiny rented apartment with 2 young kids and him wanting to retire at the age of 38, with no money and prospects for the future and a credit card debt of several thousand pounds. That was the lowest point for me. Before finding your website I had secretly been going to therapy for a few years; after reading “Back from the Looking Glass” I finally plucked up the courage to tell him I wanted to separate and find myself again. Told him we both needed to grow up but separately, because together we were a disaster. He didn’t understand that at all but all of a sudden let me go to the cinema, started doing chores around the house, buying stuff…Where previously there was no intimacy, all of a sudden he was almost forcing himself on me. I felt he was trying to suffocate me again, only in a different way. And I wanted space to figure out who I was. I wanted to try out things; and I did. But I made a mistake. I fell in love with another man. I have no illusions about it. I was so starved for attention and admiration that I took crumbs from him. He is married and always will be. I found happiness briefly and then it all ended in tears. You see we did all the things I have always wanted to do together. We share interests and are more on a par intellectually… I still pine for the other man, and my husband moved out over 2 years ago. Since then he filed for divorce, then withdrew the petition, then tried moving back in, then tried forcing me to start the divorce process… Told me twice he wanted to get married but then it turned out there was nobody to get married to… I have found a job, a personal style and a few friends. I accept myself and my past more but the crippling self doubt is still just that – crippling. I struggle with positive self image and get intensely jealous of people who have what I have always wanted to have – a happy family. A chance remark from a stranger or friend can trigger the past and send me on a downward spiral so easily. And I don’t know where to go from here because I realize that even if I have a new man in my life, we can be partners but not parents – I mean, parents to my children. I don’t want to get back with my husband because since our separation I have made many changes in myself he doesn’t approve of. I have become more of myself and he doesn’t like that. But I don’t want to lose that. I am still not strong enough and his actions can still play havoc in my life. He is very vengeful and wants to “teach me a lesson” (his own words to our son), which means he makes my life as difficult as he can. Favouring our daughter, turning up up to pick the kids up whenever he wants and pleases, not wanting to pay maintenance money but lavishing them with presents, insisting on communicating through the children, calling me “the nanny”, instead of the kids’ mother, telling the children I had an affair… I just sometimes feel like I can’t go on any longer. I never know when and how he is going to flip. I don’t know his address so any legal matters are extremely difficult… I have asked a family mediation agency for help and they have been trying to contact him via email and phone – in vain. He still controls my life, only this time through the children. I have no help from his family and haven’ seen my relatives in 3 years…And I feel extremely lonely in all this. STILL picking up the pieces, catching up on over 10 years of neglecting myself. All I know is, I can’t “save” him. But in a way, it was WAY easier to focus on him. Making lasting changes in myself is a lot harder.
Hi Anna and welcome 🙂 Strange as it sounds the steps in our books will help you deal with him even when you are apart. These steps are not about saving him but are rather about saving you.
At the start of this process, I feel my goals are much the same as you describe. I’m not allowing my husband to hurt me anymore, I want to become financially independent and I want to regain my integrity. I this process I have a small focus on my husband. I feel I’ve spent the past 25 years following his needs, and now it’s over. But I feel a great bit of fear thinking of contacting someone outside for help with our issues. I’m not there yet. To confront him with his narcissistic tendencies makes me afraid. He is so charming and happy out with friends and family and colleagues, that no one would ever believe me if I told anyone how it is to live with him.
I see that you write that trust can be built over time. Honestly, in the beginning of this process, I don’t think it’s possible that I will ever trust my husband again. My trust fond is completely empty. But I’m open to see if I’m wrong. 🙂
I think it it was nice to be reminded that we have our own responsibility for our own happiness. It is so easy to think about the difficult years and all the pain in the soul, and get stuck in it. I’m looking forward to spending time this winter bringing back my inner joy and peace.
They are fantastic goals for you to start with and will help you grow stronger too!
Kim, I just joined the program & am the narcissist husband. My wife, the codependent, told me 2 months ago that she has reached her limit & wants a divorce. Seeing her pain was an epiphany (my shock wake up call) & I am committed to change. I was very happy to find your program offering hope for narcissists. My wife has agreed to read “Back From The Looking Glass”, but is firm in her desire to end our marriage. She seems to be at a stage where she is blinded with anger & confabulation, remembering every day of us being together as hell (which it was not). I’m not sure she will be up for “The Love Safety Net” workbook to help her heal. Is there anything I can do for my disconnected wife to help her thru her anger & perhaps have her reconsider her decision?
Hi Gary, Welcome 🙂 Just after Thanksgiving Steve will be starting a new members area for the men. I wonder what your wife is angry about? disrespect, passive aggression, porn, affairs? Listen to what she has to say and even if you disagree maybe see if you can see it from her point of view. Ask questions you are genuinely interested in the answers to instead of arguing. Agree with her and say she is probably right. This might sound like “I am devastated you feel that way but I guess you are right.”
Thank you Kim. I am looking after myself and doing things to improve myself and my children. I have always been a person who is willing to go the extra mile for the other person. My parents and grandparents all did it and had happy marriages. I too had a very happy marriage. I went the extra mile and my deceased husband too went the extra mile for me. So there was no taking advantage of each other.
I married again, expecting my new husband to love and respect me. He was a charmer – said all the right things and everything changed the day I said, “I do”. I do not know if I can trust him again. I know I have been emotionally and financially abused. I had been very finacially secure in the past but am not so certain now. Because I trusted and believed, I did not do a pre-nup contract. So now I have to be so careful of my finances as I cannot trust him. I have started to stop giving and doing things for him, as I am no longer doing them from a place of loving. He was and continues to be emotionally cold to me and my children.
I moved interstate so that we could be near his children who are adults. I had no one in this new state. Now as I look back, I wonder whether it was a ploy to make me dependent. I had to give up my job and he did not support me when I moved till I got a new job.
I am learning to be happy and teach my children to be happy. I had lost my confidence and am getting it back. I started to hate the person I was becoming till I realised, it was up to me to take back control of my life and be the person I want to be.
It is still hard at times, but one day at a time and I will get there. I am building a support system around me.