Highly Successful Men & Women Are Targets Of Narcissists

If you are a highly successful man or woman, chances are you stick with problems longer than most. You are a problem solver, who has emotional intelligence. You see the value of a goal and throw yourself into all that you get involved with. The problem is, that you might not recognize when to throw in the towel when you are involved with a narcissist. In this episode, Lisa A. Romano will explain how your best traits may be causing blind spots in your relationships.

Transcript

Welcome to the Breakdown to Breakthrough Podcast.

My name is Lisa A.

Romano.

I am a life coach,

Bestselling author,

YouTube vlogger,

Meditation teacher,

And expert in the field of codependency and narcissistic abuse.

I am a believer in the power of an organized mind.

My aim is to help people learn what it means to live above the veil of consciousness rather than living a reactive life.

May your heart feel blessed,

Your mind feel expanded,

And your spirit find hope as you spend time with me here at the Breakdown to Breakthrough Podcast.

So today we're going to be discussing high performance successful men and women and their toxic relationships.

So today we're talking about what it means to be a highly successful person at work and in our careers,

When at the same time behind closed doors,

We're dealing with toxic dynamics.

We are the types of people who go to work,

We put our lipstick on,

Or we drive up and we park in our parking spot.

We wear three piece suits to work and we smell really good.

And from the outside,

Everyone thinks that our lives are pretty perfect.

From the outside,

It looks like we're pretty put together.

At work,

We are achieving,

Our teams are successful.

We seem very driven and we are.

We even seem happy at work.

And you know what?

We are.

But when we go home,

Or the minute we leave the office and we're in our car,

We're worrying about what we're driving home to.

We're worrying about the text messages that we're going to receive or that we have received at work.

We're worrying about how our partner is going to behave when we walk through the door.

We worry about some major trauma issue that we're going to be dealing with when we get home.

But at work,

No one would believe that.

No one would ever be able to tell that we are really struggling inside our relationship dynamics.

So I wanted to discuss why it is that you can be a very successful person at work.

You can be a lawyer,

You can be a physician,

You can be a CEO,

You could be a world class athlete.

You can be a very,

Very successful person in your career.

And yet at the same time,

Feel like your romantic relationships are a mess.

Turns out that there are qualities that you possess that make you more prone to tolerating certain types of negative experiences inside your relationships.

Now I personally feel that when you mix childhood trauma,

When you mix the unhealed inner child – when you mix in the wounds of abandonment,

The fear of rejection,

An insecure attachment – when you mix in all of these aspects of relationship dynamics that are subconscious,

Keeping in mind that your framework for being able to trust someone,

Being able to trust yourself,

Being able to honor yourself and honor how you feel,

Get angry when someone violates your boundary,

Speak up about it and set a fair boundary regarding that situation.

Your ability to feel secure in relationships,

Knowing that you can express yourself without being rejected or criticized or marginalized and you too have the same ability.

You're not someone who recoils because your partner has something to say about you that isn't the most positive.

The two of you are at a place in your relationship where you know that the other person has your best interest at heart.

And even though they might say something to you that might hurt your feelings,

You know that they're coming from a good place.

Most of us are trying to achieve that in our relationships today,

Especially those of us who are on the healing path,

Who are doing personal development work,

Those of us who see ourselves as truth seekers and light workers and healers and guides.

We're really putting in the effort to understand the self.

So we're not people who constantly look outside of ourselves trying to figure out everybody else but ourselves.

We know that our philosophy must be to know thyself.

And so when you are someone who's on that path,

You ultimately come to a place where you are self-reflective,

You are self-analyzing and you're trying to figure out why is it that I have this issue in my adult relationships.

So I want to talk about it because there are definitely reasons I feel that we can be successful in one area of our life and feel so disempowered and powerless in another area of our life.

So I think when we mix the qualities that make us successful at work with these unhealed wounds inside of us,

I feel like we have a very dangerous concoction,

Emotional concoction.

I feel like these patterns can be very dangerous,

These subconscious relationship patterns.

And without enough investigating of these patterns,

We will stay stuck considering the world is holographic and there is no such thing as separation from the nonphysical from the physical.

Basically what I mean is that what we feel and what we think creates a resonance and belief systems and we tend to attract what we believe.

Although I can hear people saying I would never attract this toxic relationship.

No,

Not on purpose,

But if you have the qualities that I'm going to share with you now,

In addition to feeling like a burden as a child,

In addition to not being able to ask for help,

In addition to stuffing your feelings,

In addition to never being allowed to get angry,

Then I think that the combination of the two creates a resonance and that's why we remain stuck in toxic relationships.

So let's get to number one.

You are somebody who subconsciously or consciously knows that if you work at a problem that generally speaking you will come up for a solution.

So at work you're highly successful or one of the reasons you're highly successful is because you believe that to achieve a goal you might have to work your butt off.

You know that to get great gains you have to put in effort,

You have to be diligent,

You have to be receptive,

You have to be willing to look at yourself.

Great leaders know that they don't know everything.

Great leaders have a certain level of self-doubt and they're able to rely on team members for instance to give them constructive feedback.

So at work you are this person who is highly motivated to attain a goal,

You put in great effort,

You don't mind burning the midnight oil,

You know that to achieve success you have to really work at it and you're willing to do this at work when it comes to projects,

You're willing to invest in people and team members and team building and this way that you show up at work you may not know it but you may be showing up this way in your romantic relationships too thinking that it's okay if I really have to work hard,

It's okay if my partner tells me there's something wrong with me consistently,

Maybe I do need to change.

So you're willing to change,

You're willing to take constructive criticism and you're willing to take in the other person's point of view.

Primarily you know that to get where you want to go sometimes takes a long time and requires a lot of effort but what you're not aware of is that you might be using this mindset in a relationship that is really going to go nowhere because in order for this mindset to be appropriate inside a relationship the other person has to feel the same way,

The both of you have to have the same values,

You have to have the same goal.

When we are in a work situation or in a work situation it's so much easier to identify the goal.

All the team members know this is where we're moving,

These are the profits that we want to make this quarter and so the goal is clear but when you're in a relationship with someone who's toxic you don't always realize that they're moving the goal or there is no goal or the goal is to confuse you,

The goal is to keep you off balance and the goal is to remain in control.

Another reason that you can be a highly successful person at work and find yourself stuck in a toxic relationship and maybe even discover that eventually that you may have been targeted by someone who is toxic is because you are so self-sufficient.

When you're dealing with a narcissist for instance you're dealing with someone who doesn't want to have to worry about the needs of someone else and so it's very attractive to go after or target a man or a woman who is self-sufficient,

Who doesn't have a lot of needs and who is very busy and is really enjoying their life at the top.

If you have achieved a certain level of success it's most likely because you have worked your butt off to get there and there will be people who will be envious of you and jealous of you and not understand that overnight successes usually take about 20 years.

However when we are talking about being the target of someone who is a high conflict personality or more narcissistic you have to know that because you are self-sufficient that made you a very good target for someone who is highly narcissistic.

A narcissist needs someone who doesn't have a whole lot of needs and if you're someone who is highly successful,

You're financially successful then you're not going to have to rely on the narcissist to take care of you.

In fact the narcissist is very comfortable twisting your mind,

Gaslighting you,

Getting you to doubt your reality and even making you feel guilty for the success that you've attained trying to get you to feel responsible for how they feel.

And so don't be surprised if you are a highly successful financially independent man or woman and you become a target for a narcissist.

Another reason why you can become a target for someone who has high narcissistic traits if you are a highly successful man or woman is because you have a we can do it mentality.

You are empathic.

The reason you're successful at work is because you're able to take on the emotions of other people to such a degree that you understand where they're coming from.

You have a natural curiosity about what makes other people tick.

You are someone who invests in other people.

You're someone who can truly empathize with the needs of other people,

The perspectives of other people and this makes you a target because you are someone who believes that if you put in the effort,

If you try to understand someone that certainly that's going to push you over the finish line.

This helps you become a highly successful person at work because you are caring about others and you are open to their input and you are a team person.

You're all about the team,

The we mentality.

And so when you're in a relationship with a highly toxic person,

You are thinking about the other person as a we.

You may not be aware that the other person is a me.

It's not a we.

And that is why I think so many people can feel very disillusioned that they could spend 10,

15,

20 years as a successful person in one area of their life and waste their time in a relationship with someone who is actually a stranger.

It was all an illusion that you thought that you were in a we relationship.

And that's really mind bending.

If you're someone who has a lot of empathy,

Naturally you have a lot of empathy.

It's kind of mind bending when you start to realize that your partner does not possess the same level of empathy that you do.

That your partner was really a figment of your imagination.

You built this person up in your head.

You told yourself a story to compensate for why they are the way they are or to rationalize and justify.

Lots of times if you're highly empathic at work,

You understand where people are coming from and you put the effort in to help them be the best versions of themselves.

But the goal is the we,

The project,

The finish line.

And that finish line,

Like I said earlier,

Is very,

Very clear.

But in romantic relationships,

Not always so.

The finish line is not always clear.

And when you're dealing with someone who is highly toxic,

Oftentimes their agenda is dominance.

Their agenda is manipulation.

Their agenda is simply control.

That is the goal.

And so you think that you're moving towards a specific goal,

Saving a certain amount of money,

Buying a particular house,

Putting money away for a particular reason,

All to realize much later on that this person at every chance that they got confused things,

Used word salads,

Crazy making conversation,

And kept your mind spinning with accusations.

And all the while you're using the we mentality to try to understand why this person feels the way they feel.

And you're not aware enough or not in enough pain yet to recognize what's really going on.

And another reason that you might become a target for a narcissist if you're a highly successful high powered man or woman is because you're success driven,

Because you keep your eye on the ball because you want to succeed.

And so when you meet someone and you fall for them,

And let's face it,

Most narcissists are very charismatic,

At least the grandiose narcissist,

Very charismatic.

They love bomb you.

They idealize you.

They make you feel seen.

You will feel like you have stepped into a fairy tale and you don't realize they're mirroring your empathy.

They're mirroring things that you say.

But in the background is this idea that you are success driven.

So you want this relationship to succeed.

So it's really not within your nature to give up.

It's really not within your nature to throw in the towel,

Because to you giving up is akin to a failure.

Something wrong with giving up.

And I think it's important to have these discussions because it helps us become more aware of how we operate in the world.

And as we become aware of how we're applying these rules to our romantic relationships,

It is then that we have some creative conscious control.

It is then that we can say,

Wait a minute,

That feeling or that drive for success that I have that is so innate,

That has made me so successful.

This drive for success has really shown up in my romantic relationships.

And I wasn't aware that I associated throwing in the towel or setting a boundary with failing.

And that behind the scenes,

I was really wanting this relationship to be successful,

Which made it hard for me to see the red flags.

The last idea that I want to share with you is that oftentimes highly successful men and women are perfectionistic.

Now if this perfectionism is driven by a fear of criticism,

A fear of not being good enough,

If the perfectionism is driven by a need to be validated,

A need to find worth in my doing,

Because I haven't yet found the ability to have worth in just being,

Then we can become a target for someone who is a narcissist or someone who is highly toxic,

Because if we do not feel good enough,

What eventually ends up happening is someone with high narcissistic traits will use your fear of rejection against you.

They will use the fear of abandonment against you.

This is what a trauma bond is all about.

So you will be praised for being highly successful.

You will be love bombed for being highly successful.

In the beginning,

The narcissist will tell you that he or she is bragging about how successful you are.

But in time,

What you'll begin to notice is that this love bombing begins to fade.

There begins to start these nasty comments.

Eventually you will be criticized.

And do not be surprised if the narcissist actually throws your success in your face,

Because they are really struggling with the fact that you are so successful in the first place.

Sometimes the narcissist is jealous of the amount of time that you spend at work.

Now in the beginning,

You'll be praised for being such a hard worker and being so independent.

But if you're dealing with a narcissist in times,

They will turn that around on you.

They will turn the tables.

They will accuse you of not loving them enough,

Not paying enough attention to them,

Suggesting that they have the right to go out and do what they need to do because their partner isn't paying enough attention to them.

And that'll be really confusing for you because when you met this person,

They were all about you and your successful career.

So you are now entering the part of the relationship where you are going to start being devalued,

Which is going to be very confusing for you.

You may consider leaving your job or spending less time at work.

And this is the way the narcissist is gaining control over you.

You are off balance.

The way that they are speaking to you is decreasing your ability or diminishing your ability to have self-confidence.

And so now you're questioning yourself.

You're doubting yourself because you're a team player.

You certainly don't want this person to feel negative things about you.

So you become success driven and think that the goal is to convince this person of how much you love them.

You won't even realize that your own wonderful traits are being used against you as a form of emotional control.

So if you are success driven,

If you are highly empathic,

If you are a we person,

If you're someone who is all about finding the problem and solving the problem,

You want to be very careful that this disposition,

These amazing qualities and traits are not being taken advantage of by a manipulative person.

The reason I wanted to create this session is because most of the people that I one to one do one to one coaching with are very successful people who are bewildered by the idea that they can achieve so much or just like everybody else.

They have the same problems everybody else has.

And oftentimes people who are highly successful and those that you would never imagine are having romantic relationship difficulties,

The people who look perfect,

The people who live in the beautiful house,

The people who drive the nice cars,

People that you would never imagine were having so much trouble also have a difficult time accepting that they're having so much trouble.

There's a level of shame involved in being someone who has achieved so much.

There's this level of I'm a fake and I'm an imposter.

If my patients only knew that I was in a codependent narcissistic relationship,

If my clients only knew that I'm going through exactly what they're going through,

They would never hire me.

And so there's this level of shame that we really need to debunk and we have to help people across the board recognize that we're all the same.

It doesn't matter how many letters you have after your name.

It doesn't matter how many degrees you have hanging on your wall.

It doesn't matter where you come from in terms of your socioeconomic background.

You can be a highly successful person,

A really high powered respected person at work and feel like a completely disempowered human being in the face of someone who is narcissistic in the face of your spouse.

You can feel confident at work and lack complete confidence in your home.

And this is really an important topic so that those of us who are confused by this understand that there may be dynamics at play that complicate our ability to recognize a red flag for what it is.

So if you're a really highly successful man or woman and you've been in a relationship with someone who's highly toxic and you can't figure out how you got there,

I hope these ideas help you learn to investigate yourself a little bit deeper.

Try to remember that childhood trauma affects all of us.

And just because you came from a house with a white picket fence and maybe your parents were highly successful doesn't mean that you haven't experienced some level of childhood trauma,

Doesn't mean that you grew up feeling good enough and doesn't mean that you've secured a secure attachment to your parents.

It doesn't mean that you feel like you're able to tell your truth.

It doesn't mean that you're able to recognize a red flag and honor it.

It doesn't mean that you have the life skills to say no.

It doesn't mean that you do not feel like you failed because a relationship hasn't worked out.

But like I always say,

We can't fix a hole in the wall that we can't see.

So if this is your issue,

I hope that it has been helpful.

Please share this with anyone that you think might be struggling with these issues and know that these issues are running in the background and they can affect any one of us from anywhere in the world.

Dear one,

You are not alone.

Please know that there is help and you can regain your self confidence.

You can learn to heal your inner child and eradicate the subconscious beliefs that are responsible for codependency in your relationship.

Bowing to the love and the light in you.

Namaste.

Until next time.

Bye for now.

Reviews

V

Excellent!! Great ideas for self reflection. Thanks !

Valuable perspective for those of us who have been through this experience
In being successful in our work, excellent problem solvers and yet unable to see the abuse being targeted at us in our romantic relationship

Great information- it never occurred to me as a very successful entrepreneur that I was attracting toxic, narcissist or unavailable men BECAUSE of my success. I thought quality men would be attracted to me and see me as special and desirable because of my success . This has really opened my eyes. Thank you 🙏🧡🖤🧡🖤🙏