This is understanding today's narcissist.

Brought to you in part by psychcentral.com.

And now here's your host, Christine Hammond.

Today I'm going to tell you a story about Angela and Neil.

And Angela is going to be our narcissist in this case, and they are a married couple that have been married for 10 years.

And the reason I'm going to share with you their story is because I'd like to go over what it means for a narcissist to have a hidden shame.

And where does that come from?

So, like, starting off from the very beginning, I will tell you that all narcissists have a

hidden shame of some sorts. And we're going to get into that in a little bit as I go through

Neil and Angela's story, because I really think that this is probably the best example I've come

across of what that actually looks like and why it existed and what happened.

So let me tell you some more about Neil and Angela. So they were married for 10 years when all of a

sudden, like stuff about Angela's past started to surface. Neil had originally thought that Angela came to the United States

to get a better life from her country of origin, which was Serbia. She told him stories of living

on the streets, being physically abused by family members, and really living in a chaotic nation with absolutely no hope for any kind of healthy

future. And that's why she came to the United States. He believed her. He never checked her facts

or even met with any of her family members. Instead, he saw her as this wounded, charming person

who just craved, loved, and needed to be rescued.

So Neil bought everything that Angela had said.

Over the years, things started to surface.

So given her past, Neil kept excusing away Angela's outburst, which she would have periodically over little and big matters,

and he would keep thinking that in time it's going to get better. She just needs to be loved more,

...