You explain, the narcissist ignores you. You explain, the narcissist calls you lazy or needy. You explain, it's never good enough. Do you see a pattern emerging? I certainly do, and that pattern isn't pretty.
Explaining yourself to a narcissist is a total waste of time, as you are speaking to someone who doesn't want to understand you. You can never say the right thing, but you can say these 9 things instead.
And when I say waste of time, I mean the kind of waste that leaves you lying awake at 3am replaying every word you said.
1 I know you want to keep on trying, but…
You really are battling a lost cause before you've even begun. When you want to explain something to the narcissist, you're openly telling them you're willing to step into the arena and have this big debate.
For them, this is a chance to roll their sleeves up and get ready for the battle of the decade, every single time.
When you start saying things like, "I asked because…", "The reason I…", you are planting the seed in their minds of, "I'm giving you this information, and now I want you to rip it to pieces and tell me how wrong and stupid I am."
Every time you try to explain yourself, you're offering this with both hands, and the narcissist will take it and run with it. You're not making sense to me. This sounds ridiculous. So, you never cared about me then?
You'll hear the most frustrating things fired back at you, and all because you thought it was a good idea to try to get your point across.
It's a mistake to think you can have any kind of normal, meaningful conversation with someone who will twist it all to suit themselves.
Sound familiar? The moment you open your mouth to justify, you've already lost, because they were never listening for understanding in the first place.
2 1, "My decision is final."
Starting strong with this one! I love it because it's a little bit like typing a document and underlining a word. You want it to be noticed. You're saying, "This is my line, and you don't get to cross it, no matter how hard you fight for it."
I respect this from anyone, because your decision shouldn't be messed with or manipulated in any way; it should be yours to keep. Nothing about it needs defending or explaining, you've just handed the narcissist that information, and you're sticking to it.
Let them do with it whatever the heck they want, that isn't your problem.
And please, do not soften it with a maybe or a we'll see. Final means final. Anything wobbly on the end becomes a door they'll kick straight back open.
3 2, "We are seeing this differently."
Continuing with the great phrases, this one works because you're calling a spade, a spade.
You're saying, "Okay, You think this, and I think that." You're not asking for the narcissist to do their usual and step in and try to persuade or gaslight you into believing or thinking what they do, you're saying aloud that you accept there is a difference of opinion.
Interestingly, you may get a push from the narcissist, who may want you to go further, explaining what you mean by different. You can just repeat it and have them deal with hearing it twice, which is like the gift that keeps on giving.
You acknowledge that your thinking isn't the same, and you get on with your day. Close that door!
A woman I worked with used this on her ex over school pickups. He kept pushing, she kept repeating. By round three, he gave up and hung up.
See also 5 Creepy Things Every Narcissist Hides Somewhere in Their House4 3, "I refuse to discuss this."
GO, YOU! Nothing needs to be discussed if you don't want it to be, and this will be a stark contrast from where you usually go with things.
The narcissist is used to seeing you worm and squirm your way into tight corners by trying to overexplain what you mean, and why you did what you did. This time around, you're saying, "You know what? I'm done here. I do not want to take this any further."
Leaving the narcissist high and dry like this might just make them realize that they don't get everything they want, and your choice is to own the moment, without attaching any kind of apology to what you're saying.
I think out of all the phrases, this is the one that makes the narcissist the most uncomfortable. You're telling them your mind is already made up, and there's nothing they can say or do to change it. You're in charge, and they don't get the discussion they're itching for!
Sure, you might not necessarily be giving them the news they want, but for you this is exactly what you need in order to start believing you have the control.
You'll probably feel guilty the first time you say it. That guilt is old programming talking, the same programming that told you every conflict needed your explanation stapled to it.
5 4, "Okay."
Never has a single word packed such a punch, yet 'okay' is one of those words that really drives a narcissist crazy. Think about a time they've given you an entire speech. It was dramatic and time-consuming.
They made sure they accused you of everything, throwing in all the insulting phrases you can think of. You were called selfish for no good reason, and it hurt you. The narcissist probably expected you to overexplain your response, and you probably did.
What if you'd just said, "Okay?" What if next time, you just say, "Okay?"
I'm not asking you to be sarcastic, I'm asking you to be real. Be a little quiet about it, but nevertheless, say that one word anyway. Here's why I want you to do it. "Okay" cannot be responded to.
It literally gives the narcissist nothing to work with; what can they possibly do?! A narcissist is only in their element when they can feed from you, and the more words and emotions you fire out, the more they can catch it all and win.
With this word, there's no way they can win.
Watch what happens next. They'll poke, prod, maybe try to bait you with something insulting. Just sit with your okay and let the silence do the heavy lifting.
6 5, "This conversation for me, is finished."
Easy to walk away from what you'd usually absorb and take on even if you're exhausted!
You don't have to panic about delivering this kind of phrase; it really is just a way for you to say, "Look, I don't see the point in continuing this and I refuse to give you any more of my time."
Narcissists want your time. They want your energy and tears. You don't have to storm out dramatically; none of these need to come with any kind of conflict attached to them.
Letting the narcissist know that for you, the conversation is over means you're literally telling them that you have nothing else to say. The key is to remember that you have to stick to your word.
Don't get lured back in with what the narcissist says next, because it will all serve as the same trap:
To get you to return to the conversation you said you were leaving. If they want to keep talking, let them. But for you, there's nothing more you have to say, and you make that clear.
Then you actually leave. Put the phone down, walk out of the room, close the laptop. Words mean nothing if your body is still standing there waiting for more.
7 It's not your job to make the narcissist understand
The narcissist is a grown person. You don't need to be wasting your precious time trying to teach them to listen to you when that should really come quite naturally.
I know you want them to see your side, your point of view, but there's no forcing them to adhere to what you want…
…No narcissist operates that way. When you stop explaining yourself, you take back something the narcissist has been claiming from you for a long time:
Your energy.
Every unanswered accusation, every unexplained decision, every silence you hold instead of defending yourself, that's energy staying in your own body. That's the whole point of this.
8 Why Silence Feels So Wrong at First
Silence feels wrong because for years, you've been trained to fill every gap with an explanation. Not talking felt dangerous. It meant punishment, or a cold shoulder that lasted days, or being told you were sulking.
So when you finally stop explaining, your body doesn't know what to do with itself. You'll feel twitchy. Guilty. Maybe even panicked, like you've done something wrong by not defending yourself.
That's not your intuition talking, that's the years of conditioning kicking in and screaming, "Say something, fix this, smooth it over."
I hear this from people all the time. They tell me, "Alexander, I stayed quiet and I felt sick for hours afterwards." And I get it. When you've spent years being told your silence is an act of war, choosing it feels like standing on a cliff edge.
But that awful, itchy feeling? It's a sign you're doing something different. Something new. Your nervous system is catching up with a decision your mind has already made. Give it time to settle.
See also THIS is What Makes Narcissists
9 What Happens Inside You When You Stop Explaining
Something shifts. It's subtle at first, almost too quiet to notice. You'll be doing something ordinary, washing a mug, walking to your car, and you realise your shoulders have dropped about two inches. That constant low hum of preparing your next defence? Gone.
Your sleep gets a bit deeper. You stop rehearsing arguments in the shower. The mental tabs you had open, the ones running scripts of what to say if they bring up that thing from three months ago, they close one by one.
You also start hearing your own voice again. That inner voice that got drowned out by years of translating yourself for someone who never wanted the translation. It comes back slowly, a bit rusty, but it comes back.
And then something strange. You stop caring what they think of your reasons. Not in a cold way. Just in a way where their opinion of your choices no longer sits at the centre of your nervous system. Your reasons belong to you now. That is the whole thing.
