My mind is in a tangle over my new romantic relationship. Backstory, I’m three times married and divorced and each of those marriages could be categorized as toxic. I know this is a thought and I share it because it is probably one of the main thoughts that is feeding into my current angst.

To add to the thought, I was in therapy together with each of these husbands (three different therapists) and each therapist told me that my current husband was a narcissist. It’s also highly likely that if my father had ever gone to therapy, he would have been diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder. My thought is I attract narcissist because it is so familiar.

All that said, is there some “objective” fact that some people are narcissists? My current boyfriend has shared some stories with me about his former relationship with his wife and daughters that give me pause wondering if he too is a narcissist. In my past relationships, I was in far and deep before realizing that the relationships were very unhealthy.

I’ve done a ton of personal work to heal what I would call my co-dependence that was my part in marrying three narcissists and in addition, I am trying to approach this current relationship with the insight of The Model. My angst is over the possibility that I will end up entangled in another relationship with a narcissist despite my best efforts to avoid this outcome.

My question here is not so much about my current or past relationships, but more about trying to understand where a statement like “there are narcissists in the world” would go in the model. Is that a fact or a thought? Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a diagnosis as is Diabetes, so in that regard wouldn’t it be a circumstance? Thanks