Dealing With A Vain Person

My partner can be very vain at times. I jokingly mentioned disliking their cocky attitude when we first met. Then I brought it up seriously when we had been dating longer. Their excuse is that they used to have no self esteem, but they lose weight and now they would rather be over confident than not confident at all.

I have had someone use this same excuse before for their vanity. I don't know why they see it as being so black and white-Vain or no self esteem.

How can I deal with their vanity? They often talk about how good they think they look etc...so I have tried to compliment them less.

Tips?

A defence mechanism? Protection against loss of esteem?

Does this behaviour persist in all social interactions?

I understand the black and white reference, is there any way your partner could adjust by "fine tuning"(his attitude) like adjusting through shades of grey?

I will leave with a link that will lead you to a forum here at the PC website.

Steps to Better Self-Esteem - Forums at Psych Central

Perhaps feedback from PC members who frequent that forum might elicit something helpful for your situation. Or, if your post does not post useful feedback, you may have to read through post in that forum that relate to your situation. You may find members(based on what they have posted in reply) who you can private message for advice.(I hope your partner may learn what "adaptive" self esteem entails.)

Vanity is a narcissistic trait and is born out of a low self esteem as a protective mechanism to prevent further pain and gain approval. Too little narcissism leaves an individual with no self confidence and little self esteem and leads to fearfulness and feelings of inferiority. On the other hand too much can result in an inflated ego and a core belief that they are better than everyone else. The ideal is to have a healthy balance where people feel good about themselves without compromising their social relations. As long as this behavior is not coupled with other narcissistic traits and does not affect your relationship then it is just an overdeveloped trait and still within a healthy/normal range. The defensive attitude they take regarding their vanity is also a protective behavior designed to keep them feeling good about themselves and is in keeping with a narcissistic type of behavior. They do not like criticism, since this is perceived as a threat to their ego and will shoot down the opposition in a flash. Telling them they are overly vain is a criticism which is why you are met with a rather abrupt black and white answer. Hope this helps you understand a bit more.

A person who talks about how good they think they look seem to need to hear that they look good.

The simplest way of dealing with people is giving them what they want, unless it is too costly in some way.

It is very simple to give this person what they want - confirm that they look good.

Your reaction - complimenting less - seems paradoxical and irrational. They want more compliments, and you are providing fewer compliments. Why?

Go with the flow unless it is too costly. In this case, it is not too costly - they just want compliments. Not a house in Beverly Hills, but just compliments. A trivial request which should be satisfied without further analysis.

Also, to the extent that the person wants compliments, but you are intentionally withholding compliments, you are not being generous in this r/s. Not being generous in r/s is unappealing. Try to be more generous. You might even find yourself being treated better by the partner.

I can understand that if you once had low self-esteem, you decide to put a seemingly arrogant front. It's completely normal and something he'll have to deal with. And they can be tiresome...

But at the same time... I have to say, trying to change someone will hardly ever bring about the change you want in them, nor is it really an expression of love. You're coming from a selfish place, imposing yourself on him to be able to love him, when you should love him for him. It doesn't seem like he loves himself that much, considering his vanity. So you plan is to add an extre person (his partner) to that list of people?

Instead of withholding, or focusing on his negative aspects and trying to correct them, why not ignore? Why not look to other strong points and focus on those? Love and open hearts render more positive results.