Why You Married a Narcissist & How to Make Sure Your Kids Don’t

Have you ever looked back at your relationship with your ex and wondered: how did I get here? Why did I choose someone who would eventually turn the courts, the kids, maybe even your own family against you? Why did this feel so normal... at first?
 
The answer might be encoded in your DNA.
 
In this conversation, Lisa sits down with Dr. Sylvia Kalachinsky — a PhD family therapist with 21 years of clinical experience, a faculty career that took her from Mount Sinai Medical Center to working with migrant families in the California fields, and a newly released book called “Lonely AF.” She is also someone who grew up with a narcissistic father and learned, in adulthood, to trace her own relational patterns back to their roots. 

Together, they unpack intergenerational trauma — not as a heavy clinical term, but as the lived experience of patterns passed down through families across at least three generations. Patterns encoded not just in behavior but, according to the science of epigenetics, in your actual DNA. 

In this episode, you’ll discover:
 
- Why we are often unconsciously attracted to partners who mirror how we felt emotionally with our primary caregivers, even if that feeling was painful 
- The science behind “your nervous system will reject what’s unfamiliar, even if it feels good,” and why a healthy relationship can feel suspiciously boring at first 
- Big T vs. little t trauma - why your pain counts even if it “didn’t seem that bad” 
- How to do a genogram to identify the patterns your own family has been running for generations 
- The BODY Skill: a 90-second grounding technique you can use silently in mediation, at a deposition, or while waiting for a call from your lawyer 
- Why your healing is the single most powerful gift you can give your children and how modeling emotional regulation stops the cycle of transmission 

Lisa also shares her own story about how, after 20 years in a high-conflict marriage, a loving, stable relationship initially felt “too boring.” Her nervous system had been conditioned to chaos. The moment you hear Dr. Sylvia’s response to that story might be the thing you share with a friend today. 

Whether you’re in the middle of a custody battle, co-parenting with someone you can’t trust, or already on the other side and trying to make sure the cycle ends with you — this conversation is going to give you something you’ve been looking for. 

Dr. Sylvia’s new book “Lonely AF: A Therapist’s No-B.S. Guide to Feeling Less Alone” is available now. 

Find Dr. Sylvia at: Instagram @doctorsylviak | drsylviak.com | The Doctor Sylvia K Show podcast