Here’s a theme I think we can relate to: Your partner (a male in this example, strictly for convenience’s sake)—a narcissist, or perhaps sociopath—blames you for his misery, bad moods, bad decisions, frustrations, dissatisfactions, disappointments and underfulfillment.
From his perspective, if he cheats on you—or deceives and betrays you—you will have deserved it, because you will have been responsible for the discontent that necessitated his violating behaviors.
Remember he feels entitled to have what he wants; he deserves what he wants, when he wants it; and if he’s frustrated, it must be someone’s fault.
Someone must be blamed, and you, his partner, will be his odds-on choice to own his blame.
It’s amazing how often we accept, against our better instincts, the narcissistic/sociopathic partner’s insistence that we are responsible for his infinite emptiness.
We do so for many reasons, but the one I’d like to stress is this: If we don’t accept this responsibility, his blame, we seriously risk losing the relationship.
Ongoing relationships with abusive, contemptuous partners require just this kind of Faustian contract: To preserve the relationship, however desecrated it is, I will accept your blame. For the sake of not yet losing this relationship, I will continue to entertain, if not own, your constant assertion that there is something in me—something deficient and insufficient—that explains your mistreatment and disrespect of me.
To say it somewhat differently, so long as we’re not yet ready to jettison a destructive relationship, a narrative must be constructed to explain our decision to stay. The narrative, as I suggest, often goes something like this: I am to blame—I —for my partner’s debasing attitudes and behaviors. I must be to blame, otherwise I’d leave.
The narrative is rational, but false. It’s a false narrative (in the back of our minds, we may sense its falseness), but it’s the only narrative under the circumstances that can explain, and seemingly justify, our continued tolerance of our partner’s nonsense.
A couple I spent some time with recently (clinically) illustrated this point well. The husband, Harold, was one of the most transparent narcissistic personalities I’ve ever seen. He’d recently ended an affair with a colleague (justifying the affair as a function of his right to pursue the fulfillment his spouse, Julia, wasn’t supplying).
Interestingly, about eight weeks into their courtship, Harold began offering up undisguised, alarming displays of his narcissism in general and narcissistic rage specifically. Julia was highly disturbed by each of these displays. All left her thinking, “This isn’t right. I should end this thing now, before I get deeper in. He shouldn’t be treating me like this. I shouldn’t be tolerating this.” But while recognizing these alarming warnings, she was already too deeply invested in her vision of the relationship—and Harold—to end it.
A dozen years later, not much has changed. Julia has a beautiful child and, in Harold, a spouse who’s conformed entirely to his early, advanced billing—he is demanding, often hostile and passive-aggressive, easily and constantly disappointed, blaming (of her) for the emptiness that leaves him constantly wanting, and prone to secretiveness.
Julia caters to his moods and demands in order to avoid eliciting the ugliest manifestations of his hostility (whose emergence threatens everpresently to scare and traumatize her).
But it’s no secret how Julia, with her high intelligence and striking emotional maturity, continues to justify her decision to endure what’s been Harold’s 12-year assault on her emotional safety and dignity.
She has owned the blame for his discontent, disappointments, and acting-out.
Just as soon as she’s ready to disown this falsely ascribed (and tacitly accepted) responsibility, she’ll find herself without a reason to accept the conditions of—and indignities associated with—Harold’s personality disorder.
At that point, the leverage will be hers—Harold will either have to shape up (unlikely), or she’ll be genuinely prepared to ship him out.
(This article is copyrighted (c) 2008 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
Hello Everyone,
I’m from Brazil and am so glad to have found this site. It’s been almost a year since I left a relationship that only caused me pain and until I found your comments I was still feeling guilty, although all my friends and family told me I was not to blame myself. No matter what I did to him was enough. I tried to be “the perfect wife”but it was never good enough. When we had arguments, usually because of his discontentment and bad mood, I always ended up saying I’m sorry. And I think as the time passed I became more tolerate, even knowing I was not happy, but in my mind I couldn’t live without him. Well, in the end I was cheated on, he started being cruel to me and left me alone at the beach to meet his lover. I swallowed it all because I thought I couldn’t live without him. Then one day I couldn’t take the pain from the bad treatment and indifference and left. He says If he cheated on me it was because I deserved it. His mother was by his side blaming me too. I went to hell. For me he is a monster.
He never said I’m sorry. One day he had the courage to use my car to go spend the night with his lover. He said I destroyed our home. And how guilty I was feeling. I’m at the moment taking some medicine to relieve the anxiety and the physical symptoms I have when those memories of bad treatment and cruelty come back. But I’m feeling so much better I found the right profile for him and now I can see it’s not my fault. I always thought he had a mental problem, and he admitted himself sometimes to be “crazy”..I think he knew something was not right…and he is intelligent, I’m sure deep inside of him he knows he’s not right, but he would never admit it to himself because a s/n can never lose right..if something is wrong is because of the others. I can say I’m much better now for not be feeling guilty, although I miss him, I can realize I did everything to keep on but he didn’t help.
Thank you in advance and congratulations on this blog!!!
mantiassa,
Yes, when I left my x, he seemed to become delusional about some things. Also during our relationship I saw evidence of something his mother would do. After she left our house for a visit, she would call the x and tell him horrible things that I said. Once she told him that I mentioned her having a sexual relationship with someone (she was widowed, almost 80, and in her case, it was a highly unlikely that she would, IMO). The X would believe her, or at least tell me he did, and I would wrack my brain trying to think of what could possibly have made her think I would say something like that to her. Then I would recall having made a conversational comment while watching a tv show, for example. The only explanation was that she was “remembering” HER thoughts about the tv show and attributed them to me voicing them, because I was there at the same time. This was only one of the things she accused me of. The point of this digression is that when I finally woke up to his abuse and left, he started exhibiting some of the same types of behaviors. I think in both cases these disordered people were projecting thoughts that were unwanted and shameful (to them) onto me. The x did this a lot, and I didn’t even notice it, b/c, I think, my father had always done it and I was habituated to it. It all goes back to them refusing to accept responsibility – even for their own “shameful” thoughts. This might point more to pathological narcissistic behavior than sociopathic behavior, I don’t know. I only know it’s wonderful to be free of it!
Overcomming
Welcome come sit next to me sweat Angel ! I have a story of a TIGER ! A TIGER in a cage!
Elizabeth
Yup! every time was worse than the last DITO! They say PSY/SOC have hair triggers ! well Mine had a DUST Trigger!
The violence was escalating and he had acctually said he was going to kill someone ! I knew who that someone was ME! LOVE jere
Dear Overcoming,
Welcome, my dear. I hope you stay around and read and learn all you can from the articles here. They are wonderful and will help you heal. Feel free to post here, ask questions, or just vent! (((hugs)))) you are in a safe place here.
Dear Overcoming: Your story is proving to me … as I read everyone’s stories … that our EXs don’t have any coping skills whatsoever, how to deal with life’s normal issues and Heaven forbid, life’s problems. Period.
They don’t know how to resolve problems or issues in their lives.
They don’t know how to step back and see the overall picture of what their decisions are doing or have done to the other people in their lives.
They haven’t mastered patience due to viewing life’s scenarios myopically.
They have no clue that there are hasty, myopic decisions that can be made in life and then there are the stepping back (practicing of patience) being allowed to see the over all view that can be taken too.
I think our EXs haven’t a clue that coping skills need to be incorporated in their lives.
Which makes me lean more to the fact they are the infants of our society… not the monsters we think they are. I think they use the monster label just to keep people away, because they know how messed up they really are.
Hence, their hasty decisions are so painful, no matter what their ridiculous decision is … it pains the partner (us) because we have coping skills, so naturally their non-coping skills floor us.
The all have to set up and maintain other relationship(s) simultaneously because if the main relationship should find truths to what is going on behind the scenes of the ideallic illusion they painted, we’d leave them … again, their fears that they haven’t acknowledged, yet alone resolved.
I think their fearful thoughts are so buried in their subconscious, they don’t know how (no coping skills again) how to bring their subconscious thoughts to the for font on the conscious level.
They don’t have their initial insecurities written down so they can review all their concerns and they certainly don’t talk about these concerns, hence, never being allowed to work through them to make a break through and move past these fears. That’s why they keep repeating their fears over and over again with new partners and the problems get bigger and bigger as they naturally spin out of control.
So, what do they do? They use their arrogance to shrug all their problems onto everyone else. Their arrogance is a weapon they use to protect themselves, even though it pains and infuriates us.
I know there is more to this …. I’m too tired to think about the rest right now … but this is a good start if anyone wants to comment and join this conversation.
Peace.
Winni,
You said everything…Inside of him I can see a very insecure person, who hadn’t learn how to deal with his problems. And all his reaction I see as a defense, of what we still don’t why. Their mind is so mixed up, they are problematic, but selfish to the extreme. I would many times find myself feeling sorry for him, even after all the cheating and indifference. They are sick people. And as you said, childish. I could never have a logic discussion, he would only attack me and repeat words to offend me like a kindergarten child does. I remember one day I said that he though no one could notice his manipulations, but they do… After this he started to change. It seems like I found out his secret. But I can’t feel sorry for him, and the though I wasn’t able to cope with “his” problems and couldn’t been able to be a “good wife” was killing me. Well, I think I’m a very reasonable person and everyone says I’m very patient and tolerant. I just couldn’t see what I did wrong. During the relationship every day I wondered what I did to make him feel annoyed. What am I doing wrong? I couldn’t find an answer. But in the end I accepted his blaming, cause no one can figure out what makes someone change so much. His mother said: you must have done something… But as I started reading about psi I realized he was one of them. And it was like getting a weigh off my shoulders. And all of you who just have broken off with your ex’s and are experiencing the first phase of this healing process are lucky people to have found this site. I went through all the pain blaming myself without an answer to what had happened.
Well, Let me stop cause I’m gonna write a book here. LOL.
Hugs to all!!
Hi Oxdrover,
I read all your comments and it seems you are a very intelligent person. And I admire you for being so strong and just. I’m learning a lot with you and all the others.
Hugs..
Overcoming: I’m not a NEWBIE blogging about my EX … my relationship with my EX ended over 2 years ago. He was 1/2 of my situation, the other consisted of being attacked by the likes of my bosses and their cronies who conveniently took all the checks and balances out of place to ensure their attack strategies worked and they’d be able to sit back and act like they had nothing to do with anything (typical). That was on-going since the summer of 1998, finalizing in 2004.
Besides, they aren’t the only anti-socials I’ve had to deal with, I’ve had “them” coming in and out of my life for years … that’s why I’d rather put positive energy into helping each of us as we heal from our experiences and why we are at it, think of constructive ways in figuring anti-socials out and possible cures. Hey, I’m an optimist at heart.
It’s that analytical side of my brain working over time, plus I hate discussing my situations … it was horrific going through it in real life, never mind reliving it all the time. I will blogg excerpts that I experienced to benefit others or when I’m explaining something … and it networks all of us to come up with other ideas too.
Your blogg made me come back to the thought that none of them have problem solving skills. I was thinking that they must feel like hopeless messes, so they end up with this what the heck attitude … go for the gusto attitude in life, and who cares about the consequences, because they must have always felt that no one cared that their lives were messed up since they were kids.
Peace.
Sabrina,
I could see in your story that your ex was constantly trying to destroy your self-esteem. Mine did it too but in a more subtle way, but with the same intention. This is because they are extremely insecure, and always want to make us feel inferior, so that they can feel superior. They wanna us think the others are always better than us. Not that they think, but they want us to think we are not so good, so that we are constantly striving to improve and serve them. And they envy us, this is for sure, that’s why they are always attacking us. It bothers them the fact that they can’t be as normal and happy as us. When my ex was angry, he had to make anything to make me feel the same way. I tried to control myself but he was so repetitive in blaming and accusing me, and he kept on doing this till I break down and cry. Then he was satisfied..Interesting I was reading about it, that they tend to want to “level” the syntonies, states of mind.
I had to be as down as him then he was ok. He was cruel.
I wish my vocabulary in english was broader so that I could express myself better LOL
Hugs..
Winni,
I think I got too excited but actually when I said the new people that are accessing the site, I was talking to the people I can see in this blog are desperate as I was in the begining. I can see you have a lot of experience, and that’s the difference of having knowledge and being ignorant. The first thing you figure out that person is sick and deal with the situation (not that is gonna be easy). But when you don’t have that consciousness and somebody starts acting like that you keep asking yourself: What did I do to him/her? Why does he do that to me? What did I do? Now I know he’s gonna do this over and over again with his future girlfriends, friends and bosses, and I feel sorry for them.
As Oxdrover says, knowledge is power. And I totally agree.
And you could write a book about it..LOL
Hugs!