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.)
Dear OX
You are right on. I have used carried a weapon on and off since my early teens. I like you live out in the country and occasionally a coyote or stray comes to close to the house. I would certainly have no problem using it to defend myself. My house was broken into several years ago and if I had been home at the time. 3 people would not be serving time at the expense of the taxpayers. Total low lives.
OX a question for you—have you ever considered going out and doing motovational speaking? It seems to be your calling. Just a thought. Best to you Always, Seeing Clearly
Signing off need to seriouly get some house work done.
Hope your day is filled with JOY.
Dear Seeing Clearly,
Thank you.
Yes, actually I have done some “motivational” and “educational” speaking professionally in years gone by (for University nursing seminars and other groups) and do some occasional educational classes for the Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA volunteers for foster kids in this area) and the local DV shelter. I enjoyed it then and even now on an occasional basis, but have been focusing my energies now on taking care of MYSELF FIRST right now. For the past couple of years, I have been trying to get my own “chit in one sock” and doing the occasional article for LoveFraud and blogging here.
Doing the articles for LF and the blogging here actually reinforces my own healing thoughts about myself, and gives me some positive feed back when I realize I have reached someone else who needs a compassionate hand (thank you) so it is doubly rewarding for me, and I can do it from the “comfort of my own home” in my own time frame…usually in breaks between episodes of cleaning house or working around here, or while I drink my morning coffee.
Glad that you are able and willing to protect yourself. We had a pretty safe neighborhood until all the natural gas drilling around here brought in hoards of illegal aliens and “migrant oil field trash”—I almost came to a shoot out with one bunch cutting my fences to get access to my lands. Now I keep everything locked up tight and a keen eye out for trespassers. Fortunately, where I live is easy to see anyone approaching from a pretty good distance either electronically or by dog alert!
🙂
This gal (who teaches these classes) does the CCW’s.
Next class will be with my own gun.
Then she tests for the CCW.
She pushed us right up on the targets as we shot…..she wanted us to experience the ‘right up on’ point blank effect on our emotions, even though it was jsut a target.
For some reason I always envisioned some space between me and the ‘bad guy’……and never occured to me being in a point blank position.
WOW…..the damage was pretty intense!
Your right OXY, and I’ve shared with you before my previous hesitations of adding another ‘family’ member.
But after I was so terrified a few weeks ago…..when the AN guy was communicating with spath and I heard that noise upstairs (which happened to be a squirrel)…..I was just terrified….didnt have my phone on me(which I ALWAYS do), and the baseball bats were too close to the door to get without being ‘seen’….all I had was a fork in hand! I didn’t like feeling that vulnerable and realized in that scenario…..IT”S TIME!
Like you, I’ve thought that if I needed to use it…….there would be emotional consequences……and now…..I’m ready to take them if I NEED to.
If I’m in that position…..it’ll either be US or ‘them’……and this will improve our chances if i’m packing heat.
I’ll deal with the emotional ‘cleanup’ , when and if I get to that point. At least we will be alive to have the opportunity for the emotions.
I’m leaning in the revolver area. Although I liked the little semi that the teacher carried. Compact and small.
The small revolver is a bid more bulky.
If I had more money…..I’d buy several…..but alas, i don’t…..so i need to make a good choice with the first one!
I’ve got more reading to do, and then more handeling…..
until I get one……
then I can carry on with the tactics class and CCW.
For a gal who didn’t grow up with guns, never shot a handgun, this is a whole new realm for me…..but one I am embracing openly!
Life changes!
In thinking over the relationship today, I started to think about why so many of us “love” even after the hurt, lies, cheating, etc. How we continue on even after the mask comes off, like in my dream I shared on another topic here today.
As most of us here say “we still love him/her” But why? Do we just love being “in love”? Was it just that we loved who we “thought” they were. Like most relationships that fall apart, there is always that honeymoon phase. Eventually, we see who the partner really is, there true character.
So I started thinking, no one can truly love someone until they have revealed their characters to us. Why is this so? Because character comes with the true actions that are shown to us with consistency.
Until we know someone’s character/true actions we can not say in truth that we know or love who they ARE. This explains why people fall in love with their imagined version of the other person and don’t become acquainted with that other person’s character until enough time has passed for the consistency of their characters to be revealed, or in our cases when the mask finally comes down.
We each have a will. How we exercise our will means the choices we make. The choices we make affect our behaviors. The consistent behaviors a person exhibits is the truth of who they are. Behaviors are the revelation of character. Behaviors reveal what has been happening in the unseen realm of someone’s thinking. He/She revealed what his character truly was. We have a sudden, horrific revelation of what their thinking and choices have added up to. This forced us all to see what an evil character had been developing quietly step by step and choice by choice while we were unaware. We often heard our ex protest after being caught in some bad behavior that “it isn’t like me to do this, or I will do xyz again”. No, it is like you, it IS you. They chose to do what you did. They revealed who they were, not who they aren’t, when they cheated, lied, they were showing us exactly who they are.
If, after having a clear view of someone’s personal character traits, did we ever have respect, admiration, feeling secure and trust in that person? Only then can we state that we loved who this person really is/was.
When we have finally gotten to know the personal characteristics of an individual, and we find that we can not say we love those characteristics. Yet we insist that we still love the person. Never mind that this person lies to us, cheats on us, slanders us to others, even physically abuses us…we insist we hate their character traits but we love the person. It is this so-called “love” which justifies why we are still holding on after leaving it. Whatever the reason for it , this is describing someone who has created a fantasy around the objectionable character. We are not in love with the person…we are/were in love with the idea of who we’ve decided this person is in spite of the evidence to the contrary. This is not reality-based thinking. To insist a person is “good” despite what bad things they actually do is an exercise in imagination only.
Perhaps we insist that we love what this person could be if they only tried (been there a hundred times). This too, is a refusal to live in reality. To keep insisting that we love the rotten character, is our way of holding on to what/whom? We white-wash their character in order to convince ourselves we need to stay connected to them.
When I finally stopped pretending that I loved a person who was actually hateful towards me was I finally able to “let it go”. The key component of mental health is the mind which insists on living in reality/in the truth. We are not doing our mental health any favors by engaging in these mental games which allow us to stay in a bad place. If we don’t love what a person does then we can’t accurately state that we love(d) the person. When I was basing reality on his web of lies and finally wanted to break free to be healthy again–why was I concocting my own web off lies. I allowed myself to stay “connected emotionally” basing my feelings that were all based on lies, the mask, the fantasy. After removing myself from his web of lies, I needed to undo my own web of lies that kept me emotionally hooked to him.
I’m in my own internal therapy mode today. Sorry for all my rambling posts. There are some (many)days I read and want to say something and just couldn’t get it out in words. Maybe my dream helped me over that next hump of healing. The moving past it all. The excepting reality. Just doing a lot of thinking and wanting to get out my thoughts and share with those who understand what I am processing.
Dear EB,
I do have more than one, and for different purposes…I have one known as “the judge” that is a BIG heavy gun BUT the BIG advantage is up close and personal, it will shoot SHOT GUN SHELLS or 45 “long colt” slugs. The benefit of the shot gun shells is 1) there are multiple 9 mm pellets in each shell, and 2) it will generally NOT shoot through a WALL, so makes it safer to use inside a house when other people are in the house and you don’t want to take ANY chance of shootiing someone in another room by accident. Slugs can pass through a body and THEN a wall.
Down side of this gun, is it is HUGE. Looks like a “hog leg” but I keep it on my bed and do not “Carry” it.
For carrying I have an inexpensive foreign made .38 with Black talon shells that are made for “man killers” not hunting. It is fairly small, but again with the short barrel is not real accurate at more than 10-15 yards (30-40 ft.) BUT if you are going to shoot a person who is threatening you, it WILL BE up close and personal not at 100 yards. Same with the big long barreled judge, it is an up close and personal defense weapon as the scatter with the shot gun shells is rapid, even with a 6 inch barrel, but with the equivalent of 20 9mm shells your chance of accuracy (i.e. hitting someone with enough stopping power to save yourself) is multiplied.
I know this is not a “self defense” blog per se, but for some of us self defense and physical safety are very important when dealing with a psychopath. The fact that your P is facing prison and you realize that he is capable of some seriously illegal activities, and has in the past gone as far as to kidnap your kids, I would say you do need to be very capable of protecting yourself, but learning to feel comfortable with a hand gun is something that takes TIME and practice, so you will really need to be able to practice and train well and frequently. I don’t even bother “practicing” because it is fairly expensive to shoot much and secondly, a hand gun (because I grew up shooting) feels natural to me and when I do go shoot, my accuracy is more than good enough–close enough for government work, and I don’t tend to get “buck fever” when I do aim at something I intend to kill, though I admit I did get “buck fever” pretty badly AFTERward in the times I did pull and point the gun, but I DO strongly believe it saved my arse both times, and the third time just by having it visible.
I also think one reason the Trojan Horse Psychopath will not be back here is that He KNOWS we pack and he knows we WOULD defend ourselves, and he is not going to get involved in a fair fight. He only went after my son C because he knew that C did not have a weapon at the time and that the wifey was actively trying to get the phone out of C’s hand as he was trying to call 911.
P-son, on the other hand, would come in here even if he knew we had banks of machine guns aimed at him….he has NO FEAR of anything. He has that teen-aged idea that nothing can kill him. I dont’ think he will ever out grow that either.
Dear Findingmyself,
Yep, sugar, sounds like you HAVE FOUND YOURSELF. GREAT POST!!!!
Went back and re-read this entire blog. Each time I read in here I see bits and pieces of the faux relationship I was in.
Cheryl back in Oct of 08 stated that her ex is/was vindictive. Catfish told me after the first time I cut him loose that he thought I could be vindictive. I remember telling him that I am not vindictive because that would cause harm to someone,however I said, I would and will protect myself and my family from whomever tried to harm them. And I also remember that he had a site rifle in a bedroom just laying on the bed. Iask him about it and he flippantly said something about rabid dogs. HMMMM. All the memories are starting to flood my brain. Now it’s becoming clearer and clearer.
I don’t blame myself for any of this. My thing is I was not given all the information I needed to make a correct decision.
It’s like needing surgery on a knee but not telling the surgeon which knee. Have a 50/50 change of getting it right and a 100% chance of getting it wrong.
One other thing brought up, catfish said we were not on an equal footing that I had all the power (money) and control. I said I had never used that in anyway to make him feel less than me. His answer was we need to find a way to balance it out? WTFHWHTA? Now I know.
It all seems so innocent taking poison one teaspoon at a time. Put is all together and you get whole of it. Seein Clearly
Stay Strong Stay Safe and Stay Sane
What tiny minds these creatures have.
I so took on his blame.
So much that I became even more submissive to him and he was able to con me into giving up everything and moving to Tucson. I now believe it was an attempt to get me to kill myself. He is truly a psycho and sometimes, looking back, I can’t believe I fell for it all. I am preparing for a federal law suit I filed right now and obtained an audio recording of a court hearing that shows so clearly what a psycho he is and was. I told the police about it, for dumb as it sounds, I took some blame for a severe and brutal assault and attempted murder. Blame for the stressors on him, ready to believe he had blacked out from alcohol. No diabolical and cruel act of his is his fault of course, unless saying so for a moment might get his immediate need met. Grrrr. I can’t believe I tried to get a restraining order on his ex for him! That is what the recording is of. I have the transcript too. He has lied in so many court proceedings since 2006, I expect this transcript to help with some of that. He is wanted for stalking in Sioux Falls, South Dakota but, no one will pay for the extradition. Do you believe that?
And one more thing—-we(actually that wrong) he had a spat with me over I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about. He gave me the stare down. I made a quick exit and a couple of days later after NC he left me a message saying:
“I may have been mistaken about the situtation” WHAT? may have been. when I let my sister listen to it she even said WTF is that?
He knew he had screwed up and was reeling me back in. It took 2 weeks and he happened? to bump into me? Told me he missed me. I said we needed to slow things down. I was delusional in thinking I could ease him out. NC NC NC NC never.
Thanks for letting me have a voice.
SS SS AND SS
Finding MySelf:
Good for you GF. No one can hold on to a false persona forever. 90-100 days and it will all start revealing itself. It’s the bum rush that we get from these low lives that throw us off balance.
For me and I take full responsibility for this, is I am at a stage in life where I just want to have fun. I have been so responsible and straight forward all my life that I just wanted to cut loose.
Suddenly losing my husband 2 years ago—then a near fatal accident (I’m not whinning here just the facts mam) I was prime pickings for the S. I wanted a soft place to land.
Getting back to the 90 day theory: If you have nothing to hide you hide nothing. I was operating on an empty tank. No excuse only an observation.