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.)
And I just want to make sure that I make myself clear-Just because we love them, it is not wrong, and we shouldn’t deny it, but it still means that we should not continue a relationship with them, until and only if they change. IF…
Isn’t there a quote that says the love you give away is the only love you keep? And: it’s better to have loved and lost than never at all? Or how about: Love works in miracles every day: like weakening the strong, stretching the weak and making fools of the wise and wise men of fools, favouring the passions, destroying reason, and simply turning everything topsy-turvy.”
Doesn’t the above quote prove that we all did love? Maybe we could talk about, or even start another blog about the good things we did, how we forgave, what we did love, what we still have…Aren’t we all trying to move forward to a happy future, but how can we do that if we keep dwelling on the past? I’m going to challange everyone to take a day off of looking backwards, and see the beauty that we do have in the life in front of us.
letgoletgod
You are so right, no corrections needed, its difficult to believe what your head is saying when your heart is saying something different and most ‘normal’ (whatever that is)people dont go into a relationship with their heads, but only with their hearts.
letgoletgod…….
That has been my struggle in a nutshell these past 2 1/2 years since her departure…. the heart still loves despite the pain, and the head aches because of the truth…. I have always said that I can look at myself in the mirror and know that I loved her in a generous, kind way and I’m proud of that aspect, although there is pain that I gave so much to someone who was sick and evil. My ruminations are both of the good and the bad with her and my pain is that when it was good (when she wanted it to be) it was wondeful.. the happiest time of my entire life… but.. when it was bad (when she wanted it to be).. it was horrible and confusing… the push and pull.. the hot and cold.. the bizzare, contridictional behavour…. it was never worth the pain.. but I did the same things that the woman in the article above did… I took the blame the the fall.. in order to perserve the investment that I had in the relationship because I saw in my fantasy, the results would be worth it to get the things I wanted…. it was sick on her (her little mind game) part to string me along for so long thinking if I just did this, or that things would be fine….. It has been said here many times before, and I live by the truth of it today… It all happened for a reason.. and although it broke me.. hell.. it shattered me… I will never allow that kind of unhealthy mind set in my life again…. Yes.. I still love her.. my heart is loving and kind and FORGIVING… but I don’t want her, or anyone else for that matter who does not/will not/ not capable of/ treating me with the respect and dignity that I have always deserved…. May God have mercy on her soul.
Ok, so maybe here is another way to look at THEM; a theory of mine: Almost like when LOVE and HATE collide. If we typically use our hearts most of the time above all else, then we are the Love. THEY use their minds above all else, fully lacking the USE of their HEARTS, so THEY are the Hate.Isn’t it true that when you don’t use a body part it dies after awhile (like if you are in a coma you need someone to move you around constantly). So, if they never learned to use their hearts, or stopped, it just dies. I think GOD put us in THEIR lives because no one else would ever be able to compare. We are fully, polar opposites in every way. And they taught us things that we needed to learn in order to have a complete and loving life in our future, that no ordinary person could do. He taught me good and bad things that I didn’t even know about myself. And we will be better for it. And what did we teach them? Something, at least. We may never see it, but we can certainly hope that the presense of us in THEIR lives has changed them in (some) way, at the very, very least. Who knows, maybe one day an old lady is crossing the street and they remember you for some reason at that moment and decide to help her. An affect that only we could have on them. And the cycle continues. So, in theory, they NEEDED us.
I fully believe that everything has an opposite, right and wrong, up and down, yes and no, black and white, us and them. They were our opposites, so the prime example of when love and hate collides. But, we will continue on this journey of love in life, and where will they be? They need our prayers more than anyone else.
Letgoletgod: I’m with you and agree whole heartedly with what you’ve written.
Peace to everyone healing paths and lets look to the positives in life, how we are healing and how much we have grown due to the experience with our EXs coming into our spaces, and how we are learning and understanding that we can love bigger and better now, this minute, today and in our future.
i have found a song, that i relate my feelings towards the sociopath. jessica simpson on her new album has this song called “still dont stop me”
i think many of you might relate to the song if you just listen to it. it really helps me with my healing. i play this song every day a million times.
here are some lyrics to it.
But it still don’t stop me
Yeah, it still don’t change the truth
Cuz baby you got me
And I can’t let go of you
I know if I let you back in
It’s the same damn thing all over again
You’ll just hurt me, you’ll just hurt me
But it still don’t stop me
when your at the point of that you still have feelings for the sociopath but you know better to let it go and to never go back…
blondie I am not a jessica simpson fan but I will certainly check it out. I have so many song’s that I relate too. I try not to listen to the “you done me wrong” song’s like I used too. But I love music and if a song writer understand’s and write’s a song from the heart then they were prolly where we are at now. Dang will the hurt ever go away? We don’t want em back Blondie – we just want to get past this pain. One time I told (M) to listen to this song because it is our song. He lost interest half way through the song and got on the computer to play games – I went outside and asked myself what in the hell am I doing? Thet are empty of any emotion’s…..
Letgoletgod ….
Mine never “needed” me..I was merely a stepping stone to the next person she would victimize….The virtues that I displayed never regestered on any real emotional level with her…although she used words like exceptional and amazing and honorable to describe me… who does bad things to someone that they would say that to??? the answer is…. a crazy person… I think you have to realize that they are devoid of any real feelings of depth…..we have to examine their actions and not their words……bottom line…great acting exhibited by a heartless person with a vacant soul….it’s too bad for them though….. when their looks begin to fade, and their line of charm just doesn’t work like it used to…. and the bridges have all been burnt, and they find themselves alone sitting in a chair, looking out the window of a nursing home with no one coming by to visit….lingering….maybe then the reality of what they have done to the people in their past, and the reality of who and what they are will sink in…..no lasting relationships nurtured… no kindness or integrity.. no real love…only gain for themselves….. no one who cares about them because they were so horrible to people around them for their own gain…….Whether a person os disorderd or healthy the rules still apply…… you reap what you sow.. and what comes around, goes around…. life is a echo, what you throw out there comes back to you….if you are looking for redemption, or vindication…. that is really what will happen with these people. I actually have compassion for mine.. It doesn’t take much brains to figure out what will eventually befall her….you continue to hurt people and treat them with reckless reguard.. it comes back to you….it’s the one rule of life that they can’t malnipulate or change….. God has a way of evening the score.. either here or beyond.
DEar LEtgoletGod,
Well, let me see if I can explain my feelings about my P-son.
That little boy what was so wonderful, so loving, so bright, so much fun, I love that little boy very very much. But he died when he was 11 or 12 years old. I kept his “body” on emotional “life support” until last year. I kept hoping that he would “wake up” and be that same wonderful person. But I have had to accept the fact that the MAN that inhabits the body of my little boy is NOT MY SON. MY son is DEAD. The MAN has his organs, but he is not my son.
My husband is dead. I loved him with my entire being, but he is dead. I can’t bring him back. I love him, but I have had to let my heart accept that he is dead and is not going to return to me. I can love another man now (if I knew of a good one that was single and interested). LOL
I have “forgiven” my P-son, gotten over the worst of the bitterness, the anger, the frustration, the grief, the hurt, and pretty well, I think, come to “acceptance.” Just as with my husband’s death, I can think about them, talk about them, remember the good times, and not feel overwhelming grief or sadness.
I have no desire to know anything about what is happening in my son’s life now. I don’t know or care if he is sick or healthy, happy or unhappy, or even what prison he is in (they move them around a lot if they are problems and he’s been moved quite a bit). I used to have a “network” of the mothers of other inmates who visited their sons regularly (like every weekend) so I could get messages about how my son was doing if for any reason there was anything “going on” that I needed to know about. I worried about him, I spent as much or more “mental time” with him (writing letters and reading letters) I probably sent him 25-50 pages of letters a week typed, and got somewhere between 20-50 pages of typed letters in reply. Our “relationship” was interesting and we talked about everything in the world from ideas to books, to what was going on in my life, or in his.
But it was a FANTASY relationship, just like some women will write to famous inmates and “fall in love” with them through the mails, I “fell in love with” my P-son, I fell under his “spell” that he would get out and come home and I’d have a wonderful relationship with him.
The first time he got out (18 yrs ago) and didn’t come home, he did it to “punish me” but believe me, I was NOT “punished”—and looking back on it now, I realize if he HAD COME HOME, it would have been ME THAT TURNED HIM IN, and he would have killed ME instead of the girl he did kill for “ratting him out to the cops.”
I can visualize the scene like a movie. I find out he is robbing again, and he comes home and I confront him, and tell him I am going to the phone to call the police and turn him in. He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a gun and blows my brains out.
I know myself well enough to know that I would have confronted him before I called the police, just like I did the last time I called the cops and turned him in when he was 17. I also know that he was determined that NO ONE was going to “get away with” turning him in to the police.
Even though it has been more than 20 years since I turned him in, the last time I saw him a couple of years ago, he was STILL talking about, and STILL mad about me turning him in then. Talk about holding a grudge.
The thing is, the MAN that is in prison is essentially a STRANGER to me, he isn’t my son, my son is DEAD. He isn’t going to come back to me. The MAN is using his organs, but he is NOT the little boy I loved. The little boy that I “buried” in my heart. I do not love that MAN, the MAN who tried to kill me. The MAN who hates my guts. The MAN who would cut my heart out with a rusty knife and smile while he did it. The MAN who is PROUD of the murder he committed. The MAN who sent his friend to infiltrate our family like a Trojan Horse. The MAN who knew this “friend” of his was sleeping with his brother’s wife, and it was OK with him. That MAN is not my son. My son is dead.
I don’t know if any of that makes any sense to anyone but me, but that’s the way I have “dealt with” the feelings about my P-son.
I held on to the TOXIC AND MALIGNANT HOPE that he would “revive”—but the “emotional life support” that I felt for him, was FANTASY, it was DELUSION, it was the P-FOG. I knew deep down that there wasn’t any hope, not any real hope, but I clung to the delusions because I WANTED to believe them. I wanted to believe that my son had a soul, that he wasn’t the monster that the MAN really is.
When the pain got so intense that I could no longer bear it, I had to let it go. Let go of the delusions.
I think, for me at least, the OBVIOUS cure for the pain, which is to LET GO OF THE RELATIONSHIP, never crossed my mind as being “possible.” It was NEVER considered as an option in any of the things I even thought of to do.
The same thing with the pain caused by my relationship with my mother, it just never crossed my mind that LETTING GO OF THE RELATIONSHIP was even an option. But it is the ONLY POSSIBLE CURE for the pain. The MAN isn’t going to change, and my mother isn’t going to change–so what are my options? Endure more pain that is so intense it is like putting your hand into a fire and trying to hold it there, or to move away from the source of the pain.
Even a flat worm can learn to avoid pain if you shock it enough times with high enough voltage to hurt it but not kill it. I think sometimes that I had to reach the point where the pain finally got through to me. You know the show on TV “Are you as smart as a fifth grader?” Well, I AM smarter than a flat worm. I will no longer associate with anyone who deliberately causes me pain, or who uses or abuses me. It doesn’t matter if I gave birth to them, or they gave birth to me. NOTHING gives anyone the right to abuse me, and I will NOT allow it.
That is MY EMANCIPATION PROCLIMATION.
my kids always wonder how I can joke around and tell funny stories about their dad when he was with us. I could never, ever trust him again.. he is truly dead to me like you said Ox..but I have forgiven him, because he’s a crazy psycho bleeeeep who has no clue what he’s doing. Still it took a long, long time, and my guard will never let down in his case.
I just hope to god I never have to come to that point with any of my kids. I probably could.. but it would kill me, I know I really wouldn’t care about living any more.. I live FOR my kids, only for them. I feel like a person who died long ago.. I’m on life support so my kids can see a body here to hug them and love them and smile at them..
Sometimes they really challenge me and act so unloving, and I have to stand up to them and fight for respect and for what’s right.. but really, I’m only doing it for them. I would like to have a life of my own again.. but I don’t know if that will ever happen for me.