Editor’s note: This article was submitted by Steve Becker, LCSW, CH.T, who has a private psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, and clinical consulting practice in New Jersey, USA. For more information, visit his website, powercommunicating.com.
In my work with clients involved with exploitative personalities, it’s not unusual to learn, together, that detectable, early warning signals went unrecognized, minimized, or both.
This isn’t to blame the subsequent victims of abusive partners; there are many instances where such clues were lacking (and even when not, blame is inappropriate). But it’s to appreciate, undefensively, that the honeymoon phase of a relationship is almost, by definition, one that invites a level of denial. The denial helps protect our fantasy that we’ve finally met our perfect love partner. It’s in the honeymoon phase, especially, that our need to idealize a prospective partner is at its strongest, correspondingly leaving our objectivity—and sobriety—at its weakest. This makes for a worrisome combination, specifically encouraging the ignoring of ominous signals that, even if subtle, are no less invaluable and critical.
In retrospect, my clients are often surprised to admit that the exploiter in whom they chose to invest really did “tip his hand” more than they wanted, later, to admit. Not all, but many sociopaths aren’t clever enough to fully disguise, even in the early stages of a relationship, their core self-centeredness and insensitivity, if our radar is sufficiently non-compromised.
The key, of course, is first to recognize these signs. But interestingly this isn’t the hardest challenge. The hardest challenge is then to heed them.
I find that many of my clients were in fact cognizant of odd, disconcerting behaviors/attitudes that their exploitative partners were reckless enough to reveal (or incapable of concealing). They may have even felt troubled by them. But in their intense need to want the relationship, and the partner, to be the elusive fit they so hungrily sought, they found ways to suppress their uneasiness: to ignore and/or minimize the significance of these signals; and rationalize the alarms their instincts triggered.
In other words, it’s not so much that their antennae are necessarily impaired (because often they aren’t); rather, it’s their weak response to what their antennae properly register that is the problem. It’s like a smoke detector that goes off in a distant room in the house. You hear it, or think you do, but you’re so slumberously inebriated that you convince yourself you’re not hearing what’s inconvenient to hear—maybe it’s not really the smoke detector—and so rationalize, at great personal risk, your inaction. The inconvenient, much less pleasant reaction (and action) would be to confront—and not ignore—the dimly perceived, but potentially lifesaving, signal. Among other lessons, this suggests just how inconvenient and unpleasant it sometimes is to have to take the steps necessary to protect ourselves.
When I work with clients who find themselves in, or recovering from, victimizing relationships, this theme takes on great meaning and becomes a source of self-empowerment. My clients are determined to become more confident, not only in their radar for uncovering the first dubious chinks in their partners; they are even more determined to learn how to heed these earliest warnings in present, and future relationships.
Whether the warning is more jarring, like a flash of previously unseen rage or coldness, or more subtle, like a disarming expression of entitlement, they’ll want to notice it (the first, and easier task); and then, confronting their powers of rationalization, they’ll want to examine it seriously and soberly for precisely the implications they’re so fearful of seeing.
Hello all. This is my very first post on this website. I have read and read and read and read and cried and still can’t believe what has happened to me ! Im in Melbourne Australia, and everything I read here is so totally unbelievably true and I have suffered and still suffering from a sociopathic relationship with a man who was my ‘soulmate’ and I still believe is.. no matter what I read I sit here with an aching heart. It will be 10 years on 21st November this year. Ten years of trying to make him see sense, of my undying love. I feel sick, crazy. My friends are tired of me, and nobody understands. Nobody. Everyone tells me to move on, let go. etc. etc. etc. etc. there isnt anything i haven’t tried. From spells to psychologists, to tarot to almost driving myself crazy. He has left me and come back more than 10 times, and I would still have him back tomorrow.. I am a quarter of the beautiful woman that I once was.. having the reputation of party girl.Nothing and nobody could bring me down like this man has.. i left my husband for him. I think my ex husband was a narcissist as well. Its my good good beautiful nature that he has almost destroyed. I thank god for my strength and my sense of humour. I feel like the stuffing has been punched out of me. I know I am in control. there is so so so so so so much more.. my laptop battery is dying but I will be back here. .thank you so much to all the women out there, that have helped me see that i AM NOT, REPEAT , NOT CRAZY. having no contact is so hard. so many memories, playing over and over and over and over and over in my head, my poor children have an absent mother. and I dont want that, they are beautiful and have been so much support, when it should be the other way around.. my children’s father is in a coma . .has been for 2 years.. the sociopath left me in march 2006, and my ex husband had a massive stroke in june 2006..i need help, i need your support. I am in so much pain, I have suffered like never before in my life, thank god I have a job, a great job, a great family, beautiful friends who can’t believe how devoted I am to the crazy man, I saw him again last weekend and he lives interstate with his daughter, and then i dont hear from him , he turns his phone off, he has another woman up there, I know that for certain, and yet he keeps telling me trust me trust me and trust me. He blamed me for him leaving, he is an alcoholic, and I am in love with the illusion, excusing him for all the bad things he has done and the way he has treated me. He ran off every time some thing went wrong, he blamed me for eveything he did. he brags he was married for 18 years without ANY arguing… his ex just worked him out, and just did her own thing. They came to Australia from East Germany only over 10 years ago. and and and and and there is a book I could write about all this. I am constantly apologising to my good friends and family for going on and on and on and on . they tell me i am attractive, intelligent and can be with anyone i want to be with, and i know that, yet my spine tingles when i think of not being with him . help. i can’t go on .
I know that some people get touchy when you talk religion here. But through the darkest times we draw on whatever support systems we have. For people like me with next to no family, I was put in care at aged 6 and I have two living close family members only, and my experiences will be different to those of other people. BUT we all share a common denominator here and the support of site contributors here is amazing.
I can only relate my experiences and I dont want to be cryptic because I want to share all levels of my experience, like many people have done here. They say ‘it takes one to know one’. Let me reprint the sentence in my last contribution. I thank YOU ALL AS SHADES OF GOD’s loving support. This is my experience.
Beverly-
Yes, God is Good. I don’t think we should be afraid to say this- He is the most potent warrior we have in this fight- and all the angles and Saints. Not to mention the Blessed Virgin Mary….
I am Catholic -obviously-and have been through various stages of “spirituality” and been away from the Church etc. And know that church attendance does not mean holy….BUT that said….I agree…the best support ANY victim of a psycho has is taking refuge in God.
God has been fighting the Devil for years.
I totally agree that a spiritual aspect is needed in healing. I am a Christian, I try to be a good one, but sometimes I fail to live up to my ideal, I let anger over come me, and bitterness, etc. but the spiritual aspect of my healing is something that I think is very important.
I don’t think WHAT your spiritual aspect is (even people who don’t ‘believe in any god” have some sort of spritual aspect to their selves. What ever that spritual aspect is, I think we need to draw heavily upon it.
Telling a complete stranger and receiving caring and validation can be VERY healing. Sometimes it is easier to do that than to tell someone who knows you, it is less threatening because you will probably never see that person again. I think those strangers that we can tell and cry in front of are “angels in disguise” for us, they help us get the tears out, to feel validated, and that the human race as a whole is not all Ps. There are good caring people in this world and I think that we need to have that afirmed from time to time.
Peace and love toyou all my friends! You have affirmed me so many times! I will forever be grateful for your words of wisdom.
been there done that; i too wonder what you do if it will work out for him and new victim. but everyone here keeps saying it will not work out for them. i think a big part of it is cause they get bored and need excitment, which after a while in a relationship it gets mundane for them and they start thinking what else is out there that is better. i can see how my ex would feel like this after a while.but he is like a cling on he wants the status of being a couple rather than look like a loser and be single, so who knows i too dont want him to be happy, i know this is wrong but that is the truth of how i feel.i can really relate to your comen ti also think that even though i am no contact and dont call him at all other woman will be ringing him so maybe the new victim will click on eventually. i hope so .
Jules, to “not want him to be happy” is a very normal response, and quite frankly, I do not think it is possible for them to be “happy” in the sense that we can be happy.
Happiness to me is a side effect of living a stable, good life. Their lives are always chaotic, and at times they have “glee” when they put one over on someone, or anger when they don’t, but “happy?” I am not sure that they can comprehend happiness as we see it any more than they can “love”—they sometimes I think equate “love” with “ownership” or “getting what they want” but we know that is not the definition of love.
If I stood before you and said a word in Arabic, and you had no idea what it meant in Arabic because you didn’t speak that language, you might try to understand what I was saying, by looking at what I was doing or pointing at when I kept saying it over and over. A CONCEPT as “vague” as love is more difficult to comprehend than say “water” or “dog” so if I was saying “love” in Arabic, and hugging myself, or making kissing sounds etc trying to demonstrate what I was saying by my actions, you still might not get it. I think they learn to “pronounce” the word, make the sound, but they NEVER GET THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE WORD AND NURTURING AND CARING. Love is an ACT, or a series of actions it is NOT ONLY A ‘ SQUISHY FEELING”—they may experience LUST and equate it with “love” or they may feel “ownership” and equate that with love, but they never get the concept of LOVE AS AN ACT.
As Robert Hare said, “they can learn the words but not the tune” they just can’t get it. He mentioned one P woman who said “Yes, of course I love my kids” but it never dawned on her that LOVING THEM MEANT FEEDING THEM. (Again, love is an ACT)
I was discussing the passage in the Bible with a minister friend of mine and he gave me a big break through, both emotionally and spiritually. I asked him “How can you LOVE YOUR ENEMIES?” He told me that LOVE in that context is an ACT and means to “be kind to them” rather than vengeful.
I also discussed “forgive those that persecute you” and what does “forgiveness” mean. I came to see that “forgiveness” does NOT = reestablishment of trust or the relationship. YOu can forgive someone (get the bitterness out of your own heart) but that does not mean that you must trust them. Trust is earned, not automatically given with “forgiveness.” Forgiveness is us not being bitter within ourselves, it has nothing to do with reestablishing the abusive relationship, or whether or not they repent, etc.
My mother had raised me to believe that in order to please God and her, I had to “pretend none of this ever happened” when someone did something unacceptable to me or someone else. Well, DENIAL does NOT = forgiveness.
There is a good thread here on what constitutes an “Apology” and it is not “well, that’s unpleasant and I want to think positive thoughts, let’s just pretend none of this happened and start over.” That’s a quote from my P-by-proxy Enabling mother a few days after the arrest of the Ps, after she had punished me when I had tried to prevent the Ps from ripping her off and killing me. How can you reestablish a trusting relationship with ANYONE who has discounted you to the extent that my mother did me? Who discarded and dismissed and fought you tooth and nail, and then refuses to acknowledge that they did anything wrong, but continue to blame their behavior on you? Mother isn’t a P, but she is so deeply into the enabling behavior that she is behaving as a P, so what is the difference in one that BEHAVES as a P because they have no conscience and one that BEHAVES as a P because they are in DENIAL and so imbedded in dysfunctional behavior that they cannot acknowledge it? The behavior is the same in the end, the results are the same, they will not change, and you cannot trust them. The ONLY viable option is No Contact, or such limited contact that there is NO relationship.
To me, forgiving them for “being what they are” is the only way to deal with it, get the bitterness out of my soul. And, I know it is difficult and I backk slide when I am triggered, because I do not yet have the “reserve strength” to always keep myself in check emotionally, though I am at least keeping my BEHAVIOR in check, as I did last night when I suddenly ran into my X-BF-P at an auction in my part of the country when he lives 400 miles away…I maintained behavioral NC, but certainly not emotional NC because I sat there and worried that he had come there to do damage to me, like his last GF whose house he burned, or some other nasty thing. Especially when he actually SAT directly in front of me though there were plenty of seats elsewhere. I thought of 1000 things I WANTED to say to him, things I wanted to SCREAM at him for everyone in the room to hear. But I controlled my impulses to do so.
I did call home though and have security tightened on my farm, guard dogs chained by the aircraft hangar to sound an alarm, or if released, to run off an intruder, and the gate from the road locked, and my son D on alert for signs of anyone intruding. It still made me paranoid.
Thanks Jules for commenting on my post. Seems like a penpal thing here more than Q@A on topic but I would assume everyone having been victimized must go through hell when he finds a new woman and justs plugs her right into your spot, right into the promises he made you. I guess, jules, we do fall in love with the fantasy. The promises. The dream that he was the answer those secret prayers. And i know the new woman and the ones before me felt that way, but knowing what he is hasn’t helped me as much as other women who just say screw him and move on. Do you ever ask yourself why you care? I think, as my friend said, is because we don’t like to see the bad people win. And the socios win. They skip through life without the pain of regret, heartbreak, obsession. They use people and I don’t want someone who destroys women to ever be happy. That’s it. So i guess we have to get to the point where his happiness, or lack of it, is no concern of ours….indifference. Jules you and I will get there. But damn, it sure takes a long time. Peace.
been there and oxD; thank you guys i got something out of both coments .been there; i know i am getting there but its hard as hell, he has totally replaced me and she is even a look alike me wethr a coincidence i dont know but i saw a photo and yes same features as me. i think i care because i loved him i really did, even though it was not returned and as ox dover says they wont be truely happy cause they cant feel real love even if they want to. his version of love is like puppy love like a teenager feels and a form of owning you, to fill in a part of his life, but not loving you as a person who you are, other wise they would not leave if they really did. i like you dont want a user to be happy and espec not one that used me. the worst part o f his using me happened after he left and thats what hurt me the most he couldnt just let me be he still was trying to hurt me, and thats the part that hurt the most. its not like you just say oh it didnt work out and move on its not like the other relationships that fail for us its totally different, the confusion, the using, the betrayal. thats why we dont just bounce back the way we might of before with other people. i my self had never been betrayed sexualy before this guy so i think that is a big part i am trying to get over, and he knows i have never been un faithful, he knew this would really hurt me. i am totally no contact i dont call, see him or anything unless we bump into each other which hasnt happened yet. but my mind does go there not as much but sometimes so still dealing with this. oxD: i am gald you held it together when you saw him . did he speake to you what did you do then, just wondering cause i often think what i would do if i saw my ex face to face like that. thnks for the notes on forgiveness, do you have to tell them you forgive them. i dont like carrying around the hatered for him but its just there i am not that sort of person to hate anyone but its different for him. it is some consolation that he will not feel happy. the proof is there tha t he never loved me the way i experience love is that he left me, and he replaced me pretty quickly, he burries himself so deep in the new relationship he doesnt have to think of what happened between us, and what he did this is how he gets over it ive seen it. i still get the paranoia you talk of too if i think he is trying to contact i panic a bit but as far as i know he hasnt, because that would be show ing me he cares and he cant do that. he seems to have indiffernce to me so i might as well take a note out of his book. keep on keeping one . i am concentrating on me now. thank you both again.
Dear Jules, there are some people on here who so mirror my experiences – and you are certainly one of the main ones. Not only did my exN manipulate me, but after we had many breakups (I reacted to his behaviour and he punished me by withdrawal) and I never asked him back or contacted him, he engineered a get together without ever talking about what happened.
The reason he did that was to punish me some more – like you said, why didnt he just move on. I really loved him too and he said he loved me too many times, but how real that was I dont know. It is horrible to think that if he really loved me he would not have been sleeping with other women during our breaks and when it finally finished he had another one lined up as though I never existed, and he sent a message through someone to tell me – to keep me away and to gloat.
What I question about myself is how I placed so much love into someone who wasnt there for me but I think I invested in his promises and that is so hurtful. I have been betrayed before, but it is the way they do it which is so bad. Like raw meat, they whip up a cocktail of soul emotions and whip you with it – cruel. I have never been unfaithful, but I think they chose nice women, they have perfected their ‘pulling’ practice and are able to hook the best specimens. My ex was able to pull some very stunning women and my predecessor looked like me (this is not uncommon as we have preferred types). But hate is the flip side of love. They are very clumsy and make raw meat out of the situation. My ex almost immediately went onto someone else and I couldnt believe that not only did he avoid any discussion with me he avoided the pain of it. But dont forget Jules that they cannot run away they take it all with them and it accumulates like a rotten pile.
I know that mine will never contact me, he has too much to explain and I would want explanations and he is indifferent and I am curious to what he has told his current girlfriend about me and i would like to meet her to tell her the real truths of what he is like. They leave such a mess behind them.
It really does get better. But lets be honest Jules, we dont want that kind of destructive fake love that hangs on a thread all the time – we are worth more than that. I am so pleased he is behind me – I am the lucky one now – not his new girlfriend she has all that crap to come because I know that after the honeymoon period when he has drawn her into his lair, he will start messing with her mind, body and soul – and I feel sorry for any woman who comes in his path. He should come with a Health Warning. Keep brave dear Jules, you will be healed and you will look back and realise that although this part is painful, it will pass and you will do better with your life.
Dear Jules,
To answer your question about forgiveness, NO you don’t have to tell them you forgive them, the forgiveness is not for THEIR benefit it is for YOURS–and the “forgiveness” will not come over night or even all at once I don’t think, but more over a period of time,, a little at a time, until one day you will sort of have an “Ah Ha” moment and realize that you don’t feel bitter at them any more. And, sometimes something will trigger you, and you will be back to square 1 again, but it does get better.
I can’t say that I’m 100%, but I am WORKING on it. The first time a couple of years ago that I saw my XBF-P it didn’t bother me as much if any at all. But, I have been through two years of hell since then, and am having some “down days” and it was THEN that he popped into view unexpectedly IN MY BACK YARD so to speak, so it happened at a moment I was already down, and weaker than I have been, so it “got to me” more than it would have even two weeks ago.
He spoke to me but I did not return his greeting, and in fact, pretended he wasn’t even there. I could tell he was uncomfortable and seeing me was as much a suprise for him as it was for me I think. The fact that he chose seats in front of us I think means he wanted me to talk to him, but NO way.
He likes to pretend to be “friends” with all his x-GFs, which to him means “we’re not a couple, but I still get to have sex with you sometimes when I can’t get any anywhere else.”
Being BITTER against them, hating them, etc. all that does is to give them “rented rooms” in our hearts and souls….until we can overcome those negative emotions and feelings, we can’t heal because THEY ARE STILL WITH US, just a “thought away”—I don’t want them “living in my head” with me for the rest of my life.