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.
Hummingbird, I wish you could have read some of the letters my P-son, wrote to me and my mother vs the letters he wrote to his Trojan Horse P buddy…the ones to us my mom said “they don’t sound like the same person wrote them.” She is right. The ones to us were filled with philosophy, take the high road, “what would Jesus do” and “forgiveness.” PUKE!
Oh, yes, he sounded like a therapist or minister in the letters to us and even in conversation. On re-reading these though, after having read the ones to the TH-P, I see really how SHALLOW his comments to us were. The last time I saw him with son D he became frustrated with me not agreeing with some of his manipulations and became irritated and “dropped” the mask, for only a moment, but it let me look directly into the eyes of SATAN inside his soul. It was like I had a bucket of cold water dashed over me when he BRAGGED about how if I knew the truth about him and how much more horrible his crime (of murder) was than even the cops knew, I wouldn’t like him so much.
I looked at him (I think with more or less a stony expression) and asked him if there was anything any more horrible than what he had done, to kill someone in cold blood. Then almost immediately, his “mask” went back up and he started with the “But, mommmmm, what would Jesus do?” That was the turning point for me…after that, I could never make myself believe he was anything except a psychopath who gloried in being “Billy Bad Ass”—later, reading the letters he wrote to the TH-P where he bragged to the TH-P about how horrible his crime was, and the plots and plans for the TH-P taking over our family until he could get out and be in charge I truly realized just how EVIL my son was. There is no redeption for him. He will always be dangerous, inside of or outside of prison.
It doesn’t matter what the relationship is, if we love a P, we want to believe them to have good in them, or that they can change, but THEY WILL NOT. My son is a total manipulator. He feels he is entitled to anything and everything our family has, and if I stand in his way, too bad, he will just have me killed.
He is slick with his coniving and convincing people, me included, but I am no longer suceptible to his cons. I realize now though just how shallow they were, I just saw what I wanted to see. If I had been brave enough to look deeper I would have seen through it all.
I think if the prison called and told me he was dead, the only thing I would feel is what I felt when I read my P-bio-father was dead, relief. My other 2 sons and I have already decided that in that case, we will not even claim the body. Let the state of Texas bury him with his “friends” where he belongs, in the prison graveyard, or send his body for medical research so that maybe something good can come out of him for something even if it is just being a lab corpse for training a physician. As far as I am concerned, my “son is dead” and the man in prison is just another convict that needs to stay in prison for the rest of his natural life.
OxDrover:
You have truly had a difficult life dealing with psychopaths. There must be more Ps in society than would be expected. I think that my ex-brother-in-law was one. He was also an alcoholic. He was constantly conning my mother into lending him money to open a business or to buy a car to resell. She never saw any of the money again, but she was a trusting kind-hearted soul who tried to see the good in everyone. (Like her daughter).
I think that I am a trusting person who fell under the spell of a manipulative con artist. It is hard for me to believe that evil exists in others, but it does. Otherwise, how could one explain the unhumane things that one person does to another.
I am blessed to have found this website and I am able to express how I feel and not be judged for being naive or gullible for falling prey to this P.
Hummingbird,
Unfortunately, the truly “sweet” and “trusting” people like your mother ENABLE these con-men to avoid the consequences of their own behavior. The parents and spouses and friends who continually bail these people out of financial and other tight spots which they repeatedly get back into are NOT DOING THESE PEOPLE ANY GOOD.
My sweet little grandmother who would never say a bad thing about anyone…if the family was talking about someone who had ax murdered his family, she would say “well, he was good to his dog”—her ENABLING of her own son, keeping him from getting the consequences of his own alocoholism, and even his violently attacking his sister who was 7 years younger, even from birth trying to smother her until she passed out (this went on for 7 years until his father finally caught him at it) was behaving in a way that was actually extremely poor behavior. The price of “peace at any price” is TOO HIGH.
It was difficult for a long time to see just how TOXIC the behavior of my sweet loving grandmother was. How dysfunctional. She had no bad intentions, of course, but she had grown up in a family where the alcoholic father would rage, and it was everyone’s job to “not set off daddy into a rage” and this was the behavior she learned. She continued it for the rest of her life. When she died, my mother assumed that “role” in the family of “PEACE AT ANY PRICE.” The person who did the bad behavior was NEVER CONFRONTED, only the people who tried to resist his behavior, who tried to call him to task for his behavior were PUNISHED for this rebellion against the “family script.” The pretence of “we’re a nice normal family.”
I have a palque that says “remember, everyone thinks we’re a nice normal family” and you know, that was my family’s unofficial motto. PRETENDING that everyone and everything was okay when it was FAR from okay.
The person filling the role of “family bad boy” was the only one who never suffered for his behavior—his parents suffered, his sister suffered, and his wife and kids suffered horribly at his abusive hands—but HE WAS NEVER CALLED TO TASK FOR HIS BEHAVIOR. What is wrong with this picture?
Even though my grandmother was a sweet and loving woman, she had NO idea how her “peace making” and “let’s pretend” behavior was painful to others. She made the peace, but they paid the price.
Years after the fact, she told my mother that the reason she didn’t protect her from her brother was that she was afraid that if their father knew and spanked the boy “that he might run away from home.” DUH! She let her son smother her daughter for 7 years rather than see that her son’s behavior was stopped because he “might run away from home?” (head shaking here) He engaged in this violent behavior against his sister for 7 long years.
The last time I saw my mother and I was trying to get the concept of “enabling” across to her I mentioned about him “strangling her” and she said “HE NEVER STRANGLED ME!” I asked her “Huh? I’ve heard you tell this story all my life!” Then she said, “Well, he did SMOTHER me by holding his hand over my nose and mouth til I passed out.”
How twisted is that!?! Like “strangling” and “smothering” are not the same thing. It really doesn’t matter if his hands were on her throat to cut off her breath or over her nose and mouth, the bottom line was, he kept her from getting air until she passed out.
As far as “more Ps in society than expected” I am not sure about that, I think it is “official” level of diagnosis of about 1-4% b ut the “almost there’s” are probably much more…but my family is filled with them. There is a genetic component, and on both sides of my family there are “wonderful examples” of Ps for GENERATIONS. All but a few appearing quite “normal” to the outside world. My mother is so into the enabling of my P-son who is in prison that I call her a P-by-proxy, for although she is not a P herself, she is so into the enabling and protecting the “family bad boy” in the name of “Christian charity” and “love” that she is willing to crucify anyone in the family that doesn’t go along with the “Peace at any price” policy of “family unity.” (Mainly me!)
Unfortunately this one back fired on her, and I am NC with her (I am an only child) and my two biiological sons, are her only grandsons—she already “dis’d” my adopted son because he “isn’t blood”—and the one son is in prison, I hope for his natural life, and now I just found out that my other biiological son has also decided to go NC with her because she is apparently still sending money to my son in prison (which will give him the resources he needs to try to reach out and harm us again).
So effectively, she is totally alone except for a nephew that is her power of attorney but visits her as little as possible because he also realizes how dysfunctional she is.
I didn’t really start to heal until I finally realized that I had to go NC with her as well. I do “speak” to her from time to time on BUSINESS only, as we are co-trustees for the family trust, but it is BUSINESS only, short and sweet. I grieved over that “lost relationship” as well, but after “losing” so many I think it gets easier with numbers, practice and time, it wasn’t the end of the world I had feared it would be. It actually feels quite natural and good…no drama.
Yes, Mam, Evil does exist in others—and if you don’t believe it, deal with a P.
OxDrover,
You are right about evil existing in the world. I’d like to think that the good people outnumber the evil ones.
My family did the same thing. We must be the “perfect” family. What would the neighbors think? My Mother was a wonderful, giving woman, but she like me was an enabler. She lent her son-in-law money on many occasions to open up businesses that ultimately failed (his alcoholism problem).
I literally gave my P thousands of dollars for his heart-breaking stories of financial woes. I didn’t understand why my Mother didn’t see how her son-in-law was using her. Yet I did the same thing and didn’t see it in my own actions.
It’s much easier being on the outside where one can look more logically at a situation. It is more difficult when you are involved with the person and can’t see their faults. Even if someone points the Ps faults out to you, you don’t believe it because they don’t know the person like you do.
Aloha:
“When I am a “girl” I am letting this happen to me. When I am a “woman” I have the strength to say “ENOUGH” and stand up for myself.”
This is a beautiful statement; I’m going to print it out in large lettering and put it on my fridge and bathroom mirror.
Glad to say I am on my way to being a fabulous “woman.”
Whooo-hoooo! Thank you.
Hummingbird–
How right you are! If only we COULD see ourselves as others see us! It is easy enough for me to see “your faults” but not my own. As Jesus said “get the log out of your own eye, before you try to take the splinter out of your neighbor’s eye.”
Getting the TRUCK LOAD OF LOGS out of my own eyes has been my biggest hurdle. LOL My own “Informed Denial” (Ah, Aloha, I DO LOVE THAT PHRASE!) was what kept me BLIND to my own enabling as well. I deluded myself that because I could set limits with others outside my family, that I could NOT set limits for people very close to me. Maybe that is just “me” or maybe that is also a thing with others who behave the same way. I’m not sure.
It is only now that I am able to see where I even NEED limits, and that I can set them without feeling guilty or unsure if I am doing right…especially if those people react defensively or negatively to my limits.
Before I set a limit, though, I go over in my own mind 1) what happens if I don’t set a limit…i.e. is it important enough to me to take the risk of losing that relationship? 2) is the limit “reasonable”..at first I would ask someone else to validate whether my limit sounded reasonable to them. Now I am no longer doing this. 3) am I prepared to lose the relationship if they refuse to honor the boundary or limit?
If the answer to all three questions is “yes” then I don’t feel guilty for setting the limit, and I do it in as “nice a way” as possible…and then what happens, happens. So far, every person on whom I have had to set a boundary has responded well…they may not have liked the boundary, but I would then ask them, “Is this an UNreasonable request?” None of them have been brash enough to say “No, what you are asking is unreasonable.”
It is still difficult, but like riding a bike, I am getting the hang of it now. I may not be too steady on it yet, but the training wheels (validation from someone else that it is reasonable) isn’t necessary any more, and I’m not feeling that guilty feeling any more. Like Aloha said, and WArrior quoted above “I have the strength to say “enough” and stand up for myself.”
Warrior,
YAY! I love putting things that inspire me on my bathroom mirror!
I keep having to remind myself to be a woman. The girl STILL wants Prince Charming to come along and fix everything for me but the woman in me KNOWS TOO MUCH and won’t let anything like that happen. I must have a plan for my own life. I will never count on someone else to make my world for me. Look at the pile of sh*t he made out of my life. I am cleaning that up now. This was a dirty lesson!
“The girl STILL wants Prince Charming to come along and fix everything for me but the woman in me KNOWS TOO MUCH and won’t let anything like that happen. ”
Not like it would, anyway. There is no Prince Charming. Men can be wonderful, they can add to our lives, but the longer we believe in Princes the more men we attract who diminish, rather than increase, the quality of our lives.
At the end of the day, they are just men, and we are just women. We’re all struggling with our own issues, trying to keep our heads above water.
I still believe I will meet a man who rocks as much as I do, who really will show he is worthy of sharing my life. I just no longer even think he’s going to fix things or even have the responsibility of trying to do that.
He can join in on the fun and share some of the burden, maybe even lighten it a little. But he’s not allowed to make it more difficult, or he is out the door.
Orphan:
You are absolutely right. We alone have the responsibility to make our lives what we want them to be. We can’t rely on others for our happiness. It would be nice to meet someone honest and who cares enough about a relationship not to be involved with other women. If the person wants to be in a non-exclusive relationship, they should make it clear from the beginning instead of going through all the lies and deceptions.
Free you ARE a fabulous woman! I rejoice in your joy! It feels so good doesnt it. I have gained so much more respect for myself since my encounter with the N. But it takes some of us to hit the bottom and go out with the worst losers to realise how amazing we are – yes I agree, women are totally amazing. It feels so good to have the ‘nightmare’ behind me. We have shared and supported each other – wow! I have 3 weeks of radiotherapy and I think I may have sold my house, then I have a new phase of life infront of me. And I met a new man friend, a totally genuine caring compassionate guy – but I am going to hang free of romantic attachments at present. I am feeling so much better in myself and my state of mind feels positive and I actually feel the joy of being alive.
No contact is so important, then healing can take place. I feel now that these nightmares are so far behind me, its like it never happened. Hey Free – I feel free.