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.
You really need to admire yourself for surviving an exploitative relationship. I say this very seriously, not flippantly. We all, of course, hope to minimize our involvement with exploitative individuals. But in the course of life, as we know, that’s not always possible. It is vital, therefore, if you’ve been victimized by and/or are recovering from involvement with an exploiter, to fully, genuinely appreciate (and remind yourself constantly) that you are indeed strong, impressively strong, because only the strong survive exploitation.
Many clients with whom I work (really, most people, I think) tend to see personal strength and insecurity; personal strength and low self-esteem, as incompatible. They balk at the idea that you can be a very strong person and insecure at the same time; that you can be a very strong person even with low self-esteem. For instance, when someone violates you (especially chronically) and you don’t defend yourself properly, the tendency is to attribute your failure at self-protection to “personal weakness.” The thought is something like, “If I was a strong person, I wouldn’t have let that abuse occur. I’d have asserted myself, defended myself, drawn the line.”
But it’s not personal weakness that explains the failure to protect your boundaries; it’s more often a lack of clarity, in knowing precisely what your boundaries are, and precisely what constitutes an unacceptable violation of them. Victims of sustained exploitation/abuse aren’t personally weak, quite the contrary. My experience has affirmed again and again how remarkably strong and resourceful most of them are. What they lack, however, often is a clear, secure sense of their boundaries; this insecurity of boundaries leaves them vulnerable to compromising themselves. After all, you can’t assert and/or protect your boundaries unless and until you’ve established them very clearly and securely (in your mind).
This explains what for many can seem so confusing and dichotomous: how a victim of sustained exploitation/abuse can, on the one hand, lobby so effectively for others’ interests, while, with respect to her/his own, appear stuck in circumstances he or she would counsel anyone else to reject and escape.
But I restate: You can’t protect your interests if they aren’t, in the first place, clearly defined. And you can’t defend your boundaries if, on any level, you’re uncertain, or ambivalent about, what they are. This disadvantaged position helps explain how an otherwise strong, resourceful adult can find her/himself tolerating and enduring the meanness and nonsense of a defective partner.
When my clients who have been in exploitative relationships discover confidently their boundaries, they often feel sad, on one hand, not to have done so sooner; but thrilled on the other to find themselves, as if miraculously, just as skilled at protecting their own interests as they’ve always been at protecting others’.
It’s a kind of bittersweet discovery. The bitter part, if grieved properly, is usually short-lived; the sweet aspect is long-lasting.
Stargazer, I have CRS so bad I can’t remember the dates! LOL So I just kind of have most dates in a general time frame except for a couple of dates. My son asked me the other day what day I moved back into the house and I couldn’t remember, I know it was 2-3 weeks ago but I couldn’t tell you any more exactly than that.
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Being retired, the only way I know what day of the week it is is by the date on my computer screen. LOL Or by my medication thingie that has little boxes and the day of the week on them.
I did get a new clock, it is a hand made walnut cased clock that sits on a mantel (in my case an antique book case since I don’t have a fire place) and it chimes so pretty so it helps me keep up with the time at least! LOL
I’m glad I made you smile and also glad that you too are P-FREE. Life is good when you don’t have a P there to screw it up for you! have a good night.
I’m right there with you, Oxy. I often forget what day it is. My co-workers had a birthday celebration for me at the end of the week. I walked in and saw the gifts on my desk and couldn’t figure out what they are for! I had forgotten my own birthday!!!! (which is tomorrow). God, I’m “special”.
I got a bunch of movies from the library to watch tonight and tomorrow and have a friend taking me to lunch. I’ve been in a really good space, but I fear the love stories in the movies will trigger some feelings about the P. I know how healing is cyclic. Just when I think I’m over it…………well you know how it goes. I posted a poem for everyone on another thread. It’s so fitting for this site. Thank you all for being in my support network and part of my healing.
I have not been able to afford an ongoing therapist, and the issues I’m dealing with at the moment are from early childhood–actually infancy. I have been doing some deep breathing on my own and making sounds, and I’ve been able to access quite a bit of the very old pain from my mother’s neglect. It seems that even when I was an infant, my mother was incapable of loving and nurturing me. It’s a wonder I didn’t die of failure-to-thrive syndrome. It is all very painful, but I feel so much better going through it. It tends to cause tight bands of tension in my neck. “The issues are in the tissues”. I feel so much better, I’m planning to make some massage flyers and drive them to a few key places to get more clients.
Peace out,
StarG
Oxy I read that book by Dr. Phil for the first time about five years ago. The first time I read it .. it made me mad and I took it back to the library half finished.
Then about half a year later I took it out again and read it all the way through. It still made me mad, but I knew he was right.
I followed a lot of his advice and finally bought the book. I still read it sometimes. It helped me get out of a terrible marriage.. but sometimes the dude still makes me mad lol.
Well I had a sad experience the last couple of weeks. I connected by accident with someone from my hometown and we had a lot of fun talking about our old school days, the teachers, etc. He was even talking about coming out to see me. But he had been trying for a while to get back together with his wife, and they did this week. Unfortunately she decided all his “separation” friends had to go.. sigh I miss him already ..lol
kat: i hear your pain in that last sentence. the unfotunate truth is that we can only control ourselves. that damned thing called free will really screws stuff up. but try to remember that everything is as it must be for us to learn the lessons we came to this life to learn. i hate saying that because when i’m down and my friends say it to me, i wanna smack the hay outta them! but i think it’s true.
men aren’t worth the agony they put us through, whether they are s/p/n’s or not. relationships are incredibly difficult, everyone has their own agenda, overall we just have to take care of ourselves — always.
i wonder if i’ll ever allow another man to get close to me without thinking they’re after my heart and my light and my soul in a bad way. we put that wonderful loving light out there, and it sometimes becomes a beacon for hellions.
i want to keep my heart open. i want to love again. but i know my warm, giving nature is a magnet for s/p/n’s. i have learned my lesson and i trust god to bring me my right and perfect mate at the right and perfect time. what else can we do?
Kat, there’s not a lot of “new information” in the book, but it does reinforce the things I already KNOW. I find if I read and reread books that are good and about the issues I need to work on, positive thought, positive self-talk, the I CAN DO IT, I CAN take control, I CAN….I CAN…etc and other books about setting boundaries etc. they all add to my DETERMINATION to change the way I have thought/felt all my life. It is EASY to sliddddde back into OLD HABITS, old ways of thinking, acting, etc. and it is DIFFICULT to form NEW patterns and habits, SO I THINK IT IS GOING TO BE AN ONGOING PROCESS OF GROWTH, and hanging on to the new thinking, the new ways of acting, of treating myself well.
I don’t think there is a point that I will reach “ultimate healing” and just sort of stay there, I think I will always need to reinforce and continue to grow and get new insights.
I know there’s no way to ever reach perfection, and Im not expecting myself to, but as each day comes I want it to be a good one. LIfe’s not a “formula” so you have to apply the principles of my “new attitude” to different circumstances.
I don’t know if any of that makes any sense to anyone but me, but I think I am worth all the effort, and I’ve always expended my effort to others, but now it is for me.
LIG “overall we just have to take care of ourselve’s – alway’s” and yes relationships are incredilby difficult. Being alone and lonely was a much more “normal” emotion before the s/p/n. We must remember the relationship with them was anything but normal. We have to re-learn everything we thought we knew. We have to re-learn the rules – because now we know that other’s don’t play fair. The heartache I feel is deeper than ending a bad relationship – my heart aches for me, that I let this happen – I am still in shock at what happened. What haunt’s me is knowing I was being used and fool enough to hope I was wrong. I never realized I was that lonely——or that vulnerable.
henry: maybe you weren’t that lonely or vulnerable. maybe you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. maybe he wanted to rip your heart out simply because you were unsuspecting. weren’t we all?
i spent 20 years with my ex. he didn’t get insane until his mom died. he trusted me with his life. with information he never told anyone else. i was a member of his family. his mom was my closest friend. he was always difficult and a pain in the ass, but i think the s/p/n stuff was mostly held in abeyance because he really loved his mom and he held boundaries for her. once she was gone (he totally freaked out when she died), the boundaries were gone and he got incredibly angry, abusive and out of control … not just to me, but to everyone. (except his new pregnant gf — he told me he would NEVER hurt her. yah, right. i give it six months before she starts having that shocked look on HER face too.)
i dunno. i just never thought he’d do anything like this to ME. i knew he was a little ‘off’, but he was never abusive to me before his mom passed. so, i had many good years with him. makes it all that much more difficult to comprehend.
BUT … bottom line. he used me, he abused me, he cheated and deceived me. so, like you — like all of us here — we move forward the best we can, leaving the disbelief and hurt in the dust of our new paths …
The tightness in my chest is getting stronger as I read you beautiful peoples’ posts…For years it was a battle to try to firstly understand my husbands behaviour, to make sense of it (there was no sense- to a good person) but now it all makes perfect sense – he is a sociopath. This site has been invaluable to me. I have lived 14 years with him and have had four children. After a few years he let me see this side of him and i too thought he would never hurt ME. Now we have been separated since april and i have had to relearn how to be myself again. I am now free from his control over my daily life. But now I am realising more and more things that he did financially to me – he is such a good con artist i did not even realise that he slowly aquired all my assets and put them in his name. I left my home with my kids and the clothes on my back in terror. He is living in my home, playing with his friends on my tennis court, he has all our vehicles, business and good furniture. He had systematically planned to legally retain everything in case of separation. When he had aquired everything he stopped work, and turned on ME. I was the nicest, loyal and serving wife.He had everything a man could want. But family means nothing to this guy. Hes wired differently. Now he has just told my 11 year old daughter that he has a rich girlfriend and he is borrowing her car and getting her to do things for him, and he has conned her to move into my home with him. She has a business of her own – he will make it his own very soon. He jokes with my children about how she will pay for them. By moving in, he will take posession of her brand new mazda 4wd. I have been beaten and robbed of my posessions, and of the last 12 years of my life. I have four children to raise by myself. And my lawyers let him stay in my home and keep all my money until settlement which is probably in a couple of years?????? How can society let these people get away with it. People like me cannot imagine that a regular looking person could behave this way toward their own wife and family. This is still hard for me to comprehend- it seems so surreal. But the law says we should be wiser than to fall for it. WELL it seems that many of us are not. How could we imagine such a thing? Something has to be done about this imbalance of justice. And this man, my ex husband, is about to do it all over again with another girl. Maybe I should email her business this website.
The gravity of my situation has just hit – I am crying for the first time in years. I am grateful though because deep down i know this is the first step to finally accepting him for what he is.
Hi everyone, Just checking in very quickly to say hello.
I turn 48 today and still P-free. Woohoo! Beautiful NC.
Reading all these posts makes me realize how deeply we all long for love in our lives, and what we will put ourselves through to get it. I recall the months of bargaining with myself….maybe he wasn’t so bad, maybe he really did love me, maybe I could put up with his little lies…….in order to have this love I dreamed of with him. After all, I may never feel like this again.
I can honestly say after the fact that I would much prefer to be single than to go through even a fraction of what he put me though. Never again. The more healing I do on myself, the more I realize that love is something we have inside of us that we are free to give to ourselves or others. We do not need a partner as the object of this love or to make us happy.
Being with a P is like getting shot in the face. Even the mention of the P’s name is like hearing a gunshot. I cannot stress how important it is to stay away from them! We may be scarred for a long time, but I believe we can all recover from this.
Hugs to all,
StarG