By Jacqueline Kraft Bruno
In a healthy, heart-centered, relationship, we experience connection. The love between two people is given and received openly. There is a natural flow that exists. Of course it isn’t perfect and as human beings we fall into fear, experience disconnection and we work to re-connect. These are the natural struggles of relationship, the rough patches. These struggles are not meant to be the norm.
In a relationship with a personality-disordered person, we give love that is never authentically received. Our love is deflected by the ego, twisted and manipulated. The person we have shared love with is lacking a path to the heart, by which to receive it. In a loving relationship, our love would be acknowledged, accepted and returned or responded to. This is not the case when our partner is disordered. Our trial begins when we respond to our disordered partner by giving more, giving differently and expecting less in return. We do this hoping for a better outcome.
We have now embarked on an exhausting and futile journey. Our energy will be drained; our perceptions of self and others will be challenged and distorted. Ultimately, our hearts will be broken.
Words as bait
Our disordered travel companion leads us down a dark road using bait. The bait we take comes in the form of words like:
- “I can’t live without you,”
- “No one understands me like you,” and
- “I wouldn’t know myself, if I had never met you.”
Then these same words turn on us and our bait consists of harsh words we try to negate like:
- “We have never been good together,”
- “It’s not like we’re some storybook romance,” and
- “I can’t deal with your nagging and trust issues.”
Words that are meant to contradict confuse and hurt.
The appearance of listening
They focus on us with a hard stare, which indicates hanging on our every word in the beginning. A stare that is evidence we are being studied and facts about us are being stored to use later as weapons. We mistake the interest for being seen, heard, like we never have before.
As we continue down the road with them, the stare turns to cold disinterest. Every time we speak their eyes gloss over. But we lie to ourselves and look away from what is right in front of us, pretending all is as it has always been.
The illusion of affection
They give affection with a manipulative motive behind it. The goal is to trick us, to trade their illusion for what we wish we could give to their heart. Our kisses, our touches are lapped up by a greedy Monster, not received gratefully by a warm heart. We know this when they use withholding affection to punish and manipulate. Often, they manipulate us into excusing what we never thought we would excuse or to cross a boundary we never thought we would cross.
Self-delusion
As we continue down this road of conflicting, intense emotion, we comfort ourselves with self-delusion. Our delusions fuel our ability to continue. We tell ourselves lies like:
- If I ignore this it will stop
- If I can learn to understand him/her better, he won’t act out like this
- If I was a better partner, he/she would value me and treat me better
- If I could love them enough to make them love themselves, then they will love me.
And on and on…
What is the result of this brainwashing and humiliation we have participated in? We become just like them. We lose the path to our own heart. We exist in the same darkness, experience the same rage, distrust of others and loathing of self. We become as focused, even obsessed, with exhausting ourselves spiritually, emotionally and physically as they are with feeding off the light that was once our dominant feature. The gift we sacrificed to them so easily.
When we have become shadows of our former selves, our disordered partner can no longer find satisfaction in our humiliation. A human being with a path to their heart would feel empathy at stumbling across a person in our condition. Our partner feels only disgust and likely has already begun planning how to suck one last charge for his/her ego by discarding us in the most humiliating way they can imagine. When they do, they will likely kick us from our place in the gutter where they believe they have left us to rot.
Strength of the human spirit
But the man or woman with no path to their heart is limited, at best, in their understanding of the strength of the human spirit. They never connected with us from the heart, and as such, they know nothing of our strength, or the strength of a heart that chooses to heal. It is the saddest facet of their being, this inability to understand the power and resilience of the human heart. Like Snow White said to her own disordered mother, “You cannot have my heart.”
It is from this place, in the ashes of our former selves, that we are raised again, reborn.
We rise stronger not because the myth of the Phoenix promises we will, but because of the truth that a heart and spirit broken has shed it’s weakest parts. We realize the only path to healing wounds as deep as these is through self-love. We may have lost our way to the path leading to our hearts, but it hasn’t disappeared. It’s simply under reconstruction. It’s been torn apart, but we embark on rebuilding by recognizing connection to others begins with connection to self. Without it, we have nothing to offer another as we are not whole.
The big picture
We start to forgive ourselves and we learn to forgive them. As we live in this place of practicing forgiveness, the big picture is revealed. This experience is not only about the wounds and behaviors of the disordered or even our wounds and behaviors. This is about the gift of perception we received by seeing the world through our abuser’s eyes. The disordered person is an extreme example of what we are all experiencing in varying degrees. We are losing connection to ourselves, each other and spirit. The path to our collective heart is damaged and dimming.
A disordered person deserves to be seen as they truly are. We are not angry at the blind person who cannot see. Our heart does not break when a person who cannot walk refuses to dance with us. Similarly, we don’t have to carry resentment for the man or woman without empathy because they are cruel.
If we are come across others who are missing a path to their heart, we can make the only choice that serves them and us with dignity. We can choose not to conspire with the disorder against the person and against ourselves. We have learned to see and to choose the path of integrity. It is by letting go that we are able to heal and to allow space for others to heal. It is in this allowing and accepting that love is transformed from a feeling, a state of being, to an action producing a result. We do this by seeing the person as they are, accepting the person as they, and most importantly, by releasing the person as they are, with love.
Sociopaths and a Greek Tragedy Revisited
Thank you for this post.
Thank you for reading this post.
I really liked this post. I found it very insightful. I do, however, have one problem with it-the letting go part. There are many of us who aren’t allowed to shut the door, heal and move on. There are many of us who are forced to deal with these damaged souls, or their fall out, day in and day out. I do think it is helpful to remember that their abuse is not about us but about them. However, when you are hemorrhaging real money day after day, having to come up with legal strategies to combat them,lost real children and the like it is hard to be forgiving and magnanimous. For me that comes after I’ve slammed the door shut once and for all and forever. I try to look at this way, I’m in the gutter fighting a street fight. Once it is over I can brush myself off and move on.
Hello becomingstrong,
I hear you. The destruction these relationships leave in our lives is exhausting and often on-going. My suggestions come from my experience in dealing with the mess. I couldn’t speed up time and make the end come faster. I couldn’t change the other person’s behavior. I couldn’t change the laws that seemed to protect them.
All I could change was me. It’s about the difference between engaging and accepting. For me, and I do deal with disordered people in my life regularly who I cannot completely shut the door on, it’s about not letting their behavior, and my feelings about it, take root in my head and in my body.
We forgive because it removes us from the place of resistance that causes suffering and takes away our power. Forgiveness isn’t about a holier than thou dream state of disconnection. At least, it isn’t for me. It’s a practice that we don’t have to do perfectly. Forgiveness is simply letting go of resentment. We have been abused. We should be angry. But when we hold onto anger we are allowing the abuse to continue.
By your comment, it sounds to me that you are at this jumping off place. And to be there, you must have done some difficult work already. So my question to you is, can you let go now? Or do you have to wait for outside circumstances to align for you to be able to let go? Is it up to you, or is it up to the circumstances outside of you that you cannot control?
It sounds to me like you are ready to begin to brush yourself off and move on today, rather than once it’s over. And it sounds to me like you’re strong enough to to do it.
I’m here to help if you have any other questions or would like some support.
Jacqueline
But, should we not strive for NO CONTACT? If it is possible, should we not do it?
Forgiveness from afar is one thing, but if I can have NO CONTACT at all, then isn’t that what is best for me?
Hi Bev,
Absolutely! 100% YES!!!! Whenever possible No Contact is the best response. It’s about the attitude we take when we adopt no contact. It’s about loving ourselves. We are not shutting them out in anger, we are setting ourselves free from abuse, from a place of self love.
Forgiveness is about freedom for us. It’s not about them at all. If I forgive you I have nothing to argue about. If I accept you as you are, I know pointing out where you are wrong, and entering into a conversation that will go nowhere and leave me in pieces, is a waste of time.
If I forgive you I have accept the truth, and there is no place where I can honestly re-enter the relationship with delusions it will get better.
Forgiving Looks like this: I see you, I accept you, I release you. I’m not saying what you did is okay. I’m saying I won’t hold onto it anymore. How often do we leave the toxic relationship, but keep the events and the pain with us constantly? It’s about letting this piece go. It’s about letting ourselves out and experiencing real freedom, in our minds, hearts and bodies.
I hope that makes sense. I’m in no way advocating that we all go back to our abusers. I am advocating the opposite. Let them out of your life AND your mind.
When we must have limited contact, when we have to parent with them, for example, we don’t have to let one interaction with them dictate the way we feel for the rest of the day. It might, at first, but we can practice accepting how we feel after interacting with them, and allowing these thoughts and feelings to move through us, and move on.
We don’t have to suffer, no matter what. That’s what empowerment is. That’s how forgiveness opens us up to empowerment. It’s cutting all cords to that person. It frees us from any control that person may have.
I have used the mantra, “You cannot have my heart,” when a disordered person is getting in and I want that toxic energy out. You can use mine or one that works for you. 🙂
Sending you love Bev.
Jacqueline
Thank you from deep in my heart for this absolutely wonderful post, Jacqueline.
I have never heard or read such a perfectly descriptive post of what I am feeling.
Just FYI, it is my adult son who I have finally cut ties with. It was something that has needed to be done for quite some time. Years. Funnily enough, I was not the one that had to actually do it.It was actually made easy for me by HE himself!
After years of me trying to back out of his life and make myself scarce, he emailed me and said that HE wanted closure and no more contact! I was not expecting that and it was fabulous. I always thought that I would have to do it. I was and am over the moon happy about this.
Of course, less than two weeks later, he was texting my husband, as my husband is viewed by our son as the more rational and sympathetic of the two of us. (The sucker, more like, in our son’s view). Our son enjoys trying to play us against each other and triangulate.
My husband basically ignored the text (which was a picture of my son’s two young children, 3 and 5 years, which he has never sent pictures to us of them before…he is going through a nasty split with our wonderful daughter in law and of course, is being a complete ass about everything, trying to play father of the year all of a sudden, and fighting her for custody). All my husband responded was ‘nice picture’ and did not reopen the door, so to speak.
I hoped that our son meant that he wanted the closure and the no contact, for real. He has frozen us (my husband and I) out before, and has always come back when he NEEDS something, whether monetary or superficially emotionally. He has never said this, before, however. The closure and no contact stuff. Perhaps, just more meaningless mind f***ing, excuse my language.
Surely, it cannot be this simple. I am crossing my fingers that it is.
Thank you so much for the beautiful and kind words in your reply.
Bev
Forgive but never forget, say. I think if you can do that, then you can have no contact to your own benefit.
I just do not want the SP person in my life AT ALL. I am lucky that I do not have to be around the person.
Thank you Jacqueline, I will look up the posts. Without the benefit of previous articles. I know how to physically remove myself but the emotional healing seems a very long and arduous process. I find since I’m involved in a high conflict divorce that just as soon as I “feel better” I am on spiral downwards. I find the lack of communication with my young children haunting. Yet communication invariably results in more conflict. In fact, they associate communication with me as unpleasant since in results in my husband going in a rage. Cleaver isn’t? Mom+communication=conflict. I think I can try and minimize the impact it has on me, trough the passage of time and therapy.
Hi becomingstrong,
I think you are absolutely correct. The real challenge is the emotional healing. But we do heal, with time, self love and self care. Here is a link for a meditation I recorded. There are thousands on YouTube, and they helped me immensely.
Blessings
http://youtu.be/Pyk-KwNZIpI
Don’t feel bad sweetie. We become trapped in relationships when there are children involved (and leaving them alone with a sociopath who has shared custody scares us to death!) and when there is financial abuse (he controlled every penny, and pinched them hard, unless HE wanted something and then he was extremely generous!) and when we have been separated from any and all support from family and friends after the creep alienates them from us. I know where you are right now. My church-going, retired military officer, little league coaching ( a great way to meet single moms) soon to be ex husband was abusive to me in EVERY way and yet I stayed even though I hated my life. It wasn’t until a friend gave me the book, “The Sociopath Next Door” by Martha Stout that I realized that I wasn’t to blame, HE WAS! So you SLAM that door in his FACE and get out! But be very careful, they retaliate! Get support from any friends and family you have left and do not contact him no matter how much he says he wants to “work things out”. Its a bunch of crap, don’t fall for it!
Hi Becomingstrong,
It’s true, letting go is a process and comes to each person in it’s own time. It is definitely part of the ‘context’ of each individuals situation with a disordered personality. If you have kids, or other ‘ties that bind’, the timing of your process of healing will differ from, say, mine (no ties”able to just walk away).
Kathleen Hawk has written a series of articles for Love Fraud that focus on the stages of healing. I found them super enlightening, and very validating. If you have the time and interest they may be the same for you.
Slim
Thank you Slim,
I will certainly look up the articles and thank you for your response.
Jacqueline,
It’s clear, looking back now, that I connected with the disordered man out of a deep sense of empathy and caring. In a way I felt akin to him. And I don’t think it is ‘just’ because he was mirroring me. It was also, in a deeper sense, that I could relate to his pain, his self loathing, his darkness and disconnection. I could find those same woundings in myself, and believed he and I were not so different. I knew I had overcome much of my past difficulties, and that with help he could too.
It was only with the passage of time that I came to understand that our woundings were VERY different. Mine was not genetic. I could change and heal. He was stuck. He was a hamster on a hamster wheel (albeit much more cruel and horrible than any cute little hamster).
I remember the day I came home, threw myself on the bed, and cried a bucket of tears. I remember an image of a very big train coming towards me, and it was him. I KNEW that day that he was thoroughly damaged, but that he was not ‘done’ with me, and that I was going to suffer a pretty awful humiliation. I KNEW it was over (in a concrete sense). I also knew he would need to complete his cycle of destruction, before he would move on.
In a way, looking back, I can see how I instinctually allowed him just enough access to ‘finish’ what he started, as I ‘stood back’ watching the damage he was trying to inflict on me. I let him do it, then got in my car and never spoke to him again. The pain was real. I felt skewered. But I also knew I would heal. I didn’t FEEL like I would, I felt like I wanted to die. But I knew I had the capacity to heal and thrive. I had done it my whole life.
He is as you say. Stuck. Disconnected. Repeating his behaviors day after day”.pushing people around like chess pieces.
My life is joyous and complex.
Thank you for this article and your wonderful heart!
Slim
Slim,
Wow! Your insight and strength are inspiring! Thank you so much for your kinds words.
It is strange that what attracts us is the similarity of our deepest wounds. It is also interesting that despite the similarities in our wounds, our ability to empathize and perceive our environment has manifested so differently. It’s so easy, in the beginning, as you said, to believe that with some love and care we can help heal them. It seems logical. We have to, or get to, learn the opposite is true. The only sane response is to release them and our attachment to them.
Have you read about the journey of the shaman and the petty thief? It’s very interesting when applied to the journey of healing after abuse. Your story reminds of it. I can hear the work you’ve done in your words you’ve written.
Blessings to you as you continue your journey!
Jacqueline
Slim,
I love how you describe your connection with your sociopath in a way that I too identify with your feelings. I also, like how you state that he just wanted to destroy you and would only be done with you once that happened. I too feel that my husband was hanging around to ultimately destroy me once and for all. That realization led me to leave. He ultimately, fragmented my family, destroyed me career as a mother and a professional… I have very little left on the table to destroy but whatever is left is all I have and I better protect it. Thank you for your post.
I know exactly how you feel. But remember Snow White! Your heart is your own, and don’t let that bastard take it and break it anymore. Hang tough, angel!
First, I wanted to say thank you for the post and the comments. I am in limbo currently, having finally told my N the hurting had to stop. She is packing up and getting out. How sad that I know for certain that the worst is yet to come. With the straw event that broke the camel’s back having been over three weeks ago, it’s tough having to constantly think of all the bad to keep from getting sucked in by the nice cooperative mother of the year routine. I try to remember she is deserving of pity for what she’ll never experience, real happiness. I feel pulled to fall into the old patterns of capitulation and apology, but am resisting actually doing it. Barely at times. After so many years of being gaslighted, it’s easy to question your decision. I wanted to say thank you again as all of you help me to stay strong and remember I can’t fix it or expect any different outcome. Only more of the same if I enable it.
Hello,
First, sending love your way. The first 90 days are the hardest. But you have begun the process. Congratulations on taking that step.
Now, just a couple of suggestions that I hope will help you continue on your new path positively.
Can you change your user name? It’s no longer accurate. You have seen the truth and acted accordingly. Today, you are standing strong and refusing to be brought back into the drama. Perhaps, choosing a name that represents what you’re growing into instead of what you’re growing out of?
Second, you don’t have to constantly think of all the bad, I completely understand why this sounds safe. It’s the facts that serve as a rebuttal for the gas lighting. But would this serve that purpose just as well? She is incapable of empathy, and she is incapable of insight. She cannot connect her actions to consequences. She cannot possibly therefore, be trusted. I accept this about her. I release myself from attachment to her. And… Done. Argument inside your mind is over.
I suggest this because we can get stuck in our heads re-traumatizing ourselves with the events of the past. You don’t deserve to be re-traumatised. You have suffered enough. It takes some work, but we can retrain our brains with a summary, so to speak, of the past, to use when we think we might be caving to manipulation.
In time, our responses will become automatic and even the summary won’t be necessary.
You got this. You are strong enough to accept the past is over and to move on. (The word accept in the place of resist decreases tension and fear in the body and mind. In turn, suffering decreases.)
Sending strength and light,
Jacqueline
Dear gullible,
Coming into a forum where we can see and experience that the destruction these types cause is an inevitable consequence of staying involved with them. Yes the worst is yet to come when you leave. However, leave you must because your total destruction will result in staying. You take that to the bank. I’m not sure a silver lining exists when comes to being involved with them. I do know that I have started to think about me as a person and my wants and dreams for the first time in years. These dreams can now become a reality and not just some pipedream . I wish you the best.
Thank you all for your insight and goodwill. I just wanted to add emphasis to the concepts of addiction and drama. Once addicted the the drama, it is hard to let go! So, it is not just about the disordered person, but about the disordered experience of the disordered personality. Without drama, an “ordinary” life may seem dull. One must re-calibrate to a lower, more even emotional balance, in order to heal. Consciousness is about integration of our feelings with our thoughts. Acting with integrity becomes a habit when you are at peace. Peace is the place where integrity resides. Don’t bite the bait of “drama” bonding. The intensity is about delusion. Sanity is about seeing others as they truly are and not needing to change them! Best wishes for the season. Kalina
Kalina,
That is so true. We often overlook our addiction to the drama. An addict who stops using one drug will often transfer the addiction to another drug. It is the same for us with disordered people. We trade one disordered person for another looking for the same “high” we got in the beginning. The same rationalizations apply as well. “This time will be different,” “this time I won’t let the abuse get physical,” or “well, he/she isn’t as bad as my ex.” It’s not until we have healed, and are coming from a place of peace, like you stated, that we are ready to attract and be present in a healthy relationship.
Thanks for your comment!
Sending love,
Jacqueline
Hello,
I love this post.
I guess I am trying to get to the bottom of things but for me it is not as simple as no contact.
No contact is the best protection from abuse, I agree.
BUT how can this be a blanket rule when we are dealing with a condition that has a spectrum?
In dealing with an illness, do we not judge the behaviour but the illness itself? Not how it manifests but compassion for a being who has it? It is, after all, not their fault.
I have been badly hurt by many sociopaths, mainly in my family.
But my experience with them has gone far beyond just being manipulated and abused. They do have other parts to them and while we appreciate them and they can’t, they do appreciate knowing that we appreciate them!
I can think of a million fantastic times that were genuine, in which no games were being played. It is true that I have been devastated by the downsides. But I think this disorder is complicated enough to need more study and more information on treatment.
Yes we hate the bad behaviour. Does it mean to them what it means to us? No.
We do not see the world the same way.
So what next? Take the good and manage the bad with help, or cut them out and lose dear, dear people?
I have been processing many experiences and I would say that some sociopaths I met do not deserve my time. Others, I have decided to keep in my life. Why? Because we managed to create a language and a planet that was just our own where we could negotiate respect.
Is it love? I am not worried. Why? Because for us, it is. It is our version of love where we are happy.
I’m sorry to seem like throwing cold water on an argument but I don’t think the no contact rule and the judgments of these people are very accurate here because as I mentioned, there is a spectrum.
So what do you do with people who sit somewhere on it?
I would really love to hear from professionals regarding your post star_al.
This exact thing is tearing some relationships apart…when one person wants or thinks that they should adhere to the no contact and another feels almost sorry for the SP, in that it is not their fault, or so that person thinks anyway.
In saying that it is not their fault, are we not letting them off the hook to continue to manipulate and play their games? Or are we to look at their ‘mental’ shortcoming as we look at autism, or Down’s syndrome, where those people really cannot help themselves in every sense of that concept?
Could anyone help with this dilemma?
Hello Star_al,
We cannot forgive without loving ourselves. This is where we begin. How is tolerating any abuse self-love?
We can compare excusing and rationalizing the harm disordered people cause us, with the harm an addict or alcoholic causes us. When we allow the abuse to continue, we are not forgiving, we are enabling. When we enable abuse we communicate to the other person, “I don’t believe you can do better than this.” When we tolerate abuse we communicate to ourselves, “I don’t believe I deserve better than this.” There is no love in either of these statements. Not for us, and not for them.
Trust is a requirement in any loving relationship, familial or romantic. How can we trust someone who abuses us?
You are, of course, free to manage these relationships as you see fit. They are in your life for a reason. I have learned some relationships in my life, are there to teach me to let go, to surrender completely. I have learned that letting go is the most loving gift I can give to an abuser. I will not participate in a contract of pain with another human being. I will not allow you to keep abusing through me. I can only manage my own space, and that is the statement I choose to make with it. I have zero tolerance for abuse.
Sending you love,
Jacqueline
Hi Bev,
I don’t think it’s about fault. If we decide where to lay the blame, does that solve the problem?
We don’t have any control over wether they will continue to abuse others. We can only decide what goes on with us. We can decide our own boundaries in our own space.
We take our power back when we make a decision that our lives are not dictated by the actions of others. We set our own boundaries, not based on what others are capable of, but based on what we need in order to be happy.
If I have a boundary that I will not tolerate abusive language directed at me in my environment, and a person in my life insists on verbally abusing me, than I must make a decision about continuing this relationship. I ask myself, do I want to tolerate abusive language? If the answer is no, I can communicate this to the person. I can tell them this simply is not negotiable if they choose to be in a relationship with me. If thie behavior continues, we cannot speak to one another. I’m not asking they stop the behavior. I am asking they stop the behavior with me. I have a right to voice what my needs are and ask that they be met. I also have a right to end relationships with people who do not meet my needs.
We can make it this simple, “I have a right to walk through my life without being abused, and I have a right to end relationships with people who abuse me.”
When I allow someone to abuse me I am allowing a relationship to continue where I am a victim, and the other person is a victimizer. This is not love. I am not loving them. They are not loving me. So if my goal is to be a person who shares love with others, how do I excuse my own behavior when I continue to participate in relationships where love is not a possibility?
I hope this answers your question.
Sending love,
Jacqueline
Dear all,
I think we’ve all tried to stay in these perverse relationships, and for some of us we stayed much longer than any reasonable person should. I for one knew that the relationship was horrible and any happiness I felt was merely a respite I was experiencing before the next round. I liken it to coming up for air only to be pushed back down (maybe they even allow to frolic in the water before we are submerged again). However, I knew the divorce would be worse than the marriage. I knew that I would have to face the full truth of every relationship in my life most importantly the relationship with my children. I knew that some of my children would want to be with him, he knew that too, and he promised them they could live with him, but I was standing in the way. I faced my children and I let them go. For me to continue staying with him I would have to have figured out a way to protect what was left of my self esteem. I wasn’t raised to compromise the very essence of who I am, that is not negotiable. Everyone needs to do what they need to do as they need to do it. All in good time. Time is on their side. In time they can strip us to the bone. Time is not a friend to the abused until we leave, then time works in our favor. I wish everyone good mental health and make good decisions.
Well, I do not want to stay in any relationship at all with the SP in my life. The SP is my own son. My husband (his father) does not feel the same way that I do. He tells me, we know what our son is, can’t you just love him anyway? Can’t you just see him a couple of times per year?
Unfortunately, having him in our lives always leads to more conflict and seems to detrimentally affect my husband and my relationship. I also don’t feel as if I can compromise my real self.
My husband says, oh well, you have to get over it….he is our SON.
About two months ago, after we said NO to our son’s last plea for help to bail him out monetarily, as he is going through a nasty split and custody deal with our lovely daughter in law, he decided to ‘cut off; contact with us! Imagine how thrilled I was!! Well, less than a week later, he was texting pics of his children to my husband, who my son knows to be the more ‘sympathetic’ of the two of us…I always say the ‘sucker’ more like, in my son’s eyes. I texted my son back and said, I thought you wanted no contact? You are playing your mind f**k games with your father and I again and trying to play is against each other.
I then blocked him and we did not hear from him for this blissful almost two months…until this week…ah, the Christmas bullshit season…my husband could not help himself, could not resist, and secretly phoned our son and of course proceeded to fall into his ‘I’m broke’ trap. Our son already has a new girl who is he currently love bombing, so his Christmas is all sealed up for him…going to meet her parents and mooch a Christmas dinner there…
My husband opened the door again. We had been freed, or it felt like we had, but my husband just cannot live like that he says. He cannot or will not ‘turn his back’ on his son, as he puts it. I told him that he needn’t look at it that way. That we can just back out of the picture, which is easy as our son lives three hours away and never contacts us unless he wants or needs something, usually money.
Anyway, back to my question. Our son is a 33 year old adult SP. Do I have to be in his life? Can’t I have no contact? I don;t think that it will work, though, if my husband has contact with him. I am the ‘crazy’ mother, who stayed back at home, who ‘hates’ her son?? Some say that it is not the SP’s fault that they are like they are. Regardless, it still negatively affects ours and others’ lives every time we let them back in. And…this poor new girl that he has latched on to before his ex even kicked him out…I would not even want to meet her. I feel like I would have to warn her about him. I know that he will devastate her life, too, eventually. It is what he does.
I am so tired of all of this.
Hi Bev,
I think it would be a good idea if you and your husband got some counseling around this, together. Is that a possibility?
Also, I can call the sky purple, it doesn’t make it so. Your son can also call you crazy. That doesn’t make it true. If you start answering to a disordered person’s opinion of you, you are likely to get stuck in a crazy head space. I know it’s difficult.
People change when the pain of going on the same way, is greater than the pain of letting go and doing something different. If you have reached a place where the pain of continuing this relationship is too great, it could be time to let go.
We don’t have the power to change others, we can only change ourselves.
Take care of you and love yourself through this.
Sending Love,
Jacqueline
Again, thank you Jacqueline. I really cannot thank you enough for all of your help and insight.
I have asked my husband to go to counselling with me, and after saying no so many times, he agreed that he would. He said that he would go, but that he will not change his mind (with his arms crossed over his chest…lol). He is adamant! Of course, that is just fine with me. Just having him go would be great.
I think that my husband believes that a counselor will tell us that my husband is right. The SP is our son, and that family is family. I wonder if that will happen. I suppose it is vital to find a counselor who is learned in personality disorders. We live in a town of only 50,000. I am not sure that there will be one available here.
Anyway, if my husband will go, then I am all for it.
Sending much love back to you Jacqueline. I appreciate you so much 🙂
You are so welcome. And thank you for sharing your experience.
Dear friends,
These recent posts, especially from Bev and “becoming strong”, have reminded me of my two out of three children.
My son, K, showed signs at an early age that something was not right. He would steal and love doing it. No therapy or nurturing or education could influence his moral conscience which should have left him with some sense of guilt.
He grew up to be “the nicest guy in the neighborhood”. But, this was correct only on the surface. Behind my back he stole cash from my purse, then cash from his employers, then from his best friends, their credit cards and credit card numbers. Like the dutiful mother, I bailed my son out. Time and again I paid off the debts from the cash k took and the credit cards he abused. Did I want my son to go to jail? I did not!! However, by the time my son was 26 years old, I literally “kicked” him out. By that time he had gone to prison on a few occasions. There are no words to describe my pain and guilt for actually letting him go. It took years of self hate and blame before I could even begin to heal.
The next time I went “no contact”, was with my daughter, age 30. She advised me that 3 to 4 times a week she used online sites for free sex with anyone, I pulled the plug immediately. She was living with a very respectable guy for almost 9 years. They were engaged to get married. Two months prior to the marriage, she told me that she had an open relationship. That they both had a sexual addiction and frequently went on line for sex with strangers. I told my daughter, L , that I was accepting her right to choose but that I was letting her go. Our values were too irreconcilable. “So you don’t want to have a relationship with me”, she said.
To make my long story short, I have not seen or talked to my daughter in 2 years. I was terribly disappointed in her character but let go easily. I feel more whole, more complete knowing that “blame” is not the answer. Only the truth can set us free from people we love who do not respect the basic rules of living with decency. I am comfortable with my decisions because I must live with dignity even if my children do not. I recommend to anyone with these dangerous people in their lives, to let go. There is no other way to live with such empty people. I hope this is helpful. Kalina
Kalina, I am wondering why you went no contact with your daughter. I am not saying I condone as wise what she is doing (and I think it’s odd she told you) but her and her fiancé are consenting adults, if she is indeed not going behind his back.
I don’t put her behavior on the same level as your son’s. He is hurting people, as well as breaking the law. He is deceptive. She is in a “modern” relationship and admits they are both like this. I think it’s strange she told you about her sex life, even if she were married and monogamous, do you really want to know the details?