Donna Andersen explains why we should not feel obligated to keep promises made to sociopaths. Watch the latest episode of Lovefraud Lessons here:
- Menu
- Skip to right header navigation
- Skip to primary navigation
- Skip to main content
- Skip to primary sidebar
- Skip to footer
How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists
I grew up in a home in which it was considered extremely disrespectful to disagree with my parents about anything. I was never allowed to form my own opinions about anything, much less express them openly. Whatever they wanted, the only acceptable answer was “yes.” Even today, my mother will try to shove me into doing something she wants me to do (generally involving spending time with relatives I don’t like,) and she will get really frustrated and angry if I don’t do what she wants AND act as though I am pleased to do it.
thanks rgc, I feel that my hubby is slipping away before giving me the chance to heal from this. He gives me little time to heal and seems so anxious to be intimate. I am so nervous around him for fear he will bring things up again. I have other issues in my life that I am trying to deal with too and I feel I should take one problem at a time first. I actually don’t give a hoot about Mr. spath and want to move on. He thinks I need to explore my past when there is no past to explore. confused in Kentucky….
>raised by a sociopath
–
he already thinks he’s “your man”. just that remark about the kids.
is that where you see him? in your bed? cause sounds to me like he does.
i’ve known some seriously crazy that hide behind exactly this kind of beginning. get him out of your life totally, and do not be nice about it. every nice to him is a win.
& he’ll possibly come to your house, since phone is blocked, don’t open the door,don’t talk to him– if he doesn’t go away call the police. just do it.
RGC, I wish all men were as open and intelligent as you to self introspection. It sounds as the wife is a little immature, looking for attention? It’s difficult if you are out dancing to not have fun, dance with everyone, etc. I also had to learn to look hard at the pity party type dudes. It’s a childish way to get attention, and a childish woman will fall for it. Good luck to you and keep up the good work. Never stop learning.
This was good video and it took some weights from my heart. Before marriage, spath and I talked about his mom and my older son to be issue once we are together. I told him we know the issue points and we will deal with it together as a family..
But a little I knew his mother is a living mostor,she wanted to break us as soon as we got married, she lived with us, and he would come home jumped all over me, you promised me to take care of my mom, means you make sure my mom doensn’t get chance to complain, I said as you told me she has issues, these are the same issues we talked, how come it became my promise. This guy twist and turn everything I said in to my promise bucket, before I new my bucket was over flowing, and he got none. Every time I had to bring up something how and when whole thing would turn to me and suddenly I who was supposed to be victim of the situation is getting loud yelling and I would try to figure out what did I wrong here.
It was a very suceessfull manipulation, spath make you so confused that you forget to ever bring anything to resolve, and they forcefully throw everything at you as you promised to solve the world for them and guess what in the confusion you find yourself saying sorry that you didn’t fulfillthe promise you never made.
Myheart,
I love the promise bucket analogy .
“guess what in the confusion you find yourself saying sorry that you didn’t fulfillthe promise you never made.”
That is powerful!!
usless,
my wife seems to feel the same way. what we mean by things in our past, are things that may have compromised our self esteem. when we have sufficient self esteem we are usually ok with telling people no. without self esteem we might be easily induced to feel obligated, or might be easily impressed without first seeing more proof of someones sincerity. we also have problems with boundaries and limitations. we take peoples word and invest in them before we have proof that they are worthy of our time.
our self esteem is built upon our past experiences. plain and simple. most people agree that we as humans are really the sum of our experiences. for example, before i was married i was kind of a lonely guy. i as a teen, got my high school girlfriend pregnant, endured quite a bit of crap. (no the girl isnt the only one who gets crap) rumors flew and first thing you know, the freshman girls are literally moving to the opposite side of the hall when they see me coming. this had an effect on me and i didn’t get over it for a long time.
now obviously i didn’t deserve to be treated that way. and at the time i would even joke about it. but it stuck with me foe a long time and i didn’t realize that until l looked back and kind of uncovered it. it was kind of dirty and nasty to do but now it carries much less weight. i now see why i had so much difficulty dating or at least getting a date. back then i just thought i must be some loser but it was the lack of confidence that the girls could see was missing. and that lack of confidence was caused by my experience. when your a guy and chicks run away from you, well it leaves a mark.
my point is here that when we dig back in the dirt of our past, it is more common than not to find a few bones if not whole skeletons.
its scary till you do it a few times.
rgc
pattywhack,
thanks for the compliment but i wish i’d spent more time thinking about these things years ago. guess better late than never.
rgc
Spath told me all the time with a big pride, he believes in “conditioning” children and I guess wife as well and his mom. He uused to say when you enforce a repeatition people around you will do things without even thinking. And when one of the kid will not do what he thought is right, he would yell and yell.
Even on 7th birhtday of my son, after we were done wiht the party, and he was happy oepning gifts in his room, this guy went and start yelling at him, why he has all thei gift papers everywhere in the room.
He made sure that none of can even feel joy even for one second, for the celebration regarding graduation and birhtday. “Fear factor” is his mantra.
I looked at this person and tried to figure out, who is he, what does he want from us, what will make him happy, but as soon as I would think I know what will make him happy, he would bring something else, you promised this but you didn’t do this, or children didn’t do this.
Sorry even writing about this making me upset.