I was at a seminar awhile ago where the speaker quoted from Gavin deBecker’s book, The Gift of Fear. deBecker writes that the first time someone hits you, you’re a victim. The second time, you knew what he was capable of yet chose to stay. The speaker went on to talk about how in life we always have a choice. We can choose to stay with a man who has proven himself capable of hitting or lying or cheating, or, we can chose to do the thing we fear, leave. Walk out the door and don’t look back. It is always our choice.
A woman in the audience put up her hand and said, “So, you’re blaming the victim. If she chooses to stay, it’s her fault.”
“No,” the speaker responded. “She is never responsible for his behaviour. She is responsible for the choices she makes.”
I stayed in a relationship for four years, nine months, seven days, two hours, thirty-two minutes and seven seconds. — Okay, so I don’t really know the exact length of time to the second — but I do know that every second counted in bringing me down to the pit of despair, to destroying my will to live.
I don’t know the exact moment when I knew he was lying, or felt the pinprick of doubt as to his intentions. I do know there were moments, early on in the relationship, when I was so blinded by what I wanted to believe was true and really happening (he loves me, he really, really loves me) that I chose to ignore the facts of what he was doing and saying, and bought into the myth of his love everlasting.
I do know that every second I stayed after the first time I questioned ”˜the truth’ of something he’d said or done that made me doubt his sincerity or made my spidey senses tingle with concern, made a difference in my ability to stand up and walk away when I knew he was lying.
With every second I stayed I became more and more poisoned by his lies. And with every drop of poison I consumed, I became more and more fixated on my need to prove I wasn’t a fool taken in by his lies, because, well, he wasn’t really lying, cheating, manipulating because if he was, I wouldn’t have stayed! I’m not that stupid.
Ah, the sticky webs we weave when first we try to deceive ourselves into believing being the woman of his dreams will make all our dreams come true.
I could never be the woman of his dreams. His dreams are the nightmare into which I fell when I turned my back on ”˜the truth’ of who I am and accepted his lies as the only truth I’d ever need to be the woman of his dreams.
With every moment I stayed stuck in the quagmire of his deceit, I became more and more convinced he was all I deserved. In accepting he was all I deserved, I had to accept I really was stupid because what was happening to me felt so wrong. To make the wrong right, I had to give up on looking for my truth away from him and accept I was as helpless as he told me. He told me there was nothing I could do to stop him, to leave him, or to change my life. I chose to believe him because to not believe him meant having to do something different. And I was too scared to do anything different. His lies became the truth I breathed and ate and consumed. His lies consumed me and I had to keep believing him in order to keep myself from facing the truth of his lies.
He told me he was all I deserved and only he, and he alone, was capable of giving me all that I wanted. As I fell under the lure of believing he was all I deserved, I became less and less capable of accessing my power to take positive action away from the lies that were robbing me of my sanity and killing my will to live.
Somewhere I once read that, when the pain of where we’re at grows greater than the fear of where we want to be, we will take action.
In that relationship, the pain of where I was at robbed me of finding the courage to walk away. Now, there were a whole bunch of reasons why and how that happened. From Stockholm Syndrome to Learned Helplessness to Intermittent Reinforcement, he practiced his craft of human manipulation. Why wouldn’t he? He’d spent his lifetime becoming a subject matter expert at his craft. And I was his willing victim. He knew I was the perfect victim after the first time he tested the boundaries of my principles, and I compromised in some small way to accept a lie he told as truth.
I was his target. And his source. I was the perfect woman — just as he said I was. Only, in my lexicon, perfect woman meant his one true love, his soul mate, the Venus completing his de Milo. I didn’t stop to think that he might have a different frame of reference. I didn’t stop to compare his actions against his words, my feelings of worthlessness against his machinations to make me feel worthless.
I didn’t stop to think.
And in not stopping to think about what he was doing, I made room for him to keep doing what he was doing in my life.
I was a victim. At least the first time I bought his lie and accepted it as truth. But, when I started to question whether or not he was telling the truth, and then kept looking for my answers in his lies, I became a volunteer to his manipulations. I became so consumed in thinking about him, in thinking about all the things I’d heard him say about me, in trying to first prove him right; I was the perfect woman. And then to prove him wrong; I wasn’t out to destroy him, hurt him, blame him for everything that was wrong. I was just out to love him and in my willful desire to love the lie, I let go of my power, I let go of my right to take care of me, to be accountable for me, to love me for all I’m worth.
These characters do not come with a sign on their foreheads marking them as predators. And we do not walk around with big red target signs on ours.
What they do is test the waters of our resistance to their bull. They keep testing until we either laugh at them and walk away, or give into their manipulations. One lie at a time.
We always have a choice. One lie at a time.
They just wait for us to make the choice that keeps us in their path for another minute, another second too long for us to collect our thoughts and right our thinking so that we can get away before the next lie hits us and we are brought down by our fear of facing the truth of their lies.
The difference for me today is, I acknowledge there are Ps and Ss and Ns and ABCs out there. In knowing they’re out there, I know that I will encounter them from time to time. And in those encounters I know it’s what I do that makes the difference in my life. Will I believe their fairy tale of how wonderful I am, or will I accept my truth and know, I’m a woman of worth. I don’t need someone else to tell me my truth. I don’t need to become the apple of someone’s eye by making myself fit a design that doesn’t suit me. My truth is, I stand confidently in the substance of who I am when I am free of looking for my worth in someone else’s eyes.
I chose once to stay the victim after hearing a lie I couldn’t believe was true. I believed I was the perfect woman of his dreams. I believed he could make all my dreams come true.
Today I know the truth. I am responsible for me. I am responsible for making all my dreams come true. Today, I love myself enough to spend every minute, every second of every day proving it. And when I treat myself to the truth, the world around me responds with limitless opportunities to be the woman I’ve always dreamt of being.
Once again well said Louise. I am wondering if others in your life at the time saw him as the honest and plausible person you did? I know that when they con- they usually con the whole support network of their target, so the gaslighting is multiplied. “Can I be the only one that sees him this way?” If others find him worthy of their admiration…etc. etc. etc.
In my case I finally stumled upon a HUGE lie, that was repeated, and lead to death by a thousand cuts, figuratively speaking. During that time I wanted to leave, but, faced with EVERYONE believing he was decent, especially my children and very close freinds, had me feeling selfish for not forgiving his BIG LIE. I chose therapy instead- (as he also had me owned financially and I would have walked into the abyss)- and THREE different therapists told me to MOVE ON – (forgive) that I was focusing on the past blah blah. Well the lie started in the past- but was carried on for years. The level of arrogance and disrespect, the level of ownership implied, the callous disregard for my right to make my own life’s choices based on a real assesment of our situation left me reeling for well over two years. I was devastated. I worked on forgiving and forgetting, as the motto says, and as everyone advised me.
So once again, as you have pointed out in other essays, I did not trust my gut. I did not stand up and say…this is NOT ACCEPTABLE. I made a very big stink- but nothing he could not ignore. I accomodated. Then twisted myself into a mental pretzel to “make it right” between us. And you are so right. It is in our power to make choices for ourselves. It seems one of the first is to choose not to accept and level of honesty and integrity that is less than our own. Towards anyone. Anytime.
Oxy has boinked us on this many times, and rightly so.
Ultimately the abyss is just what lies ahead, with us in charge of our own well being. The big lie I told myself was that I would be leaving a person who was deep down decent and really really really “loved” me. The reason I stayed so long, was because of the lie I told MYSELF.
Peace to all,
Eyeswideshut says, “the reason I stayed so long, was because of the lie I told myself. I am here with you on this one!
Thanks Loise, very very wise article.
Louise,
how very interesting that you wrote: He knew I was the perfect victim after the first time he tested the boundaries of my principles, and I compromised in some small way to accept a lie he told as truth.
For the first time, I now understand why he lied so much at the beginning of our relationshit. I remember how confused I was that someone could lie so much. So I went to the library to research : people who lie.
But I believe you just hit the nail on the head. He lied to TEST my reaction to his lies. To TEST how much BS I would accept without question. He KNEW, that I knew he was lying!
Months later, when I finally confronted one lie, he raged at me. He told me NEVER to call him a liar. It scared me so much that I never did again. In essence I gave him permission to lie as much as he wanted by not confronting the very first lie.
I’ve seen him do other “tests” on his marks, to see how they react and then he will pretend it was all a joke. But the blatant lie as a test had never occurred to me.
THANK YOU LOUSE FOR THAT AMAZING REVELATION!
I blindly, quickly fell in love with a man. I ignored the red flags that others pointed out to me…that he was very newly divorced, that he had just relocated, that he was 25 and living with and off his sister and was a newspaper “boy” for a living, that he had long hair, that he said he had had problems with drinking before, that he was hitting on me when I was engaged to someone else. I ignored all the red flags, because my gut told me he really loved me and was a good man. So we mailed out the invitations and were married less than 5 weeks after our first date (though we had been in a class together).
It is true that alcohol continued to rear its head over the years, but he kept the problem hidden from me and it really had very little direct effect on me (though quite a bit of indirect impact at times) and he is over it now.
That man was my husband, who does indeed love me and I feel so blessed to have him and all my family and girlfriends love him too and tell me I’m so lucky to have a good man like him. And they know the “real” him.
Perhaps that experience keeps me from being too hard on myself for ignoring the red flags with the P. SOME of it is part of the normal process of falling in love. And when I read my old emails to the P, I DID react to the red flags, but then “understood” based on his explanations or even my own.
All in all, I think now that the main reason the P was able to get me in his grasp was 1) I didn’t know that emotional rapists were out there DISGUISED as really good guys, I didn’t know about psychopaths, narcissists, personality disorders, none of that!!! Had I known, I would have seen a pattern instead of just one red flag at a time. 2) my mom had trained me to think that “love and discard” over and over again was just how love was, but again, until I read Betrayal Bond I had no understanding of that. 3) I was in a very vulnerable place emotionally, as many of you were when targeted. 4) he was from my past, 40+ years ago and I ‘re-met” him online, and my radar was off kilter for both those reasons.
Where my problems came in, that I think ARE really linked to my past, is I had such trouble letting go IN MY HEAD, after I let go every other way and knew the truth. Not that going NC was easy either, it wasn’t. But getting rid of the intrusive thoughts was REALLY hard.
So it wasn’t the mistakes going in that haunt me, it is the mistakes getting out. What really did me in was just before the last big cruel dump, he had convinced me we would truly be best friends forever. To have such a sudden reversal after I finally thought all the red flags were gone, was devastating. Even now, knowing all that I do, I have to admit he was putting on a damn good show at that time that was pretty hard to see through. Not impossible, but hard.
I do think some of the p’s do believe their own lies at the time…some of the lies, but not all of the lies. But their ability to not see the truth themselves makes them very convincing actors when that happens!
M.L…..You are a very strong person now, no matter what happened in the past. Stronger than those who have never gone through the fire. Great post.
Dear Louise,
Every person on LoveFraud should memorize this article and be able to recite it verbatum before we are every allowed out on the street without someone holding our hands to cross the street!
This is sooooo RIGHT ON! Oh, how I wanted to “believe” my then BF (the P) oh HOW I wanted to believe he did love me, and ONLY me! ROTFLMAO !!!!!!
I lied to myself much more than he ever lied to me (as far as I know he never even spoke the truth except by accident!)!!!
We have a family “joke” about the “Eleventh commandment” which is “Thou shalt not FOOL THYSELF” and I do believe that commandment is broken more than ALL the other Ten commandments together by a factor of hundreds. WE fool ourselves into believing in a romantic version of “SANTA CLAUS” or the “Easter bunny” or the “tooth fairy” because just like the kids WANT to believe, so do we.
Thanks for a wonderfully well written and timely article!
Yes, but Oxy, We can do all kinds of work on ourselves, learn how to recognize red flags, learn to love and understand ourselves, etc. etc. but how on earth do we stop wanting to believe?
Reading this article, I thank my lucky stars I got out when I did, after only a few months. I got stood up by him the second time (this time with no excuse) and shortly after, watched as all his lies unfolded before my eyes. I was completely dumbfounded. I have dated many men, but never anyone who lied repeatedly so sweetly and broke promises like it was no big deal. He seemed to live in a different world where it was okay to do these things. I have observed many bad behaviors in men, but I had never seen anything like this in my life. And I hope to God I never see it again. As I get back to my trusting self, I sometimes still think that those 2 months was some sort of aberration. I have to remember that it’s true–there really are people like this, and they’re out there lurking, waiting to take advantage of the rest of us.
Just as JAH says, the main reason I even stayed as long as I did was that I was unaware of sociopaths. I looked for logical explanations for his behaviors and I found them. Now I am smarter. I still have enough issues to sink a ship. But I don’t imagine I will ever let a sociopath slip through my radar screen again.
Dear Kim,
QUOTE “How on earth do we stop wanting to believe?”
We grow up and accept reality as it is, and don’t live in a fantasy world….reality sometimes “bites” but we CAN create a reality that is wonderful, we just have to work at it.
I look in the mirror and I see REALITY—my grandmother’s face, not “my own” the way I have always “seen” myself, the way I always wanted to “believe” I look(ed) but the REALITY is that I will soon be 63 years old, and I no longer look 45, or 25…because the REALITY is I am NOT those ages.
I have to accept it for what it is. I am what I am.
There is a woman who goes regularly to the community auction where I regularly go. She is probably about 55 or so, and she dresses and acts like she is 16, in clothes that would be risque for a 16 year old. She is laughed at behind her back and called “Botox BARBIE” — she is a woman who is not unattractive FOR HER AGE but she looks ridiculous because she can’t accept the REALITY she isn’t 16 any more and her manner of dress and behavior is INAPPROPRIATE for a 55 year old woman. I have no doubt that this woman is obscessed with her looks, sexuality and so on, and is having a great deal of trouble adjusting to her natural aging, hates looking old—I heard Michael Jackson say (on tape) the other night that he hated the thought of “getting old” and that it was UGLY etc. he also said he hated his own looks (I guess maybe that is why he kept on with the plastic surgery over and over) but I can’t imagine living like that, hating myself for “getting old”—I accept REALITY, that there is no tooth fairy, no Santa claus, and I am not a 16 year old firm-breasted smooth skinned young woman any more, but I am going to be the BEST ME that I can be, and ride the Fat Ass and wear my big feather hat and have a ball in the time I have left on this earth to the best of my ability….and if someone looks at me and laughs at the “silly old woman riding a big jack ass with the wild looking hat” that is a whole lot better, to me, than looking in the mirror and hating reality or wanting to believe that I am “still a sexy young thing” like “Botox Barbie”—
My “beauty” on the outside is long gone, but i am working diligently to find and display the “beauty WITHIN” because in the end, we all end up looking like Yoda anyway! (If we live long enough!)
Oxy,
I’ve read that when you see someone who is older but still dresses like they did when they were teenagers, that’s a sign of narcissism. It shows a refusal to accept reality, the reality of aging. Think Picture of Dorian Gray.
Botox Barbie is waving a Red Flag.
yes, Oxy, I agree with all that. When I was approaching 40, I was still playing bo-tox Barbie. Then I spent 7 gut-wrenching years with my XP. Now I’ve spent 2 years with me, NC. I almost wonder if my “need” to be in a relationship was bio;ogical, or hormonal. It wasn’t a “sex” thing, it was a bonding thing, but since menopause, not at all. what do you think? Could some of our relationship addictions be chemical?