Recently, I ended up in the hospital twice over a short period of time. (Which accounts for why I have not posted here in awhile.) The first stay was to have surgery to remove my gallbladder. The second was a week later when they had to perform an additional procedure to remove the stones that were left behind.
The man in my life was there. He supported me. Held my hand when I was in pain, rubbed my back. He drove me to hospital. He spoke with the doctors. Involved himself in my health care when I was too sick to care to ask the questions I needed to ask. He ensured I was well cared for, ensured I had what I needed to recover. He came to visit me in hospital. Sometimes I’d awaken and find him sitting by my bed, reading the newspaper, holding my hand. He brought me what I needed and when it was time to come home, he picked me up and tucked me into bed at home. He cared.
What a different reality than the surreal world of being with the sociopath. When with the sociopath, I had to have knee surgery at one point in our relationship. He promised to drive me to the hospital, and never appeared. I took a cab. He promised to pick me up and bring me home from hospital and I had to call a girlfriend to come and get me as they wouldn’t let me take a cab by myself (which I was insistent I could do). Whenever I was sick, he’d promise to bring me ginger ale and I’d go thirsty. He’d promise to take care of me, and find 1,001 excuses for why he couldn’t turn up. And I let him off the hook every single time.
The reality was, his words were empty promises that never translated into healing action. And in my blind faith, my misplaced love, I’d deceive myself into believing his inaction was not his fault. I’d make the unacceptable acceptable by telling myself, ”˜it’s okay. He’s got lots on his mind. He’s busy. I shouldn’t feel hurt by his inattention. He loves me.’
To quote Sir Walter Scott, ”˜Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.’
In that relationship I desperately wanted to believe what he was expressing was love. I desperately wanted to believe he was my shortcut to happiness and so I convinced myself his inaction was not important. His assertions of undying love were what counted most. Truth is, lost on the road to hell, I was blinded from the truth of what he was doing and what was happening to me because I was fixated on believing he was my Knight in Shining Armor and couldn’t see he was truly the Prince of Darkness.
In healing from that debacle I know, promises mean nothing unless followed up with action. All the empty promises in the world cannot make dreams come true. Empty promises cannot turn up in times of need, they cannot rub an aching back or hold a trembling hand. Empty promises cannot be filled with love.
Once upon a time, I gave my heart to a man who was untrue. He is gone. In healing, I have opened my arms wide to the joy of loving a man who turns up when he says he will and is there in times of need. I am blessed.
M.L. Gallagher,
When I was with the Sociopath, I noticed that whenever I needed him to come through for me, he didn’t. When I was moving, he had agreed to help but managed to have some kind of melt down so that he didn’t have to help. And yet, in the first few weeks, he cut his finger and I rushed to take him to emergency, his car battery pooped out and I arrived with jumper cables to the rescue. But when I needed something, he was conveniently mad at me for… nothing I can recall.
I love hearing about love after a Sociopath. I am just now beginning to date and I have my red flags ready to be handed out. There was a slight miscommunication about our third date. It seemed fine. Then I thought about it… if ANYTHING goes wrong with this rescheduled time, then that’s STRIKE ONE AND TWO! (one for the canceled date and two for the 2nd thing) As it turns out, he did what he said he would and we had a nice time.
I am noticing that I don’t get swept up in a man’s words anymore. This man is not wordy anyway… but whatever he says that seems nice… I am waiting for the action that confirms the words.
And he is moving like a snail with me. And I like it just fine. Slow and steady wins the race… or the girl’s heart. Maybe.
:o)
ml –
god bless you for this post. i needed to read exactly that tonight, as i have endured five years of empty promises…
i remember losing the use of my right arm for 6 months and he dangled two restaurant gift certificates in front of me as he had received them for christmas from someone, but never once brought my little boy and i dinner while i had pins drilled through my bones…let alone give us the gift certificates that cost him nothing…
my mother died and to get out of going to the funeral, (come on, funerals aren’t fun!) he promised me a day out of town shopping and a massage (he is EXTREMELY wealthy) to cheer me up.
when i arrived to leave for the day of cheering, shopping and massages, he had taken two sleeping pills because he was hungover and told me to drive while he napped.
needless to say he bought me nothing and i never got the massage…
these flashbacks help me to understand how deathly oppressive he was…
i put up with it only because i can honestly say – without question – that any other man i had ever been with would sit and hold my hand as yours is doing now…
i never knew it could be any different with a man, so i took his promises and his promises to change as sincere. it was all i knew.
it took a long time to cycle through this enough to understand what he was really doing to me.
hope you are all better now! thanks again.
This so hits home, ML. (Sorry about your hospital stays, btw). When I needed a ride from one hospital to the other, because they were transporting my daughter to a place where a pediatric gastro specialist could see her, I called my S’path for a pick-up from the second hospital, later in the evening. I told him not to say yes if he couldn’t do it, because I’d be stuck there without a car.
Don’t you know he said yes and then, a few hours later, called my voice mail to tell me he couldn’t give me a ride? And he laughed when he said it. Laughed.
Another time I needed a ride back to a hospital where my dad was at. I left him a message. No answer on voice mail. Then I called from my parents home after trying several times from my own…and he didn’t recognize the number, so HE PICKED UP right away.
They can’t be there for us because they cannot be there for even themselves when the chips are down. Besides, I noticed my s’path would do the exact opposite of whatever it was I asked or wished him to do if I verbalized that desire to him. Anything to thwart my heart, upset my feelings. Was the weirdest thing, that.
Normal people go out of their way to do what their partner needs or asks for…but he went out of his way NOT to.
This is a common theme with the people I’ve dated/married. So I’ve come to view myself as being all alone, self-sufficient, and have made that an unhappy reality. Maybe part of that is my fault, but the end result is that I feel so lonely and sometimes incapable of handling all these problems with my family’s collective illnesses. I also feel ANGRY because more than anything, I deserve to be with someone who will help carry the load. Because I am that type of person and would reciprocate.
And now, I’m afraid to ask anyone for help, because I’m so used to the way he responded to me that asking makes me feel too vulnerable.
Am trying not to feel sorry for myself but right now, I am feeling that way. The jerk came back when life was at its worst for me with so much family stress and big, huge changes. Was already more sad than I’d ever been in memory — and somehow he managed to make all that worse instead of better.
It takes everything I have some days not to be bitter or hardened towards relationships because of him.
Here’s a doubleheader example:
I had a close relative in the hospital and two children to care for. I went to a function a narcissist “friend” offers to the littlest b/c she “loves kids” and has been a nanny etc….blah, blah…I let her, though I am hesistatnt to accept help of anykind, but I was distraught.
She watches the toddler, and later on proceeds to BLAST me with an attack b/c the toddler was upset. The other “friend” a psycho accuses me of “making up the situation” ,feigns concern and then claims it was the annivrsary of bad event for them that week so they never called to see how I was.
All about them 24/7. Both PRETENDED to care and used my relative’s hospitalization to get attention.
Psychos are horrible in so many ways- but I think the worst is now I am completely leery of anyone who offers any sort of assistance.
ML-
It is amazing what real care and concern feels like. I cherish my REAL loved ones now, cherish. Hope you are better.
I need advice. My mate recently had what would typically be called an “emotional affair” with someone in the office. Big fallout, after which he promised to cut it off, no contact, etc. I suspect he is narcissistic, but don’t know to what extent & no longer sure what I really know about him.
In talking about this after the fact, we both did agree that we went through a terrible time in our marriage, leading to this rupture. He DID take responsibility for the affair, said it was his fault, he regretted it, etc., particularly when I threatened to leave. But in discussing it down the line, he wants to REVISE my thinking on the whole thing – he says in retrospect, I over-reacted to the whole thing, and I need to adjust my view on his behavior. He couldn’t stand that I would think badly of him, and forget all the other trials he was facing at that time. He still took responsibility for doing the wrong thing, but needed me to understand his side of it, to the point that I was left feeling very uncomfortable with the whole situation. Is this just someone who can’t handle his guilty conscience, or is this a narcissist?
Is this a pattern?
How else does he behave? Google symptoms of narcissists–
not everyone who cheats is a psycho or a narcissist.
Does he idealize you then devalue? Gaslight? Those are key. Is he charming?
Lie about everything? How is he showing his contrition?
Only time and actiosn will tell. But I would review his past behaviors.
Has a problem with the truth, yes. Exaggerates MY achievements to our friends & his colleagues.
When I threatened to leave, he broke down & swore to “honor” me & admitted he had treated me badly. He has been trying to communicate more, but when it comes to that affair, it’s always about saying how it wasn’t serious, making me feel like I over-reacted.
He starts to idealize me (“you never do anything wrong”) but then made me try to “correct” my feelings about the extent of his affair, until he was satisfied that I didn’t think it was more serious than he claims.
This is at least the second time there’s another woman that he gets attracted to, who is younger and ADORES him.
LilOrphan. Feeling the same as you. Very lonely. Asked him for help but he made excuses, always a great test. But I realised that before he was on the scene I was lonely anyway, like he offered me chocolate and then took it away, teased me alot which made things worse. Realise that I need to get my life in order. Need to have other interests and not just the need of a man in my life – which is so depressing.
I am very independent which kind of lets them off the hook, I learnt alot about myself with him, about asking for help and support without feeling demeaned.
I realised that I have suffered abuse in many different formats. I am a nice, good looking mature, intelligent and easy going woman who seems to attract people who want to lay into me. I show a tough side, but somehow people know that I am very soft and forgiving underneath.
Like you, I have carried very heavy burdens in my life and dont ask for much really – but dont get much anyway.
I am so tired of it all. Was put into care at 6 and still doing my own digging. Sorry. Feeling like there will never be an end to it. But realising that I had always felt like this.
Try hard, but some people seem to get things easy, I guess that is why I ran with someone who was way below me. Friends tell me ‘i deserve’ but life doesnt show me I deserve – perhaps my subscript (my life story) is low self esteem. I just find it hard to be assertive all the time. the nice people see the good in me and I dont have to work for that. I went to a dating site and connected with a guy on his interests, and he text back saying that I dont need to do that, that people can connect without same interests. I realised I am a people pleaser and had to do that to gather people around me, because I had nothing else to fall back on. Sorry. No family – and no love – that deep dark hole.
I guess I havent even ever admitted this to anyone else, therapists, or friends. But there are times why I wonder why I am here. I struggle with this all the time. I dont feel like that beautiful person that I know I am. Sometimes I feel like I am a nothing. Sorry – feeling depressed and lonely.
Brought up by narcissist father and schizophrenic mother – I have always felt unwanted, unloved and I still have that feeling – very hard to shake off, and when friends tell me what a lovely woman I am, it just doesnt mean anything. Does anyone understand that?