In my last LoveFraud article I discussed strategies for vetting your new partner for “personality skeletons” lurking in the “apparent” history.
I’d like to focus, here, more specifically (and in more depth) on individuals with a pattern of discarding the people in their lives.
Sociopaths and other seriously disturbed narcissistic personality types will have this history—that is, a history (past and recent) that’s almost certainly littered with friends, family, and anyone who was once useful, whom they’ve cast off ostensibly for one or another reason.
As best as possible we want to glean this history, if it’s applicable and somehow accessible. In such cases, we want to ensure that blinding defenses such as denial, avoidance, idealization and incuriosity (among others) don’t compromise our observational powers.
More than that, we want to be sharply astute to evidence suggestive of such a history.
And why? If for no other reason than that adults with a track record of cutting loose the people in their lives simply do not outgrow this pattern.
In other words, this is a deeply inscribed aspect of their character, from which none of us carries special privileges to immunity or protection.
Yes, we’ve discussed this and other aspects of pathological narcissism before, but it’s always useful, I feel, to take a fresh view of it.
As we know, sociopaths and similarly character-disordered personalities engage in relationships, and in a great many interactions, almost strictly to the extent that they perceive you to be useful to their interests.
I think we can agree that, just as soon as the exploitive personality perceives that your usefulness to him has run its course, it will follow like clockwork that his use for you will correspondingly expend itself.
These personalities measure you against the criterion of your useful shelf-life which, in a sense, puts you in a not so different category from, say, an appliance, or, for that matter, any possession or object whose utility depreciates over time.
From the height of his satisfaction with your optimal utility to him, the sociopath begins a slow, inexorable and, in some cases, disorientingly precipitous, phase of depreciating you. He may, or may not, begin this process by idealizing you. But even if he does, he won’t be idealing you; rather, he’ll be idealizing your utility to him.
I’d like to stress this point again: Sociopaths, and I include all pathological narcissists, never really idealize you; they idealize your present utility to them.
And, of course, from there, it’s all downhill.
When exploiter’s depreciation of you is complete, then it’s time to discard, and replace, you. This constitutes his “moving on.”
If he could list you as a deduction on his tax return, based on your depreciated value to him, he would.
And so his discarding may take a more literal form, like leaving or ending the relationship; or it may take the less literal, but worse, form of his staying (or hanging around) while abdicating, increasingly, any and all sense of accountability in the relationship.
Now that you give him so little of compelling worth, so little to value and use (except, among other conveniences, perhaps a roof over his head), the exploitive “partner” no longer feels he owes you much of anything.
This perspective conveniently enables his conviction of his right to pursue his gratifications elsewhere. Again, this constitutes a form of his “moving on.”
But let’s not mistake what “moving on” means to the sociopath and like-minded personalities: it means finding new victims to exploit.
He may not consciously process his agenda as such (although he might), but we know that this is his agenda.
Many sociopaths, in their warped self-centeredness, subscribe to the philosophy: I want, therefore I deserve. And so the next step follows with dangerous self-justification—taking what they want.
Again, the sociopath may not consciously think, “I deserve to have fun with the credit cards in that guy’s wallet.” But he will want the credit cards with which to have some fun, and whether consciously or not, because he wants them, he’ll feel entitled to seize and use them.
This also explains the prototypical sociopathic telemarketer: he wants the old peoples’ assets, and because he wants them, he feels entitled to take them. Deploying any and every tool in his exploitive toolbox, he then takes all the assets he can from the naive couple.
Once having taken what he can from them, they cease to have use for him, and so he cuts them loose; he discards them. That is, having fleeced them for what he could, he “moves on” in search of more gratification through prospective new victims, who may have what he wants, that he can take.
Very likely he won’t look back, and if he does, it won’t be with empathy, guilt, shame or regret.
(This article is copyrighted © 2010 by Steve Becker, LCSW. My use of the male gender pronoun is for convenience’s sake, not to suggest that males have a patent on the behaviors discussed.)
ErinBrock
Well…..hmmmmmm.
super chic
It was priceless.
ErinBrock
Chic….
Hows that hog show going…..
geminigirl
YOU GUYS ARE SO FUNNY!!!! EBs spelling of Phlegm,–flem!!
Dont ever change you guys!!
Truly, you are all funnier than any comedy show, and its all FREE!
Love. Mama Gem.XX
Good job ignoring the troll!! {I dont think he/she got it, re the potted plants or rocks,LOL!!} you guys cant help yourselves!
ErinBrock
Troll????
I hadn’t noticed.
I was busy getting vejazzled…..and reading my english dictionary!
NOT!
🙂
super chic
I’m cooking up some bacon in the morning!
SC 1 / PIG 0
silvermoon
From Cyrano De Bergerac – it was made later into a movie called Roxanne starring Steve Martin….
One of my favorite responses of all time to an ill timed, poorly worded insult…..
Ah no! young blade! That was a trifle short!
You might have said at least a hundred things
By varying the tone … like this, suppose, …
Aggressive: ‘Sir, if I had such a nose
I’d amputate it!’ Friendly: ‘When you sup
It must annoy you, dipping in your cup;
You need a drinking-bowl of special shape!’
Descriptive: ”Tis a rock! … a peak! … a cape!
-A cape, forsooth! ‘Tis a peninsular!’
Curious: ‘How serves that oblong capsular?
For scissor-sheath? Or pot to hold your ink?’
Gracious: ‘You love the little birds, I think?
I see you’ve managed with a fond research
To find their tiny claws a roomy perch!’
Truculent: ‘When you smoke your pipe … suppose
That the tobacco-smoke spouts from your nose-
Do not the neighbors, as the fumes rise higher,
Cry terror-struck: “The chimney is afire ?”
Considerate: ‘Take care, … your head bowed low
By such a weight … lest head o’er heels you go!’
Tender: ‘Pray get a small umbrella made,
Lest its bright color in the sun should fade!’
Pedantic: ‘That beast Aristophanes
Names Hippocamelelephantoles
Must have possessed just such a solid lump
Of flesh and bone, beneath his forehead’s bump!’
Cavalier: ‘The last fashion, friend, that hook?
To hang your hat on? ‘Tis a useful crook!’
Emphatic: ‘No wind, O majestic nose,
Can give THEE cold!-save when the mistral blows!’
Dramatic: ‘When it bleeds, what a Red Sea!’
Admiring: ‘Sign for a perfumery!’
Lyric: ‘Is this a conch? … a Triton you?’
Simple: ‘When is the monument on view?’
Rustic: ‘That thing a nose? Marry-come-up!
‘Tis a dwarf pumpkin, or a prize turnip!’
Military: ‘Point against cavalry!’
Practical: ‘Put it in a lottery!
Assuredly ‘twould be the biggest prize!’
Or … parodying Pyramus’ sighs …
‘Behold the nose that mars the harmony
Of its master’s phiz! blushing its treachery!’
-Such, my dear sir, is what you might have said,
Had you of wit or letters the least jot:
But, O most lamentable man!-of wit
You never had an atom, and of letters
You have three letters only!-they spell Ass!
And-had you had the necessary wit,
To serve me all the pleasantries I quote
Before this noble audience … e’en so,
You would not have been let to utter one–
Nay, not the half or quarter of such jest!
I take them from myself all in good part,
But not from any other man that breathes.
super chic
silver, wish I had even 1% of that wit to answer an insult!!
beautiful (and I love that movie too!)
Ox Drover
Dear Banana,
Well, it is “only” another $400 bucks (I bet you are tired of hearing that!) LOL But maybe when your attorney sees what an unreasonable jerk your X is then he MAY get it! I hate you have to go through it.
Maybe, and this is a REAL suggestion, not a smart remark, you might talk to your famijly doctor and ask him/her to give you 2-4 tabs of 5 mg valium so that you can try out one and see how you function on it, and then at the hearing itself take whatever of the dose will keep you calm and STILL leave you functioning! YOU HAVE GOT TO BE MS. CALM, COOL, COLLECTED & REASONABLE AND UNEMOTIONAL in that meeting. TALK TO YOUR ATTORNEY not to the jerk! Love Oxy
ErinBrock
Banana:
Go in with an ‘open’ mind and a focus on WHAT it is YOU need to accomplish.
Be reasonable…..appear reasonable and ‘give’ where it doesnt hurt you or baby.
NOTHING needs to be accomplished at this mediation….
So…..DON”T INTERUPT, listen, negotiate….let your attorney negotiate on YOUR behalf…..and KNOW….the final outcome is UP TO YOU!….
NOT THE ATTORNEYS!
If he plays games…..WALK.
And make this clear going in with your attorney…that your NOT going to be manipulated or harrased or lied to during this mediation……or your walking.
Don’t EVER get emotional…..EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER…..
It’s a business deal……(I know this sounds harsh)…..
Don’t chit chat…..as it ‘gives’ up where your ‘head’ is…..
TRY TO SIT BACK AND LET HIM DO ALL THE TALKING….and laying of his ‘cards’ on the table first.
Listen, absorb……take it all in…..THEN respond.
If you need to get up and take a break…..DO IT.
Make sure your attorney NEVER stays in the room w/o you.
And make sure the ground rules are SET prior to anyone opening thier mouths!
No lying, no manipulation, no deceit, no accusations……
this will be a ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION to hammer out the best interest of child! PERIOD!!!
Good luck…..I’m sending you some EB MOJO to take in with ya!!!!!
XXOO
EB