After all these years, I remain struck and fascinated by how readily, abruptly, selfishly and destructively my more narcissistic clients use blame as an interpersonal weapon.
This isn’t a surprising observation: Don’t like what you’re hearing (because it’s inconvenient)? Blame the messenger. Find an expectation oppressive (because it’s inconvenient)? Blame your partner as a nag, a bitch, or as insatiable.
Find it inconvenient to admit your deviousness or treachery? Blame the victim of your treachery for driving you into a corner and leaving you no choice (in other words, you betrayed me, before I betrayed you!).
For such individuals, blame becomes a reflex. It is often staggering to watch, as it suits their convenience in the moment, how they’ll switch it up and accuse a partner of something that they (not their partner) blatantly perpetrated.
Blame, in many of these cases, is often projected. By projected, I mean that the blamer (the aggressor) takes a feeling—say, guilt—and projects it onto his partner as, say, blame.
For instance, his guilt over an affair is projected as, “You drove me into her arms!” (In other words, I’m not guilty, but you should be!)
Should you challenge his twisted version of the truth, he may escalate his projecting along the lines of, “Don’t go pop psychology on me! There you go again, manipulating me with your pop psychology! You were a lousy wife, you treated me like shit, and so what the hell did you expect?! Shame on you! Take a look in the mirror, honey. You’re a loser!”
By now, a gaslighting effect risks emerging: disoriented by his vitriol and the seeming conviction of his accusations, you may begin to wonder, who’s crazy here? Him, as I once thought, or perhaps me?
Blame, of course, doesn’t always involve projection; sometimes the abuser’s contempt—that is, his devaluation of his target—is so great that, even while he’s consciously, lucidly aware that he violated you, he’ll blame you anyway.
This, of course, takes hubris. But what it most takes, as I just suggested, is a massive level of contempt. Consider the example of the individual who sexually assaults his victim and, fully recognizing the nature of his assault, nevertheless (and shamelessly) blames the victim, calling her a whore, saying she wanted it, she asked for it, she had it coming, what the hell did she expect?
My own view is that the sociopath, in general, has less need than the narcissist to “self-justify” his use of blame. His feeble conscience, which makes few, if any, demands of him, effectively enables and liberates the audacious expression of his contempt and self-centeredness.
I suspect this also explains (at least partly) how, knowing full well he’s been a scoundrel, the sociopath can look you in the eye with unabashed, naked contempt and brazenly endeavor to blame or lie his way out of accountability.
The comfort with which he can do this, the seeming absence of conflict, guilt and ambivalence with which he can blithely commit, and just as blithely deny, such exploitive behaviors, becomes a diagnostic indicator of his sociopathy.
(My use of “he” in this post was merely a convenience, and not meant to suggest that females aren’t capable of the behaviors and disorders discussed. This article is copyrighted © 2009 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
Steve and All,
This is what forced me out of the 10-month relationshit I was ‘in’. The projection and blame. I got to thinking the other day why I stayed in when the projections started happening and I came up with something.
Within the context of a ‘love’ relationship there is always give and take. I applied that to this r-shit.
Next, the projections were so patently obvious and absurd I could not imagine that they meant what I thought they did. Because, in my way of thinking, NO ONE would actually COME RIGHT OUT AND SAY SUCH STUPID STUFF.
So, as a rational and sane person, I tried everything I could to make them into some sort of talking point. To find the ‘middle ground’ that exists in healthy relating. I would try and read between the lines, thinking surely there must be a communication problem, a bad choice of words, a vulnerability that needed shoring up, and we would ‘get to the bottom’ of it and find the real issue.
HA HA HA! Nope, they really do mean that stupid shit they say!!! That’s what I finally figured out.
For example:
When I cried and told him it hurt me when he talked about and stared at other women, ignoring me in a crowd. Here is the irrational/gaslighting explanation he gave me:
He told me he was going to ‘work really hard not to do that’, and that he would also really appreciate if I could, since love is 50/50, stop watching him all the time. That it is normal for men to look at other women, but it is not normal for their partners to ‘notice’ it the way I was. CRAZY!
So I was hurt because I observed his behavior. It was my fault I was hurt. Not his. I hemmed him in and that made him feel, even more than ‘usual’, that he needed to be able to ‘be himself’. And so the amount of time he spent looking at other women was in direct proportion to my observations.
Oh, that was so obvious. Why didn’t I understand it before his brilliant explanation? I could have saved myself SO much hurt, if I just hadn’t paid any attention to him.
Another example of getting into the mud pit, with the pig, to try and make sense of things. They love the mud pit, we just end up filthy and disgusted!
Slimone:) brilliant post:) I think I can apply that scenario of being in the mud pit and disgusted to the most damaging relation-shits(oh how I love that word;) in my life. The time and energy wasted in trying to shore up vulnerabilities in the relation-shit or to ‘get to the bottom of the problem’… what ever you do you are damned. Every moved gets you stuck deeper and deeper untill you are drowning… It REALLY is a stark contrast to the way healthy relationships work, even in troubled times. this has been illustrated to me so clearly lately.xx
slimone:
He wasn’t looking at “other women”, he was looking FOR anything that might provide HIM with immediate narcissitic supply and present and future exploitation. Remember, they will f#ck anything that moves.
Blueskies and Tilly,
Such a waste of breath, huh? What’s the old phrase about blowing smoke up one’s own arse?
Yea, confabulation, blame, and guilt aren’t really used in conflict resolution, in healthy relationships. One’s empathy and reason are no match for the emotional destitution and deception of a predator.
I am getting closer to the place (finally!) where knowing about all this, and knowing I have a MUCH better chance of avoiding another pig-wrestling match, is feeling like a gift.
It has felt like such a burden, and something I haven’t wanted to be true. But so long as it is we are ALL SO fortunate to understand it. So much more equipped than the other folks stumbling deaf and blind with predators on their heels.
Tilly, of course! At the time I only (tried) set up a boundary about ‘looking’. It wasn’t until I learned about p/n that I understood the concept of supply and targeting the next victim. During this particular phase I was still thinking we were dealing with some ordinary type of digression. Though I can admit, now, that I ‘knew’ deep down inside that something was ‘essentially’ wrong with him. I knew. Just couldn’t imagine the specifics.
Now I know. Whoo hoo!
Dear Slimone, thanks for another excellent post! I could so relate to your comment on him “looking”. “Mine” was testing me right from the beginning (and saying so!!!! HUGE RED FLAG!!!!!) by observing me watching him looking after other women, and he was very glad I did not show any sign of jealousy (My soulmate, I was so secure about him, and of course he declared that I “passed” his test successfully! and of course my father has done this ALL THE TIME too, so it came natural).
When he started to move away from me physically when we went out together and I followed him, then he said EXACTLY the same lines yours did! (must be from one of the later chapters of the manual on “Easy gaslighting for the inclined narcissiopath; how to get rid of a devouted soul and out of relationshit”) LOL.
It took me a very tough hard time to realize that my awkward feelings were pure naked fear, embarrassment, a put down; and completely justified.
Libelle,
HA HA HA….I LOVE the book title! Yea, they are pretty kookie-cutter aren’t they? Little did we know that passing ‘the test’ would mean many more, that just got harder and more devastating.
I passed the test early on too. I even ‘agreed’ to consider ‘open relationshits’. Of course that came down to him (then) saying he may want monogamy, and me waiting for his decision. And me agreeing to considering the open crap only helped him with his image management. That way I could wait, and be loyal to him, while he played ‘Mr. Undecided and Torn’. It was a strange pity play.
He told me he never considered monogamy before me…because he never felt ‘safe enough’. Oh man did I fall for this chit.
It was a crude but brilliant manipulation that served his desire for additional sources of current or future use, AND kept me monogamous and giving him my undivided attention.
My fear of abandonment, and my healthy (but misappropriated) empathy and sense of compromise did not serve me well.
I remember once, while in a store, that some guy supposedly was “looking” at my behind, as I walked into the restroom. Since I obviously didn’t have eyes in the back of my head, I had no idea, but boy o boy did I get the what-for when I came out of the restroom. S said he told this person he was going to clock him one for staring at me, etc., etc. He tried his darnedest to lay the guilt trip on me, like I could control other people. Yet he was free to ogle other women, & have his affairs. He & his last one even went around town telling people they were boyfriend & girlfriend the last 6 months we were married. All this while I was working 60 hour weeks since he couldn’t hold a job. To this day, after being divorced for 3 years now, I am just so humiliated. I live in the town I grew up in, & for what ever reason, he has never left the area, I have a hard time going into a store here, because I feel like such an idiot.
slimone:
“pig-wrestling match” I am using this one today lol! and i think I will add the word “wild” before it. Yep, that somes up my sex life with the ex p.
ERINB –
Thanks so much for the encouragement. We did have quite a NICE TIME and I was so happy to share the house with my GF and her two kids – she too is on a tight budget and could not afford to take her girls anywhere.
But we made it to the beach at LBI – lucked out there no one asked for beach badges – we went to Cape May and on Sunday we went to Smithville for more shopping. The girls had never been there – my kids had but they were good about going again – and it really made them happy.
I did pretty well with it all as this is our second summer without NHusband – but I did feel alot of depression once I got home. Perhaps tired of trying to keep it all together on my own . I will admit that I love to go places but the FAMILY scene gets to me now. So many seemingly happy couples and families – and yes I know I DO NOT know what goes on in their lives – but it truly hurts that after ALL I put into keeping my family together – I have made such a mess of my life.
Next week we are off to Hershey, PA for the Chocolate factory -compliments of my job – and the kids are looking forward to that.
This weekend my son is going for 3 days with his father – not sure if my daughter plans to go yet – and I am already missing him. I hate the fact that he never bothered much with the kids before and now he will try to be UBER-DAD.
And I hate splitting my weekends like this – he never ONCE spent a whole weekend home with us. Well, even now my son-10 just pretty much follows him around- my d15 can’t be so bothered.
I really hope I get used to all this someday – some women seem to cherish their time without the kids – but not me.
They’ve been with me all the time since they were born – unless I was at work.
Oxy:
I was just thinking that when i was, from about five years old, my way of coping with the abuse from all of my family, (all during the day and night) was to imagine them being hurt really badly in some way. I used to jump on every crack in the path on the way home from school (aged about 8), and i would say allowed with great joy, “jump on a crack break yu mothers back”. I would make sure not to miss one crack. She was already a paraplegic. So it was like revenge. That was my revenge…i.e. Imagining it in my head. I did the same type of thing in regards to my father and brothers violent abuse. Especially when they broke my arms, then I would imagine dreadful things to cope.
Maybe that revenge strategy isn’t working for me anymore.