A big problem we face in sizing up a partner is getting stuck on, or being seduced by, his “light side—”that is, his apparently (or genuinely) wonderful, engaging, admirable, gratifying qualities.
However, when we’re dealing with a sociopath, there is also the other side—the “dark side.”
By “dark side” I mean, essentially, the sociopath’s exploitive side. And by exploitive I mean, very specifically, his calculated use of leverage to betray you somehow; moreover, to betray you with gross insensitivity to your experience of the injury or insult he’s inflicted.
The “light side” of the man must never compensate for his “dark side,” regardless of how well-concealed, and rarely, the latter may surface.
Most of us would take six sunny days in exchange for one cold, dreary, rainy one. That’s a trade-off we’d probably gladly accept. It’s not perfect, but it’s good, and it does nothing to compromise our integrity.
Yet six days, six months, six years of the man’s light side must not mitigate a single instance, a single flash (let alone pattern) of his dark side. One act of exploitation, the very first, necessitates, however sadly, that we cut our losses with minimal delay and filibustering.
Yet, in case after case I see clients who, understandably, prefer not to see their partners’ dark side. They prefer, naturally, to see his light side—his strengths, what he can be, what he usually is, what he “really” is!
They seize on his capacity for sensitivity, thoughtfulness, tenderness, warmth, good humor, patience, soliticousness, you name it. They desperately want to convince themselves, if not others, that his capacities define his essence!
Because he can be thoughtful, his essence must be thoughtful! Because he can be sensitive, his essence must be sensitive! Because he can be unselfish and candid, his essence must be unselfish and honest! Because he can go periods when he’s not (apparently) screwing around, his essence must be faithful!
I’m not speaking here about flawed partners who screw up, who make mistakes, who lose their course, their priorities, and in so doing sometimes wound others badly. In our fallibility we can make a mess of things, and hurt the people we care and love. Whether our transgressions are forgivable is for those whom we’ve disappointed to decide.
But the man with the dark side is a different case. When he reveals the capacity to exploit, he’s not revealing his human face, but his inhuman face.
He’s revealing the face of his dark side.
And while it’s a sight you might like to avoid, you musn’t. While you’d rather turn away until the view of his “light side” resurfaces, you must not. You must, instead, see him, unmasked, and recognize him, unmasked.
You must recognize him for who he is, in his essence.
(My use of “he” in this article is for convenience’s sake and not meant to suggest that females aren’t capable of the behaviors discussed. This article is copyrighted (c) 2010 by Steve Becker, LCSW)
Persephone:
You know what…..It IS WHAT IT IS!
SO, My suggestion is to concentrate on what’s real……and that is your sister…..
Write the guitar off in your head….and if you ‘happen’ to get it back…..you will….if not …..you won’t.
Ya know what I mean…..
By the tone of your post….I think you’ve ‘got it’…..so….protect yourself, don’t put yourself in any bad predicements with him and go take care of what needs to be taken care of……your lovely sister!
Best to you~
XXOO
EB
style,
I know what you mean, I feel like I have a phyco wanted banner across my forehead. It’s something they see in us that attracts them. I have been working really hard to change that in me.To be stronger, more self assured. I think they smell naive and insecurity a mile away. It’s like catnip to a cat. I just try not to smell like catnip now, lol.
Too innocent – I watched a doco the other day on psychos and sure enough they can spot people who have suffered previous abuse … they can pick us walking amongst a line of people who haven’t had those types of relationships – you’re dead on about the confidence issue – apparently our shoulders are slightly slumped, our heads lowered and our eyes more down to the ground. So I am working on improving my posture and keeping my head up high so I never ever become Spath bait again!
Persephone – sorry about your guitar and hope you do get it back – you saved up for it so it was obviously a significant investment in a creative part of yourself and probably important to your recovery. One of the things about survivors is they never spend money on themselves so I know you would have thought very carefully about buying that guitar and it would have been a statement for you about your new self worth. I really hope it comes back to you and you get to make some sweet sweet music. But I have to agree with the others – it’s a cheap lesson and you know what? If you do lose this guitar I have a feeling another one will be coming your way pretty soon – life has a neat way of giving us things we really need. In the meantime is there another cheaper way you can express yourself creatively? I use mosaic – white glue is cheap and I can usually beg for broken tiles and shattered mirror! It is kind of symbolic of these relationships too – ressurecting discarded and shattered elements to create beautiful new whole images 🙂 Hugs 🙂
Louise – that was a great post – I am about the same amount of time as you in being free – hope you’re doing ok – you sound very strong and honest with yourself – some real wisdom there 🙂
Oxy – I am so impressed that you are keeping your boundaries even in this heartbreaking situation where it would have been so easy to let them lapse. You are an example to us all and we are all sending you much love during this difficult time.
Erin – you and Pollyannanomore are right, especially about my sister and
good things opening up – even if guitar never materialises. Off to work,
will check back after. Louise – I feel myself coming out of that FOG…and
it IS a beautiful day today.
Dear Polly,
thank you for that validation right now but I actually FEEL humiliated and ashamed for letting myself down, and for not being a better example to the people on LF. I can obviously talk the talk, but haven’t been WALKING the WALK very well.
Yesterday the DRAMA queen “friend” called me, son C had called her to give her and her husband his new phone number (since I had taken back the sim chip for my family plan phone) and OH, you would NOT believe the “REASON” he gave her that he had voluntarily and heartbrokenly left my house—-it was RELIGIOUS, I was NOT tolerant of his NEWLY FOUND Jehovah’s Witness’ belief that CHRISTMAS IS PAGAN, He’s been hanging out with a very preachy JW. To start with, I celebrate “christmas” as a SECULAR HOLIDAY anyway not as a religious one. Secondly, the peoplle he was bad mouthing my INTOLERANCE to are Buddist —so I actually told her the truth about why he left as his “new found” Christianity seems to have NO PROBLEM WITH LIES as long as you don’t INSULT SOMEONE by offering them a GIFT!
To start with I care not a whit for lthe DRAMA queen herself, her HUSBAND is our friend, and my sons both completely despise the DRAMA queen herself and her continual bitching about something, or wanting them/us to do something for her that she is perfectly capable of doing for herself, or to listen to her vent her spleen and then validate her retaliation. Yea, some Buddist she is! LOL
Amazingly, while my son is really good at SELF JUSTIFICATION FOR BAD AND DISLOYAL AND UNGRATEFUL BEHAVIOR TOWARD OTHERS, he has NO insight into even what he did that was bad or disloyal. Yet, he doesn’t have any MALICE in his heart, he just lives in an alternate universe. He wouldn’t purposely hurt me, he just does what he wants to do and if it does hurt me, he justifies somehow that either I am being abusive to him, or that for some reason he is justified in doing what he did….it is the FAMILY tradition—“let’s just pretend NONE OF THIS HAPPENED.”
I played both sides of that game for a long time, like nearly 60 years, b ut I DID eventually grow up, and I’m hoping that C will as well. He does, in addition to his 15 year old egocentgric pea-sized “brain” have a and a moral compass, right now he is just ignoring it for immediate gratification of his desires and justifying himself against me objecting to his lies. He doesn’t even SEE that he could have told the truth and still done what he wanted. He could have manned up and taken responsibility for his actions and told the truth, but he wanted his cake and eat it too and he knew I wouldn’t allow him to live here (where he COULD have discretionary income) if he did NOT use that OPPORTUNITY to save some money for a rainy day. Living out on his “own” he can barely survive on a lower level, but if any, and I mean ANY financial crisis comes along, he will have NADA to fall back on, and he sure ain’t gonna get a financial helping hand from his mama this time. It didn’t “cost” me anything in terms of cash to allow him to stay here, his R&B payments to me were more than covering his actual cost in feeding him and increased utilities, so the benefit was financially significianly beneficial to him at little or no cash cost to me. To me, that makes perfect sense, a win-win situation for everyone. Now any “toys” he buys for himself (and he has quite a few to last him for a while) will come out of operating capital an just dig him deeper into the hole he is shoveling himself into.
The thing is, when you find yourself in a HOLE—QUIT DIGGING. He hasn’t learned that yet, though the Good Lord has given him many lessons on that concept. It took me a long time to learn too, so I am not giving up hope on C, but at the same time, I am not figuring I will live long enough to see it, but I won’t do him the disservice of enabling his bad and poor and unwise decisions or his telling of lies to try to cover them up.
And, I will do mybest not to fool myself about it any more. THAT’s the difficult part. It isn’t carrying through on the boundaries, it is setting them in the first place, deciding which ones are DEAL BREAKERS and when you set those boundaries (hopefully after much thought) to be willing to SEE the big picture and then realize that any time you set a deal lbreaker boundary it may mean the END OF THAT RELATIONSHIP. However much it hurts, unless you follow through and don’t waffle, you must follow through, but there is so much SECOND guessing that I went through, asking myself “is this too harsh? Am I being ureasonable? Is there some way I can “fix” this without sticking to my deal breaker boundary? Did he not really understand waht the boundary was?
Nah, THEY know what the “boundary” of treating someone well is, and not a one of them think STEALING is right by anyone’s standards but their own, yet they think somehow if they lie enough, we will waffle and “forgive” them and as longn as they get away with it by the lies, then it is OK cause we let them “get away” with it and the only price they have to pay is listen to our mouthing about it for a while, but we ALWAYS waffle and “get over it.” sooner or later and they are still in control, doing what THEY WANT TO. Whether or not they are actual psychopaths, or just immature, or jerks, or just dysfunctional or egocentric, lack adult impulse control, or what the “problem” is—it is their problem not ours so they are the ones that have to have the consequences and if that coonsequence is that we won’t give them any more opportunites to be close to us—too bad for them.
Dear Polly,
Was that the Sam Vaknin video? I watched those people walk by and I picked out the former victim as well. I wasn’t sure HOW I could, l but I got the one they said was. They said it was about how her arms didn’t swing in sync with her walkikng, but to me it appeared the head was down and the back slumped, like you stated. But it was almost “instinctive” to me to pick out that one, so if I can get it, I bet-ya every P in the world can spot her like a drone bomber homes in on a target! BOOM! Another one bites the dust.
The survey done for Women Who Love Psychopaths though, shows that women who are competent and self assured (at least on the outside) and smart and successful are also vulnerable, not just the “beaten down” —so there is a wide variety of things that make us more vulnerable than the “average” person. Or are we???
Dear Steve,
Thank you, once again, for a wonderful post! I’ve learned much from you and everyone else here.
The dark side, the master of seduction, the player of emotions and feelings, the one who doesn’t hesitate to go for your very soul. His pattern was break a heart, law or rule, plead guilty, say I’m sorry(he was, just sorry he got caught.) act like the knight in shining armor, seeing to my every need or whim, profess to the world he had “learned” and was a changed man and after a few months, turn around a do it all over again. In the meantime, his dark side was very much alive and well; he had just learned how to hide it better than in the past. So, the sunshine was all an illusion as were his feelings and the dark days were there, simply hidden. “Because he can go periods when he’s not (apparently) screwing around…” I paid particular attention to this because they CAN go years and have you believing they have truly changed. They haven’t. Mine didn’t. I honestly believe today that he enjoyed the roller coaster he put myself and others on, slowing taking me up and then CRASH, down I would go. The dark side is always there, always active in some form and only becomes darker as time goes on.
recovering, you must have been in my house! I found myself doing and saying things I would never have even considered in the past. I said things I would have normally never said and did things I wouldn’t have even thought of before I met him. I reached a point where I was acting like someone I didn’t know and I didn’t like it. There were times I purposely said or did things to him. I couldn’t “turn the other cheek” any longer and I no longer cared about his feelings. I also knew, at this point, his feelings weren’t even real as was he, a total fake.
Ox, please do not be so hard on yourself. You have given so much to me since the day I first came here. Your experiences show that we are, after all, merely human. I agree completely with your what you said about consequences. I found that when I realized I wasn’t responsible for the actions of another human being, I was also not responsible for their consequences either. One of the greatest gifts I gave myself was to take this weight off my own shoulders. Sending you hugs!!
Dearest Steve,
You must have some kind of radar when you choose your topics.
I am here in the hospital with my daughter – she had Scoliosis surgery this week – praise God she is doing well.
Of course, this is not the time or place to address issues with her dad, I have made my child the priority and refuse to let him get to me.
So it has SEEMINGLY APPEARED to all that we are one big happy family .
He has been here and visiting and chatting as if he and I were long time friends. Like nothing ever happened – ignoring that just last week ANOTHER OW crawled out of the divorce paperwork………….it just goes on and on.
Right on time ——your article is here saying how we choose to ignore the dark side and how well they play off that all is well in spite of their transgressions – even my son remarked hownice it is to be a family again. I wanted to tell him don’t get used to it – this is just for your sister’s benefit.
Fortunately, I have kept my composure and handled all the details of her surgery myself – and he swoops in to visit like he is super dad – ignorant of what is between us and even his children……………detached to an unfathomable degree.
persephone7: Good to read your update about how you are coming out of the FOG and giving yourself permission to move toward what’s in your own best interests….”the healthiest thing I can do is focus on me for a change,” you said.
You deserve that special attention and self-care, after having given so much of yourself to others. My best wishes to you.
Dear NewLife, glad to see you back and know that you are doing well and able to focus on your child’s welfare and not on HIM.
Dear Cat,
Thank you sweetie, I’m trudging on, getting my sanity back a bit more each day. Got some heavy loads to carry up hill until I get the preparation done for the parole hearing, and having a good feeling about the outcome of that process. However, I am not ignoring the fact that the MIGHT get out sometime soon, or get a short “set off” (before he can go back to the parole board again) but whatever happens, I have contingency plans in place and the resources to carry them off successfully (to move somewhere else). So no matter what actually happens in the parole hearing, I’m not going to be totally suprised (like any court or legal proceeding they can DEFY LOGIC or JUSTICE COMPLETELY and I’m prepared to be disappointed) Nothing is over til the FAT LADY SINGS. LOL
Thanks again, the support and validation I receive here at LF is what keeps me coming back. (((hugs))) and God bless us all!