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)
Hi OXY,
Thanks so much for the well wishes. My daughter has been through such a traumatic experience – her pain was so difficult to witness. But she is progressing fast and we are going home tomorrow. I flood with tears every time I look at her – her courage, strength, endurance – she is AMAZING !!!! ……and I take no credit – she is God’s work at His best !!!!
We are winding down today and I can never miss Steve’s articles – he is like a drug for me …….I never fail to walk away without a big AHA !!!! after reading his work……
Oxy, coming from you, that means SO much to me! (((hugs)))
Dear NewLife,
That is great news about your daughter. As a nurse and as a friend also Ihave witnessed that surgery and I can’t even imagine how much it must hurt. I will keep both youand her in my prayers.
You are SO RIGHT about Steve’s articles and this last two have hit me SQUARE between the eyes. I have read them over and over and over and if I HAD A MEMORY I would have memorized them by now! LOL CRS! It seems sometimes that we pick up JUST THE “TEXTBOOK ” we need MOST at the time we need it THE MOST–God’s lessons!
(((BUG HUGS)))) to you and your daughter and always my prayers!
one_step_at_a_time: Your comments, “i have had little safety in my life…I live because i am inventive and i keep going… and yet, this past week has brought some money, some help, some hope. life is a bit amazing.”
Thanks for sharing this simple but important testimony that good stuff can be found even in the midst of challenging times. If we are open to recognizing these little blessings and other things as they unfold, we see the gifts inherent in them. Even sometimes helps restore our confidence or faith to some extent, whether in fellow human beings or God.
I had many moments like these over my lifetime so far, and they made me pause….and weep…with gratitude.
Yes, life can be very amazing.
Just when we think we’re at the end of our rope, we sometimes get help somehow, to hang on.
I’m thinking of that line from the Alanis Morrissette song:
“Life has a funny way of helping you out when everything goes wrong and everything blows up in your face.” (from Ironic)
Stargazer…that is absolutely right. Safe or not. That is ALL we need to know!
And how do we know if someone is safe or not safe? By how we FEEL around them. So where does this get short-circuited? Most of us lost our ability to feel because we shut our feelings down from childhood abuse.
Oxy – I can’t believe the lies your son is telling those people and they are lapping it up! My goodness – one lie certainly does lead to another and another and another. I don’t think you need to worry about being an example for people on LF – you already are – the strength you have shown – and humanity in dealing with the situation with your son was something you didn’t have to share, but you did. You shared all your struggles and thinking and outlined why you were sticking with the decision. People would have respected your choice no matter what you did, but to be so honest with yourself is inspiring. Just think – had he stayed, you would be the recipient of the lies upon lies – he’s just telling them to other people now to make himself look good.
Yes the identification of victims was on the Sam Vaknin doco – I Psychopath – it made my blood run cold especially what he said about his wife and her fertility running out. I wished the film maker could have taken her aside and shaken her – I wanted to shake her – he said on film if she wanted a child she would have to leave him, but he knew she wouldn’t. That was the clearest portrait for me of someone under the spell. If any LF writers haven’t seen it yet, I heartily encourage you to seek it out.
I too have read Women who love psychopaths and the outline of all the positive and confident traits we have. So there is a mismatch here … Louise you made a good point that you can recognise victims when you are in a ‘standing tall’ mood – me too! I think that women who love them are very driven and ambitious and competitive initially in their own life … but this strength is a bit of a facade or covering to convey to the outside world that we are more than we actually are – there is a deep woundedness inside and maybe it is this wounding that causes us to show strength and make these incredible lives. However with the psychopaths we feel we can let down our guard and be real and vulnerable with them and that is our downfall – so in some respects we are a little bit like psychos in that we have a projected facade of strength that covers a wellspring of vulnerability and hurt. That is just my thinking about it. Our facade is to protect the wounded part of ourselves and the strength part is really us, but it’s not the whole story – lots of us have shared extreme hurts and abuse from childhood – I think the strength part is a reaction to this hurt – putting on a tough game face for the rest of the world so the vulnerability isn’t sensed. Psychos have a sixth sense for woundedness though and encourage us to share everything from our depths with them – they then use t his against us and destroy the strength by growing the vulnerability and dependence.
So our facade is to protect = like armor and is not totally fake. Their’s is to cover an inner emptiness and hide the real self to fool others for exploitation. I never saw this correlation before but I guess we do kind of mirror one another. I don’t know what the answer is for us so we aren’t targetted again – maybe acknowledging and integrating the hurt aspect so it isn’t split from the strength? I don’t even know if any of this wwill make sense to anyone else lol but would appreciate your thoughts on this…
style1 — The comments you make about men are comments I hear from many women too. Although I don’t believe in generalizing and I certainly don’t think all men are “bad,” I do think many have not caught up with the changing times. They seem to want to be king of the castle but not pay all the bills…or they want women to bring home the bacon and wash the dishes all the time too…you get my drift.
Women have, by necessity, had to change the dynamics of relationships — otherwise they’ll set themselves up for multiple or split personalities and cognitive dissonance that make living with integrity difficult if not impossible.
Becoming better educated and having one’s own career and responsibility to pay one’s own bills makes a person less willing to be fully controlled — long-suffering and acting the part of helpless forever or in need of direction all the time — just to boost someone’s ego.
And yet, as you say, so many men are surprised that women can be attractive and intelligent, as if these two qualities cannot co-exist. Talk about narrow-minded.
The word I’ve gotten from past male co-workers is that I can be “intimidating.” At first, I took it to heart. Then I made some changes in how I presented myself based on needing to let go of some co-dependency habits that I had taken into the workplace back in the day.
Once I made personality adjustments based on what I wanted to change anyway and felt comfortable doing, I no longer felt a need to “work with” men who had a problem with my assertiveness — because these usually were men who I could run circles around intellectually but who thought women were there to serve them, make them look good, do their work for them while they collected a paycheck, etc. LOL.
And you wonder why I like having a small business that allows me to work from home. Corporate America is too crazy-making for me. I like being productive and peaceful.
Keep the independent contracts coming my way, folks, so I can stay sane. LOL.
Also, your point that “Men use the language of love, marriage, babies.. because they know that these things are what most women want and they can more easily conquer her if they have her where they want her…” — reminds me of something I read on another website that quoted the actress Sharon Stone as saying: “Women fake orgasms…men fake (having) an entire relationship.”
So maybe much of what we’ve encountered with the N/S/P has to do in general with extreme aspects of male-ness, testosterone, upbringing, assumptions of authority and superiority by men who don’t have a clue or lack flexibility to adjust to life’s challenges. I don’t know. Let the so-called smarter gender figure themselves out. LOL.
My ex N/S was from a different culture, and I have learned over time that his culture was a “hotbed” for training people to be narcissists…so sometimes I’ve wondered if he might have been right when he told me he was conscious of making choices to be extreme, in part because it was required for survival in the culture he came from. Yea, but…no excuse for emotional abuse so you can be in control of someone who had her own life and autonomy before you met her (me, that is).
Regardless, at some point, we all have to make decisions about how much we will allow our culture to dictate our choices, how we conduct our personal life and the content of our character/inner world.
justabouthealed: better to jump on the topic late than never (smile). I will have to check out the book you recommended, “Elephants on the Edge: What Animals Teach us about Humanity.”
So much to live. So much to learn….and so much BS to let go of, in this very interesting world of ours. LOL
pollyannanomore: Regarding your assessment, “So our facade (of strength, and not showing our woundedness to the world at large) is to protect = like armor, and is not totally fake. Their’s (the N/S/P) is to cover an inner emptiness and hide the real self to fool others for exploitation.”
As I read this, I almost feel sorry for the sociopath. But the truth is, your words can apply to empaths too in that we are covering an emptiness and hiding our real selves through co-dependency. The motives may be different from the N/S/P or a matter of degrees. But we are likely saved from going to their extreme because we maintain a moral core and access to empathy, I think.
The correlation you speak of is examined in the book, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, where the author says many co-dependents are covert narcissists. I think there’s some merit to this, especially since the “niceness” and “sacrifice” when extreme are often used to manipulate others, control or make them dependent and need us.
I no longer want that kind of neediness in my life — from myself nor others. It is an ingredient in the recipe for being used/abused and living a life filled with drama and chaos. I’m becoming increasingly allergic to it all. LOL.