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)
Recovering,
Good point.. forgive myself???
I am angry at myself… and it comes and go…
When I look back and see him in my mind’s eye and review his behavior.. it makes my stomach turn.. how he watched me, how kind that I was, but how I protested.. and how I relented.. when he begged me to go with him to watch him pack up his house.. after I told him that it was his job and NOT mine and that I was tired of it.. that I had just moved in and needed to focus on my own house..
He was setting me up the whole time.. he knew what kind of famiy that I am from and he was betting on the come and he smoozed my Dad..
And I be that all the women that has ever been with had resources of some kind that he was after..
He was the most broke, down and out man with heavy responsiblities that I have ever been with.. and he had the fastest Spin…
I feel stupid.. I feel glad I got away.. I recall he week after he got out of my house.. I FELT SO FREE….
but … I don’t know.. for some reason just now, I am processing some things…
style, thank you for the clarification.
i too feel that way. alone for 18 years and then 2 years with the N gf, and then i ran into beauty boy who tapped things i didn’t even KNOW i wanted with another. and almost all the things i knew i wanted. and never believed i would find. and i was right in this instance.
one step
style1: I completely believe you.
And you are a very intelligent person.
I think my anger and sadness is that I lost the dream of a man and woman together for good… it was revived for a bit and a little and it makes me sad.. the dream is a LIE! All of it…
recovering and one step.. that’s the deal… I forcing myself to clean today… I jsst feel sick.. and exploited…
and he ‘knew’ what he was doing.. and even my 85 year old Dad told him that I had been really hurt and if he hurts me that he will kill him.
and two of my friends told him similar things…
And he says, “I love her. It will be fine.”
And I am thinking… yeah right! BS!
And I was right! It is BS!
Rest assured, Style1 and one_step — pretty much everybody here at LF understands at a very raw level what you mean about the anger and sadness, and mourning the loss of the dream.
I was further explaining to one step.. in between vaccuming my straircase that.. it was the man/woman dream..
not my personal goals or dreams…
I don’t believe that a man and woman in this day and time can be anything real… it’s all superfical and shallow and that makes me sad and angry…
so I am going to Starbucks…. after I finish vacuuming….
@.......!#!@.......#%^@.......#%^^&^&**
Style, I have seen wonderful relationships personally, which seemed to work, and which deepened as the people had to overcome obstacles (i.e. being “customers” of our services, fighting cancer), and there is my friend and her husband, and there is my mother’s housekeeper. And an old couple artists both, she had a brain hemorrhage, and is still doing fine. My family is all rotten in Denmark! (though my parents are still “together”)
Few “exeptions proving the rule” 😉 They have the lows and highs, and settled at a young age, and were not too picky then and had lots of difficulties to overcome.
I had it easier that time, but harder now. Who is better off?
But frankly most of my friends are single women by choice, either divorced or not married.
I think when ever we look at the other’s lives, they all have their burden to carry, and maybe the sum is identical to everybody. I believe there is a balance between sorrow and joy, and the more sorrow we experience the more joy we experience as well, like in a curve that goes up and down. The N/S/P is a “flatliner”, whereas we are “uppers and downers”. I prefer the ups, but I also have to live with the downs.
And if the “down” leads to a clean house, all the better!
My heart goes out to you ladies and gents, and I hope this very important inner processing will lead to inner cleansing too! (((((Hugs)))))
Dear STyle,
I also hear your anger, and your generalizations of (QUOTE)”I don’t believe that a man and woman in this day and time can be anything real” it’s all superfical and shallow and that makes me sad and angry”
I see how you could “generalize” to every man/woman relationship in the world. I too know of what appear to be “happy” relationships that are ANYTHING BUT “happy.”
I have been so caught up in the “dream” of a good relationship (I had one until my husband was killed in an accident) again, I was so invested in that dream….I coujldn’t bear the thought of NEVER HAVING ANOTHER ONE, that I latched on to the first P that came along who presented a great facade—what he actually wanted was another “respectable” wife to cheat on and keep his “harem” in line and not insisting he marry them. He had cheated on his first wife of 32 years since day one with multiple simultaneous years long affairs with different women….each one hoping he wojuld leave his wife and finally marry them. Sort of like Tiger Woods I think. He was smart, reasonably good looking, financially sound, etc and “respectability” was IMPORTANT TO HIM. VERY important to him. Which is funny really as he was as TRASHY with his (secret) REAL BEHAVIOR and REAL LIFE as Tiger Woods is. I don’t care how rich, talented or famous someone is (Like Woods for example) he is TRASH because he LIVES AND ACTS LIKE TRASH even though he keeps up a “respectable” and nice facade.
It took me almost 3+ years after my husband died before I realized that NO RELATIONSHIP can “make” me “happy” and I sure as hell do not want a BAD one—I had one of those and I do NOT want another one, so I have become very picky about who I will date and WHICH POND I FISH IN, and that includes ALL internet dating because it gives the ADVANTAGE to the psychopaths who are trolling on line, and at a DISTANCE and behind that screen or telephone, they can APPEAR to be anyone they want to portray. It is only by being with someone in REAL LIFE, knowing their friends, famly, co-workers, and so on that you can even BEGIN to get a “picture” of WHO these people are. Even with your X, he still portrayed the FACADE of being the “caring” son to his dying mother—-I got to know my BF’s family, and I had known him in my living history group casually for 10 years and everyone “liked” him and he was a “nice guy”—in fact it turned out he had SEVERAL of his GFs in the group WHILE he was married and I even KNEW these women, and later put 2+2 together and figured out what was going on. In fact, the way I found out he was cheating on me was his COUSIN that I had made friends with called me and told me he had a “skank” girl at his DEER CAMP….he didn’t even hide it in some circles and it never occured to him his female cousin would like mem enough to tell on him to me. She had also known about him cheating on his X-wife and not “told on” him. I got LUCKY that someone warned me. Still I let him lie about it for a while afterwards, but I kept it in the back of my mind. So eventually her warning sunk in and I added in some other information and suspicions and came to the HEART BREAKING conclusion he was cheating. I’d even seen him with one of the women but didn’t realize what was going on even though my “gut” was warning me, telling me, I trivalized it. You are RIGHT we need to listen to our gut.
As far as being angry with yourself, that was the hardest part for me. I wrote an article about it and if you want to read it you can search for OxDrover’s articles on her and find it. It REALLY was HARD, and I think forgiving myself let me dispense with some of the self-hatred and anger toward myself and turn a corner in healing.
I still have problems from time to time with being angry at myself, but it is easier now to work back through that and to forgive ME. And I think we may have a much easier time forgiving others than we ever had in forgiving ourselves for not being “perfect.” (Even though intellectually we don’t expect ourselves to be perfect, I know EMOTIONALLY I have beaten myself up all my life for not being “perfect.”) As I was growing up anhything less than “perfect” wasn’t good enough for my egg donor, and I came to expect (emotionally) that if I couldn’t be “perfect” it wasn’t good enough.
You are obviously a smart woman, and one of the things I found coming here to LF is there are a LOT OF SMART MEN AND WOMEN HERE who have been as seduced, as deluded, as abused as misused as I was and it does NOT mean I am stupid or bad because as a smart woman myself I was “fooled” by not one, but MANY psychopaths and dysfunctional people in my life. Liane Leedom is one of the smartest, best educated women I know, and Donna Andersen, and on and on, I could name many many more, and we all FELL for the same clap-trap and it does not mean we are STUPID or DEFECTIVE, it means we are HUMAN and CARING and EMPATHETIC people—we just made some mistakes, but NOT intentionally. The psychopaths and the deceptive ones DID WHAT THEY DID DELIBERATELY, not by “mistake.”
So I can and WILL forgive myself for caring and trusting too much, for making MISTAKES and I dont have to keep on beating myself up for being HUMAN or even making unwise choices (which I DO have to live with the consequences of) but I can MAKE BETTER CHOICES in the future. My head is WAY too FLAT for BOINKING myself on the head with my skillet now, and I’m gonna quit it! (((hugs)))) and God bless.
Libelle, I appreaciate your input.. and I understand the ups and downs of a relationship and sure they are some out there that endure it all.. as my parents did..
This is not the deal.. you have to have ‘good’ self-aware people willing to work and to deal with whatever comes along in a relationship.. and when you enter it with one side have a huge deficit.. when you are older then it is doomed…
I agree on the sorrow and joys… I have had my share of both..
I just got an email from an old beau.. that wants to take me to a movie.. declaring how much he misses me..
He is 47 never been married and we have had an off and on again friendship for years.. two bouts of which were romantic.. he is a real piece of work and admittedly hates women and hates his mother.. he wants to get everything an give little.. he is like a toddler.. although, he is fun to run and play with like a kid… but soon get tiring..
But I wouldn’t touch his poison azz for all our money in China…
something is always ‘wrong’ with the woman never him.. he is a baby whine whine…
anyway.. was a slight boost to my mood.. since I am on such a downer today…
but yeah.. my house is clean…
Thanks Oxy.. I am going out and about now.. I need a break…