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)
AKA Bob: Yes, as you say: “Once you have seen both the light and dark and can identify each for what they are, you can be emancipated.”
It reminds me of what M. Scott Peck, MD, wrote in The Road Less Traveled (my paraphrase) “Life is difficult. Once you truly accept this fact, it no longer matters that life is difficult.”
Freedom within — to choose one’s own attitude — is also what Vicktor Frankel (not sure of correct name spelling) said in “Man’s Search for Meaning.” It is possible, regardless of the circumstances one may find oneself in.
Once before on this site I have said how sometimes it is almost like a gaurdian angel or whatever you want to call it, directs me here just when I am about to do something stupid.
I got my ex out of my house and business last March after feeling, like someone else said, it was ‘him or me.’ I did what Numb has been trying to do, asking him to prove his ‘love’ by getting a job and sorting his finances, but secretly hoping he would just meet someone else.
Then he had the bike accident – on purpose? Surely not people would say, but I think he’s done similar before, to get sympathy, to get out of things.
So I let him visit, I felt sorry and he was injured and weak, he’s living with his Mum……. enough said. Oh how charming he was, how sexy, how attentive, but after a couple of visits the mask slipped, just for a split second, but I felt that death was in my house again.
That look. People talk about the ‘look,’ and it’s chilling. Then you remember the violence, the verbal abuse, the lies, the using, the hate in that look…
I spent Christmas alone, I don’t think he thought I would do it, and even though I said I wanted to be alone at New Year and my birthday, there he was at the door. I didn’t let him in, but he came back the next day to my shop, and I let him stay. BUT, and this is important, for the first time I would not have sex. Funny really, he slept in my bed, I slept on my sofa.
Even though it is nearly a year and he still has not got as job, one thing he is very, very good at is sex. I’ve often thought, he should do it for a living – but, he does doesn’t he. Like many of these people they use it to control, they study you and hook you in to it. I have since discovered he watches a lot of pornography, a lot of it very violent esp towards women. He went away without, I’m not sure he could believe it.
Since then I have been trying hard with the NC, but I know he’s looking for somewhere to stay near here. I wrote and told him never to turn up without warning again, and if he did I would go to a lawyer or the police. He emailed back saying why was I being so nasty and how dare I threaten him, and accusing me of having someone else etc etc.
I’m good on my own, I’m strong, but silly fool, the last couple of days I’ve suddenly been weakening. We were meant to be going on holiday in February, I’ve been working flat out and not been away for over two years. I know he expects me to give in and pay for a holiday for the two of us, and I started to think of that ‘charming,’ very good looking sexy man, and what fun he can be. The warm evenings, the sun, romantic meals…….. I’m only just getting my finaces straight after the money that’s flown since I’ve been with him. I even suspect he was stealing from my business. I would be taking a step back all for two weeks that I can’t afford.
That’s when the latest Lovefraud popped in to my inbox this morning, just when I was thinking of booking, and it made me think about how it really is, not how I would like it to be. If he had not lived off me for the last five years, if he was a worthy man, he would have got work so we could have had a holiday, not sat back and let me pay for meals and cars and fuel, then accused me of using him if I asked him to help with a bit of decorating lol.
He used sex and ‘affection’ to control me. He knows that because of my childhood I crave affection and love, he knows I am a very physical person.
I am still very attracted to him, he knows that, but this last visit, sending him away without anything physical, that was a turning point I think.
Thanks again all of you for keeping me strong, please beam all your strength to me and stop me thinking of those beaches, that sun.
Go alone you will say. Well I have travelled alone, but I know when I get where I’m going, I’ll miss him. I’ll see other couples and it will make me very sad, even though the the vacations we did take together he spoilt, on one occasion knocking me all over the hotel room, and then saying I imagined it.
Numb/Hambuger: Like you I ask myself, why not just dump him? Well, I’m getting there, a few steps forward, then a step back, but I’m already better off than I was. I’m getting there, and so will you.
Newstart, Yes.. it is easy to fall back on the dream of it.. instead of the reality..
Remembering how you wanted it to be not what it REALLY was..
I do that at times and it makes me miss him. But most of the time that I was with him I wanted him not to be here..because I didn’t trust him or his motives.. but he created this dream life and was so helpful as a man around my house and in my life that when I am lonely I forget the reality of it all…he had no way of supporting me as he talked about.. it was all talk… all con… all nonsense.. all spin.. I think he believed most of it.. and that is what made him so convincing.. .. he lived in this fast moving movie of change and spin.. and talk talk talk….
So when you think back think of the night that he hit you then told you that you imagined it.. that is what is real.
style1, Yes, you are so right, and how you say you feel sometimes, the anger of a dream ruined, that ideal of a couple just trashed.
I get so angry that I hate romantic fiction, I shout at ‘feel good’ chick flics, the people next door must think I’m having a huge row with someone, the language is terrible lol. But do you know what, it makes me feel better, and sometimes I laugh out loud at myself, and that makes me feel better still.
I think once you get past that numb, ‘I’ve lost myself’ feeling, the feeling great once you get them out, then the crash and the mourning for what might have been, it’s when you can get angry and then laugh, that’s when you know you are getting there.
Now all I have to do is get rid of that big banner over my head saying, ‘Yes, I am a good business woman, I am strong, I support myself, have a lovely ex partner and son who care for me, but if you know the right buttons to push you can rip my heart out and make me behave like a blind fool.’
While writing this just got this text: ‘Please give me a chance to prove to you I am worth. I am sorting out work near your area tomorrow and Friday, let’s not waste 5 years, please.’
And hey, guess what, I’m right back there.
What do you do? What do you do?
Perhaps we do ask for it, it’s vanity, wanting to be loved, be desired, needed.
newstart12
“What do you do? What do ou do?”
The answer, plain and simple, is NC. Hard, yes, I know. But it the only effective way to break the hold an S gets on your mind.
Change your email. Change your phone numbers. Unlist your phone numbers. And please don’t tell me that you need to keep your numbers for your business. Fine. Keep those. But change your others and only give the numbers to people you trust and tell them they are not to give it out to S without your permission. If they do, you know they aren’t trustworthy and you cut them out of your life.
As long as you allow him into your life, you will keep trying to romantacize his bad bevior. Once you break the contact you will not be inclined to feel pity for him. You will not be inclined to make yourself sleep on the sofa so he can sleep in your bed.
As I often say about my S-ex, I was a one man Salvation Army — his lawyer, his lover, his ATM, his social director. I kept showering money, love, attention, contacts, everything I could shower on him to try to get him to turn his life around. I finally realized he wasn’t going to do so, and it was save me or sacrifice me. I chose to save myself.
Until you draw the hard NC line in the sand, he will continue to come back and continue to fuck with your mind. NC allows you to build the strength to rebuild your life. And when you do your life will get so much better because you will be really clear on what you are looking for and what you want in your life. I can speak from personal experience. I was involved with an S for 15 months. I was at the point of suicide when I finally drove him off 15 months ago. 7 months ago I met a wonderful man who is the antithesis of the S. Would I have met him if I still had the S flitting around the edges of my life and taking up space in my head? In a word — NO.
newstart12:
’Please give me a chance to prove to you I am worth. I am sorting out work near your area tomorrow and Friday, let’s not waste 5 years, please.’
He’s mirroring back to you what you already know. His worth?
100 percent investment on your part and 0 percent return on his. As for theose 5 years — you already know they were wasted.
Matt, thanks so much.
I’ve been sitting here giving myself a good talking to, and your comments just back up what I know I must do.
I know one of the reasons he keeps coming back here is because he is ‘marking his territory,’ and yes, he actually said that. He also said he would kill me if I went out with anyone else. He likes to pretend to everyone in the town that he is just working away, and he knows I haven’t actually told anyone we have split, although I’m sure it’s pretty plain to most people.
What you said last really hit home; although I am pretty good at living alone, and most of the time quite like the freedom it gives me, I do live in hope that I may meet someone. After all, my son’s father was a lovely guy, still is, and we were together for 26 years and our split was so amicable, we are still such good friends. So I know there are good guys out there, but you are so right, and my S knows it; As long as he keeps calling around there will never be a chance of meeting anyone else, even if it’s just for friendship. He’s a big guy and looks as if he could be violent, and as I’ve said, often has been.
It’s late here in the UK now so I’m going to sleep on it. I have these tapes by Georgia Foster that I listen to on my ipod as I drift off to sleep. They make you feel very peaceful and strong, and tell you not to take any shit from people.
Thanks for your comments; I hope you laugh sometimes to and don’t just feel angry, and I’m so happy that you have met a wonderful man.
I’ve come too far to go back to how things were, esp because I know it would probably kill me.
Nestart12—You can sleep on it, but you will just be in a nightmare for real if you let him draw you back in. Would you reach out to a woman who had threatened to kill you? And because this guy has a weenie, that makes it somehow different? You know the answer. Just as I did. Addiction from bonding is strong. It makes mother’s fight for all they are worth to protect a child. That is all you are feeling…those bonding chemicals. Don’t let him near you. He has threatened your life. Take that seriously. I don’t care under what circumstances and for what reason he would kill you. BELIEVE HIS THREAT. Don’t have another thing to do with him. Save yourself.
Nestart.. come back to this…
Think back think of the night that he hit you then told you that you imagined it.. that is what is real.
Has anything changed or will it.. this is serious stuff.. this isn’t just forgetting to get milk at the store..
Do you want to live like this..?????????????????
Do you…….??????????????????????????????
DO YOU??????????????????????????????
Newstart!
’Please give me a chance to prove to you I am worth. I am sorting out work near your area tomorrow and Friday, let’s not waste 5 years, please.’
I got the same message, nearly word for word! While he was 1-slandering me 2-sending similar messages to his other ex 3-starting a relationship with someone new. Don’t believe him. His promises are as shallow as he is. And he will keep sending you messages like that and he still won’t mean what he says. And you know what he is worth already!
Even as a “friend” he will torment you. He just wants to have power over you. Stay way clear…