Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel is just one person who has said the following: “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference”. In other words, the opposite of love is not hate, as might have been expected. We’ve all heard this contention and been struck by it. Yes, we’ve thought, it is terrible to be ignored. (Pretty awful being hated too, of course.)
But I’m grateful to Dawn Eden for mentioning another powerful proposition.
Eden, promoting her book ‘The Thrill of the Chaste’, is currently visiting Canadian high schools.
The students seemed interested when I told them what Pope John Paul II called “the opposite of love.” It’s not hate, as some of them guessed when I asked them what they thought it would be, nor is it indifference. It’s use.
“People sometimes use people because they hate them,” I said. “But you don’t have to hate someone to use them. That’s why use is more dangerous than hate. You can use someone while fooling yourself into thinking you love them.”
On reading this I immediately thought of the life stories told at Lovefraud. This concept of love vs use seems to have much promise when it comes to making sense of life with a psychopath. For instance a minor change of the last sentence by Eden goes as follows: “You can use someone while fooling them into thinking you love them”.
It didn’t seem like he came back for money; he spent a lot of money when we were out. It didn’t seem like he came back to get anything. I mean, he’s reasonably attractive in an objective sense (totally attractive to me) and he plays music, so there were plenty of women available to him.
By the end, it seemed like he came back only to hurt me, to set me up and try to knock me down, to mind-fuck me all over again. For revenge, maybe? I have no idea. To feel better because he knew I would lift him back up again? I didn’t at first. Actually, not for a long time, because I was waiting to see what he would do, whether he was for real this time or not.
It’s baffling, to me. Reading all your posts about the terrible things these guys did, and having been a battered wife before myself, I can’t compare what he did with those things. And yet, in some ways, it is much, much worse because it is unsolvable and painful. Not, however, unpredictable, based on his past with me.
Hope dies hard, doesn’t it? Even when you try to stab it to death yourself, with reminders of everything that wasn’t ok, you still ultimately want to think the best. Well, I do, not everyone. It’s like this splits you into two minds – one that thinks the worst, and one that still clings to the best, because you are not able to think like another person — and only have your own frame of reference.
I think it is exactly that hope that they use to their advantage. It is more of a challenge for them to, like you said, mind fuck the victim a second time after they have seen their bad side. They know you will be harder to convince the second time around.
They want to prove that they still have control by weaseling their way into people’s lives again. I think they get a kick out of it. Pissing on someone to mark their territory and coming back to piss on them again.
I think, it is all about oneupmanship. A mind f…k, hedging their bets, the thrill of the impossible, perhaps we have weakened – forgotten. No we havent. My ex played the mind f…k on me, got me back to get me back although I didnt realise it at the time. I dared to question him, enquire, react, I didnt play the game. When I assaulted him, he was white with rage, but he didnt get me back straight away – he waited a month, then engineered a reconciliation and then hit me with his cheating evidence – thats what I call cool calculated manipulation.
Lilorphan. I read your story under one of the other articles and I just want to give you a ((((hug)))). You are not alone here.
Oh, Orphan,
You made me LAUGH–BELLY LAUGH— “Hope dies hard, even when you try to stab it to death yourself!” LOL
I swear some of you guys are so GREAT with the one-line cut through the BS saying! They are SO TRUE. Orphan, I am going to award you the “Aloha Medal of Honor” for that one, it is on a par with Aloha’s WORLD CLASS one-liners! LOL
Gosh, I can’t quit laughing over that one, and it is SOOOOO TRUE. I have worn out a 100 knives trying to stab my malignant hope to death and some/one/thing always seemed to patch it up, give it CPR and a transfusion and revive it.
My son D is starting to have a big melt down now (I sort of felt it would come sooner or later) He has has SO much responsbility (self imposed) for my safety to the point that he was not dealing with his OWN stuff like he should have. We had a long talk lately, because he was “walking on egg shells” to do ANYTHING to try to keep from hurting me, because “he said, every person in the world that you loved has shit on you, hurt you tried to kill you, I just didn’t want to do anything to hurt you in any way. You didn’t deserve that and I couldn’t add to it.”
So, we had a long talk about him setting BOUNDARIES FOR ME. I assured him that it was not only OK but ESSENTIAL that he feel free to set boundaries for me if he needed to. I wasn’t going to die, or melt down, and if Igot pissed, it was my problem not his.
Even sometimes in the most LOVING relationships we fail to get what we need, we fail to ASK FOR WHAT WE NEED because we are so scared of hurting someone that we truly love and that truly loves us back.
The ONE time he ever lied to me was a couple of years ago. He had worked at summer camp for Boy Scouts, and was frazzled at the end of the summer. I was planning on going for a trip the day he got back from camp. Time came for him to come home, and I couldn’t find him. I became worried, I called several of his friends who all said they didn’t know where he was, etc. a WEEK passed, and I was terrified that he was dead or something. I finally called one of his friends frantic that a week had gone by and he was NO WHERE to be found, told the friend I was going to call 911, and get the search dogs out for him, to try to find him. About 15 minutes later, I got a call from my son.
After camp he had NEEDED some time alone, time to reflect, etc. and rather than “hurt” me by telling me this up front, and possibly “hurting” me or having me say “NO” (which I never would have, he is an adult for goodness sake, I don’t boss him around) he went to the woods with his tent for a time of quiet solitary reflection.
After he came home, we sat and talked about this, but because his biological father was a “dry drunk” (who had never drank but had been raised in an abusive alcoholic family) and when D was young, and his father would RAGE, throw things, etc. even threw a piano up against a wall once when D was 8, D has a big problem with anger–either at him, or his own anger. His own memories of huddling scared under a stair well to escape the wrath of his raging father are still with him. His father has stopped this completely, and is a well behaved, good man now, but when D was little it was a different story, he didn’t hurt people, but he scared the crap out of them.
Setting boundaries is difficult for D, because he does not want to offend, in ANY way, those that he loves. He can’t even stand to be around when anyone else is “catching hell” for their own bad behavior. I had a hired hand once that did not have a driver’s license, and he was not allowed to drive any vehicle of mine on the road, but could drive an old clunker here on the farm….but NOT on the public road. One night after dinner, the guy went to his room here on the farm, in the back of the aircraft hangar, and I don’t know what made me “suspect something” but I walked out to see him, and found that one of my trucks was gone and the room empty.
I called the police and reported the vehicle stolen—if I hadn’t and he had had a wreck I would have been liable for “letting him”drive my vehicle and the insurance would have been VOID.
I waited up for the guy to come back, and sure enough I heard him drive into the gate and on our road inside the farm about 2 a.m. so I went out to his room, and there he was “asleep” (or pretending to me) and I asked him where he had gone in the truck. He first denied it, then said, he had drive down to the end of the runway, just to think, then when I said that was not so, he altered his lies, and finally I said, Look, I heard you come in 10 minutes ago, the due on the grass you drove over shows the path you took going and coming and let’s get this staight and yOu quit lying. Then it was of course a “Pity party” that he “just had to go for a drive to clear my mind, I was so distraught over your husband dying” etc etc and that was the END for me, I exploded in a torrent of swear words at the top of my voice and told him to get his things and to start walking off the farm because I had called the police and they were on the way to arrest him.
Even though D was furious with the hired guy, knew what I was doing (tossing him off) was correct, he had to walk away during my outburst—it brought back too many memories of him huddling under the stairs while his biological father raged.
I don’t normally go into a rage like this but it was (in my defense) only 4 months after my husband died in the fire and I wasn’t up for having the hired hand lay blame for his lies, his theft of the truck, etc. on my husband’s death. Turns out that this same guy is the one who stole my husband’s gold watch off his arm as he lay dying of burns. He had also stolen and pawned other things from the farm. Can we say P?
But setting boundaries for how others treat us is a continual thing through out life–as people in our lives change, relationships change, and circumstances change. It is something that we must learn to do. With people like the hired hand, he was just that, a hired hand, no emotional attachment, no love lost, but with my son and me, being careful to set appropriate boundaries in such a way that we can BOTH get what we need from a prescious relationship that we don’t want to damage is ESSENTIAL. We both love each other, need and want the relationship, and will both work hard to accomplish setting boundaries in a LOVING AND CARING WAY—trusting each other, knowing that we are both willing to give 110%. That’s what life and love is all about! Without boundaries things build up and become volitile…a boundary is sort of like a “relationship safety valve.”
I have tried to metaphorically to stab and cut off my emotions regarding him when things went awry. It never worked. It still doesn’t. I do not think he is a P, anymore. Not sure what his story is, but that doesn’t seem to be it. Who knows.
“Even sometimes in the most LOVING relationships we fail to get what we need, we fail to ASK FOR WHAT WE NEED because we are so scared of hurting someone that we truly love and that truly loves us back.
That is it, really. It’s only my inner circle that doesn’t face my talk-to-the-hand approach. For instance, I went out with a friend last weekend who wanted to go see Death Metal bands. Once I heard their music, I flat-out said: I would rather stab myself in the eye with glass than go to that. If you’d like to do something else, great. If not, hopefully you can find someone to go to this show with you.
But I do not love this guy. He is just a friend. Not that I would want to hurt his feelings deliberately; just that it’s easy to tell him where my lines are, or tell anyone who is not close with me, who will not be hurt by my statements.
Like I said, it’s not that I don’t know that everyone deserves to be treated well and that the word “everyone” includes me. It’s that I don’t want to hurt anyone else and have no problem accepting things as they are in life — with the exception of death metal band concerts, of course.
Orphan,
If you choose to live your life trying not to “hurt” others no matter what they have done to you, that is your right as an adult to make that decision. If you choose to live with a man who beats you, that is also your right to make that decision.
I don’t think it is a healthy one for me, and I choose not to spend my life trying to keep from hurting people’s feelings when they are disrespectful or mean to me.
Oh, no, I was just agreeing with your quote – that if we fail to ask out of fear of hurting someone else we fail to get what we want, even in the best and closest relationships.
And that I have failed in the past with those in the inner circle out of fear of hurting them.
That’s all. I’d never choose to be hurt by someone. I just need to learn when to cut the cord and be sure I am going to be ok with that, in the long run, and not allow guilt to kill me.
Right now, I’m either having a near-breakdown from guilt (can’t sleep, am tormented when I do sleep, can’t really eat) or I’m having some sort of bizarre but great religious conversion that will leave me forever changed in its wake. Not sure which. Just wish I knew.
Boundaries… I set them, I thought I was doing well, once again, and bang, I get re-traumatized again. I guess some of us just have to learn the hard way.
He phoned this week, just wanting to talk… the old “how are you?” and “I care about you”, and “I guess I have some problems”, and “I need your help with the kids when they come over”, and on and on… playing the pity game. Now he’s the victim. And, what do I do?? Totally fall for it. Tell my family he needs help. I feel true, genuine pity for him.
Then, BANG!! He leaves me a message about something, I call him back – I hear he’s at the airport, he tells me he’s picking someone up, and I can FEEL the smirk on his face. How sick is this man?? This was his weekend with his children, but he didn’t push for them to come over tonight. He continues to have sex with women that work for him… women that live overseas. He’s been doing this for 13 years.
I actually thought this week that he was going to seek help for himself, that he was at a low point and “needed” me. And, in one swift moment, it all comes clear to me again, he is nothing more than a very bad, sick man, who enjoys tormenting me and causing me pain.
My entire body starts shaking yet again – I thought I was over this. I realize this is PTSD, and I was re-traumatized so quickly, so easily.
So, yes, once again, I am going completely NC.
LilOrphan – I also need to learn when to “cut the cord”. I must just be a slow learner. Or, he’s just an incredibly good manipulator, which he is. He’s had years of practice and he has mastered it. I cannot tell you how sincere he seems – although, all of you reading this know exactly what I’m talking about.
I need to drill it into my head, he is BAD, EVIL, CRUEL. I need to stop tormenting myself with this man’s toxicity. Life is too short to let someone have so much control over me. Enough is enough.
I am so frustrated with myself that I went so long before I started to even see the “trees” for the “forest”–and realize that I wouldn’t set proper boundaries on my family (close friends too) and I was always letting things build up until I went into a “secret” rant–I didn’t explode on them, I exploded on myself. It never made me feel any better though! DUH!
Now, I don’t let it build up. If you stop the irritation when it is just that, then there isn’t any reason to feel “put upon” (assuming that the person you are setting boundaries on is cooperative). If there is a REAL BIG problem all you have to do is say to yourself “this is a DEAL BREAKER” and do not look back.
For me now, a LIE is a deal breaker—enough already with the lies. If someone doesn’t respect me enough to tell me the truth, then I don’t need them in my life! Cursing me, name calling, etc are also deal breakers.
Almost_free, that’s the thing, if we are not careful to maintain NC (at least emotional NC if not physical NC) to get SUCKED in again.
It doesn’t take much to re-traumatize me at this stage, which is one reason I am SO leery of taking on other people’s problems or being around anyone who is behaving negatively. It will take TIME (how much? ???) for me to build my “reserve strength” up, just like if you had been sick a long time your physical “reserve strength” would need to be regained slowly so that you could be like you were before you got sick. I think it is the same with “emotional strength”—
In a way though, it is helping me to be willing to set boundaries without guilt as I know that I MUST TAKE CARE OF ME, or no one will. I got so “low” on strength I almost lost my mind and I do NOT want to go back there again. It was worse than the worst pain of child birth, and I didn’t even get a baby out of it! LOL
If I have learned nothing else out of all this, I have learned that I MUST SET BOUNDARIES IN ORDER TO BE HEALTHY. NO MATTER WHO THE PERSON IS—did they give birth to me? Did I give birth to them? Are they my brother/sister/uncle/aunt, husband/wife, best friend? Doesn’t matter that does NOT give them a right to abuse me, use me or disrespect me. I want to be nice to the people I love, and I expect them to “play nice” as well. Doesn’t mean we will never have disagreements, but we can BE NICE ABOUT IT. I don’t think that is too much to ask of anyone who says they love me.
Free, that is very profound, and deeply touching.
Yesterday and today has been sort of hard for me, reading about Amy’s children being murdered because no one would listen to her. I guess maybe it triggered in me the feelings I felt when Iwas trying to “save” my mother from the Ps ripping her off financially and/or killing her and no one would listen, the judge only partly listened, but in the end allowed the P to move back into mom’s house. I was so frantic, and ended up having to run myself in order to keep from being killed myself.
I could not even imagine how it would be to try to defend your KIDS–at least with my mother I could say, she is an adult, even if she isn’t totally functional, I could “let go” and take care of myself, but with KIDS it is a whole “nuther ball game”—I have always had a great deal of empathy for parents who are trying to raise kids with even limited contact with a P, a not “lethal” P even, but to be terrified for your kids’ lives, and have no one listen, to be compelled by LAW to allow them into the maw of the lion…I can’t even imagine the pain, the fear, the terror, and then the reality of it all. It really struck a cord in my heart and I was angry and tearful all day yesterday. Still tearful and sad today.
I am doing my best to “bleach the bitterness” out of my soul, to reflect, recognize the lessons that are to be learned and to internalize them into myself, but when something so horrible rings my chimes I do know that I react more to it than I would have before all this chaos in my life, I think, than I would have prior to my own horrible experience last year.
My Trojan Horse P will be getting out on parole May 21st, and I have done all I can to prevent it, and the SYSTEM has apparently ignored it. I plan to go to the governor’s office personally this next week, and may still, but we had a tornado hit down along a rural road about a mile north of us and wipe out the farms, barns, fences and homes of many people, so I am helping with the relief efforts and that is taking a great deal of TIME which I would normally have used fighting the system, but I feel like these people who have livestock and no place to put them, injured animals and no barns to house them in, etc. need my help and time more than me pounding on the governor’s door for what will most likely be a FUTILE effort, and these people can use my help NOW.
God spared me and my farm, so I feel like it is my duty to put forth effort to assiist my neighbors in their hour of need. We lost 2 people to death, 4 to serious injury, but many people lost their livelyhoods as well as their homes so a minor amount of inconvenience on my part will be a godsend to them. I’ve got truck loads of horses coming today and tomorrow, and some that will get back from the vet’s next week that will need shelter in barns until their wounds heal.
My visitors from Texas and my son and I drove by the devestation yesterday and it is heart breaking as well. The storm went right down the country road for over a mile wiping out everything on either side, then across a forest, twisting every tree either out of the ground or in two, jumped the highway and continued on down the road, so0me places you can only see foundations where the houses or trailers or bars were, and the few pieces bigger than a dining room table are all up against a treeline a half mile away, the rest is in tiny pieces over the pastures like pieces of confetti.
But like most rural areas, armies of men with chain saws turned out, tractors and bull dozers, so there is an outpouring of help for these devestated people. I can’t use a chain saw but I can shelter the animals on my farm to take that much stress off people whose pastures no longer have fences, their homes no roofs and their barns gone.
Maybe that will help me in my anger and sadness about Amy’s children, but I know it touched me more deeply than any other “news” story I have heard since 9/11.