One thing that’s certain about sociopaths and exploitive personalities generally: when it comes to relationships, they are the worst historians.
They are chronic historical revisionists—that is, they are constantly revising history.
And their revisions are headed in predictable directions—to make them look good, unguilty, unresponsible for the damage they’ve caused and, of course, whenever possible, to position themselves as the true victims of the circumstances.
And that’s, of course, when history interests them. And history will interest them, but only when they can use it against you. If it suits their need, say, to punish you for a decision you made in the past, even before you met them, abusers may use this knowledge of your history as a weapon of attack or control in perpetuity.
The issue on which they fixate, for instance, may pertain to a sexual relationship that predated your knowing them; they may have coaxed, if not coerced, this information from you, perhaps in the honeymoon phase of your relationship, on the pretext of their wanting to know, preciously, everything about you.
They will not have hinted at their truer, underlying motive: to stumble upon eternally damning evidence of your corruption for future, endless punitive purposes.
On the other hand, when history obstructs, rather than enables, the exploiter’s self-centered agenda, then surprise surprise, he will have no use for, or interest in, it whatsoever.
History (accurate history, that is) will instead loom as a great annoyance to be ignored, if not aggressively suppressed. In such cases, the exploiter is likely to frame your interest in the history of his exploitation of you as off-limits.
How ironic—suddenly the self-centered, chronic boundary violator invokes the sanctitude of his boundaries, fingering you as lacking respect for his space. This would be funny, if it wasn’t so not-funny.
The problem of the exploiter’s manipulation or censorship of relationship history is grave inasmuch as healthy relationships depend on partners processing their history together with integrity; and also with the aim of deepening their intimate connection through joint efforts to understand, and make mutual meaning, of their shared history.
When this process is corrupted, there is no chance for a healthy relationship.
The exploiter, by virtue of his underlying disdain of your integrity, boundaries and individuality, makes this vital collaborative process impossible. This is not a process he will ever feel motivated to engage; and it’s a process, in any case, that will overwhelm his deficient capacity for true intimacy.
(My use of “he” in this post was for convenience’s sake. This article is
copyrighted (c) 2009 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
patrick
That you for the great advice everyone. I will read that book and tell her and show her…I have her for 4 days this weekend…everything she it entitled to. She’ll go crying back to mom how bored she was…and a weekend of sitting in one place looking at a white wall will somehow be “mental abuse”, but that’s ok. I’ll go to Goodwill tomorrow and get something really “nice” for her to wear this weekend. Not bad, just not what she is used to.
I will post back and let you know how it goes. Thanks again!
lostingrief
cherre:
my spath always told me that he ‘owns me’ too!
he had so many different ‘parts’ of his life, and he played everyone like a chess piece. don’t let this one know about this one, isolate this one so they don’t find out about that one! he was holding up a big house of cards … all ducks in a row.
well, THIS duck is now forever AWOL! and he’s calling me again.
AS IF!
he can own, play, and manipulate everyone in this city … BUT ME. as my mom said, ”you, my dear, will be the first one in his whole life to ever tell him NO!”
amen.
ember: my guess is that he’ll drift further and further from your daughter. they don’t like to ‘work’ for anything, esp. emotional relationships! blessings to you both.
ErinBrock
HI LF”ERS……
Got a question…..
Has anyone watched the larry King /Chris Brown interview?
He is so pathetic….
He is dressed in a BABY BLUE sweater with a baby blue BOWTIE and white button down dress shirt underneiath….
NICE SCHOOLBOY PORTRAYAL….
the interview is pathetic…..no responsibility for his actions,,,,,I DON”T REMEMBER DOING IT…….OH PLEASE.
His mother is in the same denial…..I feel so bad for Chris, I hate to see him hurting and in PAIN! Dumb bitch……YOUR SON CAUSED THIS….how about RIANNA……her pain and embarrassment?
Who gives a damn about YOUR son…..he made his own bed….
This ‘damage control’ tour is an embarrasment to him…..
His twist on words is very familiar to what we have learned….
Referring to a TPO as told to ‘stay away’.
Claiming the police photo his first thought was was it altered?
The mother said this too…..
NO ASSHOLE>….YOU DID THIS!
He claims he is not a violent person…..YES YOU ARE!
One is not a murderer until they murder….
He claims this is not ‘me’…..OH YES…..IT WAS YOU DUDE!
CLAIM IT
Rosa
Erin:
What baby blue sweater and bow tie? I could not take my eyes off of the ‘bling’ on his ears!!
I want those diamond earrings!!
When they showed the clip from the “Tyra Banks Show”, he was dressed in full-on Hip Hop regalia. Did you catch that?
Then, back to the Larry King Show, where he’s sporting the blue sweater/bow tie. I laughed.
This kid is in serious damage control mode.
He says he still loves Rihanna.
Mine still “loves” me, too.
Big yawn.
alohatraveler
Great Article Steve. Your contributions to LF are priceless.
I do recall the History problem… and the gold mining for mistakes of my past to be used later against me. In fact, one of the first intimate question that the Bad Man asked me was if I had ever had an abortion. Sadly, I did have one when I was 19 even though I felt it was wrong.
Bad Man later called me “Murder of innocent babe(s).”
He wrote it exactly as above. I remember thinking that only he could add an extra level of cruelty to a statement that was already devastating to me….
“Babe(s)”… as in one or possibly more.
Wow. His cruelty was astonishing to me.
ErinBrock
ALOHA:
HI…..Good to have you checking in on us……Miss your posts and hope school is going well for you….AND everything else in life.
Take GOOD care….
XXOO
Glinda
I’m with you, Erin. I caught a snippet of Chris Brown and his bowtie: gag me. I wish his mother would shut up; I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again: if the momma gets involved, you KNOW he’s a loser.
lostingrief
the bowtie killed me! puh-leeze, you little thug!
he doesn’t remember hitting her? ”like wow, i can’t believe it.”
yea, well believe it, abuser!
i pray that rhianna stays away from him. he’s slick, cute, and dangerous. a bad combination for a young girl.
and his denial says it all.
Ox Drover
I guess I should CONFESS, I have no idea who Chris Brown is or what he did. I do not follow the “soap opera” of most of the “stars” of movies, TV or music very much at all unless it is something like OJ or Vick, so tell me what happened.
Most of what little I see or read about these “stars” makes me think I am seeing/hearing about the lives of “trash” and it doesn’t matter to me if they are rich and famous or not, they are still TRASH when they do drugs, abuse their kids, etc.
That is what is so amazing to me about the public too, is that they IDOLIZE these creeps like Michael Jackson, Vick, OJ etc, though I think OJ is no longer much of an idol, just another convict who finally got convicted.
I VOTE with my money and if someone acts like a piece of trash, I don’t buy their movies, or records, or tickets. Not that my lack of patronage is going to bankrupt them but if others would do the same and not buy their products they might keep a lower profile at least. At least we (the public) would not be rewarding them when we know what they are, but when you look at what people vote for after the person has been shown to be a DISHONEST person, and those people get into our government, I guess I shouldn’t be suprised.
I watched a Dateline the other night about a football player from the Titans who was a big star for a long time (sorry I don’teven remembeer his name) and he was a serial cheater on his wife, and pretended to be such a great guy, but had a bachelor pad and got hooked up with a 20 year old girl half his age, bought her a big expensive vehicle, and told her he was leaving his wife (untrue) then when she found out about his lies, she bought a gun, and he was shot and killed and apparently she turned the gun on herself and shot herself dead.
It showed some of his funeral and how he was lionized as this big MORAL MAN who was sooo good, when apparently everyone who knew him well, knew he was cheating, and doing all kinds of things, while keeping up a public face of being such a great and loving husband and father.
I guess maybe I was one of the few watching the show and thinking, he got some consequences for HIS bad CHOICES. He got hooked up with someone more disordered than himself. (by then he was with another woman as well).
His wife kept her mouth shut and was not interviewed, and I think that was best for her and the kids. I imagine though that in reality her “marriage” to this man was not wine and roses, and she probably had some idea of what was going on, but what a way to have your marriage end publicly like that. I hope she can heal and move on with her life to something better. I hope his kids can as well. they did not deserve this.
Even with them getting the consequences of their own behavior adversely effects their family.
Rosa
OxDrover:
Meet Chris Brown:
http://extratv.warnerbros.com/2009/02/brown_rihanna_what_went_down.php
He’s basically a Michael Jackson/JayZ wanna be, on his way to becoming the next OJ Simpson, if he keeps hitting women.
These are 2 very young kids. I believe Rihanna is the older of the two, and she is only 20 years old herself.
Hopefully, Rihanna has gotten away from what seems to be a very toxic relationship with this man, and she will no longer have him under her UMBRELLA..ELLA…ELLA.