You are involved, say, with a pathologically self-centered personality, perhaps a narcissist or sociopath?
That is, he wants what he wants when he wants it, and he’ll do whatever’s necessary (his entitlement) to get it, or take it.
Key diagnostic trait: he reserves the right to punish you when you obstruct his agenda.
Now here’s the thing: in the heat of the moment, you may actually be pretty good at confronting his abuse. Maybe you stand up for yourself pretty effectively? Maybe, in the moment, you’re even pretty good at setting limits and challenging his nonsense?
So then what’s the problem?
The problem occurs when you step away from these incidents.
In stepping away from them, you potentially risk enacting your own form of compartmentalization, by which I mean that, while in the moment you may address his abuse with some backbone, yet beyond the moment you effectively “drop the ball” by failing to process, and own, the greater pattern.
It’s a case of our seeing the trees in the forest just fine, yet somehow, defensively, ensuring that we fail to see the forest through the trees.
I’m referring, of course, to a kind of defense mechanism with which some—not all—of us may be familiar?
As I suggested, strategically this defense mechanism deploys a form of compartmentalization, while tactically it assumes forms of denial, minimization and avoidance (of reality).
What precisely is the function and, more importantly, the danger of this defense mechanism?
Its function, I suspect, is to prevent us from connecting the dots; that is, our failure (defensively) to connect the dots enables our avoidance of confronting the greater pattern that underlies the series of incidents.
So long as we address the “abusive incidents” separately—as discreet events—thereby defensively ignoring their wider pattern, then we can rationalize more easily our “staying in” the relationship with a kind of pseudo-dignity and pseudo self-respect.
To be clear, we achieve this self-compromise by reframing the abuse as a series of brushfires to be troubleshot on an ongoing basis, much like a manageable chronic illness.
And especially if, as I’ve noted, we’re pretty good at this—somewhat effective, that is, at confronting these brushfires on a case by case basis—then it becomes easier to compartmentalize in the manner I’m describing.
The danger, of course, is how this defensive process—in its reframing of the exploitation as a series of disconnected, but manageable, events—supports our denial that the relationship has, in fact, been globally and fatally compromised by the exploitation.
This highlights, yet again, the basic conundrum of defense mechanisms: the protection they confer is so often exceeded, unfortunately, by their cost to our well-being and, sometimes, integrity.
(My use of “he” in this article was for strictly for convenience’s sake, not to imply that females aren’t capable of the behaviors discussed. This article is copyrighted © 2009 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
one step: .those wishes are beautiful! You touched my soul there……a meeting of spirits……..if ever you choose…I have written several poems for a horse grief website called hoof beats in heaven….one of the poems is about my beloved black horse…that I lost…It’s called The Sublime Equine…if you ever want to read it….you can find it there. Actually you can google it by that title.
Thank you so much for those special wishes…I can almost smell their muzzles bringing in the sweet smell of fresh spring grasses, oats and fresh air……ahhhhhh….
Nicker to you, my friend! Nice….really nice. 🙂
Oxy: I do understand about dangerous horses….all too well. I almost lost an arm to one…one that I misjudged, felt sorry for and rescued when I was younger.
*one step: got those two poems crossed: the one about my black horse is called Angel Horse.
They are both about the human/equine bond. My horses have been my sanity/therapy for me thru those awful years with my PX. I credit them with having survived all I have!
knickers…..I can hear those knickers…..ummmhummmmmmmm….deep throaty knickers when I would enter the barn…….
Kathleen – this is good advice – the rules I have adopted are from an earlier post called the Golden Rule and the Silver Rule and until I am fully conversant with my feelings and my radar is up and functional, I think they are useful for me to use in my interactions with others. This process is more than just tuning into feelings – it is like learning to speak again. I wasn’t raised to honor and follow my feelings, but rather to be responsive to the feelings and needs of others around me so I am stumbling like a toddler in trying to trust something I can’t readily identify and describe = does that make sense or just to me? 😛
That post about learning to trust yourself really hit home for me – how is trusting oneself possible after the P? Well I don’t exactly know how but am starting to follow intuition moment to moment and am trying to remain more present and mindful so that at any moment I can tune in to my gut and ask ‘What am I feeling about this or that?’ I don’t know if this is the textbook way to go about things, but I am following the snippets of wisdom that come from within these days – I don’t really see any other path and maybe this is part of getting conversant with those feelings so I can learn to trust myself.
I am not in therapy – I have been in the past about this, but this time choose to read widely, journal, meditate and converse with myself about the situation. It’s still a hard process – it would be hard seeing a therapist too and finding the right one would be a n ightmare that I don’t feel up to at the moment. So for once I am honoring what comes from inside – I am not so good at identifying the feelings just yet but am developing.
Tonight I made a mistake. I went onto the P’s facebook page and read all his posts, looked at who was commenting on them, looked at his pictures etc. It is normally locked off and I am not on his friends list – but for some reason tonight it wasn’t. It was a bit like driving past a car accident- I didn’t really want to look, but I HAD to. I went through a maelstrom of emotions looking through it all, but at the end of it I am left with a few resounding thoughts …
How unfair it is that he treated me so badly and comes out looking like ‘the good guy’
How unfair it is I am struggling to cope in many ways (with responsibilities dumped by him – pets and house and bills) while he gets to walk off scot free
How unfair it is that he is doing his glib and superficial charm behaviour to look popular and lure in women who are flirting with him
The lies on his page – he made out he’s a big shot but his actual job couldn’t be further from the truth
I felt inadequate looking at it all. He kicks me to the ground and there is no punishment for him. He looks like the big popular party boy and I look like the embittered difficult ex with mental problems. It’s horrifying in a small city that this manipulation can occur. I backed out of all joint friendships as I knew he would be talking and saying bad things about me or implying them and leaving people to join the dots. I just want to run away from here – how does he get to make himself look so successful and wonderful when I am left struggling trying to hold everything together?
There is this huge injustice in the whole situation. I want a bolt of lightning to come from the sky and strike him down. I want God to see what has happened and level the balance for me. I want revenge. I fantasised about tying him down and physically torturing him so he begged for mercy but what would be the point? It would all be lies and manipulation – he will never be sorry for what he did to me. It hurts like hell.
I can feel this horrible shame where there should be none. I had shame for so many years about the B and the grief that went with losing it – and now I know people are thinking whatever words he put into their heads when they see me in town – laughing and colluding with him, patting him on the back and buying him another drink. He can pay for cocktails but can’t contribute to vet bills for his sick pet. He can pay for drycleaning of tuxes but won’t pay me back the money he owed me for supporting him while he spent everything he earned. It is unjust.
No matter how I toss my hair and wear my happy smile, he comes up smelling better than me. I have to try to shrug off the shame and pain and try to act normal so nobody suspects anything – you know what I mean? I don’t think everybody is out for something from me – some men definitely are (you know the type of thing they want) but my radar is pretty ready for them now! It’s more about me than other people. I am on edge wondering if each new person knows him – if they know what he said about me.
I have been so maligned by him – he naturally blamed me for everything and made out he was the big helpful man. The reality is everything he ‘helped’ with, he messed up and now I have to spend hours fixing it or paying someone else to. That’s the truth but other people have only heard his version. Likewise they will have heard his version on the marriage – about how he ‘tried’ everything but it just wouldn;t work. I damn well want his mask to slip so he is exposed for once and for all. I don;t want everyone to think he is this ‘cool’ person when he so isn;t.
I know I am probably in for a lecture for looking at the page – I realise I shouldn’t have looked. But in some respects, despite the pain of seeing it all, I am glad I know the truth. I stay away from his circle of friends and when I have to deal with him, he always tries to manipulate me by making me feel guilty for ‘how bad’ his life is now and how much pain he is in at the end of the marriage. Now I have seen the truth and it reinforces my decision to ignore his purported pain as more of the usual manipulation and FOG. It also hurts though – salt on a very tender wound that I am trying to clean out daily so it can finally heal.
That’s just a rant – I will probably feel better tomorrow but tonight I felt lousy and needed to get it out. I actually feel a bit better already – purging is quite a good thing sometimes! I do apologise for the verboseness of it and the length though 🙂
polly: I realize your post was not directed to me….but I had to comment on the facebook part. While I know its not good for us to do this or keep track of their behavior…. Don’t whip yourself too badly over that…! I’ve done the same thing and facebook has gimped and let me in my x’s pages too. His were all the same way….hyped up and many pictures of him partying, smiling and other women hanging all over him. It got to me at first and then….time began to pass and the facade began to crumble-truth was winning–slowly for sure….but winning….just easing a neck above his ‘fun’. It has remained that way…his always getting a new con with a new woman or women but [all this has come to me thru the grapevine[> I’ve learned from the experience that it’s ALWAYS a facade. I no longer keep up with any of it….it’s all fake anyway. There is their reality and there is real reality and eventually REAL reality takes over and wins. Please be patient….
pollyanna, I’m going to try to make you laugh. I’m telling you that upfront, so you don’t go “Oh, God, how awful.” But that you get you mind prepared to see the humor in this. I’m going to tell you more about my story.
My ex is a writer. Twenty years younger that me, well-educated, expert in the charm and plausability we expect from these people. My role in his life was to provide money, sex and expensive experiences, also to be around waiting for him when he came back (after he’d left when he had enough money so he didn’t need me anymore) to start using me to build up his bank account again.
Okay, so I got rid of him, and ever since, I’ve been keeping track of what he has published. (Previously, he’d published nothing betwee the time he got his MFA degree and the time we split up permanently, though he was writing all through it.)
So here is a partial list of his literary output:
1. Several stories about being drunk and hopeless.
2. Several stories about being dishonest, distructive, drunk and hopeless, and having stupid ideas
3. A surprising number of stories about women who
a. tossed out men because they were dishonest, drunk and hopeless
b. became nymphomaniac or spreaders of venereal disease because they were unable to get over the boyfriend who left them
c. deserved to have their boyfriend leave them, because they were so naive and boring, even though the boyfriends was shiftless and screwing around
d. who would keep their drunk, shiftless boyfriends around if the boyfriend could figure out how to flatter and lie well enough to get her to an orgasm that would short-circuit her common sense
4. people who were in no-win situations where their superior intellect was either unrecognized or the cause of their being beaten up. Or maybe it was their drunk and disorderly, or stoned and distructive, or cowardly and selfish behavior. In his stories, it’s hard to tell where superior intellect ends and self-destructive stupidity begins.
5. stories of general angst, loneliness, bitterness and despair in a meaningless and uncaring world, including the terrible moments when one is humiliated by being recongized as a low-class pretender by people in better clothes, and the fleeting but ultimately tragic satisfactions of knowing one is the smartest person in the room.
Now that you’ve been introduced to the inside of this guy’s mind, compare it with the fact that he lived in luxury when he was with me, drove away from here with a convertible and SUV, had a designer wardrobe and all the accoutrements of expensive hobbies, like skiing, scuba and fly-fishing, not to mention the dinner table conversation about when he was in Paris or Amsterdam, Belize, Hollywood or running (!) a world-class PR agency in height of the Internet boom. All of it one way or another originating with me.
I did my best turn him into a human being. To teach him to trust and love, to recognize other people’s humanity, to develop some values that weren’t just getting what he wanted. It’s now five or six years since he left here with all his goodies. The goodies are probably getting a little ragtag by now. He’s picked up a few more merit badges along the way, things that he would tell you are terribly important. And he has profles all over the Internet announcing himself as an American author and listing the magazines he’s been published in.
He’s been through another woman who romanticized him while she was being explointed to the ground. I think now he’s taking advantage of one of his messed-up exes. That story just goes on. And what he creates is all he can create. He’s a bright, gifted emotional cripple. And there will always be someone who’ll buy into that.
All I can do, when I think of where all that love and money went, is shake my head in wonder and some amusement at what it produced on his side. The funny part is that I did believe that, in giving him what he lacked and needed, I would some how change him. What is it they say, you can lead a whore to culture but you can’t make him think?
And feel sort of gleeful about what it created on my side.
They are what they are. But we, fortunately, are so much more than we appeared to be.
Kathy
Kathy: My gawd, that was great!
Not only were you hilarious – you thumbed your nose at him….and with style!
I enjoyed that….in the vein of Mark Twain….and I do love Mark Twain!
Dear Kathy,
“You can lead a whore to culture, but you can’t make him think!”
ROTFLMAO choke, snort, wheeze, gasp, choke ROTFLMAO again!
Oh, GF you missed your calling as a stand-up comic! I think you ought to take this one on the ROAD!!! Can I be yer manager? We’ll both get RICH!!!!
Thank you, TB. And Oxy, well, I am humbled. But no sweetie, could you see either of us trying to manage the other? But we could do a great review entitled “And you think yours was bad…?”
Oh, I forgot the story when he was whining it wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t meet the new standards of fashion, and soliciting donations to buy a more energy efficient car or eat organic produce. When I read it, I thought “Thank God, I mean thank you, God, that I’m reading this in an online magazine and not hearing it whispered in my ear in bed. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
I try not to get too snarky around here, because … well because it’s too easy to get as caught up and comfortable with our own superiority as they are. It’s still focussing on them, and giving them energy. And not working on our own stuff.
But the development a snarky sense of humor is definitely one of the perks of getting over them.
Amen to that last statement, Kathy!
This is really raunchy and perhaps in bad taste, but the humor of it is so insanely hilarious I feel the need to overstep taste and share it.
Mine was so [secretly] into porn…I hear he went to one of those ‘relationship enhancement’ [sex toys] [one of my ‘friends’ delighted in whispering this in my ear and watching my reaction]parties after I ditched him. According to her [she must have attended! ahaha!]he purchased a ‘lifelike’ female body part–[for companionship, I suppose! ;P]. She watched my face closely for a reaction….my reaction…hysterical laughter and I said: “Well, I am going to name ‘it’….Jolene….after the country song by Dolly Parton…some of the lyrics are: “Joooooooleeeene, please don’t take my man, just because you can!”
Needless to say: I had a great scream over it, she did not get her shocked reaction and I’m certain it all went back to him. * ka ching!
Laughter: the best revenge! IMO!
Dear TB–YOU AND KATHY NEED TO DO THE REVIEW, or the THREE of us, ROTFLMAO, choke, short, wheeze ROTFLMAO again!
Yep, Kathy, I will just stay at the farm and keep your and TB’s schedule booked up 300 days a year, at the big theaters and stadiums. I bet after a few “concerts” you guys can fill 50,000 seats steady! Heck, you guys will be more famous than MJ and OJ together!
BTW guys, I finished MaryJo B’s book, and it was fabulous. For you guys who may have not read it, it is absolutely WONDERFUL. I know it must have been really tough on her to write it, but when I was done, I felt if I had known her all my life, and BOY DID I KNOW HIM! He is just like all the rest of them, only I think he is about as sleezy as Kathy’s “Writer” (boy, is that using the word loosely!) WRITER–ROTFLMAO!!!
One thing I am very grateful to MaryJo about though is her story of her son, Paul. Paul worked for Joey in a body shop in California at the time Joey got busted for insurance fraud and so on, so Paul lost his job and was really depressed. MaryJo was so concerned about Paul, and her BF had a business and offered to hire Paul, and to let him come live with them til he could get himself back together, but MaryJo said NO! He has got to do it on his own, and I am so sure that her heart must have ached to “help” her son, but she would not enable him.
That part of her book gave me such strength when I was going through my recent melt down about the lie my son C told me—and made me look at the “big picture” not just at the “little brush fires” as Steve’s article suggested, and boy oh boy, did I realize I had done a lot more ENABLING than I had “helping” and though it broke my heart, ripped out my guts, etc. I had to stand firm.
Even now, that I am somewhat calmer about it all, and don’t think he is a P, just dysfunctional and unwise, none-the-less the FEELING washes over me sometimes to rush out and find him and APOLOGIZE for being so upset that he lied to me. (shaking head here)
Also looking back, I see that his X wife wasn’t the ONLY one that “distanced” him from us after they married—HE distanced himself from us. Even if SHE was a big part of it, HE ALLOWED IT, FOLLOWED IT. It hurt to not be able to “blame” her, but I see now that he is a “big boy”—and he has to man up to the truth. I HAVE TO STAND UP FOR THE TRUTH, TOO.
No matter how it PITHES ME OFF, I have to accept my responsibility for wearing those darned ROSE COLORED GLASSES—I’m still not laughing about it, but I’m at least back where I belong, taking responsibility for how I allow others to treat me, and drawing the line of what I will accept in the way of dishonesty, and it is NONE. SORRY, ZIP, ZERO, NADA, ZILCH.
Joline!!! ROTFLMAO!!!! tooooooo funny!