There comes a time when nurture becomes nature.
This is the time when nurture and nature become inextricable, inseparable.
I suspect nobody knows precisely when this point arrives in the development of a given individual, but the immediate ramification is this: When you are involved specifically with a sociopath, or any exploitative personality, it is imperative that you stop asking how this person became who he is?
Sure, he likely endured—and was shaped by—some form of neglect or abuse growing up, and if this wasn’t obvious in the history, it was still likely there.
But here’s the point: it doesn’t matter. Not one bit.
Instead, you must relinquish your empathy, compassion and curiosity—in short, every emotion that supports your obsession to understand the genesis and evolution of your exploiter’s pathology—and confront the reality that you are dealing with (as I propose) a case of nurture becoming nature, about which there’s not a damned thing, at this point, to be done.
The damage, in other words, was baked into his character a long time ago. There is no ameliorating it now. Not all the love in the world—nothing that you have, or think you have, or thought you had to give him—will dent the petrification of his psychopathology.
His diseased personality disease is immutable, as good as etched in his DNA. Case closed.
And so what you do is this: You run for the hills, just as you’d run from a rabid dog that perhaps once was innocent and gentle. Now the dog is rabid: it no longer matters how it became rabid. And so you run, fast, and you don’t look back, because every second you allow false hope to delay you increases your risk of grievous harm.
You may have loved that dog; maybe loved it before it became rabid, or maybe it was rabid all along and you just didn’t know it. And maybe you even still love that rabid dog, or the persisting fantasy of it as unrabid.
But the dog is rabid, and a rabid dog doesn’t love you, and it was probably rabid going way back and never really loved you as you once imagined, but again”¦it makes no difference.
There are rabid animals, and there are rabid people, and neither loves you.
And so the time for analysis, of him, is up.
To be clear: I appreciate the need to make sense of trauma. But at some point, the analysis of exploiters can assume an obsessive desperation that subverts, rather than supports, the processing of trauma.
I speak here from the position of having worked with many victims of exploitive personalities who are very much like stunned deer caught, and as if suspended indefinitely, in the headlights.
One of the vital tasks is to unstun them.
And sometimes the dogged determination to “make sense” of, to “analyze” the exploitive traumatizer can be a disguised obsession with discovering something in the history (his or yours) that you insist on imagining would have made a difference”¦would have made him different?
We can search this angle interminably. And unless we call off the search, we will.
And it’s a search we’re wise to call off because it can effectively bring us to a standstill, forever.
(My use of “he” in this article was a convenience, not meant to imply that women aren’t capable of the behaviors and attitudes discussed. This article is copyrighted (c) 2009 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
Maybe he thought that “she was worth more” because you were geteing wise to his ways and that she might be “fresh meat” he could manipulate. LOL Yea, they are “sumptin” all right! Sumptin creepy! ROTFLMAO
I just think of it this way, Tami, look at how much better off you are because she “stole” your man! ROTFLMAO Who got the best end of THAT DEAL!!!!!
Hi Freshly Duped:
What a story!! Thank God the friend spilled the beans and told you he was married. I wish I had a clue about what I was getting into before it was too late. Someone up there is looking out for you. I swear, if you had played into the emotional pity party regarding the story about his relationship with the wife and kids, he would have taken you right down the tubes. This is how they do it…they get you emotionally attached to them first and after they feel you are hooked, then they start to take more, and more, and..etc., etc. until all your money, self-esteem, sanity and independence are gone. Before you know it, they’re on to the next victim. I don’t want to go into detail about what I went through but just some of the things that happened to me were:
1. I paid most of the time because he didn’t have much money.
2. He moved into my condo after 8 months and I paid for all living expenses including food.
3. His son moved in with us shortly after so I was then supporting the 3 of us because he quit his job.
4. His constant telephone calls to my job got me fired.
5. I spent $20K on my credit cards and life savings while I was looking for work and my unemployment checks for us to survive.
6. I put a down-payment on a car and made all the payments, paid for repairs, insurance, etc.
7. I bought him a dog he wanted.
8. He asked me to put his name on the deed to my condo because he said we were going to get married and wanted it as a sign of our committment…so I did like an ass.
When he left, I had to clean-up the biggest mess ever. I am in debt and looking for work. I am dating but finding it hard to trust again. I had to threaten to have him thrown in jail unless he turned over the title to my condo, I had to threaten to call the police and report the car stolen to get it back…it was a friggin nightmare!!
I am sorry you hooked-up with the Ahole. I know how the shock feels of finding out someone was a lie all along.
What really rattles us is when we find out that not everyone thinks like us or feels the way we do…we can’t fathom that people actually don’t feel anything..that they are calculating and are after something…whether it be sex, money or both…there is always a prize they are out to get. After it is used up, it’s on to the next. This is how they live.
You know what you should do??? Post his profile on dontdatehimgirl.com. I posted my ex there. It is a great place to warn others about these bloodsuckers.
freshly duped,
Yes, when you call them out of their facade and they realize that you see what they are.. they leave.. mine did.. and when he realized I wasn’t buying ANY of his con.. he stopped contacting me..
They need to stay in their spin to survive…
WHY DO YOU ALL Give these men Money.. DO NOT DO IT EVER!!!!!!! And never put their names on any of your property EVER EVER EVER EVER.. Even if you marry, keep your separate property SEPARATE! That is the first things that alerted me to mine.. he was talking that he didn’t believe in prenups etc.. well, why should he, he had nothing… NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER comingle property and if they want to say NO!
Mine was trying to set me up in these ways and he realized that I was too smart for him… and he backed down.. and slinked away…
People that really love you don’t want your property… and NO WOMAN SHOULD EVER PAY OR A MAN EVEREVEREVER!
WHY? duh – I guess we were STUPID~~~!!!!! isnt this website about con men and women?
Oh we were stupid.. thinking we were kind and generous…. mine said the lioness goes out to hunt for her pride… while the lion lays around the house surfing porn I guess… while I worked paid the bills etc…. LOL OMG!!!! yeah STOOPID… I can not believe when we bought and it was we omg 1/2 1/2 this time rings he said they were to pacify me? why would I want to exchange rings with someone just to pacify me? I realized then I did not want to get old /er with this man/boy….talk about a slap in the face. And we are not supposed to want bad things to happen to these sc– bags… why not ? he’s not worth the gum scraped off my shoe… a living coacroach….
style1, henry, and all,
Duh, we gave them money because they conned us into it by telling his some pitiful sad story that pulled at our heartstrings because we are NORMAL people with hearts that are sometimes too BIG. Or, in some cases, they led us to believe that with the help of our money and their great minds, we’d BOTH share the wealth someday! That’s why most of us on here feel like total idiots! In most cases, we would have never given men money but the sociopath has a way of getting what they want based on the GOOD in us! We were targeted by them for this very reason.
And, yes, my ex S DID know that I was getting close to seeing him for WHAT he was. I put my foot down, told him that he had to find work, told him that I could no longer afford to support his pot habit nor did I want to, and that he should be paying his own child support. I also had found two women’s phone numbers in his possession and after that, I told him ONE MORE questionable thing and he was out of my house! Of course, he cried and begged, promised to be the man that he should be, blah, blah, blah. And, then within three months, he was off to Biddy Land! And you know the sick part of it all? I ALWAYS knew that if I ever ask him to assume any responsibility or “act like a man” that he’d leave me. Yet, as stressful as it was taking care of him, I FEARED him leaving me simply because my own ego craved the sugary love lies and flattery that dripped from his lips. Looking back, hell, I was as sick as he was!
Freshlyduped: YES! EVERYTHING he ever told you was a lie. Fortunately, I never have to see my ex S again so I don’t have to worry about falling into his web again…I don’t think I would have anyway because once someone lies and deceives me in the horrifice manner that he did…stick a fork in me because I’m DONE! So, no, he isn’t real. When you see him, think of Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck or better yet think of the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz. LOL! Biddy was so proud that my ex S dressed as the Tin Man this year for a Halloween party. She sent me a pic of him! I told her that was the most fitting costume he could have chosen! LOL!
Hi Style1:
Yeah, looking back I was so stupid to share everything or should I say give everything because he wasn’t contributing. I just felt he was going through a rough spot and once he got a job, he’d pay me back. We were supposed to get married so I was acting like a partner. . little did I know, he already had another woman set up right in town so when everything I had was used up, he’d go right to her…and that he did.
I’ll never forget the look on his face and how calmly the words rolled off his tongue. I said “Nelson, I have no money. I had to take out a small loan to pay the mortgage this month. You have to get a job. You need to help me.” He cooly looked at me and simply said, “It’s time.” Do you know what that meant? I was tapped so it was time for him to go to the OW. You know what really burns me??? The OW knew he was living with me. She KNEW. Also, she had been in the picture ALL ALONG. He used her car to move into my place. I am just lucky to get my car back and my condo back. I’ll never see any of the money I used to support him and his son. Oh yeah, the son was in on it too. A 13 year old kid. They would both go to the OW’s house a few times a week. My ex would tell me he was going to his friend’s house. . and that it was a guy friend. The kid was instructed not to tell me who daddy’s “Friend” was. I would ask and he would say, “my dad said not to talk about it.” So, I had 3 people…the OW, my ex and the ex’s son all in on the dupe. The OW drove around in the car I paid for…gasonline supplied by the money I worked for. I was working, going to school at night, supporting my fiance and his son, doing all the housework, cooking, cleaning, laundry, while they all got a piece of the pie. Sorry for the long vent. I still get sick when I think about it.
Spirit.. what? He told you that a lioness hurts for her Pride..??????
A man supports a woman and if he can’t then he should not be with one…
Mine lived with me but he paid rent and paid when he took me out and bought me things.. but that still wasn’t enough.. Because the house and everything else was mine.. he didn’t buy the house.. therefore had no real responsiblity to me… and I RESENTED IT.. All I ever did was buy food most the time and give him gifts on birthday and Xmas..
He paid large child support.. so it begin feeling like he was living in my great life.. and sending more his money to another household and I RESENTED THAT… Of course, he should take care of his kids.. but he didn’t have the money for a wife… and I was creating the life.. the life style and enhanced his world…and I began to RESENT That.. he talked about when his ship comes in what he will do for me.. bu his ship never came in .. and I got of him.. I don’t think that I ever loved him .. his contrived LOVE LOVE LOVE.. had me hooked in…He wanted a woman like me but had no means to support or enhance my life.. but i enhanced his.. and he made promises… and he came after me.. I was what he wanted…
well….if they can’t provide up front… say come back when you can… I wore a fake engagement ring on my finger when I have never worn fake in my life… I was being kind.. oh, poor guy he works so hard.. I am being demanding to want real… again the nice woman.. BS! I felt resentful the whole time I was with him.. he wanted to marry me in the first 3 months.. had i married this man.. I would have his bad credit, be responsible for his child support and debt and he wouldn’t have been able to afford a divorce.. so I would have had to pay for that.. after he left for Florida to be with his kids…
I didn’t get hooked in that far.. I watched .. I waited.. and my instincts proved correct… he was a fraud.. a liar… a con… a someday.. .. well, someday is now! I am still here and he is off and gone and am certain looking for the next woman.. he married the one before me in like a month and she died…and he was after me 3 months later… claiming that I was his true soulmate.. I wasn’t his soulmate!
I meant to write hunts for her pride.. but maybe ‘hurts’ is more it…