The question was, “When can you trust your man?”
A reporter who was writing an article on the topic for a major women’s magazine asked the question. It showed up in my e-mail because I subscribe to a service that distributes questions from reporters to experts all around the world who may be able to answer them.
I knew what the reporter was looking for. She wanted succinct little tips like:
- “You can trust your man if he always shows up when he says he will, or at least calls to tell you he’ll be late.”
- “You can trust your man if he introduces you to his mother.”
- “You can trust your man if he shows you his income tax return.”
But, after being married to a sociopath, and hearing the stories of so many Lovefraud readers, I knew that these external signs may not be accurate.
The luring stage
In the beginning of a relationship, the luring stage, sociopaths can be reliable and punctual. They may seem proud to introduce you to their families. They may appear to be financially solvent.
Sociopathic individuals can appear to be deserving of respect, love and trust as long as it suits their purpose. These predators know what they are supposed to do to win over a lover. And they are capable of actually doing it—at least until they feel like they no longer need to.
Once they have their hooks set in you, they may be late—or even disappear for days or weeks with no explanation. Their families may trip over themselves to be good to you—probably because they want you to take the parasite off their hands. And they may flash cash and financial documents—cash taken from the previous partner, and documents that are forged.
So how do you know when to trust your man—or woman? Here’s my answer: You can trust your partner when you can trust yourself.
Trusting yourself
When it comes to romantic relationships, there are two dimensions to trusting yourself.
The first is your own sense of self. You know who you are, what you want, and where your boundaries are. You know that you deserve to be loved simply for being yourself. You understand that a relationship involves giving and taking by both parties, not one person doing all the giving and the other all the taking. You will not jeopardize your well-being in order to have companionship.
The second dimension is trusting your intuition. Your gut, your body, your sixth sense, will tell you when something is wrong. You must have to have enough faith in yourself that you can hear or feel the intuitive messages, and pay attention to them. We get in trouble when we allow ourselves to be talked out of what our intuition is telling us. When a person or suggestion makes us feel uncomfortable, that’s our early warning system, and we must trust ourselves enough to listen.
I responded to the magazine reporter’s inquiry. I told her than the time to trust a man is when we trust ourselves. She didn’t reply. I assume that my answer wasn’t what she wanted.
Oxy, 36 deg Celsius is equal to 96.80 deg Fahrenheit.
pretty dam hot!!
Love,
GemXX
jeannie – sweetie, do you have some support; someone who is helping you move forward?
fleeting moments lead to more fleeting moments and over time – in very tiny steps – we move forward. From the sounds of things, talking with your sister about victimhood is both a comfort and a hindrance – it reassures you that you are not alone, but at the same time it is like an addiction – your default mode. i understand this; i really really do. i have lots of behaviors i have to crack, and i can only do a bit at a time.
are there counseling resources that you can access?
hey gem! bloody hell that’s hot!!!!! keep coooool.
Hey, one- Joy! {love the joy part of your new name BTW!!}
YEs, its bloody HOT! thats why I cant stand to write on the computer for very long,as the sweat runs into my eyes runs into my eyes,and it stings!!
“I am but one day old.
Joy is my name!
Sweet Joy befall thee!”
{From William Blakes “Songs of Innocence and experience”}
He also wrote,
“Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless Night.”
Maybe he was talking about spaths here.
Also.;
“Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the Forest of the Night,
What Immortal Hand or Eye
Can frame thy fearful symmetry?”
Or this shivery one,;–
“O Rose, thou art sick, the invisible Worm
That flies in the night, in the howling Storm,
has sought out thy Heart of Crimson Joy,
And its soft sweet life does thy heart destroy.”
He went home one day and told his father he saw a treeful of Angels on Clapham common.{In London.} His father had him committed to Bedlam, the Asylum for the insane, they were chained to the wall with a tin cup on a chain, and slept on straw.
This was a bout the time of the Napoleonic wars.
Lets hope weve moved on a bit since then!
Love,
GemXX{we had to learn all this stuff by heart at school,} No hardship for me,as I adored English.Kids dont learn anything “by rote’ any more,a shame really, as like Wordsworth and his daffodils, you can pull it out of your brain at any time and it gives you endless pleasure.!!Well, it gives ME endless pleasure.!
heres another by Blake,
“To see the world in a Grain of sand
And heaven in a Wild flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an Hour.’
and
“Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a heaven in hells despair.”
Love,
GemXX
Please bear with me, I didnt give you the entire poem. It gives you what Love is, and what love is not.
Its called “The Clod and the Pebble.’by William Blake.
“Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself has any care,
But for another gives it ease,
And builds a heaven in hells despair.”
So sang a little clod of clay,Trodden with the cattles feet,
But a pebble of the brook,
Warbled out those metres meet.
“Love seeketh only SELF to please,
To bind a nother to its delight,
Joys in anothers loss of ease,
And builds a hell in Heavens despite.’
Written bet.17 57-to 1827.
Surely this poem gives us the difference between real love, and spath so-called love!
Mama gem.XX
The liquified body of Mama Gem has just been discovered, melted all over her computer keyboard!!!–
It is thought that she went into spontaneous meltdown due to extreme heat in her study. More anon.—–!!!
Kathy,
The thing about your son’s anger struck a chord with me. I tried to think about it all day but was having trouble getting it together. It’s because you have been such a great “mom” to me. It’s hard to comprehend your son’s issues. I know you’ve had problems and he was young when you were dealing with them, so he was imprinted with those emotions. Now he has anger. I guess that is healthy. It’s what I’m trying to learn about right now. I’ve realized that I repressed my anger as a survival strategy – trauma bond/stockholm syndrome- when I was a child. I thought that acknowledging my right to BE ANGRY would be the resolution. It seems your son is in that stage.
My question: is there a next step? what? I’m starting to feel the anger with my parents. I don’t want to get stuck there. I want to forgive them. I also want to encourage them to be angry with their own parents for the abuse they suffered. But they are in their 70’s, they don’t have too much time to deal with this.
gem, two words: terrycloth headbands! like the tennis players wear.
the hottest place i have ever been was belize. i went from a deep freeze winter to sweating from the inside of my elbows, sitting still inside with the blinds closed.
and now i have been quoted blake on lf, so all is right in the world. 🙂
sky – you said: ‘I also want to encourage them to be angry with their own parents for the abuse they suffered. ‘ you cannot heal these people with your wisdom. from everything you have said about them they don’t want to change. even if they weren’t so dysfunctional (ouuu, i just made a typo – i wrote ‘dysfictional’. found a new word for my spath!), the likelihood that they would work on significant change at their age is slim.
you have to focus on yourself sky. the work that you are coming into is considerable, and you should not cheat yourself of the fullness of it by trying to be on both sides of the street – caregiver and child. I know that paradigm really well, and we always fucking lose in that equation. trying to do both hinders our self care to a serious degree. and it’s a child’s fantasy sky – one of love and control. control over situations in our life we have no control over. if they were better we would be safer; it is classically co-dependent.
if you try to help them, it will hinder you. your quest is to go into your emotions – and you will hold back from that if you try to help them at the same time. you would have to – there is no way you can both without sacrificing yourself to them or your emotions to your intellect; both default positions you know a lot about.
acknowledging your right to be angry is an intellectual experience, not an emotional one. ‘starting’ to feel the anger is the beginning of freeing and integrating your emotional self. take it easy sky, it may take a long time, but you won’t get stuck in anger. and if you do, you will get unstuck. this is part of learning to trust your emotional self. don’t be looking to abandon her before you ever pick her up and hold her. it’s an ongoing learning for me – don’t abandon myself. i really really suck at this sometimes, it is what i was taught to do, by my parents, for my parents. it’s called being supply. i used to marvel at my sib’s seeming coldness in the face of my parent’s ‘need’. well, the higher the empathy, the more at risk we are for this crap (and my sib is lower in empathy, and oh, has def n traits), the more we are abused in this way, the more at risk we are for this crap. your emo self is now coming into your active care, take care with her, not them. and yes, at this stage, i do think it is either or. maybe it can be different later, but give yourself at least 3 years.