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.
Really great post Oxy.
It’s so true that a spath will not directly attack you from the outside but instead prefers to be invited in where they can rip your heart out in private. They know that once in, it’s hard to kick them out.
backonmyfeet,
It’s mind-boggling and disturbing how spaths lie so much (making up so many flippin, asinine stories), driving everyone around them bonkers. As candy said, you are not alone. Spaths remind me of a tornado, destroying whatever is in their path.
Ox,
This is a great post. I’m going through something similar right now with a friend of over 30 years, whom when told NOT to speak to me abusively, continued to do so. I told her that if she continued to speak to me that way, I WOULD NOT speak with her AT ALL. I held that boundary. The abuse was so bad, I decided that I could live without the friendship. I have my limits and after exPOS, I’m just done being treated like crap.
I don’t know if it hurts so much anymore when you’re just plumb tired of abusive people in your life, or more like a RELIEF from the constant barrage!
I think in this case, because it was SO bad, it’s a relief! Her abuse was more overt than covert however, and nothing like EXPOS’s abuse was, which hurts a hell of a lot more in loss of the relationshit.
LL
Ox Drover,
I am printing your post to bird up, putting a copy in my journal, and plan to send copies to my siblings – such good points about trust and boundaries. Yes, psychopaths (and other toxic people) all end up “severly abusing” our trust, leveling us out. We’ve all had some hard-learned lessons about people in general (ourselves included), being able to apply what we’ve learned in our own lives. By the way, I’m glad you’re back from your trip.
back on my feet,
They love fake documents don’t they?
My exP was so into providing evidence to back up his lies. I think I’m going to start a website where people can upload pictures of “evidence” that their spaths have used to con them.
I have a picture of a tracking device and a fake warrant to install the tracking device on his helicopter. This was the ruse that broke open all his lies because it FAILED to convince me that Homeland security was after him. Not that the evidence didn’t work, but because he crossed a boundary – the only boundary I truly have: my money. He could siphon small amounts for years and I didn’t mind or notice, but when he overtly suggested I give him financial control of my business. GAME OVER.
hey oxy, good point you bring up. Your experience sounds like mine… wounded teenager ( after spending 4 years with a female N during highschool ) i went through a lot of PTSD but overcame it… and years later found myself in the grips of another crap involvement with psychopath. I read all the literature on psychopathy too- i was aware, I thought i could spot them out, but it was that milk jug analogy you had made in another post- i sort of had a schema in my head. I simply didn’t consider that a MALE psychopath would pop up in my life…
SO moral of the story… even if you read the literature on psychopathy and know all there is to know and heal you can be targeted AGAIN. Even the professionals say that… Robert Hare even said something along the same lines… WHICH IS WHY we need to be AWARE and keep our boundaries strong. DON’T trust too easily… sometimes trusting easily is just a part of our personality, kind of being open and honest- we just have to be conscious of when people are OVERSTEPPING our boundaries… be aware. It is that awareness which will keep us from another extended involvement. Listen to the cues our body/emotions give us.. etc etc. We can avoid another encounter if we’re SMART about boundaries and red flags… read and understand the P’s tactics.. listen to ourselves and remain AWARE.
Dear Ox Drover,
Thank you for that post.
Oh and Donna, great article. Trusting ourselves is SO important! Sometimes forgoing our need for kindness and compassion in order to watch out for ourselves is just necessary, period. Sometimes forgoing social niceties in favor of our safety is also necessary, period.
And that is excellent advice you gave to the reporter.. shame she wouldn’t consider it because it isn’t cookie-cutter and packaged for “easy digestion”… though it really is our strongest gift and most basic instinct.
Glad to be home gang! The dog was bouncing off the walls and even son D was so glad to have me home, he had been snowed in for 9 of the 14 days I was gone! He gets cabin fever! Fortunately a bunch of his friends came by this past weekend to cheer him up! I AM glad to be home though.
Glad my comments seemed to hit home with several of you, I have had a sort of “disturbing” trip to my best friend’s house. She and her husband had requested me to come down and help them butcher a beef. Her husband who isn’t a psychopath, but HE IS A JACK ASS, got up in my face Sunday morning and I basically told him “Look Jack ass, you may talk to your own wife that way but I am not married to you and you can’t talk to me that way. I’m out of here.” I packed up my butcher knives and locked my suit case, and I got her to take me back to the train station and got on the train and came home.
She and her husband are in the middle of one of those passive-aggressive NON-divorces, he lives most of the time at their vacation cabin, and she lives in town at their family home, and once in a while they get together….she’s depressed and he’s a drunk, and they will never get a divorce, just continue to be miserable and get more depressed. Nada I can do about it, but you know, I didn’t go down there to take a ration of sheet off a foul mouthed man who seems to find it okay to talk in a disrespectful way to women in general and me in particular. He can cut up his own cow. I guess he figured he could get away with it because I don’t think he thought I would walk off and leave that much meat there uncut.
My uncle monster did that to me the one time he was ever verbally abusive to me, he thought he had me over a barrel because I was helping a crew cut, rake and bale his hay for him (as a favor) and we had the hay down and ready to bale when he came out and started throwing a drunken fit—he didn’t count on the fact that I would load up the crew and walk off leaving the hay in the field to ROT without so much as a backward glance. I think my friend’s husband was the same way, I don’t think he thought I would walk off and not finish the job I had gone down there to do—but hell, I was a) doing it as a favor, I was not being paid and even if I had been I’d have still walked off, and b) it wasn’t any sweat off my ca’jon’es if the meat rotted or he had to cut up his own. I’m DONE with allowing people to abuse me verbally or any other way, DUN!!!! OVER!!!!
Theres no place like home…