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.
Lesson Learned:
Regarding your son’s situation. Like Dances, I, too, am surprised that your son is discussing his early sexual dalliances with you. Thaty said, the way I see it is that he is in the early stages of coming out, by the sound of it and teting his “wow” power. He obviously is enjoying the fact that this older guy finds him attractive. I don’t know where you and your son live, but I suspect your son was probably pretty well closeted, and like most men who have been closeted is comikng out of the closet with a bang. That’s part of the process, unfortunately and the best you cab do for your son at this stage of the game is remind him to play safe. Any lectures on your part about this man being unavilable are going to fall on deaf ears. Y r son is a layover while this guy is on his layover. YOur son is operating on pure chemistry at this stage of the game. The moment he makes any demands on this guy, the guy will cut him loose. As for the target of your son’s affection, I’m pretty sure he’s got a wife at home — Senator Larry Craig, anyone? If he’s gay, he’s got a stable relationshp at hom and isn’t looking to mess it up. Basically, your son is a layover while this guy is on his layover.
No, there’s no future in this relationship and yes your son is going to end up hurt by going for somebody who is so unavailable. Unofortunately, that is part of growing up be you straight or gay.
Matt,
My son is nearing 21 now. He’s been out of the closet, (rather proudly) since he was 16, even though I already “suspected” prior to his coming out. I accept him as the gay man that he is and love him to pieces. He didn’t go into gory details about the “layover” guy, but just WHERE the sexual stuff was taking place while on his breaks. He spoke of it with an innocence about it that troubled me. A more naive approach. I can’t save my son from getting hurt, but after having read some of the stories in here of gay men who got screwed over, my son is NOT immune to a spath. I’m just not certain HOW to explain it to him to where he might understand. I hope to God he gets it and doesn’t have to “experience” it to understand that, yes, virginia, there ARE evil jerks out there!
LL
Dear LL,
I hear you about the kids that are messed up, but you need to understand that you cannot help them until you can take care of yourself.
It sounds to me like you have been heavily involved in enabling (co-dependency is another term for it) and you might find a support group as well as your therapist for “co-dependency” or “enabling” (I like the latter term better but won’t fight over the terminology) Many of us here have the same problem with wanting to “fix” or “help” others when we would do well to focus our energy on ourselves and our own healing and learning boundaries.
I think it is sort of inappropriate for your son to discuss his sexual episodes with you in this detail, even where the guy and he Behave sexually during his breaks. I would discourage him from doing this and like someone else suggested, give him some information about psychopaths in general.
Psychopaths tend to be “neither gay nor straight” but very prommiscious and very much into high risk sex so you might also encourage your son to use condoms as well as decrease the number of partners…not that he will listen to you about that though. At his age, he will “live forever” and “none of that will happen to me.”
one/joy_step_at_a_time –
“EB ”“ what you have said about the tech guy leaves me with an uneasy feeling in my gut. who does work on spec? and for an undefined %?”
Call me paranoid, too, EB, but I’m with One on this. I really hope that we are just a couple of scaredy cats, but alarm bells rang for me, too. Having said that, I also know that your “gut” is well-tuned and that you listen to it. Hope all goes well. x
LL –
“It also has a spiritual element in my mind that says I”m being UNKIND. That really bothers me too. I don’t want to be unkind”
to anyone, but I don’t to be used either.”
1st Timothy chapter 5 verse 3:
“Honor widows that are ACTUALLY widows”. (Some translations read “give to” or “take care of” in place of “honor”)
The rest of the chapter goes right into the ins and outs of when a Christian is obliged to run around after someone else, and when they are not.
I relate to how you are feeling, but I am with Star all the way with her “boundary” comments; it took me a while, too, but I am now comfortable saying “no”. Like anything we do, it becomes easier the more you actively practice it.
LL Are you out there? Matt pretty much summed it up. There is little for you to do at this point. We can warn people about sociopath and Narc’s till the cow’s come home but until they have experienced it first hand, we come off as the crazy one’s. I would ask your son if this guy has (1) given him his phone number (2) address (3) email address, if the answer is no then your son is like Matt says, a layover treat. And this dood prolly has a layover treat at every airport..
Gay culture is all about sex, guy’s dont go steady or get promise rings, specially from an older man. You say your son is smitten, well he’s gonna get his heart broke and THEN you can offer him some advice he will listen too…
And onesteppers please dont use the queer word so freely.
Aussie girl, I’m with you on that one….while the Bible encourages, commands even, us to be compassionate, it does NOT encourage us to ENABLE people who should be taking care of themselves, such as the “younger widows” or widows who have family that should be taking care of them. Paul was an excellent example, as a minister he was ENTITLED to be financially supported, but he worked with his own hands to make his living so that he could be an example to others, and he advised the Christians to work that they could share with those who were in NEED.
When we “enable” others to skip their responsibilities, or when we fall for every “sob story” in the world, we end up doing not only the ones we wish to help but ourselves a disservice.
hens – what’s the problem? ‘And onesteppers please dont use the queer word so freely. ‘
onestep – I find it offensive – and dont refer to myself as queer – i prefer gay or homosexual – prolly has something to do with being called a queer and a fag and a cocksucker when I was young and dealing with the shame of being who I am..but If you are comfortable with that word go ahead and use it….
Hens, it’s actually the word i am most comfortable with to describe myself. i was called ‘dyke’ and spat at, too – but i reclaimed that one, also. i was very political when i was younger, and never had any shame at all about being queer. you and i come from different places and also aren’t we a generation apart? – I understand why you don’t like the word. Personally, i never use the word gay – which i find a rather sanitized word, and THAT offends me. 😉 I am scrappy at heart, and queer covers so much for me – not just orientation, but bridges the stream into gender identity…mine’s always felt a bit fluid to me.
onestep – I am from oklahomophobia – and queer bashing is a sport for rednecks and skinheads…
and yes we come from different places. and different culture’s. Let’s agree to disagree on this..how about that?