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, I know I’m new but doesn’t that deserve a big
TOWANDA!!!
Ana, thanks, I think you’re right, it DOES deserve a big TOWANDA for me! LOL In the past I might very well have just sucked it up and stayed to finish the meat cutting job because I had said I would do it for them, but you know, I did NOT say “I will cut up your cow and work like a dog for you out of the goodness of my heart while you talk to me like a yard dog.” LOL
I also noted another thing too, when my son and his two friends and I were working 12 hour days (3 days in a row) and were WHIPPED we were LAUGHING OUR HEADS OFF and cracking jokes and throwing pieces of scrap at each other and having a REALLY GOOD TIME while we were working our butts off. But the entire time that we were field dressing the huge cow (on the ground because there was no front end loader on the tractor so we had to do it all standing on our heads and with brute force) then wench the cow up on a trailer to haul her back to the ranch shop to skin her out and cut her up. Again, all done in a humped over position like an Indian squaw working a buffalo kill, then cut her up into pieces that weighed about 150 pounds each for the three of us to carry (like trying to nail jello to a tree) to hang it up in the cooler–the damned cow was so big and so fat and just so HUGE it was a major job but I didn’t so much as get a giggle or a thank you or a kiss my arse the first day when we got her all in the cooler. Had to wait two more days for the meat to get solid enough to cut, (it’s like jello til it gets really cold) so then spent one day from day light til dark doing hard manual labor cutting up and packing meat and still had only about 1/4 of it cut, then the next day when we barely got started was when he threw the darned fit and I picked up my knives and walked off. The thing is that there is not enough money/pay in the world to get me to work this hard and the ONLY way I will help someone butcher their animal is out of my love and caring, and I don’t require much in the way of “thanks”, but I DO expect to be spoken to in at least a respectful manner! It wasn’t like I even volunteered to go down there and do it, they REQUESTED that I do it and I said “okay”—the nicest thing I think though is that I do NOT FEEL THE LEAST BIT GUILTY ABOUT ANY OF IT–I am not the least bit worried about “oh, my goodness how will this effect our relationship? Will we still be friends?”
To quote a well used phrase, “Frankly, Scarlett…….” LOL
Oxy,
It’s just so rude and ungratefull of him, and drunk too? UGH! He’s lucky ya didn’t clean his clock for em lol! Now HE knows about TOWANDA!
Well Ox,
Ya done good.
Welcome back.
Silver and Ana,
Ya know, he was actually sober when he pithed me off but probably a chronic hang over. LOL He had been getting on my nerves ever since I got there, but I just let it slide until he really got pithy and couldn’t let it go any more. LOL Actually I am more amused by it than anything….and sort of proud of myself for not letting the encounter “ruin” my day or week or anything else.
If we allow toxic people (psychopathic or just dysfunctional arseholes) to “ruin” our moods, or our days or our lives then they are still in control. My friends husband is just a typical red neck control creep that was a big construction foreman before he retired and he was used to talking to the workers like dirt (most of whom were undocumented workers WHO COULDN”T TALK BACK) and talking to his wife like a dog and being IN CONTROL as far as he is concerned. The thing is in the NOT so distant past I would have let this whole mess MESS WITH ME….and now I am getting to where I am EXERCISING the power I have taken back (maybe not “taken back,” as that would presuppose I had it before and I didn’t) but I GOT IT NOW!!! Using it feels good.
These freak shows bring a level of deception to the table that any normal person, who doesn’t lie for a living, could possibly grasp… and that is what they count on. If you stay in a continuous state of shell shock in their world, you lose the ability of knowing what should be normal in a relationship. After his “suicide attempt”, even the counselor at the hospital told me she didn’t think he had any real intention of taking his life. I thought she was crazy. I could not grasp that anyone would have the capacity to go to this extreme. It didn’t sink in until I talked to his ex-wife after the relationship ended and he “attempted suicide” with her. She said his move may have been extreme, BUT “he got you to come home.” She was right.
Well OX, there you have it.
My son says I’m a bull in the china shop anymore.
But honestly, I’m tired of going around in other people’s circles too.
Anything that raises at WTF eyebrow gets run down like a dawg.
I’ve had enough!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YrfLnlrquo
Silver,
I’m with you there. I was contrasting the experience my son and his two friends that helped us kill the two beeves we butchered before I left for Texas, we were working like dawgs, heavy work, but we were also enjoying each other’s company, and “many willing hands make light work” and it was nasty work, hard work, and we were rushing because the weather was gonna warm up on us, the first day there were just the 3 of us, then the next day the other guy came so we had 4 people that one day, then the third day, the first guy had to go back to work, but the second guy stayed and we worked all day just cleaning up and washing equipment, and so my son and I had 3 HARD DAYS, and each of our helpers had 2 hard days, but we also enjoyed each other’s company and in the evenings even though we were BUSHED we played board games and laughed and joked—but the entire atmosphere at my friend’s home and at her ranch was like walking on egg shells, grouse and gripe, and for gosh shakes, don’t complain about being treated rudely by jack ass.
They have the most aggressive, obnoxious Jack Russell terrier ever known to mortal man, the dog doesn’t like the wife and doesn’t like anyone else beside “daddy” and will growl and bite anyone else if you pith the dog off by being where the dog wants to be, like the only place in the house to sit was one end of the couch and the dog didn’t want me there so he would get up on the other end of the couch and stalk me and growl and the jack ass would not say a word to the damn dog.
Then when he did say something to the dog he didn’t follow up and the dog ignored him, but it was just the jack ass’s way of showing me that even his damn dog could “boss me around” and get by with it. LOL
I had to laugh though, he pithed the dog off and the dog snapped and growled at HIM! LOL I wish the dog had bitten him! LOL I think part of it is that first of all the jack ass has decided he wants to show me who is boss, can’t have someone else know something more about any subject than HE DOES—and he knows I am a dog trainer and my dogs are OBEDIENT, polite to strangers, and well behaved, whereas his dog is obnoxious and ill behaved. In fact, the last two dogs before this one were larger dogs and were so ill behaved that both of them were dangerous and had to be put down for uncontrolled aggression that I attribute ENTIRELY to the owner’s lack of knowledge or skill in training a dog. This dog is not large enough to be a serious danger to anyone but a small child, but if he were mine and I couldn’t “reform” his attitude, he would go to that great dog house in the sky.
I think the dog is only one of many SYMPTOMs of the problems in the marriage (passive-aggressive and aggressive-aggressive emotional abuse and chronic alcoholism on his part and plenty of dysfunction on hers, and the depression is making it worse) I love her very much, but I can’t help her, she is not interested in help. She is really trying VERY hard to maintain the status quo in the marriage which is getting much more difficult to do as he continues to escalate in his verbal abuse, and probably increased drinking since he retired a year or so ago.
I’m not sure what “corner” I have turned in the healing and self-improvement process or growth, but I have no doubt that a year or so ago I would have been TOTALLY CRUSHED with the way this visit played out, but now I’m pretty much ACCEPTING of the fact that there “ain’t nada I can do” about their deteriorating marriage or her depression, and that being the case, “ain’t nuttin’ I can do” except ACCEPT the situation as it is and go on with my life, rather than grieve over what I can’t do nada about!
Oxy,
I’m so proud of you. You saw through the bs. You maintained your integrity. You said WTF? and you rolled out of there.
You said he is not a spath. Maybe he’s just a narcissist. whatever. he is still an anti-social if he causes more detriment than good to society. At least you showed him that he is not as powerful as he thinks he is. Don’t blame it on the hangover, some people just have bad character flaws.
backonmyfeet,
you said it. “These freak shows bring a level of deception to the table that any normal person, who doesn’t lie for a living, could possibly grasp”.
They KNOW THIS AND COUNT ON IT. the mofo’s KNOW we can’t conceive of that level of deception. But you know what? We can do them better and more. The only thing stopping us is compassion and empathy, but once we know what they are… watch out, because we have more imagination than they are capable of. The only thing we lack is enjoying the con.
Silvermoon,
I love that term: a WTF eyebrow. I’m not sure, but I think I coined the term WTF? moment to explain… well you know…the inexplicable! but you just improved on the term: WTF eyebrow! EXCELLENT! Lets add that to the vernacular! LOL! not kidding.
Ox,
I have a question or two for you. Might be dumb questions, but I just GOTTA ask…have you talked to her in the past about jack ass?
Secondly, if she really WANTED to turn her life around and get away from jack ass, what would your response be to that?
This is kinda good stuff for me to know insofar as boundaries go. When is it cool to let go and when is it NOT cool when you need to help a friend who wants it? Do you know what I mean???
I understand where you’re at, or at least can visualize it to some extent with regards to ain’t nuttin you can do about it…which is, in fact, the truth of the matter…….I’m also curious as to how long you were there and how you handled all that was going on around you while it was going on?
LL