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.
Just going to step in here and share my two cents. I think someone is or is not a psychopath. I do not believe there is a blend between normal and psychopath. You are or you are not. I think that professionals may talk about degrees of psychopathy within the scale itself but that again is a blurry area. That said, yes there are plenty of assholes who are not psychopaths to go around as well. Just because someone is a dick does not a psychopath make- but when you get into their entire personality- then you see the psychopathy. Their modus operandi, their motivations, their behavior in general. I too can make a distinction from your garden variety asshole and psychopath.. i think most can if they’ve enough experience with psychopaths in their lives. Even those two can’t really be compared surprisingly enough
I still find it hard to label ex a psychopath, mainly because he does feel intense emotions, even if he still doesn’t feel genuine remorse over his behavior to me and the kids. Oh, he says sorry and cries his eyes out but his opinions still show blatant disrespect, like making fun of our need for space. Which is the second reason why I don’t think he is a spath – don’t they just move on? He is just incapable of letting us go.
Anyway, I meant to ask Ox something, from her first post. With the example of the smoker – if you had to tell her after her first violation, and she doesn’t smoke again but shows her displeasure and makes you feel guilty, etc., then do you cut her off? She may then say, “Well, I DID stop after you asked me to.” In other words, you are supposed to give her other chances and not count the nuances. Isn’t that an example of disrespect and covert aggression?
Also, on conscience – it’s really hard to tell if someone has one, esp if you just had to take their word on it, and esp if they insist they on honesty in their relationships. Ex never cheated on taxes and was proud of it. Maybe he is an N. And if he isn’t a spath, i don’t know why it is so hard for him to change when he professes to be trying so hard – he says that’s all he wants to do – to prove that he can change.
Great article Donna as usual. I understand why the reporter doesnt want to hear your answer. Most people have no understanding about sociopaths/psychopaths behaviour, unless they have been involved.
I had to learn to trust myself again as after 10 years of not listening to my intuition, I had to forgive myself. Listen to your head and your heart will follow. Remember that these people mess with your head so it is not entirely your fault. Does that make sense?
They walk away leaving you devastated. So, will I be careful in the future. I think I will be no different because I am who I am, however I will be cautious. I dont want to be like that. I trust most people. So is their an answer to this question? If someone tells you they dont like your sociopath/psychopath partner, then maybe that is the time to wrap the relationship up.
I was told, and I didnt listen.
LL, most psychopaths wouldn’t get much thrill out of killing someone – too messy and more likely to get them into trouble. They would much rather psychologically torture another, especially if they want to win a fight, as in an ex wanting to expose or leave them. They know it is harder to detect but inflicts more damage. So I don’t think that physical harm indicates the degree of danger you are facing in a spath.
Sorry gang – someone hacked the Lovefraud Blog. We’re still working on repairs.
Dear Not-too-late,
ABSOLUTELY RIGHT ON! You’ve got it! Acting like you have no right to a boundary in your own home is showing disrespect, even if they don’t “smoke.”
I have had two “friends” who did that (not with smoking but with other stuff just about as bad) and IGNORING my boundaries completely. Acting like I had no right to any consideration in my own home and that I was being an unreasonable bitch to ask for any consideration. Those people are no longer my “friends” and have been booted out of my life without any loss to me.
It was very painful at first to learn to set boundaries or to realize that I had a RIGHT to do so, and that their behavior was ABUSE. I had grown up being taught that my feelings did not matter and that it was MY JOB to make sure no one else’s feelings got hurt, NOT MATTER WHAT THEY DID. Well, that is NOT the way it should be. I do have feelings, my feelings DO matter, and I have A RIGHT to set the rules in my own home.
I also agree with you that many psychopaths do EMOTIONAL harm, financial harm etc. much more frequently than they do murder, but sometimes the physical murder would be more “humane” than what they actually do….murder a person’s SOUL!
Oxy,
I have something to admit here. I feel safe enough to do it too.
I have MAJOR boundary issues with others, but NOT just them, ME TOO!!
One of the things that I have identified in my OWN violation of others boundaries is the fear of disbelief when sharing a truth with someone, such as what I did when I contacted exPOS love bomb to find out the truth about the situation. It’s EMBARRASSING!!
I’ll type more of this out later, but I sure do understand about that now.
LL
This is troubling me … This week I had my first-ever internet date (I left my xh 2 years ago). The guy was attractive and perfectly nice, but I left with the feeling “he’s not for me”. No huge red flegs, just corny jokes I didn’t think were funny, and a bit of egotistism trying to show me how wonderful he is. Should I write him off, or give him another chance (maybe he was nervous). ??? Which part of your gut do you trust?
free,
so you think he was phony?
Tough to find people who aren’t phony or preoccupied with material things, these days.
Ask the tough questions, about values and goals, but don’t reveal your own until you feel safer.
Did he have glib and superficial charm?
🙂
Freeatlast,
Internet dating is in my opinion fishing in a sewer, you are more likely to catch turds—people that you meet on the net can “be” anyone they pretend to be and many surveys have shown that a high percentage of people on dating sites are married, or players.
I suggest that you find some way to meet guys besides on the net, not a guarentee you won’t meet a P but at least you will know him “in context” rather than just what he presents to you out of his context of friends and family, community and job etc. Just MHO.