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.
I’ve found that P’s will use one another and certainly band together to con. Like my PX’s would use other P’s to have sex, party and obsess over them.
Thank you Donna, your words feel like preparation for a journey I did not seek, yet must now get through. I am just starting to feel the effects of the flames. Not sure yet if I more more afraid of the fire than I am of the fire-starter(s)…
Dear Kathy,
(((((hugs)))) thank you for such wonderful validation, coming from you makes it especially meaningful!!!!
I hope that something good will come out of this for my friend, we have “been there” for each other through some thick and thin times, and it truly saddens me to see her in such pain and so beaten down, but I know there is nothing I can do about it other than what I did and that was to not allow myself to be treated disrespectfully either by her husband or by her depressed and cranky self.
Even while he is a complete jack ass, I don’t think he is a psychopath and isn’t without the ability to bond or to meet responsibilities or to see most of the responsibilities he has, just that treating her well isn’t on his list of things that are important right now and maybe won’t ever be. I doubt that they will ever get a divorce; the way they are living, him primarily at their cabin and her primarily at their in-town house, is what I call a “non-marriage” but the paperwork is legally binding, if that makes any sense. Or maybe it is a “non-divorce”—but what they have is NOT a marriage and NOT a divorce, it is a hell-on-earth in my opinion.
I would like to think that I could motivate my friend to start to get healthy in the way she is living, so that she will not be in pain, or stuck in denial, but right now I don’t have a lot of confidence that will happen. If it does, I will be very glad and I will be here if she reaches out to me for comfort or support but until SHE sees a need to change the way she is living, me seeing the problems won’t do her any good.
Donna, I agree with you on the “deep knowledge” part about trusting ourselves. I think many of us have had the “intellectual ideas of trust” but not the deeper concepts of it. Your article resonated with me so much because for quite some time I have felt that the thing I lost most was trusting myself to keep myself safe. I let myself down repeatedly in that department, but I am starting now to realize that I CAN trust myself, validate myself, believe in myself, and that is the most wonderful thing I have done for me!
Kathy,
What a powerful, though provoking post.
I’m in the early stages of recovery. I don’t want to go into each and every detail, although I’ve posted about it ALOT here, which HAS helped me to consider healing at all, when what I feel like doing right now, is dying…….
I’m so tired from the spath, from the whirling in my brain, that I just want to sleep. I don’t think I’ve slept well the last ten YEARS………my anxiety levels were at an all time high CONSTANTLY…and while I still grapple with the sexual component of the relationshit, the early stages of obsessing, playing each scene over and over, there is STILL a fighting spirit inside. Some of my behavioral coping mechanisms right now are UNACCEPTABLE, even to me, but I DO know that and they will be shared in the privacy of my therapist and myself. There are just some things I’m NOT ready to share……….and that’s a first for me….
Kathy, I think you nailed something that has actually HAMPERED my growth in the past, my healing, while not being able to label it, ….telling the truth. All of it. THere were times, during my relationshit with spath that I DESPERATELY wanted to tell the whole truth………about him, about us, about me……….but I didn’t feel safe, no matter where I turned……..
When I found out my son was a juvenile sex offender as well as being gay ON THE SAME DAY (I already knew about the gay part, or suspected, loved him anyway!), and still involved with Spath, my world fell apart. I knew spathy was abusive, but not to the degree that I thought I should protect myself……he knew ALL of what was going on………..the pain, the hurt, all of the trauma………ALL of it…….I decided that my secrets would become MORE secretive. I don’t know how I lived through all of that…while also being a foster parent to two other children whose mother was a drug addict……..more secrets, more lies………I learned how to lie MORE, not tell the truth, Kathy…and those lies, nearly ate me alive………..when I found out my son had three other victims, one of them another of my son’s, I was traumatized beyond belief. We lived in a fish bowl for nine months prior to his disclosure about his brother…I had to take my sex offending son EVERYWHERE with me, even to the grocery store down the street and all my doctor’s appointments……..to his appointments with his therapist (who was SUPERB), even before he was court mandated to do it…
but when he disclosed about his brother, I had to have him removed from my home. Other than the loss of spathy, this was THE Single most excrutiatingly painful time of my life. When I saw my son shackled in a court room, I stayed strong through the hearing, but fell completely apart outside of the courtroom, in the hall sobbing……….going to his room at night, trying to smell my son on his blankets……….sobbing……….night after night after night…….and guess what? I was absolutely APPALLED to hear that there was NO SUPPORT AT ALL for parents going through this. NONE. ZIP. NO BUENO. So there was spath. Great. He carries that trauma of mine with him, to exploit to the world and he did……….to his benefit to keep his job….and throughout all of this, because my son was in custody and in prison, because my other son was a victim, visits were paid upon my home constantly…..I was paranoid about losing my children……and I lied like a dog to keep them………to not let them go…..they were already SO hurt and traumatized……I didn’t know any of this at the time, my reactions…I was just reacting and trying to protect my children from more pain. Through it all, we remained close. Emotionally. We clung onto one another TIGHT through a horrible trauma…..when we knew that the odds were against us publicly, when we were exposed to our neighbors and friends because of my son’s actions….when one of the victims sons, went to my daughter’s work and taunted her about her brother, the day this was all revealed and she had not a CLUE as to what had happened………
Even when we dared to step outside our house on a hot summer’s night to enjoy even a small breeze, while one of the victim’s father, walked down the street…..stalking all of us……
I learned to keep secrets. To not tell the truth. To not share how I was coping. Alcohol to anesthetize, spathy for support. Yea…..it was great………but I KNEW, INSTINCTIVELY, NOT TO TELL……..because the world, all around, was not safe……at all…..and the last thing I could bear to lose would be my children…who also clung to me for dear life. What an incredible time….
So right now, my coping mechanisms are those of which I choose NOT to be open about right now. This is MY process and I will do it this time MY way and be as honest as I need to be without fear and with absolute trust in those that ARE TRUSTWORTHY….
I will NEVER heal without the ability to be honest with a trustworthy professional or with very close friends…….
BTW, despite all of that crap with my son, I had some very VERy supportive good friends who were there to hold me up when I could NOT get out of bed………….I pride myself on doing so.
NOw I’m just on this site, it seems, twenty four seven…….grieving……..deeply grieving…..but it isn’t just for my spath…….it’s for the years that I thought I was sharing with him filled with trauma. For the evil human being that he is, when I trusted him with my soul and that of my family during a time of absolute trauma and pain………
Can you see why I might have a problem telling the “truth”?
Not anymore. But few will know it and for the rest, I don’t know how to handle my state of being yet, without revealing all………and I just don’t want too right now. All I know is that healing is possible and will happen………
But NOT without the truth. And learning to discern those that are safe to tell it too so I can grow, so I can heal…………
LL
LL,
I don’t watch Oprah, but I heard about her finding out about a long lost half-sister. While reading that I learned that another sister, who is now deceased, went to the tabloids about Oprah’s secret: she had a baby at age 14. Oprah was mortified with shame. But now she realizes that her sister’s selfish revelation actually freed her from shame. She came clean from the secret and doesn’t fear anymore.
I can so relate to that. I have no evidence but I know that my exP filmed our orgy sexcapades. He has that as a final straw in his plan to make me commit suicide. To reveal those tapes. Well you know what? LOL. I TELL EVERYONE. YEP. I HAD SEX WITH LOTS OF GUYS BECAUSE HE ASKED ME TO. HAHAHAHAHA! now TRY to use that against me. I outed myself first! ha!
and I tell everyone what I just told you: that I know he has tapes and why he made them. And I tell them how he conned me into that behavior by CRYING that it was the only way I could prove I loved him. Because he was certain that his small dick was the reason I kept leaving him. (it wasn’t, the reason was because he was such a jerk – duh)
I know he has tapes because he bought a video cam and editing deck, right before the first sexcapade and then he told me it was stolen. Well, when I realized that he is a people of the lie who can’t move his lips without lying, the recollection FLASHED through my head and I KNEW. There is a tape somewhere.
Either way, I will not be ashamed for doing what I did out of love and compassion and pity for him. HEshould be ashamed.
Your son’s secrets are his to deal with, and your secrets are your decisions. The only thing I’m saying is that Oprah and I feel much better being outed than keeping secrets.
Dear LL,
You are right, there is NO support system in our society for the parents of the adult children perceived of as “monsters”—I know that I locked myself in my house for 3 months, and didn’t sleep for days, cried continually, and actually my depression and agony was so deep I should have been hospitalized, but the thought never even crossed my mind to handle it any way except to keep the SECRET that my son was a murderer.
It didn’t help any that the detective in charge of the case called me and blamed me for what my son had done. I think my P son had really pushed the cop’s buttons. The parents of the “victims” get the casserole dishes and the empathy and sympathy, but the parents of the abuser/criminal/monster get nothing but hate and condemnation. I actually wanted to trade places with the victim’s parents, it would have been easier if my son was the victim not the killer. I could have had some closure, but as it was I didn’t have for many years. It was so difficult to let go of the fantasy relationship I wanted with my son.
I’m glad that your abuser son’s therapy has helped him to heal, and that he didn’t end up spending the rest of his life in prison. I hope that the victim son is also healing as well. It is difficult when you must make a choice between your children and remove one child in order to protect the other. In my P-son’s case, prison for the rest of his life is the appropriate thing, but I am not sure he will be kept there too many more years. The impact on my life and the lives of my other sons will be quite larger if and when he is released.
At this point all I can do is to leave it in God’s hands and keep praying.
I saw Dr. Phil email in my email box about the episode of “When Good People do bad Things”. It showed the “join discussion” to discuss an episode where random people were approached and asked to hold someone captive or use that tazor gun on someone. Most people did as they were told.
These people went along with it because they were caught-off-guard. And, told to do it … RIGHT NOW! No time to think about it, do it cause your being told.
Gosh, this is not just about trusting in yourself, and believing in yourself…it is about being educated and training yourself to recognise the bad people who try to put you in bad situations.
This is what we are all trying to do by participating in this website.
I posted about my ex-husband. He wanted me to hold baby in my lap in car. He wouldn’t let me put baby in car seat. He would breathe down my neck bitching at me if I tried to ignore him. He wouldn’t stop! He was so aggressive about it, threats under his breath, and I was intimidated that I put baby on my lap during the car rides. The What IF … still haunts me. The What If we got in accident, and the anger that I would be charged and not him.
Baby is now 27. She hates my guts cause I didn’t do enough for her with the student loan discharge, or didn’t do it fast enough.
She posted on facebook that “someone needs a foot up their ass”.
My sister saw this post and told me about it.
OMG, Jeannie,
how do you deal with that? Read Kathy’s post, it is about being healthy even if no one else is.
so sorry, that you went thru that crap. (hugs)
The truth will set you free. don’t let anyone scare you.
My exP’s mom didn’t tell her 6 sons the truth that their father was abusing her and cheated on her. I partially blame that lie for my spath’s PD. Lie’s never solve the problem, only truth does. be brave and tell the truth to your daughter. Make her understand.
Oxy,
This is where you and I will connect on a VERY unfortunate level in which I PRAY TO GOD no one else has too…………
You’re right, Oxy. I’m lucky, my SON is lucky that he wasn’t diagnosed with MAJOR personality disorders when they did the full psych eval, BUT, I can tell you, that even though he has completed treatment successfully, is FULLY aware of his “triggers”, helps other young men in the rehab house he was in, is a “mentor” now for them in order to pay back for what he has done……NOT ONE DAY GOES BY THAT I DON”T WORRY THAT HE WILL DO IT AGAIN!!! NOT ONE!!! I’m hypervigilant of his behaviors and anxiety disorder. HYPERVIGILANT! There is not ONE day that goes by that I’ve not THOUGHT about what he’s done and wondered……………are there other victims out there that I don’t know about that he didn’t DISCLOSE?
I got lucky with his PO too. Incredibly sensitive, but SMART man who saw THROUGH the shit and was able to tell me STRAIGHT up what he was seeing. When I gave my son up to the courts, to residential treatment and he FAILED MISERABLY because he struck up another relationSHIT with another young man..I KNEW IT! In family therapy he was EVASIVE, in DENIAL and I saw it, nevermind that I was in denial too to some extent with my alcohol use to cope and still MIRED IN THE SHIT OF EXPOS, I called him on it. ON THE CARPET AND HE STILL DENIED IT……so it was time for his mandatory lie detector…I KNEW he would fail. Know how I knew? BY THE SHOES HE WAS WEARING!! Strung out NASTY shoes he wore when I took him to court………..he was a little BASTARD the entire way there……and I said to him “Is there something you need to tell me?” …..agitated and irritated he said, sarcastically, “Of COURSE NOT MOM, WHY WOULD YOU THINK THAT?” Well, I knew because of his shoes……….
Sure enough……….after TWO HOURS I knew he had failed and sure enough his PO came out, frustrated and told me, “come back, we have to talk”………So he takes me to the back room, “He failed it and he’s in a holding cell, do you want to see him one last time?” I said no. He was in tears. I burst into tears….
Oxy, I can’t convey the pain. On top of Spathy’s abuse at the time, distance and total lack of support………when I needed it the most……..
I left totally numb.
Completely numb.
I prayed to GOD there were no new “victims”, but when I found out, initially, that one of them was one of my son’s………I’ve still not dealt with it.
My son has worked hard at treatment. IT’s an absolute humiliation and bitch to have to show your ID (no big deal) but to go through security and have your BRA checked because you wear a wired one LOL……………
It’s not funny……….but….there has to be some humor somewhere……
”
The emptiness, the pain…..loving BOTH my sons, one the perpetrator and one the victim, always a choice……..I made so many errors in judgment on behalf of my offending son, over my victim son……….and I know why now, because I could not accept that my son had done this….that he did it to not only his brother, but to others……I had my victim son go to a friends house for weekends at times, so that offending son could come home and visit because I was told by his treatment team that family support was CRITICAL to his healing……..his work towards it………so I let victim son go ………..victim son was in therapy.and the therapist was blown away by my son’s insight into what happened and knowledge.
Recently, in October, I think….we found out that they could see one another again. When they saw one another, they didn’t let go of each other…………the first time in four years…….mixed emotions for me, but it was shut down time again………
Who in God’s NAME would want me after this history, Oxy?
The truth is: No one. I’m surprised I walked out of this with as many friends as I did given what happened. Their love, support and PROTECTION meant the world to me………..
It’s not fun having him out in the real world, Oxy. I don’t trust him. He violated a major code.
I never healed from it. Never dealt with it and to be completely honest, I’ve not dealt with a lot of trauma that has posed the last several years. Just staying numb or reacting….this is part of the reason that exPOS and our relationSHIT ending is also so incredibly painful…he saw it all. HE was physically present when no one else would speak to me. How do you get OVER that? It makes the betrayal so much worse and so much more painful…because in many ways he WAS there for me when everyone else ditched me…….
This is astronomically painful on so many levels, I can’t explain.
Oxy,…………..I NEVER dealt with the traumas. Not one. NOt a single one. It’s been perpetual suspended animation………..
I have no idea how to deal with it. None of it. It hurts SO BAD that spathy betrayed me………..because he carries these secrets with him and exploited all of them……..and I just feel like dying……I”m reaching out for help……but the magnitude is overwhelming……..
LL
Dear Jeannie,
I’m sorry that your daughter is so disrespectful toward you, it hurts, I know as Ii have a P-son and one that is just an arse-hole, and it hurts deeply. Your daughter seems like she feels ENTITLED to have you pay her way, which of course is not the case.
We all want to do what we can to help our children in life, and to help them get an education, but after they are 18 there is no more LEGAL OBLIGATION or as far as I am concerned moral obligation either, anything we do is done out of LOVE not obligation. We want to do things for our kids because we love them, but adult children should be expected to be on their own and not DEMAND that we continue to support them in the style they would like to become accustomed to.
I paid my own college both times I went, the first time at age 17 and the second time at age 30, and my son C paid for his own college as well, though he did live at home, and paid a share of his earnings at a part time job into the household expenses. I never bought him a vehicle and he paid his own insurance because I thought it built character for working at least part time as well as scholarships and grants. He eventually graduated college and has worked ever since. He doesn’t spend his money wisely, but his work ethic is good and he is an excellent employee so I did something right I guess, about that at least. LOL
Son C doesn’t show me respect and frankly hasn’t since he got out on his own after completing college—but I’m done helping him financially Even though he has always paid me back for everything I have loaned him. There is no need for him to get into a financial bind if he would spend his money wisely, so me bailing him out when the problems come up (they always do) isn’t helping him and the lack of respect he has shown to me for years without any appreciable or long lasting change in behavior is more than I am willing to deal with, so except for business we have to conduct regarding his brother who is in prison for murder, and protesting the parole for his brother, there isn’t any need for him to be in my life.
In the past he has “apologized” to me, but then eventually he repeats the disrespectful behavior and/or lies to me again, and I’m done with it. I don’t hate him, he isn’t a psychopath, just a gullible person and dysfunctional but I can’t fix him and I don’t need dysfunctional people in my life, even if I did give birth to him. He is an adult and his life is his own. I’m sad this has come to this point, but he’s out of my life.
He sent me one of those “sentimental” e mail forwards today, which he hasn’t done in the few e mails we have exchanged in the last year (I haven’t seen him in over a year) so I think he is trying to get back into my “good graces” but nothing has changed as far as I am concerned and I have no confidence in any “apologies” and I am not going to pretend that none of it has happened either. I can no longer TRUST him to be honest and I don’t need relationships with dishonest people I cannot trust. It isn’t the way I wish it was, but it is the way it IS.
Jeannie, I know it hurts, but accepting what IS and processing the grief over what is NOT will eventually lead to peace in your heart. (((Hugs)))) and my prayers for God to comfort you.