By AlohaTraveler
It took me a long time to clearly define that what the Bad Man was doing to me was… bad. Plain and simple, it was bad for me. Never mind if he was working through pain, never mind if he had suffered many losses or had an unfortunate childhood. Never mind. He’s a grown man. He was treating me in a way that I can only define as very bad for me no matter what his issues were. Really, it was unacceptable but at the time, I did not have clear boundaries as to what kind of treatment I would accept for myself before I would draw a line in the sand and say, “No more!”
There were lots of excuses he made up and to be honest, there were lots of excuses I made up to try to explain his erratic behavior and his consistent emotional battering of me. Early on, I told myself, “He lost his ministry. He lost his marriage and his five children. He lost his boat. Who am I to judge him? I don’t know what that would be like.” I thought he was a person in a lot of pain. I had a lot of pain too and so I thought that our meeting was designed by God. I am embarrassed to admit that but I really did think this was some kind of divine meeting. We were the same astrological sign (yes, another excuse!) and we had had our hearts broken and had many losses in the years leading up to our divine meeting. So, I was very gentle with him while he emotionally battered and tortured me. I tried to understand where he was coming from. I looked for the “1 percent truth” in the terrible things he was saying about me because I was so open and willing to work on myself. I accepted that maybe I didn’t really see myself as I was, and so his “coaching,” no matter how cruelly it was administered, I took in.
But this is all beside the point. I wanted to explain why I say “Bad Man.” I am not trying to be cutesy here. I started saying “The Bad Man” before I found LoveFraud. I didn’t know exactly what was wrong with him but more than that, I didn’t want to hear his name pass through my lips ever again. His name was once something that stirred me and I said it lovingly, but I didn’t want to hear it anymore. One of my friends started calling him “Captain Whack-a-doo” and “Emotional Black Hole. ” “Captain” won’t fit for most of you but feel free to use the EBH if you like. Hehe.
Bad Man sticks for me because I don’t know for sure what he is. But I do know for sure that he was so bad to me and bad for me. I like this term now because so many of us want to solve the mystery. We want to know the exact diagnosis, but why? What difference will it make? If your Bad Man was like mine, you were being abused. Who wants to be abused for any reason? Not me. I don’t know for sure if Bad Man qualifies as a sociopath but I know for sure he is pathologically disordered and that’s enough for me. I understand this fully now.
Many LoveFraud readers have struggled with this question. There are also the readers who look for loop holes. What I would encourage you all to do is ask yourself this question, “Is this man/woman good for me?” I think we know the answer to that. Over the years, I have dated men that were not a good match for me. I have dated men that were not that good to me because, well, they just weren’t that into me! (Get the book by the way, it’s a great one.)
But only the Bad Man was truly bad for my spirit and my emotional well being. Whatever his problem is, he clearly was not good for me. When I was with him, I was hurting all the time. Or I was stressing, anxious, angry, emotionally battered, sleepless, etc. I argued with him in my head all the time, because I never won any arguments in person. I was exhausted from constantly defending my choice of words, my past, my present, my future, myself. ALL THE TIME! I was just so tired. That doesn’t sound very good, does it?
If you are struggling to find the right answer, I understand how powerful that drive is but what if you let it go by simply admitting this person was not good for me.
I am pretty satisfied with my diagnosis. The Bad Man was bad for me. I am not a psychiatrist. I will never get to administer the PCL-R (though I would love to hear the results). Even if I don’t know the final answer, I do know that he was not good for me and my life is so much better having let him go and moved on. It can be such a long climb out of that emotional black hole. I learned a lot from hitting that bottom but I never want to go there again.
It’s been over three and half years since I left the Bad Man. I feel peaceful knowing that nothing like that will ever happen to me again. Now, I can spot a disaster like him from a mile away. If I see one coming, I could fight him off with my eyes closed and one hand behind my back. Better yet, I would just turn my back and let him walk on by.
“But this is all beside the point. I wanted to explain why I say “Bad Man.” I am not trying to be cutesy here. I started saying “The Bad Man” before I found LoveFraud.”
Really I think we all go through this stage when we don’t even want to say their name. Just doing so gives us pain and let’s us remember them the way we know them or thought we knew them. My children and I did the same. But out of thoughtfulness for other members here I won’t list those names. But in the end we are back to calling her by her Christian name only.
“We want to know the exact diagnosis, but why? What difference will it make? “
This too I believe is a passing interest and/or need but this too passes away for I now I am now at a place where I really just don’t care anymore what she is or isn’t. The way I see it is that it isn’t really my problem or concern anymore.
“It’s been over three and half years since I left the Bad Man.”
Thanks for your writing and yes sometimes it’s best to say (which my children and I have done many times concerning my ex s/p) that this person just wasn’t good for us and then just leave it at that! Oh By the way, it will be 3 years for my children and I this May 22, 2009! And each of those days I thank God for!!!
Aloha: You speak a powerful message, but . . . What about those of us who were with “the most wonderful man in the world” until he dropped the mask. I’ve been with those users and abusers, and I agree with your point. So many of us are nurturers and we will just keep on trying to nurture the “badness” out of “bad men” or “bad women.”
But then there’s this whole other level of sneaky that can be a different presentation of the same disorder. When the guy’s mask started to slip, the “abuse” was never something that was easy to call him on. Closing the door so he could make a business call didn’t quite qualify. Suddenly revealing that he’d “hired a team of programmers for only $8,000 a month, dear!” was so far away from even left field that it wasn’t even in the same solar system. (He didn’t have a job, played at being part of my business, and was a money-sink, while keeping up the facade of helping me and being tender and caring.)
I’m grateful that I found the books that gave me insight, and I gain a lot from reading and sharing in this community. But this past so-called relationship was unlike anything else I had ever experienced, and I wish I’d had clear-cut indicators of how “bad” he really was. He was in it for the “long con.” And he played me into the ground.
I believe some of us are here obsessing over diagnosis and psychological literature because we’re still trying to figure out how we could have been so fooled for so long.
I’m glad you are out of it, and I’m so glad you are well on your way to living well in this life.
Thank You Aloha Traveler,
I always find myself coming to Love Fraud when I am struggling with thoughts of wanting to contact my “BAD MAN”.
Of course I never right out say “I want to see him”, but for the last 9 months I realize that I have been searching for a excuse to go back to the town I “ESCAPED” from,. So when I found out that a 71 year old friend of mine was having surgery I momentarily felt as if I had the Ultimate excuse. I went on line to search out plane tickets and each time I put PHX into the TO spot, my stomach hurt, my heart started pounding and my mind felt like it was running around in a squirl trap. When it came time to decide if I wanted a rental car, I knew I was in trouble. My first thought was YES…if I had a rental car I could get one of those baseball caps with the fake pony tails so I could drive by “the house” . If I drive by the house I could see the kitty’s I had to leave behind. I would be able to tell if he really does have a new girlfriend and if she is living there. I could stop and see the neighbors and ask them questions. How SICK is that??? I then asked what I would do if he saw me. This is what sickened me the most; my first thought was that I would bow my head, walk up to him, nuzzle up to his chest, hug him and say I am sorry, I love you. I ESCAPED, LEFT EVERYTHING BEHIND AND DROVE 2000 miles so I could breathe with out having to remind myself to breathe. WHY WOULD I DO THAT??????
Therefore I came here…..to remind myself why I SHOULD NOT GO. THANK GOD I DID BECAUSE THIS IS WHAT HELPED ME NOT GO THROUGH WITH IT.
“But only the Bad Man was truly bad for my spirit and my emotional well being. Whatever his problem is, he clearly was not good for me. When I was with him, I was hurting all the time. Or I was stressing, anxious, angry, emotionally battered, sleepless, etc. I argued with him in my head all the time, because I never won any arguments in person. I was exhausted from constantly defending my choice of words, my past, my present, my future, myself. ALL THE TIME! I was just so tired”
How quickly I forgot.
I felt oh so similar to this:
“there were lots of excuses I made up to try to explain his erratic behavior and his consistent emotional battering of me. Early on, I told myself, “He lost his ministry. He lost his marriage and his five children. He lost his boat. Who am I to judge him? I don’t know what that would be like.” I thought he was a person in a lot of pain. I had a lot of pain too and so I thought that our meeting was designed by God. “I am embarrassed to admit that but I really did think this was some kind of divine meeting.”.
I felt “who am I to ABANDON HIM, even though it was he who had abandoned me.
I want to Thank you. I want to Thank everybody who has given me words of hope and encouragement in the past. I truly believe with all my heart that if I would have went back, I might never had made it back here. I would have lost my soul for good. I have no doubt that this site has saved many lives and even more souls.
Thank you for your share….Molly
AlohaTraveler:
You call yours the “Bad Man” I call mine “The Deceased”. I think one of the reasons we need to call them something besides their given names is to depersonalize and dehumanize them.
Doing so makes it easier for us to get angry at what they did and angry at them so we can begin healing.
Also, the tolerating their escalating abuse and rationalizing it away is so true. Thing is, everybody has issues. Everybody has pain. Everybody has a wounded child inside. Point is, we’re all adults and it’s our responsibility to take care of that wounded child, not inflict him on the public.
I think the old legal adage is true: “Your right to swing your fist, ends with the tip of my nose.” We all violated that legal principle by tolerating inexcusable behavior. By finally saying “NO MORE” we reasserted our rights.
Matt: “Depersonalize and dehumanize” is our small way of getting back at them for exactly that — what they did to us.
We cared. They didn’t. This is our way of demonstrating that we cease to care about them, and I think it’s a healthy step.
Aloha: I just haven’t gotten over all the lies, maybe he’s not a P, maybe just a liar, cheat and thief, but you are right, he’s not good for me, none of the men I’ve been with have been good for me, and the common denominator is …. me, the one who can’t draw a boundary… but thanks to articles like this I think I am getting better, I’m going to study them instead of the other way around. I get encouragement from your experience. I’m not going to look for an answer, you’re right there isn’t one. I’m just going to take care of myself. Thank you.
Really good article, and I use the word “dangerous” person myself to describe these bad people. Mine never displayed a few of the characteristic behaviors of a sociopath. For instance, he didn’t do the predatory stare. He also never tried to get any money from me. In fact he never let me touch my wallet. It doesn’t matter whether he is a card-carrying sociopath or not. He is a pathological liar and con artist. To me, that makes him very dangerous to any and all people he comes into contact with.
Dear Aloha Traveler,
Thank you so much for your post. I can relate to everything you stated in your well thought out post. I too had a “bad man” in my life. I did not know or could not see what he the”S” had done to me. I just knew my life with him was full of ups and downs. Mostly downs. I felt crazy at times. He was also an abusive alcoholic. You get sucked into their world. You believe their lies. You are trusting. They know that about you, they use it to their full advantage. Becasue we, as normal people don’t think like they do . We cant even begin to fathom their world. They prey on trusting, unselfish, loyal ,insecure people. My “S” was in my life for 28 years. It may sound crazy but I didnt know I was abused until one day my teenage son came up to me with a paper showing me the cycle of abuse. He said,”Mom, don’t you know that your are abused by Dad!” I was in denial, I guess. Always trying to make peace. I did’nt know how abusive the situation was until I got out of it. And now, it is really hard to think about all the things the “S” had done to me. He had no remorse. In fact he seemed to enjoy it when I was in the most pain, when he had me crying and running after him. He seemed to enjoy torturing me. It wasnt until I stumbled upon this wonderful site that I finally found out what kind to man I had been up against all this time. I thank God for this site. For all who post here. It has helped me heal , and find hope. I have been away from him for 3 years now. But the pain still fills my heart and I sometimes feel I will never,ever heal or be able to trust again. I am getting stronger little by little. Thank God for my children , and this site. I find it hard to post my story,its hard to relive it. I just want to forget. This site helps… Thank you all, and God bless. the one thing I do know is that what doesnt break you makes you stronger…
Please allow me to be indelicate…..today is one of my angry days. When I think of mine, I remember that he is an infantilist and masturbates in wet diapers!
As I write that, I give my head a shake and wonder what the heck I was thinking!
It’s now four months since NC and some days are an emotional roller coaster. I question why I let him abuse me as long as he did. Of course, it’s so insidious in the beginning that it takes a while to catch on. I know that, even six months from now, I will be feeling so much better. Summer is coming and sunshine is healing. It’s been a long, cold winter in Canada. Thanks so much for being here.
Sunshine!
You know. I gave up a long time ago trying to figure out fetishes or kinks…they aren’t supposed to make sense. For the most part I’m a pretty understanding person – but not for someone who treats me like crap. Honestly, if all else was okay, I’d probably let more than a few kinks go by.
Mind you there are kinks that clearly have roots in issues and I suppose depending on how much of an effect it has on the quality of the relationship, those should be dealt with (were the diapers a part of his sexuality or the focus of it?).
Don’t be so hard on yourself.
My N made a remark about himself in Burgundy nails and fishnets one night when we first started dating.
I know that folks often let things out in an atmosphere of humor because it’s safer that way. I didn’t want to assume he was kidding – even though the thought of his skinny legs and flat butt in fishnets was not an appealing thought…I cared about him and wanted him to be happy. I went out the next day and bought him fishnets and nail polish and a card saying, “Just in case you weren’t kidding – and if you were, I can wear them.”
It turned out he had been kidding.
I’d have done just about anything to see it work, and see him happy – the stupid ass!
His boss’ wife – also a co-worker, told him when he told her about the gift, “If you hurt her I’ll kill you”…I’d so love to call her and say, “Permission to kill granted!” If only she knew…she liked me and the way I treated him.
Summer IS coming. What side of the country are you on?