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74 Responses to “Overwhelming Response to Threads on Relationship Losers”
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11
Dear Sally,
I’d recommend reading my article on Love and Stockholm Syndrome available on this website. That’s not an unbilical cord – it’s a ball and chain! He’s currently keeping you on “back burner” while he victimizes his current target. Once she’s depleted emotionally and financially, he’ll return to you until he finds another target, then you’re alone once more.Losers can’t be “cured” in the clinical sense. They think and operate totally differently than healthy adults. They are social predators who lie, manipulate, use and abuse those around them – all the while blaming the victim for their behavior.
You might inform the current victim but it probably won’t help. She’s being told that you – the “ex” – mistreated him while he did everything possible to make you happy. She’s also being told that you would do anything to break them up – because you’re so jealous – so your email might fall on deaf ears. While she’s being provide one group of lies, you’re likely getting the other – he misses you, realizes he’s made a mistake, feels trapped with his current partner (victim), etc. The current victim is on front burner, you’re on the back of the stove.
I’d recommend counseling to assist you in sorting out the situation. It’s helpful to print the Loser article and take it to the counselor with something like “This is what I’m dealing with”.
We receive information from folks in two ways – what they say and what they do. If both match – we’ve likely got an honest and responsible person. In Losers, they have no problem saying anything to anybody but their behavior is how they truely are. His behavior tells you he is maintaining a sweet-talking sidebar relationship with you, being totally disloyal to his current victim, and planning romance with you while with her. It doesn’t get plainer than that. He’s probably done the same to you in the past.
An unbilical cord provides nourishment and life-sustaining support. You clearly don’t have an unbilical cord. Your connection is a ball and chain in you’re trying to tread water in the emotional ocean. You need to protect yourself and consider this experience a valuable lesson in life. Dr. Carver
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Mack12
Hi Dr. Carter. I guess I come back here every so often to remind myself of what I escaped from. So I was just reading your response to Sally, and I’m not entirely sure the prison metaphor works.
Occasionally, like today, I find myself wanting to just be myself — open, sensitive, and genuine. I’d like to be able to make brief, casual contact with my ex and just say “hi” and “what’s going on” or “congrats,” but I really can’t do that because he’s such a crook and I know he’s a mess; I’ve seen it before, I know he’s toxic to me, and I can’t afford the collateral. So I haven’t initiated contact & I haven’t done any of the kinds of decent, friendly things that are native to me.
So who’s behind bars? Not him: he’s still out there roaming free, being false to *other* people. Aren’t I the one who’s constrained really? That sucks!
Help me out here, please.
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Mack13
Dr. Carver, I don’t mean to imply that I’m only “free” if he and I are on good terms, since I have a great time hanging out with real people, and my life has certainly not fallen apart since I broke off our relationship. In fact I’d say that I’m feeling more human now than I was at the end of the whole debacle. It’s just that he’s the only blemish on my friendship record and that does bother me. I’d like to be decent, even to my “enemies.” And I can’t say I’ve had enemies before so I barely know what to do with them.
I just noticed I mistyped your name in that last post. Sorry. :-)
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14
Dear Mack,
You are completely free now. But free, decent, nice, kind, and friendly people protect themselves. Protecting ourselves from toxic, criminal, abusive, con-artist, and manipulative people doesn’t put us in prison, it protects us so we can continue to be kind, loving, and friendly to others. You protect yourself in a variety of ways…you haven’t responded to the Nigerian Email Scam – yet you’re still free.Psychologists often focus on the “normal curve” – a statistical concept that describes almost every situation – most experiences being in the “normal range” and about 3% rare experiences in the top and bottom. Everyone’s had their BEST meal and WORST meal, that sort of thing. Best car, worst car etc. As your life and love continues, you’ll be adding friendships and people to this scale. Mr. Toxicity/Loser will probably be your bottom 3% – hopefully you won’t have any more of those. We all have folks in or approaching the bottom end of the scale as well as people we feel honored to know and love. These bottom folks are not “enemies” sometimes, just folks who are toxic to our healthy personality that we stay away from. People stay emotionally healthy by being self-protective and staying away from these toxic individuals when they are identified. That doesn’t put us in a jail, it just keeps us on the right path in life. People who are emotionally healthy are highly self-protective – they don’t have toxic friends, they avoid bad influences, avoid behaviors that create difficulties, etc.
Stay on your path. Don’t look back. You are feeling more human and your life hasn’t fallen apart. Above all, when your self-confidence returns to full strength, don’t test it by contacting Mr. Toxicity. An abusers style is designed to destroy that self-confidence and despite your decent intentions, Mr. Toxicity has no decent intentions and will draw you back to the same hell you have just survived. Dr. Carver
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Mack15
Thank you. I needed to hear that.
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16
Dear Mack,
Glad to be of help….
Dr. Carver
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Sally17
Your comments have made me turn an enormous corner of feeling strong. Somehow, hearing it from a professional who specializes in this area, someone who doesn’t even know me plus reading other peoples accounts of Controllers has really brought it home to me how serious all this is and how very important it is for no contact at all. The Emotional Memory link and Stockholm Syndrome were essential reading. Friends have been helpful but in the back of my mind I always thought that maybe they were only supporting me because of my friendship with them. If they were friends of the controller, I thought that maybe they would be supporting him and calling me bad and that it was my fault. These conflicting thoughts made me question myself even though I had ‘evidence’ of experiencing 18 out of the 20 points you made in the ‘Warning Signs You’re Dating A Controller’. I expect further contact from the Controller which I intend to totally ignore….. forever. This will be the hardest challenge that I think I have ever set myself. I didn’t realise that it can take so long time to heal. I left him 13 months ago and I’m still not quite there, although I am on the homeward stretch. This bit of the road feels a lot calmer and maybe easier in a way now because I have had such huge support and the final shove by Dr Carver. Thank you so very much.
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18
[This reply is for a previous commenter, whose comment was later removed at their request - Editor] You are not alone in this situation. Like most healthy spouses, you have shielded the children from his behavior as much as possible and this is appropriate as they have no way of understanding his behavior. You have also experienced the multitude of manipulations we often find when trying to separate from a controller and abuser. You’ll hear “I love you and the children sooo much” – at the same time they are busy withdrawing/blocking all money and try to cut off the utilities to the home. It sounds like you are handling this as well as you can.
Informing the children involves several steps. 1) Try to be honest, within the range the children can understand. Let them know that he was mean to you, hit you, or treated you badly. 2) Assure them that the situation has nothing to do with them. 3) Let them know that he is still angry at you which is why he does and says angry things sometimes. 4) Allow them to ask questions.
In a separation/divorce, kids lose their security foundation and develop very basic fears. These fears are issues we already know as adults and don’t think much about. While it seems simple to us, it’s basic to children. For example 1) tell them you will still be their parent and they’ll always have a place to live, 2) tell them the family will still have money/food/car, 3) let them know that they will be allowed to see their father, 4) tell them they will stay togethers as siblings, 5) let them know they will still see all the grandparents, relatives, etc. 5) remind them that their behavior didn’t make Dad angry or create the separation, 6) assure them that school will be the same (if that’s true), 7) assure them they will not be left alone, and 8) assure them that they will remain with you although Dad will see them.
As you’ve noticed, he will use the children against you. Abusers often use the pretense of calling the children, talking for 2 minutes, then “Let me speak to your mother”, at which time they use the opportunity to verbally assault you. When the assault begins, end it with “This isn’t about the children” and stop the conversation.
The Internet is full of hints and guidelines for this difficult passage. Right now, you’re on the right path. Dr. Carver
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Pat19
Hello Dr Carver,
I read your article for the first time yesterday and it has been an enormous help and comfort to me. I was with a man for three years who drank heavily and constantly critisise. We would have huge arguments, usually after drinking a lot, and I would always be left feeling guilty, confused and humiliated afterwards. He was also very jealous and would never believe me if I denied flirting with other men. I managed to eventually leave the relationship for good after leaving and going back to him countless times. He always went back to his old ways even though he promised me the world if I went back to him. He never said “I love you” or made any mention of committing to me in any way, nevermind marriage. It was only when I accepted that he never loved me and never would that I finally put a stop to the relationship for good.
I went for counselling to try to get my head together and it helped a lot. My cousellor said that I showed a lot of signs of having a co-dependent character so I read a lot of books on that subject and I learnt a lot from it.
It’s been three years since that ended and I finally started feeling like I was ready for a new relationship. Then someone came into my life like a whirlwind. I was so happy to finally meet someone who seemed to share all my interests, who seemed to be so caring and kind to all his friends and family, didn’t drink too much, who seemed to totally adore me, who wanted to be with me all the time, who showered me with compliments and told me “I love you” after only a few days, and most of all, was already talking about marriage and children. I was totally swept away!
However, I started to have little niggling doubts occasionally by things he said and did. Once he’d said “I love you”, he started demanding that I say the same to him. Just the fact that he was so desperate to marry me and have my babies should have been warning bells enough but that’s what I desperately want too. He proposed to me within two weeks and I was so swept away by it all, I accepted. He had introduced me to all his family and children by a previous partner within two weeks of meeting him.
Now I look at it with a bit of perspective, I realise that The Loser was being controlling in lots of other ways. He wanted me to change my hair for him, kept saying that I should always support him even if I thought he was wrong, he kept saying things like “you never call me”, “you never drive” or ” you didn’t think of buying me some cigarettes while you were away”, also “now you’ve met my family, you have to stay with me forever” and things like that which made me feel guilty and obliged to do things for him. He kept insisting that I eat even if I wasn’t hungry as well which was weird but then would say really nasty things about other women if they were overweight. He didn’t like any of my friends and saying they were ugly and took no interest in my family at all, even though they had been very friendly and welcoming. He also seemed to like play-fighting with me and biting me so I bruised. He wouldn’t stop doing that either, even when I asked him to stop. Sex was very rough too and didn’t seem to be compatible with his proclaimations of love. He always wanted to know all the details of where I had been and who I had seen and would always be irritated if I was a little late meeting him or if I didn’t immediately reply to his texts or answer his calls. He also kept saying things like he was a modern man and he didn’t believe in letting the woman do all the work around the house like a slave – funnily enough, I was the only one who ever did the dishes in his house!
Anyway, I was still all wrapped up in the whirlwind of it and it was such a novelty getting all this attention. A week ago, he suddenly started saying that he didn’t like the way I talked to his friend and thought that I was flirting with him. He asked straight out if we had ever slept together. I told him no and I would never had anyway. He started saying that I couldn’t flirt like that with other guys. I wasn’t even flirting, I was just being friendly and silly with his friend. Anyway, later on, his friend came into the cafe we we sitting in and I’ve never felt so uncomfortable in all my life. I wasn’t even sure if it was ok to look into his friend’s eyes or not, never mind talk to him.
It wasn’t until Saturday morning that I woke up from this dream. He had talked to me about his ex late into the night, the night before, until 3am. I had kept saying that I’m tired and need to sleep and he would just say ” ok go to sleep ” but then I’d feel guilty because he was telling me something important about his life. So I stayed awake listening to it. She had left him two times and both times without telling him and took the children away from him for long periods of time. The first time, he found out that she was at her parents house and he beat the front door down and punched her father. He was saying that they were really racist towards him, but still, that was no reason to beat someone’s door down. The second time, she tried to leave early in the morning and tried to take lots of things from the house with her father and his friend. Again, he beat up the two men and called the police.
To be honest, I was beginning to feel a bit uneasy about the violence involved. I had only heard the story from his point of view so even though he made her out to be a completely evil person, you never know the whole story unless you’ve heard the other person’s too. He might have been verbally abusive to her as he was beginning to be to me…who knows…he never married her that’s for sure and he kept telling me how she had always wanted to marry him but he never agreed to it.
Anyway, to make it worse, after I had very kindly listened to what he had to say and then he had the cheek to say that I should now see that my problems in previous relationships where nothing compared to his. I was so tired by this point, I just agreed and asked if we could go to sleep. I think he might have been a little annoyed about it because I got bad vibes from him.
The next morning, I woke up at six and he hugged me. I felt like making love and I thought he did too but he didn’t do anything. I decided to turn over and go to sleep but then suddenly he initiated sex. It was very quick, very cold and left me feeling humiliated. This had happened before on a previous occasion where he with-held affection and love-making and I had got quite upset. He asked me what was wrong and I said that I felt that I should get some enjoyment out of sex as well as him. He responded with “F*****g hell, I’ve only had three hours sleep!”. This just made me so angry and upset – especially as he thought it was ok to swear at me like that. I just jumped out of bed and said ” If you didn’t want to do it, you didn’t have to” and then I just started saying about how I need some satisfaction out of sex as well as him. He just started saying ” Oh god, don’t start giving me any more f******g problems – I can’t take this!” It carried on like that for a while and he kept looking at me as if I was completely mad. I asked him if he would prefer I don’t say anything about how I’m feeling and just smile and accept everything. He couldn’t answer that – only “Just stop it, stop giving me more problems” and ” Why are you making such a big deal about just sex?” – I said that I thought sex was a really important part of a relationship and the sex we’d just had didn’t feel very loving to me.
In the end I asked him to take me home. I was really really distraught. I just had to go off and sit by myself for a while in a park and really think it all over. I texted him to say that I could see that he didn’t have any time or energy for me and that he had too much on his mind to consider my needs. He rang back saying that he thought I was right and that we should meet up later so that he could give me back my belongings that I had left at his house.
The whole day, I just thought things through. I had a look on the internet for “early warning signs of an abusive partner” and the list seemed to describe him perfectly( I didn’t read your article until the next day). I started to realise that I had made another terrible mistake and I had to end it immediately.
I met him in a bar and the meeting only lasted ten seconds. I just said ” I don’t feel comfortable with this anymore” and he said ” I don’t either” I gave him back the engagement ring and he gave me back his. I wished him well and left.
I felt relieved but also really sad that I’ve let myself down AGAIN. At least this time, I’ve seen the warning signs pretty early on and have had the sense to get out of it immediately. In my previous relationship, I’d let it go on for three years hoping that he would change.
Since then I’ve been away with work and while I was away he texted me to ask if we meet at the bank to close the joint account that we (stupidly) had opened to save money for the wedding. I agreed and met him yesterday afternoon to close the account. I was really nervous but I was very business-like with him. He seemed absolultely fine and not nervous or emotional at all. He was saying how he hoped that we could be friends and I said that was not possible after such an intense relationship but I said that I hoped we could be civil to each other if we saw each other in the street. The fact that he showed no sadness or regret whatsoever makes me realise that everything he has ever said to me was a huge pack of lies. He was just trying to sell himself to me like a he would a car. The sales-pitch definately got me but when it came to making love he couldn’t act anymore. I think he decided to drop me (thankfully) because he thinks I’m a mad woman just giving him more problems on top of the ones he already has. I’m quite happy to let him think that, as long as he leaves me alone and I’m very aware that he would never accept that he has hurt me in any way.
I’ve since read your article and it describes him exactly! It makes me feel less “crazy” for deciding to end it and also much stronger because I know how to deal with him if he phones. He has phoned a few times about mundane things, like a letter arriving for me in my name and asking if he can bring it over. I just spoke to him in a calm, polite manner, not emotional at all, refusing him to come over, but just telling him to put it in the post again with my address on it. He responded very civilly and we said goodbye.
It’s just so weird how he seems to have no feeling whatsoever for me now after that intense three week period of telling me over and over again that he loved me. Everything in your article makes perfect sense and it gives me and answer to his behaviour. I feel so lucky that I’ve got out of this sooner rather than later but I do feel very lonely and quite low at the moment. I just need time to pick up the pieces and put myself back together again.
I’m just left feeling slightly nervous because this all seemed so easy. Is he going to pull some nasty stunt to get his own back? I keep looking to see if his car is following me and feel very jumpy if someone knocks on the door. I suppose I shouldn’t worry about that unless it happens.
Sorry this is such a long message. Thankyou again for your article which just explains so clearly the way these people think – once you understand that, you have the formula to get away from them with the minimal of suffering.
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Pat20
Dear Dr Carver,
He has contacted me a few times about practicalities – but apart from that, nothing. I am obviously relieved that he isn’t pestering me and is leaving me alone, but I feel so humiliated and so stupid for having been conned by him. I can’t believe I was taken in by him. I just feel so lonely and so empty now. I still feel fearful that he is going to do something nasty as well and find myself looking over my shoulder all the time.
If he has decided that he doesn’t want to be with me, do you think that will be the end of it? I’m really nervous that as soon as I relax and start living my life again, he’s going to spring something on me.
I know that he is probably “keeping me on the back burner” and I have to be prepared for the unexpected phonecall or visit out of the blue.
It’s horrible living in this state of tension, waiting for something to happen that might not happen…
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