Comments on “More on Relationship Losers, Abusers, Manipulators and Controllers”
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218 Responses to “More on Relationship Losers, Abusers, Manipulators and Controllers”
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~Moi~170
Post continued…
I do not want my child around them any more. I asked my mother to stop harassing me, she said she is merely “caring”.
How can I get them out of my life?. It is clear that she is now panicking and trying to regain control of us, by getting other people involved. She does not even seem to recognise that I am actually an adult myself. She is treating me like a naughty 14yr that has run away from home!.
How do I deal with this?. Just keep ignoring them?.
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~Moi~169
Thank Dr Carver for your last words of advice!. Glad you like my name too LOL.
I have a problem with my family as well. I cut them out of my life about 3 months ago and asked to be left alone. In that time I have received letters, emails and sms’s. My mother has rung up and abused me calling me a user, even after I stated all of my reasons for cutting them out (abuse). She has told everyone she knows about the situation abnd I have had my doctor ring me, the pastor and several of her friends drop by.
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168
Ha…Wendy, You’ve got it! The TV dinner wisecrack was totally correct (and really funny!). I once read that a cat doesn’t sit on your lap because he/she likes you - it’s because your lap is warm. Losers operate the same way. If anything is said or done - it’s on THEIR agenda. If they agree, make a promise, act like they understand your concerns, or even admit faults - it’s to end the discussion. This is why their discussion never matches their behavior - the two aren’t connected in any way. If you want proof, start a serious discussion fifteen minutes before the SuperBowl Game in the US or an equivalent in another country. THAT discussion will be solved in less than fifteen minutes! Dr. Carver Again, Wendy, that was funny!
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Wendy167
Pamela,
He said you were right?!? His TV dinner must have been ready.
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Pamela166
Also, one thing I forgot on my last note. The “fatigue” mentioned in Wendy’s note is the thing that finally just did me in. I can remember one particular conversation where I actually invoked his VERY words in bolstering the point I was making. I thought that would help my cause - to show how we agreed upon something - and I was just reiterating his own point made earlier. Did you think that made our conversation go any better? Of course not! We basically agreed but we still had to haggle, barter, word-parse and basically beat the topic dead for a good half an hour in order to finally get to the point where he said, “Oh yeah, guess you are right.”
Gee whiz - who has time for such conversations as these!
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Pamela165
Wendy and Mack - you are so wise. It all sounds so familar and I have had the same thought - he is cutting himself off from everything he says he wishes for in life - in sheer terror of meeting his own self at some juncture. The closer it got to that true self- the more egregious the behavior got, it seemed.
Sad ironies ruled the day in my former relationship - hate to say. The way he’d run back to the same woman he first cheated with - that was causing me grief in the first place - and he’d tell me “my anger” caused him to do such. He was always “confused” by me and my reactions to things. Always feeling “rejected.” What was so confusing after all? It was always the SAME ONE thing - the fact that he never gave up the same woman that caused the hurt in the first place. How confusing could that be?
“Self-destruct” is the one button they have to push. All the other bells and whistles they present are all jerry-rigged to set-off this one same button. KaBoom! But they don’t tell it that way . NO. She made me act that way - she made me do it. She is so difficult. She just can’t get over things. Holds on to anger. She really doesn’t want things to work out. . . etc. etc.
Ah - the glories of love.
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Wendy164
Hi, Mack,
Yes, it is a sad irony, isn’t it, that the fear of rejection in these people so often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I guess if they are the ones to push us away, then they feel some control over the matter (unconsciously). This may even apply if we are the ones who finally call it quits.
I liked your phrase “high drama puppet show”! That is exactly what it became between ML and me, and he did his best to string it out. My husband used a similar descriptor about ML some months before the final meltdown, saying that ML “preferred high drama to real stable friendship”. You are right, ML and many of these others are most comfortable leading a “SNAFU” lifestyle (Systems Normal: All F’d Up). But it is so fatiguing and sad for the rest of us. And the whole thing has the smell of a fundamental injustice to all concerned, which is part of why we keep turning it around in our heads.
Oh well, what goes around comes around, or something!
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Mack163
Wendy said “…[it] may boil down to a fear of being exposed as a flawed individual, and then being rejected.” That’s what I came to as well.
And the most frustrating thing is that what they fear they turn around and make happen. Self-defeating in the extreme. In the end, I did come to see the dude as a flawed creature, and I have rejected him. Not because I expect perfection — I don’t — but because I’d prefer reality and intimacy to a high drama puppet show. And according to this theory, rejection is precisely what he was afraid of, even as it’s the very goal that he and his machinations were working towards.I did get the “You deserve better” trip that Dr. Carver referred to, and whereas for a while I did the gentle thing and tried to remind him of his own intrinsic value, eventually I realized I couldn’t keep doing that. He’s grown; I’m not his mother; and at some point he needs to be his own psychological man. Much as he seems to have a hyperdeveloped ego, he doesn’t really. A mature ego doesn’t need the me-me-me that he does, and a mature ego won’t sacrifice others to get it.
I also did once see him with strong emotions accompanied by apparent confession and remorse. And the moment passed, as it always does. All that stuff is SNAFU for him, and I don’t have room in my spiritual house for SNAFU. I deserve better? Keep saying it, and at some point I’ll be weary/wise enough to agree with you, lol.
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162
Hi Pamela: Losers often use “mock” confessions - typically as a strategy, excuse for their behavior, or as a way of prolonging the relationship. As you point out, there is no insight, motivation to change, or actual acknowledgement linked with that confessional. Losers will often tell victims “I’m an alcoholic”, “I need help”, or “I’m working on my issues”, or that often-heard favorite “You deserve better than me”. These confessionals are usually offered when they can’t think of another strategy. Nothing happens, despite the confessionals, because Losers are narcissistic and actually don’t have a problem with their behavior - they just have a problem being questioned about it.
Mock confessionals are also used to side-track a discussion or confrontation - as when a child who is being disciplined says “You love my sister more than me!” The purpose is to take the focus away from their behavior and place it on the mock confessional which always ends quickly with some promise to improve or get help. As you observed, when normal folks confess from the heart, strong emotions accompany that confession. This is rare in Loser confessions as again, it’s a show and strategy rather than an honest admission.
Dr. Carver -
Wendy161
Hi Pamela,
I can tell that, in your head, you’re really grinding your gears over this. I did, too, and I felt like I would shred my brain. It will pass after a while. In the mean time, I found that it helped to remind myself that, while all these details meant so much to me, they meant very little to ML, who would seldom stand behind what he had said (or even seem to remember it) if challenged in any way. His strategy at such times would be to complain of my “elephant memory” and change the subject, or have a temper tantrum. The whole pattern with the “spiritual practices” and admissions of self-doubt was very similar. Like you, I suspected that this was a means of leaving himself an opening to accuse me later of expecting too much.
Such people do seem to put a lot of energy and brain-power into protecting themselves, don’t they? I am beginning to see some possible reasons why.
A wise friend of mine has been giving me some very simple interpretations of why some people behave this way (or why any of us behave in certain ways). It’s based on fear and the drive for survival. According to this line of thinking, when a person reacts to us with hostility, it is based on fear. Why should a person whom we love fear us? That’s more complicated, but may boil down to a fear of being exposed as a flawed individual, and then being rejected. In Stone Age times, such rejection meant death. Our brains have not changed much since these times. Thus, the fears within us remain very influential, and are often focused on objects or people who don’t actually represent any threat.
It is likely that many individuals in the “Loser” category are suffering from these misplaced fears, and drive away those who mean them well because such people activate those fears. They are afraid we will “see” them, and reject them. Unfortunately, this is usually a very tough pattern to change, as such individuals, feeling flawed to begin with, fear the process of self-discovery as well. For most of us, the only viable strategy is learn to recognize and avoid such individuals.
This theory works for me.
As far as recognizing such individuals, remember that as Dr. Carver says, a person’s behavior is the true measure of them - not what they say. When the two chronically don’t match, it’s a warning sign.
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