Women who Love too Much Community Group
WHEN BEING IN LOVE, MEANS BEING IN PAIN... This group is to help women through the journey of realizing they can love themselves. To help realize that they are capable of having a happy, healthy, whole relationship and break the cycle of abuse and heartache from loving emotionally unavailable men.
I am recently trying to pick up the pieces of yet another destructive relationship that has almost killed me. he was the most sweetest loving man you could ever meet and treated me like a princess.Then the other side over time became more and more evident.The lies,the cheating,the control,the emotional and at times physical abuse and it all was like one big game to him. He could switch and become emotionally cold like i never exsisted.It was like you could be discarded like trash.Im still struggling to comprehend how someone can treat another person like this. My peace of mind does not exsist anymore i have felt at times like im going mad.Can anyone offer me any advice.Does counselling help?
You will find so much support and warmth here. It is my haven.
A warm welcome to you Harmony!
The main problem women have after leaving pathological men is obtrusive constant thoughts of the relationship and cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously.
The main part of these pathological men is that show up as one thing, but they are something entirely different. This is a disorder of social hiding. This is an individual that is PROFOUNDLY disturbed but looks normal. In a normal relationship you dont have 2 different people to deal with. Here you are breaking up with dark side and the charmer.
What you miss is the charmer. What you broke up with is the dark side (and only true side).
Their disorder is this called the mask of sanity for a reason. They appear normal (better then normal - sweet, charming, handsome) but they are something else all together. These men have known they were different since they were children they are experts at hiding their dark side. If they showed you who they were, you would have gone running into the night screaming.
Here are some examples of what happens in these types of relationships:
You receive both:
bonding and abandonment
loving and loathing
child like vulnerability couple with adult mystique
support and sabotage
fun and then rage
the most wonderful soul mate you could have imagined as well as the sickest relationship you could experience all in one package
calculated and impulsive
idolized and devalued
aloof and super connected
kind and sadistic
capable and helpless
We are ping ponging all over the place.
Everything you wrote is EXACTLY how they are. You are start off in the idolization stage. They charm and normally come on VERY STRONG. You are beautiful, you are wonderful, you are everything they ever dreamt of and then once they know you are emotionally bonded ...comes the devalue and the discard.
It is a very difficult process to go thru.
START POSTS:
I think one of the most covertly abusive aspects of the narcissistic relationship is psychological and emotional invalidation. When the narcissist has NO reaction to us at all, it denies our humanity. Makes us feel like were worthless, invisible, unimportant, irrelevant. Its so dispiriting we cant believe its happening and so, we try one more time to see if we can get them to respond. If they dont respond, their silence reinforces the belief that were worthless. This is very similar to what a child feels when a parent neglects them and does not meet their emotional needs.
If the N responds though, we perceive it as validation that were living, breathing, human beings. That we do have impact on others even if it hurts us. Even if the N is angry, at least we feel seen and heard and validated. This is the Hook we feel when ending an abusive relationship. If the N had never acknowledged our existence, we wouldnt get hooked emotionally. The hook is called Intermittent Reinforcement. We had ALL the Ns attention, dedication and admiration at one point, so we KNOW its there. If we can just do things RIGHT, well be rewarded with a response of some kind.
The Ns acknowledgment of our existence temporarily fills an inner void that everyone experiences when an important relationship ends.
The problem with thinking we can earn validation (reward) is that were blaming ourselves for doing something WRONG when were NOT validated. We falsely believe that their invalidation is and was our fault.
Invalidation is one of the most painful cruelties human beings can experience. Going No Contact is all about healing yourself. Its not about making the narcissist miss you so much that he acknowledges your existence with a reply. Wondering why or if hell respond is still giving him too much power to validate your existence!
I know this isnt easy and we all do similar things until we get through this painful grieving period. Ending a relationship is excruciating for n-survivors because we think we found the answers to our self-doubt and self-worth when we met the N. Then suddenly, we find out they didnt even see us as human beings. They loved us like people love KitchenAids.
If we had any esteem issues or doubts about our worth and value, the D&D (devalue and discard) intensifies those feelings. It may take years to overcome a dysfunctional childhood after the N awakens fears we may not have known were there. The first step towards healthy self-reclamation is to let the N go his or her merry way and begin a long journey of self-discovery, initiated by our grief. It sounds like youre feeling the loss right now and its probably overwhelming
Even years later, its unfathomable to me how Ns can pick up and move on as if we never even existed. I will never understand it and I dont have to understand it. All I have to do is ACCEPT it.
Remember, the narcissists lack of attachment says NOTHING about you. All it says is that Ns are incapable of emotional attachment to anyone. They are NOT suffering, though. We are. So even in the darkest of times when you dont think you can tolerate another moment of pain, remind yourself how marvelous it is to Feel and Feel Deeply. Even sorrow.
Every second of their lives they are searching and searching and searching. For something to make the pain and hate they feel about themselves go away. But it aint happening. So they go through woman after woman looking for the perfect love. Find it for the first month or so and then discover this woman has feelings of her own, is not perfect, does not think everything they say and do is right, and ooops, time to move on to the next victim.
I also think narcissists are intent on creating the Image of love and desirability for themselves. As long as they can prove they are sexy or attractive or desirable, they can project fault and blame for the failed relationship on their prior partner(s). Your X probably views those photos more than anyone else. Anytime he feels some doubt about being rejected because you arent reminding him how much you love and need and pine for his sorry arse, he logs-in to his posted photos and reassures his stud-ly-ness as in, See how HOT I am? Two women vie for my attention!
Keep the faith. Be good to yourself. Thank the lord you got out of that relationship. And remember Karma.
Sexually, they tend to demean sexual intimacy -most are misogynists and have a thwarted, and conflicted relationship with their mother - or will be promiscuous, and flauntingly so.
In either case, the narcissist dislikes physical, sexual, and emotional intimacy. To be involved with a narcissist is an appallingly toxic and bewildering experience.
Practitioners in psychology and mental health more often find themselves caring for partners of narcissists, such is their destructive nature.
Moral injustice can among the cost society pays for failing/refusing to identify such individuals while they inhabit educational institutions, political offices, and other positions that enable their exploitation of position, privilege, power, and status.
Narcissism is almost entirely about control. It is a primitive and immature reaction to the circumstances of a life in which the narcissist (usually in their childhood) was rendered helpless.
The narcissist is never whole without an adoring, available, and possibly self-denigrating partner. This abrupt, heartless devaluation IS abuse. ALL narcissists idealize and then devalue. This is THE core narcissistic behavior. The narcissist exploits, lies, insults, demeans, ignores (the silent treatment), manipulates, controls.
The narcissist often does not keep agreements, does not adhere to social norms (monogamy), and regards consistency and predictability as demeaning traits.
The break-up of a relationship with a narcissist is, therefore, very emotionally charged. It is the culmination of a long chain of humiliations and of subjugation.
Upon the break-up of the relationship, often it is the partner (but not the narcissist), who usually is unable to find closure and can engage in a tortuous and drawn out post mortem.
The repeated abuse has long lasting and traumatic PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) effects such as panic attacks, hyper vigilance, sleep disturbances, and flashbacks (intrusive memories). The victims can also experience shame, depression, anxiety, embarrassment, guilt, humiliation, abandonment, and an enhanced sense of vulnerability.
It is important to know that one day you will find love in a less hopeless, and pain-inflicting relationship.
Thus, to invest in a narcissist is a purposeless, futile and meaningless activity. To the narcissist, every day is a new beginning, a new cycle of idealization or devaluation, a newly invented self.
There is no accumulation of credits or goodwill because the narcissist has no past and no future.
He occupies an eternal and timeless present. He is a fossil caught in the frozen ashes of a volcanic childhood.
If you are just beginning to learn about narcissism, your future might appear bleak and overwhelming, but take heart! You already know how to work extremely hard pleasing the narcissist and you never accomplished that goal, right? Put half as much energy into healing and you will reap the rewards of your efforts because you are taking care of you. When were working through any residual issues we may have from childhood or an abusive adult relationship, compassionate friendships hold us steady when we fear we cannot stand alone.
If you are happy, the narc will get ya for it. IF he cant have your happiness, hell destroy it instead. Its much easier to do that than to Get Happy. If he knew how to Get Happy, hed have done it so the best way to divert envious feelings is to destroy the good object. And if she actually HELPED him overcome his issues to some degree, he will HATE her for it. Truly hate her for being capable in a way he is not.
Or perhaps his wife is the one who is depressed because shes plumb worn out and expects her husband to get a friggin grip on his adolescent fantasies. She needs to go, if thats the case. He wont be able to tolerate seeing a broken mirror, either.
It may also be true that a long-term partner, who sees the narcissist as mortal and fallible, mirrors his greatest fears. The more she accepts his failures and mistakes and encourages him to work through them like any ordinary person would do, the more vulnerable and dependent he feels. He definitely needs another mirror who will see him through idealizing eyes, the way his wife saw him when they first fell in love. Once a woman, who expects intimacy and emotional connection, finally realizes her maN has a problem, hell have to get rid of that cracked mirror, too.
There is a pattern to their madness: the minute a woman sees through his facade, she becomes public enemy number one. Maybe she wont know it for a long time, but the narcissist is already looking for an idealizing partNer. That sad thing is that our culture has reinforced the notion of the soulmate, leading a woman to believe she is special when a maN professes his love too soon. We silence our natural intuition in favor of magical thinking...
END WoN Board
Great quote:
A rule of thumb is: The more difficult it is to end a relationship that is bad for you, the more elements of your personal childhood struggle it contains.
When you are loving too much, very likely you are trying to overcome the old fears, anger, frustration, and pain from childhood-and to stop doing so seems tantamount to surrendering a precious opportunity for both obtaining what was always missing in your life and rectifying the many ways you have been wronged.
However, unless you change your patterns of relating, youre insuring that your adult years will be as full of pain as your childhood was-and adulthood lasts a lot longer
Each personality disorder has its own set of behaviors and additionally, pathology is related to:
a. The inability to change
b. The inability to grow to any emotional depth
c. The inability to develop deep insight about their behavior and how it effects others
So once you understand the behaviors related to the personality disorder then you apply the Absolutes of Pathology the inability to change, grow, or develop insight and you can take his behavior now and apply it to the future in ANY relationship. His behaviors related to his specific personality disorder are PERMANENT.
How long did your relationship last? A few weeks, months or maybe a year or even more of okness? What happened next? Oh yeah, you found out his lies or noticed his inconsistency, or asked him to work, or caught him cheating, or got tired of the verbal abuse. Once you confronted him then you got the narcissistic rage, then maybe the aloofness, or maybe he even packed up and left.
Guess what is going to happen to the new girlfriend AGAIN? There will be the honeymoon for her, then she will notice his lies, inconsistency, ask him to work or catch him cheating (porn counts), then she will eventually confront him (or live forever with the miserableness of knowing what he is doing and not having the ovaries to confront him) and then hell rage, punish her, reject her, ignore her and/or leave.
Well, I am trying to protect myself from becoming one more tear on the trail of tears of another pathological.
To further explain to Repetitive Compulsion Disorder: scientists have conducted experiments with lab rats proving this condition. A rat is given a button sequence to extract pellets and quickly works out how many times he needs to nose push to receive a meal. The number of pushes may be altered daily and the rat will work out the number required. If, however, the button is changed to random the rat becomes agitated and frenzied. He will repetitively push and push the button scattering pellets all over the floor, and ignore all other distractions in his cage. Why? Because his sense of stability is threatened.
The same occurs in narcissistic relationships. Love partners become hooked to the narcissist because emotional stability is unobtainable. Women go in harder trying to create a set result. This is why poker machines hook people. Women become severely addicted to narcissists, pushing the button all the way to their emotional, mental, physical and spiritual bankruptcy. Morbidly and dangerously they become so empty and powerless that they can barely perceive a life without the narcissist, and spiral into a deep dark pit. In essence the victim feels and becomes the annihilating depression that the narcissist avoids by feeding off her energy. He has taken your light and you have become his darkness.
He may need serious psychological help, but it will not do him any good. People with narcissism have Cluster B personality disorder. There is only ONE other thing listed with the Cluster B personality disorders are on the DSM and that is MENTAL RETARDATION. Why? Because there is NO TREATMENT available for either the Cluster B or the retarded. That does not mean that Ns are not smart, xn had a doctorate and was highly intelligent.
If you had a sweet litte Downs niece, would you think that one day she would wake up and be normal, or shall we say Non-downs? No. You would know that her entire life she is going to be impaired by Downs. And although she could receive training or reinforcement for good behavior, it will never change the fact that she has Downs and is very limited in her capacity for functioning.
It is the same with the Cluster B's. No treatment options available.
Relationship Time Cycle
From Women Who Love Psychopaths, by Sandra Brown
While she is having the romance of her life, the psychopath is in various phases of contact and relationship with a multitude of others. Even
if she does not find out about others, it doesnt mean they dont exist.
Sometimes, it years later that women come across the evidence of what he
was really doing.
Given his extraversion, dominance, brain malfunctions, lack of moral
reasoning, and hyper sexuality, most psychopaths dont even know the
true meaning of monogamy. We sarcastically refer to their concept as
serial monogamy, they are monogamous in many relationships at one
time! Since they hate to be alone, bored and cant say no to a perceived
reward of extra, curricular sex, infidelity is imminent even in the beginning
of her relationship with him.
The stages of the relationship time line listed below are multiple stages existing at one time with multiple people. The women in our survey
were just ONE of many that were involved in these stages of relationship
with the psychopath.
The Psychopaths Relationship Circle
Pre
Middle
End
Post
The PreStage: He is trolling. Online, out in the physical world, at work, in the neighborhood, anywhere. He is looking and testing the waters of connection with other women and men. He measures his possibilities by
eye contact, boundary violations, and other cues and clues that hint to him
someone is an open target. He could have many women and men that he is
in this testing phase with;trying out the waters before he moves in to
lure.
The Early Stage: He moves in to make more contact with those he has his eye on. He may have multiple cell phones, multiple email accounts or a dozen other ways that he keeps himself available for contact with other male and female potential sex partners. (Even psychopaths who allege they are not gay may engage in same sex activity.) In the early stage partners are ruled in and out by their levels of availability. He will only troll for so long and will then look for those who are willing to take it to the next level.
The Middle Stage: He is having regular contact and sex with numerous partners which can include another semi full life with these other sexual partners. The woman who is in his life may begin to find unusual behaviors while in their romancing or luring stage. He may be 24/7 with her and then she will not have contact with him for days.
Plausible excuses he gives cover for where he was, but texts, pages, phone calls, emails and other suspicious behaviors from others can begin even as early as the honeymoon phase with her. Thats because he has multiple relationships that he has been in for quite some time probably before her.
The End Stage: He is constantly ending the relationship with someone at some time. The end of the relationship comes for various reasons, some are on to him and confront, others wont give him money or sex any longer, he has enough other relationships going and needs to cut some off. Various reasons can exist why someone gets the relationship axe from the psychopath.
The Post Stage: A time period extending after the formal end of the relationship with her or with others. Those that the psychopath has
broken up with are never off the speed dial and never out of the
Relationship Circle even if he has not contacted them in years! Women in
current relationships who find out about his affairs often feel that if he
says he has stopped fooling around than he has stopped contact with
others. While he may take a hiatus to try to win back one of the womens
loyalty, no one ever really leaves a psychopaths life.
Women have said they have heard from him out of the blue 6 months, 10 years LATER after the break up. He calls as if nothing has happened, says she popped into his mind and he wanted to check on her to tell her how much he always cared for her. Given both his boredom and excitement seeking, women must know that they, nor any other lover, ever really flies off his radar for long.
Conclusion
The relationships circle exemplifies the strategic targeting that psychopaths use of multiple relationships at one time. While woman #1 is basking in the hyper focus of his attention, he is trolling, in the middle of, and ending, multiple other relationships with men and women. His multiple relationships that are beginning, enduring, and ending no doubt play into her relationship dynamics with the psychopath. Of course, woman #1 is high on oxytocin and believes she just met her soulmate.