A View from the Outside: How Healthy Loved Ones See your Abusive Relationship with a High-Conflict and/or Personality Disordered Partner
Here’s the latest from CrazyBuster, Micksbabe . . .
If you’re in an abusive relationship with a high-conflict and/or personality disordered individual, you’re probably very aware of what your situation looks like from the inside — constant chaos, blame, fighting, projection, and gaslighting, possibly even shame.
Have you ever wondered what your situation looks like from the outside?
If your Parents are normal and healthy, then they are sad for you (and your children, if you have them), and they are aware that something is “off.” Or maybe your parents are the type who stick their heads in the sand and are in denial, choosing not to see the obvious. Good parents want their children to grow up and be in a happy marriage. Either way – sadness or denial – it is obvious that you are unhappy.
If children are part of your equation, then their Grandparents get to sit back and watch them being emotionally abused by your spouse/ex-spouse, and are totally helpless to do anything about it, unless you are willing to confront the beast (your children’s abusive mother).
And even then, the Golden Uterus is very powerful. Grandparents in these situations are typically walking the narrowest of all tight ropes, just to be allowed to maintain any type of contact with their grandchildren.
Your Friends have probably been the most vocal in telling you to get yourself out of your abusive relationship you. If your friends aren’t telling you this, then get yourself some real friends. You’ll need their support once you do “break free.”
The New Woman will have no idea what she is “getting into,” even if you tell her. If she’s a good person, she won’t be able to comprehend your ex-wife’s need to control you. Nor will she comprehend a woman treating her own children like property, and not putting their needs truly first.
Regardless of how long it has been since your split, or how many girlfriends you have had between the New Woman and your PD ex, your ex will label the New Woman as the interloper. Your PD Ex will never give you permission to move on. It will be your job, alone, to enforce boundaries to protect the New Woman, from your PD Ex.
Your Children love and need both of their parents, but your children will always choose “the side” of the person who forces them to choose sides. This is not their fault. Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) is 100% effective. It’s the worst form of emotional abuse and it should be criminal. Unfortunately, except for extreme cases, most courts don’t recognize PAS nor do they implement real consequences (i.e., losing custody) for it.
If you’re staying in a miserable marriage with a PD because you fear PAS will occur, take heed in knowing that your PD wife has been employing and fostering a PAS smear campaign against you from day one. Your own children are witnessing their mother’s abuse against you and this is the type of marriage that is being modeled for them. They stand a much better chance of glimpsing normal and healthy if you move out and provide them a safe place to land.
Thanks for another excellent reality check, Micksbabe! – Dr T
Shrink4Men Coaching and Consulting Services:
Dr Tara J. Palmatier provides confidential, fee-for-service, consultation/coaching services to help both men and women work through their relationship issues via telephone and/or Skype chat. Her practice combines practical advice, support, reality testing and goal-oriented outcomes. Please visit the Shrink4Men Services page for professional inquiries.
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55 Responses to “A View from the Outside: How Healthy Loved Ones See your Abusive Relationship with a High-Conflict and/or Personality Disordered Partner”
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Though it is not a broad indictment, the worse treatment I’ve gotten is from the most religious family members with the exception of one of my ex’s brothers and his wife. They know me very well and I think are quite skeptical of my ex’s claims, but are wary of rocking the family boat. (Yet, during a recent trip, my former sister-in-law gave the brush-off to my ex and visited my oldest daughter.)
My ex was clever enough (by instinct, not intelligence) to keep a grain of truth in almost every lie she told. She also returned to the church we’d both been raised in (and which we both left a decade before.) I suspect that these family members simply can’t grasp someone could be that blatant of a liar AND go to church. (Even “our pastor” was amazingly clueless and non-caring.)
Jason,
I worked for Priests for nearly 7 years. I can tell you that Churches are one of the favorite hang outs for Cluster B’s. It is part of their ruse and a way to gain allies because of the trusting and loving atmosphere in Churches. They try and live off the funding programs that the Church has as well. They have story after story of them being a victim in need of something or other a lot of the time. They are parasites.
Some of the smarter clergy may catch it and some of the dozier ones won’t. Same goes for the parishioners.
Yeah, when I met my ex-friend he was posting religious messages on a web forum. (We met online and his family moved to my city a couple of years later, to find work.) He seemed very pious, very spiritual, and had the answers I was seeking. When he moved here, we went to the same church for a while, until his wife decided she hated that church, and they found one in the next county. Because they were Christians, I felt that trust. I knew from the wife’s forum postings that she did have a “colorful” vocabulary which I was not used to from church ladies, and that she could get angry, but I had no idea just how nasty she could get, until I met her in person.
And they were perpetually poor. At first he seemed to be okay with asking us for help now and then, such as crashing on our couch or gas money. But after a while he started acting offended if I offered him help, seemed too proud to accept it….And yet, again and again, something was always going wrong: the car dying, no money to pay for gas, about to get evicted, something getting disconnected….For two and a half years, it seemed like we were constantly helping in one way or another, because they were constantly in dire straits and rarely had jobs. And in the middle of it, I kept hearing about how angry the wife was all the time. I thought it was just life giving them a lot of hard knocks. But here you talk about Cluster B’s being parasites….There were things we could do to help them that did not involve an exchange of money, such as providing Net access when they lost their Internet and he needed to keep up with his college courses. But he rarely took us up on that, which jeopardized his continuing with the courses. And my husband and I and our mutual friend all noted how hard it was to get him motivated to do things he needed to do. Even though my husband and I were willing to help them out, even felt joy in it, after a couple of years I got very weary of it.
One problem that arises is when the sociopathic woman in your life has your family and friends gulled as well. They don’t necessarily see the abusive and manipulative side of her, and don’t know about it until you tell them. However, before that happens, she’s been working very hard to isolate and alienate you from them, and you don’t feel comfortable talking to them about it anyway. She goes further down that road of teh crazee, all the while blaming it on you, and you don’t have anyone you can go to, or feel you can go to, to get some reality testing on it. I know Dr. T has discussed this phenomenon on her website here, and it’s been my personal experience as well.
I think one point of advice to take from all this is to not let your HCP isolate you and cut you off from sources of support. If your healthy loved ones don’t know about what you’re going through, they can’t help you – which is how the HCP/abusive person wants it.
I don’t know where I should be, I’m probably not in the right place but I am hoping someone can point me in the right direction. I am needing some help understanding why my abusive ex has everyone convinced that I am the crazy one and abusive yet has successfully hidden his abusive behaviors from everyone. Please…
Hi FF:
I am sorry that you are going through this. It sounds as though your spouse has psychopathic behavior or as some call it sociopathic behavior. They are experts at spinning people’s reality and shifting blame. You are far from being alone. This site is loaded with people who have the same problem you do. Some behaviors differ between men and women who have psychopathy, but much is the same such as their defense patterns.
Dr. T’s site here has excellent information regarding this behavior. It is part of what is called the Cluster B Personality Disorders by some. Another valuable resource is Dr. Robert Hare’s book, “Without Conscience”. He gives an example of what you are going through almost verbatim in it. The Aftermath Program site for people recovering from relationships with Psychopaths is run by him and some of his colleagues as well. Dr. Hare’s personal site has a lot of information of it too. I believe that it is best to study all that you can regarding this disorder by all the competent people you can muster up in the field. A vital piece of information may pass by if you don’t. Keeping yourself safe is your first job. Don’t tell him what you find.
It is my well educated opinion regarding Psychopathy that Dr. T, Dr. Hare and his colleagues have very accurate and competent help, if not the best. Please be very careful when you are on the internet regarding this because you don’t want to get roped in by a psychopath pretending to be helpful.
thanks for the reply, it’s nice to know I am not alone. Sometimes it is very easy to get roped in and be confused by the things that he says. Such as sending me links on psychotic ex-girlfriends comparing me to them and calling it “proof” that I am just not right, despite the fact that the situations are not even close and do not compare. It is true that he shifts alot if not all of the blame onto me, as well as being quite verbally and psychologically abusive and manipulative. He is also Bipolar and has addictions to lying and porn and severe anger management issues, more like rage. I guess I have alot of reading to do to learn, and I am looking for a counselor to help with learning to deal with issues that all of this has caused.
He uses this site as a way to back up his claims as wrong as they are, but has little actual knowledge, even going as far as going to anger management group JUST to get ammunition to backlash onto me, not to get help.
I have a bit of the reverse situation. A sibling was involved with a very nice, successful guy who she would badmouth and treat terribly. Often, she would expect him to bail her out, financially, and she would even rant about his unwillingness to marry her(despite her acknowledging that she neither loved or was attracted to him) so that he could buy them a house and put her on his health insurance.
Tough position to be in, but I , eventually, told the guy he was being abused. Now, fortunately for him, he is out, as she has moved on to another target.
In my first marriage, one of my wife’s sisters, came to me and informed me about the infidelity and my wife’s history of being abusive. She advised me to divorce her. I was always grateful for her assistance.
It is touhg to know what to do when a family member , who you love, is preying on an outsider.
Thank you for the article Micksbabe and Dr.T.
I need some help right now from any of you survivors and folk that have been free from PDexs. I just found out that my PD/BPD ex girlfriend has moved on with another guy. While I’m EXTREMELY HAPPY that she’s not in my life anymore when I heard of the news that she moved on I felt sick, anoxious, crushed, and I just wanted to breakdown, I don’t understand why I have these feelings. Maybe I’m upset at the fact that she’s happy with someone else. What advice could yallz offer to a hurting but free abuse survivor? ( Im asking everyone including Dr. T and Micksbabe). Thank you for your help.
This should help explain some of it.
Will My Emotionally Abusive Girlfriend or Wife Be Different With the New Guy? (September 7, 2009) http://www.shrink4men.com/index/
Dr. T’s earlier blogs cover a lot of the basics.
My abusive ex was a guy, but the pattern is much the same as with women, so this may apply. My ex was probably some kind of Cluster B; I see many of the characteristics when I think back. After me, he immediately went on to a new girlfriend. As the girlfriend told me, they had a very tumultuous relationship, constantly breaking up and getting back together again. She saw him doing the very same things he did to me. She was always getting angry at him, and noted him doing very childish things. They finally broke up for good, and she finally realized just how dysfunctional they were when her friends started pushing her to go out with new, better guys right away.
Then he went on to a new girlfriend. I had since graduated college, so I didn’t witness it myself. But I had friends who graduated after I did, and they had adopted her into their circle, so they saw what went on. They saw the very same patterns, and were disgusted with him. One friend tried to encourage her to leave him. He got her pregnant and married her. Some ten years later, they were divorced.
Martin, I have found that the fastest, most effective way to get past this is to go no contact. make no inquiries about her and seek no info on her life. Takes some discipline, but it can become a habit if you stick to it.
Actually Ron I have practiced 0 contact. I learned the news from a friend.
I guess my real frustration stems from the fact that she’s experiencing so much after she was so horrible with me. I feel bad for the guy she’s roped up . I will soon share my story with all of you. It pains me that in my first relationship I got hosed and abused. I have grown a lot since I walked away from her control but there must be areas of healing I need.
Patience,Martin. There are no guarranties.But, typically, thisstuff catches up to them.
Thank you Ron I’m feeling much better.
Yup, when you confide in your best friend about how unhappy you are and he tells you that you always seem to “hook up with the crazy b*tches”….when your grown son tells you it makes him sad to see how unhappy she makes you…when your sister despises your PD wife and calls her a troll…When your mother doesn’t like how manipulative and controlling she is…oh yes!~ and the cherry on top: When she gives you the ultimatum, “your son or me!” -and now she’s still around but your son is thousands of miles away….from the outside, it looks like abuse.