Exploiters seek partners who dread to displease them
PDF It is no accident that narcissistic and sociopathic personalities will seek, and often successfully attract, partners who have their own issue: a tendency to dread the idea of disappointing or displeasing them.
This is admittedly a generality, but it’s a pattern I’ve observed in my clinical experience, and it makes sense. The exploiter, who regards others as existing principally to satisfy his or her wants on a continual basis, must by definition find in a mate someone who is highly motivated—and especially, highly afraid not—to satisfy him or her.
Thus one often finds the pairing of an exploiter complemented by a partner who is prone, perhaps compulsively, to look inward to himself or herself as the cause of the exploiter’s dissatisfaction.
Clinically the goal is to encourage the over-accountable, overresponsible partner to examine this aspect of himself or herself. This is necessary given the fair assumption that sociopaths and narcissists are unlikely to genuinely reform their characteristically manipulative, selfish ways.
I’m often surprised in my work by the tenacious investment exploited partners make in solving the needs and complaints of their self-centered mates. Of course they’ll never succeed, but as long as they continue owning the exploiter’s blame for the latters’ discontent, they can keep trying, keep striving to be a better mate—to become, finally, the good-enough mate the exploiter has claimed to deserve all along.
Let us emphasize the futility of this scenario—the exploiter really doesn’t want a satisfying or, for that matter, even a perfect, partner; rather what he or she wants is a partner who, in his or her insecurity, will continue to accept on some level blame for the exploiter’s unending, habitual exploitation.
The exploiter, in other words, is looking much less for the perfect partner than the perfect scapegoat. For this reason the sociopath and many narcissists will recruit these qualities in a partner—qualities, for instance, of high self-doubt, high guilt, high fear of incurring others’ wrath or displeasure, and a strong tendency to self-blame.
Moreover individuals possessing these qualities will tend to be drawn to individuals who seem to be their counterpart in many ways—for instance confident, self-assured, powerful-seeming, unself-doubting, and perhaps unself-reflective. They may harbor the fantasy that the latters’ seeming strength and confidently entitled attitudes may prove a salutary complement to their self-questioning, self-doubting natures.
And this is certainly possible—this complementarity can theoretically work—in situations uncomplicated by sociopathy or narcissistic personality.
But when the more confident partner is a sociopath, or narcissist, this complementarity of personalities becomes a set-up. The less confident partner, whose tendency is to self-destructively accept the exploiter’s blame for the latter’s rages, discontent, abuse and general misery, becomes the perfect foil, the perfect dupe, for the sociopathic or narcissistic partner, who has it made, so to speak.
Again and again I encounter wonderful, thoughtful, emotionally generous individuals who are trapped less by their exploitative partners than the intolerable idea of themselves as failed mates. The result is their often intensified efforts to be found satisfactory by, and to obtain validation from, the exploiter.
The exploiter is, of course, incapable of appreciating his or her partner’s devotion. But even if not, he or she would intentionally withhold such recognition anyway; his or her object, remember, rather than to uplift his or her partner, is calculatingly the opposite—to engender hopelessness and depression in him or her.
On and on the cycle goes, until the vulnerable partner, just as the exploiter has sought, finally feels so low, incompetent and disempowered that he or she can’t seriously imagine a different future.
By now a form of despair has set in—the despair of expecting to be found just as wanting in future relationships as the present. Dangerous resignation follows this hopelessness—again, exactly the outcome the exploiter wants.
(This article is copyrighted (c) 2008 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
written by Steve Becker, LCSW • Permalink •
skylar says:
TTS,
your mom sounds so much like mine. My condolances.
Oxy,
I would like your opinion on hypnotherapy.
I’ve always had an aversion to that kind of thing, but I feel I have to try because I’m not moving forward on my own.
I GET everything about sociopaths and trauma bonding. But I just can’t get past this thing with my parents. I can’t seem to internalize what I KNOW.
Do you have any knowledge or experience on hypnosis?
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Hope to heal says:
Sky~ I know you didn’t ask me, but I do have just a little experience with hypnosis.
I went to a hypnotist about 25 years ago to help me quit smoking. I think it would have worked if I had been truly ready to quit at the time. The reason I say that is because it made my smokes taste like chit!! Of course, being the dedicated smoker I was at that time, I kept right on a smokin’. dumb ass, I know.
So, in my opinion, if you are someone who is susceptible to hypnosis, it will help you.
BTW, I have been a NON-smoker for 4 months short off 11 years now. YIPPEEEEE!!!!
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lesson learned says:
Sky,
I’ve not been reading much here, so if you’ve mentioned this, I’ve missed it, do you still have contact with your parents?
LL
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skylar says:
Hope,
thanks, I’m not sure how suceptible I am but I’m willing.
Hi LL,
No, I am NC mostly but I went to see my dad on his birthday, March 1st. I can tell you LL, that no amount of NC will eradicate my love for my parents. It’s a trauma bond. My father has the same trauma bond for his mom and she has been dead for 25 years or more. He still worships her as a saint (she was an evil witch) and she still controls him from the grave. He believes that all good things that happen to him are because of her. (excuse me while I puke).
My mother, whose father died in 1970, is similarly controlled by him and her deceased mom. I come from a long, long, long line of spaths. There is no question of that now. They were all professional trauma bonders. Almost the entire family is poison but mostly in very subtle ways. I’m desperate to remove that from me.
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Ox Drover says:
Dear Sky,
Hypnosis works for some and doesn’t for others—there is nothing magic about it. I don’t think it would hurt if you went to a reputable therapist, don’t go to just someone who is ONLY a hypnotist but go to a therapist who does hypnosis.
I used it once to quit smoking and didn’t smoke for 9 months then started dating the P and he smoked, ,and I went back to smoking, this time I just quit smoking on my own.
I think the ABSOLUTE BEST way on the parental units is to GO NO CONTACT….and stay that way. As long as you insist on trying to educate them you might as well be pounding your head on the wall, they don’t have to be full blown psychopaths in order to be dense and unchangable. Not having the enablers and the Ps and the other dysfunctional and drama queens in my life is making life really NICE FRANKLY!!! People come to see me and are glad to see me, they smile and are nice to me. I go to see them, they are glad to see me and they are nice. WOW! No one to tell me what an arsehole I am or what a biatch I am…can’t imagine! lI didn’t know life could be this neat and tranquil.
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lesson learned says:
Sky,
That makes me more curious about trauma bonds. I NC’d my bio fam awhile back. NOT having contact with them is painful at times, but more in a reminiscent way. Being completely NC with them and now with ex last toxic spath, I think contributes to the breaking of the trauma bond. I don’t feel trauma bonded to my parents. I do still to spath though.
I wonder if it might be more about acceptance, rather than a trauma bond? Or if the two go hand in hand in some way?
I still have yet to heal the wounds of what the spaths DID to me, but I have complete indifference to them now insofar as wanting contact or that a trauma bond exists at all. I think total and complete NC helped that and accepting that these people are spaths and that the only way to get free of them was to get completely free.
NOw with LAST spath on the other hand, not there yet….
I think you just enlightened me with your post, Sky. I don’t “Love” my parents anymore. I feel no bond whatsoever for or to them.
I wonder if that’s cruel? Or if that means the trauma bond is broken and acceptance was the key and removed whatever love I thought existed?
Lots to ponder here….
LL
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skylar says:
Thanks Oxy,
they are very nice to me. That’s the problem. Throughout most of my life, my S/P/N’s have been soooo nice to me. They are mirroring me.
So the way they all get me is with the pity ploy and an overwhilming sense of responsibility. I feel like I have to sacrifice for everyone – even spaths. That programming is deep. All my knowledge is not extricating the slime.
They are taking care of my cats, they know how grateful I am for that. and the cats are indoors and have made the downstairs into a cat lair – complete with cat piss smell.
Then there is the fact that I haven’t done their book keeping or taxes for the past year+. I can’t focus or think about them without being traumatized, so instead I do nothing. Got to let go of those emotions so I can function.
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lesson learned says:
Sky,
I have a tendency to agree with Ox on this one about going completely NC and not trying to educate your parents.
I tried to “educate” my psycho daddy ROFLOL!!! Um, yeeeeahhhh…
Granted, he was a psycho, but even, just as Ox said, enablers can be very toxic to you, particularly if they did not protect you…which it sounds like they didn’t especially about ex spath.
I think letting go of your parents is a really tough and long process, but one day, you’ll get tired of the educating and the hopeless frustration in wanting to grasp for one second that they get it or that you were loved like you were suppose to be in some way.
When you said no amount of NC will eradicate your love for your parents. I don’t agree with that Sky, in fact, I’d be willing to go out on a limb and say that projecting that for yourself is self defeating in your ability to let go of them, and while you hang onto even a glimmer of hope that they will see the light, you’re sabotaging yourself and your life. That love will become something else if you give up your hope….and that trauma bond will be gone sky, but not while contact of any sort or that hope remains.
HUGS
LL
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Hope to heal says:
Sky ~ I agree with Oxy. I think it’s a matter of truly believing that it can work. I guess that’s what I meant by being susceptible to it. I really don’t know HOW it works, I just know that it CAN.
I believe that the therapist you see for hypnosis, must be someone with whom you can feel comfortable and relaxed. It probably wouldn’t hurt to do a little research on therapists in your area, first to see where hypnosis is offered, and also to check their reputation. (((hugs)))
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skylar says:
Thank you, Hope, LL and Oxy.
I have checked out a hypnotherapist and she seems good. I spoke for a while with her and read her blog. She looks like Donna (from her picture)!
Anyways, I have stopped thinking about educating my parents but there are times when I have to deal with them. Very rarely, about once every 3 months or so. I just want to rid myself of the trauma bond. It’s worth almost any sacrifice to not feel for them anymore.
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Hope to heal says:
Sky ~ I only see my mother about every couple of months too. I am so glad that I live far enough away that I don’t see her more often. I can deal with her for a couple of days when we drive back to my hometown for visits.
I have other family and friends there, so our time in the company of my mother is broken up by visits with others. I couldn’t handle it otherwise. I still love her… but I really don’t LIKE her. She is not someone I would choose as a friend.
Educating the parental units…. I wouldn’t even begin to try with my mother, that’s for sure. It’s just not worth the effort to me. She will always be just the way she is: Controlling, demanding, domineering, etc.
I hope that things go well for you with the hypnotherapist you’ve contacted. (((hugs)))
Time for this gal to get to bed. Nighty-night
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geminigirl says:
Sky, Good luck with the Hypnosis, baby girl! Dont forget I adopted you online! I think its a WASTE OF TIME trying to change our parents or make ANY spaths love us. They cant love, you know this logically!
Its when we finally relinquish the false hope against hope that things can be any different that we start to heal.
Not easy Im still struggling with it.But YOU ARE LOVED!!
God loves you and so do I, and so do lots of us here on LF!!.
Love,}}
Mama GemXx
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skylar says:
thank you (((Mama Gem)))
I know that. but knowing and feeling are two different things. You’ve been there done that, I know too.
You were telling me how you don’t paint anymore because of what your daughter did to your art work and I think that is a terrible shame (on her).
It’s the same kind of thing, I think. You know that you are talented but you have let them influence you. Do what you need to do to get back what they took. Don’t let them change you in any way. I know you had a chakra session, perhaps try hypnotherapy or some aura healing too. Do whatever it takes and don’t let anyone hold you back. We’ve lost too much already to these creatures.
Not only that, Gem, but this is a war for humanity and we need all of our soldiers in tip-top condition to fight for the side of good against evil. Do everything you can to regain your true self so you can fight on our side.
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geminigirl says:
Thank you so much Sky, you are right!
Yes, these creatures I gave birth to HAVE stolen so much from me. From today, I vow to start to reclaim back the ground they have stolen from me! Thanks again!!
Much Love,
Mama GemXX
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Ox Drover says:
Sky,
You feel “obligated” to your parents because they are “nice” AND TAKE CARE OF YOUR CATS?….yet, you have talked about how enabling they are of your P-brother and your P-sister, and how they allowed them to abuse you as a child. EXCUSE ME, BUT THAT IS “NICE”?
So which is it? are they NICE to you? Or are they MEAN to you? Or is it both nice sometimes and mean sometimes? Well, heck even Ted Bundy wasn’t murdering and raping 24/7, sometimes he was “nice” to his friend Ann. LOL
I’m not being a smart ass here Sky, I’m trying to make you think about what you really feel and think about how your parents act. It it what they are DOING? Or is it how you are FEELING about what they are doing that is your problem with your parents? I’m hearing some amblivilence in your stories about your parents and how you were treated as a child, how you are treated now, and all the “drama” that went on with your brother getting you arrested for DV and so on. I mean, come on, Sky, when the cops are coming in and hauling people off to jail that is a lot of DRAMA going on in that family “play”
Okay, so they take care of your cats….sort of I guess….if the place stinks of cat pith they aren’t taking very good care of them in my estimation, but that’s just my opinion….I love my little cat but I would NOT have contact with my egg donor if egg donor was giving my cat a place to live because I couldn’t. I would not allow my egg donor or anyone else to hold me “hostage” because of the cat. I’D find some way to re-home the cat or put it to sleep before I would allow egg donor to ruin my life using the cat as a “hostage.” Or I would find a way to take care of the cat MYSELF.
I hear a feeling of “obligation” on your part to do their taxes because they take care of your cats….and you are not fulfilling that obligation because of the stressful feelings you have when you are around these people.
You frequently speak of how your BF “pays you” to do this or that but you actually do little of it because you just are not motivated. Those all sound to me like symptoms of clinical depression and I do strongly suggest that you seek counseling, Sky…with or without hypnosis. Hypnosis can be part of a theraputic venue but it is not “magic” by any means. If it was then everyone would only need 1 or 2 sessions of hypnosis and BINGO all problems would be solved and we’d all over come our trauma bonds and emotional pain in just a couple of sessions of hypnotherapy.
I’ve seen some progress in you Sky, and what happens when we make progress in dealing with one trauma and start to heal from that is that we now become AWARE of the UNDERLYING injury from a previous relationship we had not been acutely aware of before….like peeling the onion we find new layers there.
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skylar says:
I know you are right Oxy. Spaths are only nice to us so that we will ALLOW them to treat us like shit later. That’s the intermittent reward crap.
The pain of realizing this is so hard to take. Doing the hard work of letting it go – letting them go – is what I’m trying to do. I do appreciate your reminders to look at the WHOLE picture and see the truth in that way. We will know the tree by the fruit it bears. Pain is all the fruit I’ve picked from those trees. Maybe I should just call my parents “the pain trees.” as a way of reminding myself of what I can expect when I go to pick the lovely looking fruit they offer.
If I forget Oxy, and post without calling them “pain trees”, just boink me with the skillet.
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Ox Drover says:
Sky,
I thinnk your analogy of “pain trees” is a VERY GOOD ONE….and One that I think we should apply to every relationship we have….what is the FRUIT of that relationship? Is it sweet good fruit, or is it good looking fruit with a BITTER TASTE? Or is it rotten to the core?
Of course every “tree” will occasionally have a rotten apple fall from it, or a wormy one, but when the MAJORITY OF THE FRUIT IS ROTTEN…we can’t save the tree by pretending it is good.
In one of Jesus’ parables, he talks about the farmer telling the hired hand to cut down a tree whose fruit was bad, and the hired hand said to the farmer, “let me fertilize it and dig around it and give it another chance and if that doesn’t help, then I’ll cut it down.” The farmer agreed to let the tree have another chance….and I think in some cases we can do the same thing, give the “tree” another chance, but NOT FOREVER…..over and over and over.
I have actually cut down fruit trees and pulled out grape vines that had a consistently bad crop. Sometimes it is worms or the plant isn’t the right one for this type of soil, but whatever the “problem” with that tree or vine, IT WASN’T WORKING OUT.
I realize that everyone wants to love their parents and wants to believe that their parents love and approve of them, but you know, the thing is that IT IS NOT ALWAYS THE TRUTH. Facing that our parents do not love us is painful. Facing the truth that there IS NO WAY TO PLEASE THEM AND EARN THEIR LOVE is another painful truth as well.
Sky it isn’t going to be just as simple as getting into t a hypnotic trace and waking up happy and out of pain about your parents. I wish it would, or I would have done it….but you can grieve this “loss” of your life-long fantasy about your parents and this FANTASY relationship that you have had with them….thinking someway some day you would be able to find approval from them. Love from them.
Your family I think is as farked up as mine is—filled with dysfunction and “pretending everything is lovely” and hiding the family dirty laundry under a veil of “nice” and “polite.”
We can OPT OUT OF THESE GAMES SKY! It is as simple as QUIT PLAYING their games. DISTANCE yourself from them—quit accepting “favors” from them and quit DOING “favors” in return for their favors. CUT THE CORD of obligation.
Remember what FOG is? FEAR, OBLIGATION and GUILT.
Get rid of the fog. They can’t hurt you if you don’t let them. NC. If you are not obligated to them you dont have to feel the guilt. Cut any obligations to them off at the knees. Find a new place for your cats to live, or pay someone to take the cats, or take them to a no kill shelter but don’t let the cats be an obligation that you cannot shed that keeps you chained by the neck to the pain trees.
To this day, Sky, I actually think my egg donor is surprised that I was ABLE to pull back from her and go NC and stick to it (essentially) and that is so FRUSTRATING to her because she can’t control me. Also, by me refusing any financial obligation to her (she kept offering me money which I turned down) she realized I would STARVE before I would take a dime from her. It actually pithed her off that I would have that attitude too. LOL
The thing is Sky, we are programmed that when we are obligated to someone we must to some extent be under their control….the psychopaths don’t feel obligations so they USE it against us, but it doesn’t hamper their behavior at all.
Progress on the road toward healing is painful, Sky. Some of us have a LONG HAUL ON THAT ROAD before we get to the point we have gotten out of the ORCHARDS OF ROTTEN FRUIT that have surrounded us most or all of our lives. Sometimes we have failed in ever seeing a piece of fruit that doesn’t have a worm or isn’t rotten at the core….it is like we don’t know what a piece of good fruit should look like, feel like, or taste like. I say it is TIME WE LEARNED how the good fruit tastes! We don’t have to eat the rotten fruit or hang around the trees that produced it! (((hugs)))
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