|
LOVE SAFETY
NET
Transcript
of June 22, 2009, program
“Who Will They Turn To?”
STEVE: Hi everyone.
Welcome to The Love Safety Net.
KIM: I’m Kim.
STEVE: And I’m
Steve. Today’s show is titled, “Who Will They Turn To?”
KIM: OK. What we
really hope to show you today in the show—what we hope to
describe—is a message for perhaps bringing your partner back to
the security of your relationship. Or maybe in a sense calling
their spirit home. For those of you who are not aware of what
Steve and I do, we primarily work with couples where one partner
in the couple is narcissistic or has Narcissistic Personality
Disorder. Just very quickly at the beginning, I would like to
clear something up. One major misconception I hear quite often
about narcissism just right off the bat. I think you’ll like
this one, Steve. We hear this one quite often—the only way to
tackle a narcissist is by somebody being an even bigger bully or
an even bigger psychopath.
STEVE: Yeah, we
actually had someone level that directly at you, Kim, on line a
couple of times.
KIM: Yes.
STEVE: That you must
be a bigger psychopath.
KIM: Yes, that I must
be this huge psychopath because I was able to deal with your
narcissism Steve. I have a couple problems with this that I will
only touch on very briefly. The first is that it’s really Sam
Vaknin - who has been exposed now as not really having a PhD at
all and really not being qualified to talk about all of this in
the way he does, but he has been a proclaimed expert on
narcissism and NPD for quite some time now. He is really the
one who has blurred the line between being a psychopath and
being a narcissist. The two are not the same thing. I am
not going to go into depth with that right at the moment, but we
can tackle that a bit later. It’s not the same thing. So for
now just for simplicity’s sake, let's just use the word “bully”,
shall we?
STEVE: Yeah, that’s
good.
KIM: I mean, we are
not psychologists and we are not psychiatrists and we are not
people to actually be putting tags and names on people. We talk
about narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder because
it’s useful to understand these concepts if you are living with
or dealing with somebody with this condition. But we certainly
are not in the business of name-calling. When people start
saying, “you are a psychopath”—which it can degenerate to very
easily—this is a danger of what can happen. I really hope in
today’s show that we really break down this myth of the only way
to deal with a bully is to be a bigger bully. With our program,
what we talk about—what we are all about—is not bullying or
somebody becoming a bully. Unfortunately, that’s all too easy
to happen when you are dealing with someone who is
narcissistic who is trying to provoke you to be angry….
STEVE: That’s right.
KIM: Because their
basic modus operandi is to provoke anger in their victims. Then
when their partner or the person they are scapegoating gets
angry, this becomes a smoke screen for their own bad behavior.
So really being a bigger bully to this person’s abuse is when
the disorder is running rampant. It’s not the solution at all.
STEVE: And it sounds
like it would be illegal anyway. Nothing we suggest is
illegal. Becoming more abusive than another person is really
just breaking the law. Two wrongs don’t make a right. And even
blackmail—which we are going to touch on in this program too,
Kim—is illegal. And is not advisable.
KIM: Yes, is not what
we are advising.
STEVE: It’s not what
we are advising at all. We really need to get that clear. We
are not suggesting you ever do anything illegal, and you
don’t escalate this. But we are going to move onto that, aren’t
we.
KIM: And we are
certainly not suggesting that you become a bigger bully to deal
with your partner’s abuse.
We are going to touch on
some very sensitive and more difficult points today. In today’s
show, we are going to really get to the heart of what I think is
the hardest concepts that we offer for our readers and for our
subscribers to grasp. This is at the heart of most of the
questions that we get where people don’t understand our material
or they haven’t been able to put it into full use. And I know
it answers a lot of the questions that are running hot on our
blog at the moment. So stay tuned and stick with us. But at
the heart, the outcome on the positive side and what we are
showing you here are a means to bring your partner back to the
security of your relationship. In a sense, to call their spirit
home. That may seem a long way from where you are at the moment
because I know that if you are listening to our show and you are
interested in what we are about, a lot of you have partners that
are maybe no longer attached to you any longer.
STEVE: That’s right,
security is really the key here, isn’t it. Because security is
what we are trying to establish.
KIM: Yes.
STEVE: And as we were
saying about not being a bigger bully and not blackmailing, it
is something that is perhaps the way to achieve the similar kind
of results that you want. You want to be able to solve these
problems quickly.
KIM: Yes.
STEVE: And that’s
where a lot of the topics that come up on our blog are talking
about. People want to be able to solve these problems quickly.
They are not easy, and the security in the relationship is where
we really want to focus the energy—not onto the bad behavior,
not onto the escalating fights. Let’s just talk about the
security and calling their spirit home, as you say, Kim.
KIM: Bringing the
person back. But we can’t come up with these solutions until we
have highlighted the problem a little bit more. So Steve, maybe
you can talk to us a little bit about you talking with people on
the blog and getting a lot of letters from people all the time
about their partners not being attached to them.
STEVE: Yeah, look.
We get that very, very often. Daily I get dozens of them.
People are writing stating that their partners are no longer
attached to them. They have either got mistresses or other
lovers or they suspect that, or they are simply not
communicating anymore—
KIM: Or they are
married to their work.
STEVE: Yes, or they are
married to their work. There are lots of examples of
people who have more time for their parents than they do for
their wife.
KIM: Basically they
just don’t want to be around.
STEVE: They don’t want
to be around them, they don’t want to be around home. They have
no security level. They don’t feel secure at home—or there is
some issue for them realizing there is a nice, secure home for
them.
KIM: Yes, so from the
partner’s point of view though, they are feeling they have been
left abandoned. They are left lonely. Their partner is always
at work, off playing golf, they don’t know where their partner
is. And when they are home, they are often just
arrogant, rude and abusive.
STEVE: Nonresponsive,
dismissive...lots of horrible stuff—stuff I don’t enjoy
reading. So there is definitely a problem here because there is
no attachment. Our work is about building on those bonds of
attachment. When we get these letters, the first thing we say
is there is no attachment, there are no bonds between these
people, in the couple, and there are other things we need to
work on first.
KIM: And one partner
is attached elsewhere, that their attachment is somewhere else.
A lot of times they may not even know. They don’t know what
other thing their partner is attached to—all they know is that
their partner is not around. They say the abuse that is
happening at home is often not physical abuse so it is not
something they can call the police for, and is not something
they feel they can get help with. They just don’t even know
where to start. They just say they don’t know where to start
with the program. I think the real Catch 22 in this situation is
for the partner, Steve, is that they want to show their
displeasure at what their partner is doing. They want to show
their displeasure that their husband or wife is always at work
or out with their friends or doing something else, and never
really seems to appear to want to be around them.
STEVE: Yep.
KIM: They don’t want
to just be accepting of this behavior, because they feel that’s
going to make them seem a push over….but at the same time they
don’t know how to show this displeasure without driving their
partner away further. And as you know yourself—you having done
this to me for years—their partner will use that as an excuse.
Any displeasure that they show about their partner’s behavior,
the narcissistic person will come back and say, “Why would I
want to come home, when you are always just complaining?”.
STEVE: Yeah, which is
not a really fair way to play it, but unfortunately that’s what
tends to happen. It is what happened with us, Kim, and it is a
lot of what is happening with the messages we are getting on our
blog.
KIM: So today we really
want to tackle this. We want to get in and create a very clear
image of bringing your partner back home into the warmth and
security of your relationship and this being a loving and secure
place for them to be. This is certainly not you having one over
them.
STEVE: Yeah, you
can’t do this by force.
KIM: (laughing)
You’ve got them back so that you can be the bigger psychopath
and you can go, “I’ve got it over you now—ha,ha,ha”.
STEVE: (laughing)
KIM: (laughing) That’s
absolutely not what our message is.
STEVE: No, no. The
sledgehammer approach is not what we are about.
KIM: It’s about how
to make your partner want to be back home and want
to be spending time with you.
STEVE: It’s like the
compass point going north.
KIM: Yeah.
STEVE: It’s like you
just want him or her to naturally point his or her bearings
toward you.
KIM: Yeah. But that
is actually going to take—most probably—if you are in this
situation, you toughening up quite a lot.
STEVE: Absolutely.
KIM: We are going to
get into this now. It is not easy, and there are some sensitive
things we are going to deal with here, but we are going to get
through it, aren’t we, Steve?
STEVE: Absolutely.
I’m ready. Will we tackle the tough one today, as you mentioned
before?
KIM: Yes, this is
the big one.
STEVE: OK. So the
basics of this, sort of in a nutshell, is to turn the heat on
this person, on this bully, from somewhere else.
KIM: Yes.
STEVE: As we just
explained, it can’t really be from you because it’s very easily
turned back onto you if somebody is that way and is going to
throw it back in your face.
KIM: And if you are
the one trying to limit the abuse by showing you displeasure,
then they’ll just run away.
STEVE: Absolutely. So
the basics again is to get the heat from somewhere else. The
heat can’t be an angry kind of heat.
KIM: Well, you don’t
it because you are angry. If you are someone who is perhaps
organizing it so that other place where your partner is that
they are more attached to—whether it be work or their mistress’
house—suddenly becomes an unpleasant place for them to be and
home starts looking more attractive.
STEVE: Hmmm—that’s
the kind of heat we are looking for.
KIM: (laughing)
Absolutely. This is going to take a little bit of maneuvering
and it’s going to take you learning to really stand up for
yourself, but in all of what we are saying, I think what you are
trying to say, Steve, is that it’s not all about anger. You are
not doing this because you are angry. Yeah, you may certainly
be creating a little bit of trouble for your partner.
STEVE: Sure.
KIM: Or getting out
of the way of the trouble they have created for themselves.
STEVE: Exactly.
KIM: Not protecting
them from themselves any longer, shall we say that?
STEVE: Exactly,
exactly.
KIM: And if you stop
protecting them from their own bad behavior, and all of a sudden
the heat starts turning on in other areas of their life, it is
very important this is not vindictive. This is not because you
are angry at them or you are trying to get back at them.
STEVE: And it’s not
because you are emotional about it either, and I think that is
where we are suggesting don’t be angry, because it’s very
emotional. Of course this is a very emotional time for you.
This is really hurtful if this is going on in your life. There
is no doubt that your emotions have taken a bit of a hit from
this. You are not under any circumstances to try and harness
those emotions to focus into anger and then stoke it up into a
blowtorch kind of heat.
KIM: Right.
STEVE: We really
think that your emotions are useful in other ways. Your
emotions are not really useful in this example.
KIM: Well you might
be angry, and you probably will be angry in the beginning if and
when you find out exactly what your partner is up to—we will be
getting to that next. Be angry but get over it before you
decide what you are going to do. (laughing)
STEVE: Before you
decide what the plan is.
KIM: Yes, get over
it and wait until you are calm before you start deciding what
you are going to do.
STEVE: Exactly, don’t
start planning in anger.
KIM: Yes, what was
that saying I heard the other day? It was a great one. “Speak
while you are angry and you will make up the best speech you
will ever want to forget.”
STEVE: I like that.
That’s exactly what we are saying.
KIM: (laughing) So
you may feel angry, and that’s fine. But calm down…
STEVE: Yes, you’re
not wrong for being angry and you’re not wrong for being
emotional.
KIM: The most
important thing is that anyone you speak to about this comes
from the point of view that you are concerned about your
partner.
STEVE: So this is
where it’s different. It’s concern, not anger.
KIM: So to get this
rolling, I want to use this ... It’s a little bit of an old
example now. It’s been out of the media for a while, but I
think people still remember it. It’s the case of Elliot
Spitzer. We will get into that, but I want to do this from the
perspective of his wife. I know his wife copped a lot of
criticism in that whole story. Do you remember that? Just
remind us of that story briefly, would you, Steve?
STEVE: Sure. If
you didn’t hear about Elliot Spitzer, he was the governor of New
York up until last year, 2008. He was allegedly caught using a
very expensive prostitution service. He was publicly somebody
who was against prostitution and against crime, but privately
indulging and it was quite expensive. And all of this stuff
came out. I’m not sure where the case is at the moment, so we
better not say too much.
KIM: So this was very
typical, hypocritical type narcissistic behavior, presenting a
completely different public image than what was really going
on.
STEVE: And the guy
was married, I should have added.
KIM: Yeah.
STEVE: He had a very
nice wife.
KIM: And we can only
guess, but he was probably not being very nice to his wife at
home either.
STEVE: That’s the
guess I would be making.
KIM: OK. Now let’s
put ourselves in the position of being Elliot Spitzer’s wife.
We all saw her up on the podium and she copped all that flack
for standing by him there. I don’t want to get into that, but I
think she did the right thing. What was she going to do
really? Kick the guy out on the street? But anyway, we are
going to put ourselves in her positon much earlier in this whole
story. So none of this has come out. Nobody knows that he is
doing this. It is all still secret and she is at home but he is
never home. He doesn’t want to be around. He is being arrogant
and rude to her when he is around. This is all assumption, but
I think we can make safe guesses about this. So Steve, if you
were Elliot Spitzer’s wife would you want to be the first
person or would you want to be the last person to know he was
out using expensive prostitutes?
STEVE: Well, if I
was his wife, I would want to be the first person to know, now
that I know what I do now, and I’ve helped write our eBooks, my
answer would be I would like to be the first to know.
KIM: (laughing) Yes,
but it’s very painful and they don’t want to know. A lot of
people don’t want to know the truth of what is going on. I’m
not saying that every person who is narcissistic is having an
affair, because it is actually not as common as people think it
is. I don’t think a lot of them set out to have affairs in the
first place, because they are too scared of their partner
kicking them out—but that’s a story for another show. OK. So I
think as painful as it’s going to be to know that information,
you still would want to be the first person to know, wouldn’t
you?
STEVE: I think so.
KIM: You don’t want
to end up being the goose at the end of the line when everybody
else knows and you are just feeling like a fool.
STEVE: That’s really
one of the most ultimate, humiliating experiences, don’t you
think?
KIM: Absolutely.
STEVE: If you were
the last to know.
KIM: Yeah. So this
is not the same as fretting and sitting at home and worrying,
“is my husband having an affair”, or “is my wife having an
affair”, or “why are they doing all this overtime at work”,
oh-me, oh-my. And scrubbing the house and trying to do stuff to
please them, bending over and turning yourself inside out—that
is not what we are about. You need to use your magic
scissors and get on with your own life. You shouldn’t be
fretting about what your partner is doing. But at the same
time—and here is the paradox — you need to find out. Don’t fret
about it, but you do need to find out.
STEVE: And you need
to do it clinically. Not fretting, but just stating, “I need to
find out what is going on here”.
KIM: Yeah. Because
if you suspect that your partner is involved in illegal
activities or your partner is involved in wrongdoing, it really
is absolutely in your own best interest to find out what is
happening. You know, you’ve got to be really careful about
that. You’ve got to mind your Ps and Qs with this because we
are starting to get into some really serious ground here, and we
want to make sure that you are safe in how you do this. But
leaving yourself in the dark is not safe either.
STEVE: Absolutely,
and we know that a lot of our readers do not have their partners
doing illegal activity, but there are some that do.
KIM: I don’t know,
Steve. I think most of them will find that they are.
STEVE: Oh, okay.
KIM: Yeah. It sort
of goes hand and hand with narcissistic tendencies—with
irresponsibility with money for instance ...
STEVE: Oh,
absolutely.
KIM: I think in most
cases, more than 9 out of 10, there is illegal activity going on
and a lot of the time their partners are in the dark about it.
And a lot of the time their partner is actually keeping
themselves in the dark about it. It is easier for them to
not know. Or if they do know, they are actually helping
protect their partner from the consequences of what they are
doing. I mean, the number of letters I have read that say, "I
would get help limiting this, and I would build a support
network, but if I told anybody what he was doing, he would lose
his job”. And (sigh) what do you do? If he is doing stuff
that means he would lose his job, you can’t protect him from
losing his job. This is really important to let that
sink in. Because you being the person protecting him from the
consequences of his own bad behavior—and I’m not saying it’s all
“he”, as it could be women too—that is putting you in a
dangerous position. They are not going to get the life you want
if they don’t ever have to face the consequences of what they
are doing. Okay.
So I think it’s really
important that we are clear about this from a moral standpoint,
you know? If Elliot Spitzer’s wife did know what he was doing,
I think she has some kind of moral obligation to let some other
people know. It is not dobbing on your husband, it is not
dobbing someone in and it’s not vindictive. It is showing
actual concern for him and going, “OK. My husband is in a
situation where he’s really got himself in trouble. He is in
deeper than he can obviously manage or handle.” The thing is
this whole thing is going to come crashing down anyway.
STEVE: Yeah, that’s
right.
KIM: When someone
has built a narcissistic empire, which is built on false pride
and is built on—
STEVE: Fantasy.
KIM: Fantasy and a
false face to the rest of the world—it is actually going to come
crashing down anyway. And who is going to be around then to
support them? Who is going to help? I guess this is a little
bit like tough love. You’ve got to get out of the way of the
consequences of what these people are doing. That is not you
being a bully or you being aggressive toward them, you
are just getting out of the way.
STEVE: And that is
what we were trying to get at before about the concern. So the
way you step out of the way is by stepping back and going: How
am I going to first protect myself, but then also how am I going
to show concern for this person? I am armed with all of this
information. So Kim, what am I going to do now? I’ve got this
information. I have decided not to be angry about it.
KIM: I have decided
not to keep myself in the dark.
STEVE: Yep.
KIM: I know what is
going on now.
STEVE: I’ve got the
information in front of me.
KIM: This is where
it might involve getting a private investigator, whatever you’ve
got to do. But you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to find
out what is going on. And then you need to talk to other
people. I am not saying—say with Elliott Spitzer’s wife—I am
not saying she should go straight to the head of the FBI and dob
him in, but she may have talked to some of his colleagues at
work who were in a positon to actually put some limits on his
behavior, give him some warnings, or turn the heat on him a
little bit.
STEVE:
Hmm…absolutely.
KIM: I think it’s
also extremely important that when you do this you talk to more
than one person. And you let them know that you have talked to
more than one person. You shouldn’t be secretive about this.
This should never be about blackmail because that is really then
putting yourself in danger.
STEVE: And blackmail
is also illegal.
KIM: Yeah.
STEVE: And it’s really
not a good course or action.
KIM: And you might
go to your partner’s boss and you might not know that your
partner’s boss is, is—
STEVE: --in on it.
KIM: Yes, is an
accessory to the whole business. So that’s going to put you in
danger too.
STEVE: This is why we
are trying to reinforce this is not a time to be emotional. Of
course you’ve been hurt, but you really need to say, “Now I’m
going to have to be really careful.”
KIM: You’re going to
have to keep your wits about you.
STEVE: You say now
I’ve got this information. It’s not just that, Kim. It’s also
once you’ve got this information you are obliged to do something
with it or you are going to be an accessory, if it’s illegal.
KIM: Yeah.
STEVE: So you are
also now in the hot seat, you’ve got the blowtorch.
KIM: Exactly. You
are actually obliged to take some responsibility for what is
going on and manage this. So you are going to have to think
really long and hard about who the appropriate person is to talk
to. It’s probably not their mother. Their mother is
probably going to side with them.
STEVE: I know, I get
that a lot from people. Don’t go to his mom, or his sister.
KIM: Yes, or his
sister. They are probably not in a situation to help anyway.
It’s got to be somebody who has some authority, who has some
sway, who has some power in this situation and who can put a bit
of heat on. I think you also need to be right out in the open
about this. You need to be honest about this. This is not
something you should do secretly and then your partner finds out
about later. OK, so what would this look like. We are doing
this using Elliot Spitzer’s wife as an example. OK, so I am
Elliot Spitzer’s wife. And I find out what is going on. So he
comes home from work. I make sure I don’t hit him with this out
of the blue. I build as much attachment as I possibly can
first. “Hi Elliot, you’re home.” Welcome him home warmly.
“There is dinner waiting for you, I’ve got some stuff to do in
the study”. Whatever. Later on, when he is settled in and he
is a little bit more comfortable, ready to hear this without
flying off the handle, I come in and talk to him. I say, “Look,
I really need to talk to you. I’m sorry, but I am aware of what
you are doing. I am aware of the prostitutes. I know about it
completely in detail. At this stage, I am not going to tell you
how I found out.” And this is really important because at this
stage, if he is narcissistic he is just going to be absolutely
ready to completely fly off the handle and throw a tantrum.
STEVE: To escalate.
KIM: To try and
escalate this and to try and actually make you angry and drag
you into something. So you can’t use this as a bluff. You
cannot use this as blackmail or a bluff. If you are going
to find out about what your partner is up to, you have got to
carry through and do something about it. So at that point, I
would say to him, “Look, before you say anything else, I think
you should know that I have talked to Carol and I have talked to
Bob at your work about it, and they are aware of the situation
as well.” So that is going to be like—wow, OK, oh boy. And if
this person has in any way in the past shown violent tendencies
or been abusive in a physical way at home, you will already have
had to use our ideas and have made a support network for
yourself with the police. You don’t want to put yourself in a
dangerous situation where this person at this point is going to
be vindictive and turn on you. You need to set this up properly
and then that’s not what is going to happen. But you still need
to know, and they need to know, that you’ve got friends at the
police station on the line that you can be in touch with in a
second if you need them. And that you are cool and you are
together enough that you will do just that if they get
intimidating. So this is kind of like one of those scenes in
the movies. There is that scene in the movies where the game is
up. The game is up. There is nowhere else he can turn. And at
the same time, if I was his wife, I would be saying to him, “I
am not going to kick you out, though. And even though I am
really upset at what you have done, and it is probably going
to take me a really long time to feel okay about us
again, I know that you are going to need your home as a safe
haven now and you are welcome here. You are safe here. And I
am not going to give you a hard time about this, but the truth
has to come out and there can’t be any more lies. And you are
going to have to deal with the consequences of this yourself. I
can’t protect you from the consequences of what you have been
doing. I am not going to help keep this secret for you.”
STEVE: Absolutely.
KIM: And at this
point, she is probably going to need to perhaps even have
somewhere else to stay, “I’m going to stay at my mum’s for the
night while you think about this”. Or whatever. Or completely
give him some space and not push this any further. Because this
is when the whole house of cards comes down.
STEVE: This is when
he is really going to have to consider what he is going to do.
KIM: Yeah.
STEVE: And he really
has to consider the whole weight of this. His whole
responsibility for himself is going to be right in front of
him. He’s really going to have to be ready to face it all.
KIM: Yeah.
STEVE: So it’s going
to be quite a momentous time for him.
KIM: And very
emotional.
STEVE: Absolutely.
Just taking the sting out of it by letting other people in out
of concern. You haven’t done it irrationally. So there is all
of these other underpinning kind of strategies you have already
thought through and used well to take the whole sting out of
it, because this cannot be a conflict. It can in no way be a
bluff, but it cannot be a conflict either.
KIM: No, you have to
have absolutely determined this is not a conflict. It is really
great that you say that, Steve. This is you setting up
the safety net. This is you saying the game’s got to end, but
your safety net is here. And as angry as he might be at first,
as upset as he might be, as whatever happens—what is going to
happen is as the story starts unfolding (and this is the title
of our show 'who are they going to turn to?' Now, you can’t
guarantee this. Maybe he’s got a mistress on the other side of
town, and her house is going to look more attractive. But this
is where the building attachment, and the trust work you have
put into becoming someone who is more emotionally intelligent
yourself and pleasant to be around in the beginning, there is a
good chance that you are going to be where he decides to come
home to, or in our example she is going to be where he comes
home to. This is when everything had come out, and it had all
come down and he had been publicly humiliated, and then
everybone gave her a hard time because she was standing with
him. But you said it Steve, and it was great that they walked
off and when they walked off it was hand in hand, and it was
her he had to go home with.
STEVE: Yeah, that’s
right.
KIM: In the end, it was
his wife he really had to face at the end of it. And
that was not a situation where she was weak, as everyone said.
She was really in an ultimate situation of strength. The power
balance had finally actually been righted in this relationship.
STEVE: Absolutely. All
the sudden, she had all the chips on her side of the table,
didn’t she?
KIM: (laughing) Yeah.
STEVE: And I don’t
mean that in a ruthless kind of way, I mean it in a very
compassionate kind of way. Because I think it’s a very good
chance for her, and she seemed a very intelligent and capable
woman. She just happened to marry somebody rich and famous.
But she in herself is a quite intelligent and capable woman. So
she is really in a position where she can say, “OK, well you’ve
really screwed up here. But this is how it’s going to go. This
is your home, but this is how things are going to go from here.”
KIM: Yeah.
STEVE: Look, we don’t
know much. We live on the other side of the planet from the
Spitzer’s, but I do know he has been laying pretty low lately.
All the reports are that he is spending a lot more time with his
family.
KIM: (laughing).
STEVE: So I don’t
want to go into it too much here since it’s all conjecture, but
I get the feeling this could have been one of the best things
that has happened to them.
KIM: Yeah. Well, it
had the potential to be. We don’t know.
STEVE: Exactly.
KIM: But teaching the
things we do, it is an example of where their relationship could
actually start going right. And things could actually start
going a lot better for him too. Because when the narcissistic
person is living out there in that lie, living that fantasy
life, living—well, the lie—it’s extremely stressful, isn’t it,
Steve.
STEVE: It’s
unbelievable. It’s unsustainable.
KIM: It’s
unsustainable. Completely stressful and anxiety ridden. I mean
you weren’t happy back then. And I certainly don’t think he
would have been happy at all running the games he was running
and what he was doing.
STEVE: Well, the
anxiety must have been intense. I know a lot of these
high-powered executive types they say sort of run on high-octane
stress and they love it. But I look at it and I think it can’t
be enjoyable.
KIM: They just
haven’t found anyone they can trust yet in their lives, so they
are like a cat on a hot tin roof and they think they’ve got to
do that.
STEVE: And they form
bad habits.
KIM: So I think this
is a good point to get back to where we were in the beginning.
I think the very last thing needed is to be a bigger bully
here. A situation has been created where, in the example we
used with Elliot Spitzer’s wife, to be the person to catch him
and to be the person who actually supports him. And is to
actually be the one who is there ready to - if you go further
into our work and our programs - starts helping to challenge him
to fill in his developmental gaps, help him look at where his
life is going to go now. Give him that space, and give him that
shelter, and that warmth to say okay, the nightmare is over and
you are home now. But you want home to be a nice place and a
warm place, and a very inviting place to be, not the nightmare
that he pretended it was.
STEVE: That’s right.
Well it’s going to be a lot more warm and inviting than prison.
KIM: (laughing) Yeah,
absolutely.
STEVE: Well, that’s
the reality, unfortunately that guys are facing. You know,
prison is not a nice place to be. And any guys out there that
are listening to this—I mean that was one of the most powerful
moments that happened to me, when a policeman said to me, “you
know, if you keep doing this, you are going to end up in jail”,
and he paused, and then he said, “and you know, jail is a pretty
tough place to survive, mate”. And he really meant it. And he
was somebody that knew a lot about prisons. So if there are any
guys out there listening, this is my advice to you: You don’t
want to go there. It is really, really not a nice place to be.
KIM: So on the other
side of this, on the partner’s side, we are suggesting you
really have to get out of the way of the consequences of your
partners bad behavior. You have to be absolutely ready to say,
“I am not going to protect you. I am not going to shelter you.
I am not going to be somebody that is going to keep your bad
secrets for you. That’s not going to happen. But I am going to
offer you someplace that is warm and that is home.” And
hopefully also if they have done the work in our program it will
be somewhere their partner wants to be. They will have moved
into a place in their life where they are working on their own
goals, and there is some space in that home environment for
their partner to come home and to actually thrive.
STEVE: That’s so
important, Kim. And you have been really good at that. You
have been a really great mum, and a great wife.
KIM: I wasn’t in the
beginning though.
STEVE: No, in the
beginning that’s true.
KIM: In the beginning,
I was just cleaning the house, and bending over backwards, and
just trying to make everything perfect for you when you got home
from work. Then I just wanted all your time, and all your
attention, and every little bit of energy out of you. And I had
no idea at all that you just needed home as a shelter and
someplace where you just wanted to do your own thing, where I
did my own thing, but just made it a nice place to be. And I
know that must have been really, really hard for you—really
difficult. Because I was demanding all this stuff. And you
just had come from work, and you just wanted someplace nice to
be.
STEVE: We actually
both wanted the same things, but we just weren’t really hearing
each other, were we?
KIM: Yeah. So far from
saying become a bully, that’s the last thing we are saying. We
want you to learn to have a home environment that is someplace
that your partner wants to be. Now I think at the same time we
are aware this is dangerous stuff we are suggesting. This is
not kids’ stuff, and this is not stuff to take on lightly. This
is not just about calling the police and dobbing in your partner
for bad stuff they are doing. The choice of who you talk to
about this is vital. It should be somebody who is appropriate
and the person closest to your partner that can help, that has
some sway with them and can help, and who hopefully also cares
about them as well.
STEVE: That’s right.
That is where the concern is also about them. So trying to
blackmail somebody or keep secrets or doing any kind of
extortion is not showing concern, and it is really
not what you should be doing or even considering. This needs to
be out in the open, so by getting this information out in the
open while showing concern is quite a delicate process, but it
can be done. It is just a natural course of events,
really. It just takes a bit of time and application, but just
keep that simple rule. I am doing this out of concern. I am not
going to be blackmailing, I am not going to be keeping secrets,
and I am not going to protect anyone.
KIM: Yeah, because if
you get them in trouble and you keep it secret and not tell them
that it was you who got them in trouble, or whatever. You are
leaving yourself in a pretty dangerous situation there. And if
you do it in secret you are also not letting them know that you
are not a soft target anymore. If they just think that the heat
came on from somewhere else and they don’t even know why, then
what is going to stop it from happening again.
STEVE: That’s right.
There is no room for any kind of secretive stuff.
KIM: Except there is a
situation that can be different in that maybe the person who is
narcissistic and behaving badly is not living with the other
person, like it’s a brother, a sister, or an adult child. And
maybe they are doing something against the law or bad—they are
drinking and abusing their family, or whatever. Then if you
actually want to let the authorities know—because you need to.
You need to do that; that is really important. Maybe it isn’t
always best to let the person know that you are the one that
filed the complaint. That is a different situation then because
you are not living with them, you are not close to them, and it
just becomes very, very easy for them to absolutely cut you off
and just blame you. And maybe you just need to do that anyway,
but if it’s somebody that you don’t live with—if it’s your
neighbor, for instance. If your neighbor is abusing their
children, you really should be calling the authorities. You
really do need to do that and it may be smart in that situation
if you do that anonymously or you don’t necessarily let your
neighbor know it was you.
STEVE: Sure, we deal
primarily with people in relationships here.
KIM: Well, you’ve got
to look out for yourself. You’ve got to protect yourself. You
don’t want to really screw up your life by having a neighbor
that is out to shut you off. It’s easier to do if it’s not
someone you live with, if it’s not someone you are strongly
attached to, then they don’t need to come home to you. So it’s
easier for them to avoid you and never talk to you again.
STEVE: Absolutely. In
that situation, you don’t have the bargaining chips as when you
are in a relationship.
KIM: Yeah, it’s a
different situation. And then I think you’ve got to gauge it.
You’ve got to be careful because it’s a dangerous world out
there.
STEVE: Yeah, and doing
the right thing can often get you in trouble.
KIM: Absolutely.
You’ve got to look out for yourself. It’s not a dress
rehearsal.
STEVE: We are running
short on time Kim, but what about affairs.
KIM: OK, well this
works with affairs as well, and even though affairs are not
illegal, they are immoral. Or not even affairs but perhaps your
partner has a distant admirer, or they have somebody they are
spending too much time on the Internet writing to or making
phone conversations with. There is an example on our blog of
this. I even helped a woman write the letter. She was really
very appreciative about that.
OK, with someone who is
narcissistic one of the major symptoms is that they put
other people down behind their back. So if your partner is
attached to somebody else, I can bet money on it they talk about
the other person—whether you know about it or not—they talk
about the other person that they write to and they are spending
too much time with. Maybe they are having an affair with them
and maybe they are not, but if they are having an affair you may
not know that, but you still might know that person. My guess
is you probably will.
STEVE: Yeah, in most
cases I reckon you will know that person.
KIM: Yep, so if they
are attached to somebody else they talk about a lot and spend
time with, then this becomes a problem because this is
interfering with your relationship. You can be quite
tactful about this, and keep yourself nice, of course, but just
let this person know again that you are concerned about your
partner, that you are having some problems at home. Say, look
you may not really appreciate the problem here. There is more
depth to this than you realize. He puts everybody down behind
their back. And I hate to let you know, but he said some pretty
bad things about you too. And you might actually let them know
some things your partner has been saying behind their back, or
some of the things you know that they wouldn’t expect you to
know about.
STEVE: Hmm…that would
carry a lot of weight—those comments, wouldn’t they?
KIM: Yeah. (laughing)
Well then you go home and keep being sweet and keep being nice,
but all the sudden you’ve got this situation where they’ve got
the heat on from somewhere else.
STEVE: That’s exactly
right. Good advice.
KIM: It’s a good one.
It’s a bad world out there and you’ve got to look out for
yourself. And when this person who is the admirer starts
putting the heat on, then again we are back to, “Who Will They
Turn To?”
STEVE: If you read our
eBook's and you know that self-soothing, taking care of and
setting your own goals, are all going to make a really nice
place for him to be around (or her).
KIM: Yeah. And you
listened to last week’s show and you’ve learned what is going to
elicit their empathy and make them empathetic toward you, and
that very briefly is showing those qualities and strengths that
you showed early in the relationship that they admired. You
show him these qualities that you live by.
STEVE: There is a great
story, and I was wondering if we could talk about it.
KIM: Do we have time?
STEVE: Yeah, we do, if
we end with this.
KIM: Yeah, it would be
good if we end with this. Now really, I am no expert on
Native American folk lore at all. This is just something I
heard a long time ago. I heard it secondhand. It is a story
that I like and we are just going to call this complete
fiction. But just for the sake of a good story to wind up on
with this.
This was a Native
American guy who had come back from World War II and he had been
in a concentration camp over there. He had experienced all
sorts of difficult times and hardships and whatever. The story
runs that he came back to his tribe and he was not there, he
wasn’t with them. He was still just caught up in his memories
of this other place. Even though it was an awful place
he had been, he was still kind of attached to it, maybe out of
the horror of it. His spirit wasn’t home. So what the elders
of the tribe do is they get together and they tie a rope around
this guy who couldn’t swim too well and they kept him out in the
middle of the lake. He is out in the middle of this ice cold
lake, and they are saying to him, “Call your spirit home…call
your spirit home….call your spirit home”. Now, maybe I lost
some of the spiritual nuances of that story and what I was
really meant to gain from it. I might take a bit more of a
light hearted and comic approach to this. However, I think by
the time that guy got out of the cold, wet lake and then had the
same elders around him offering him clean, dry clothes, offering
him a warm fire to sit by—
STEVE: Offering him
some tobacco.
KIM: (laughing)
Offering him some tobacco and something warm to eat—even though
these were the very same people that dunked him into the big,
wet, cold lake and said call your spirit home—I’m sure he was
still very glad to receive that shelter, warmth, love, and
support from those people.
STEVE: Absolutely.
KIM: And maybe that did
call his spirit home from the memories of the other place he had
been, and really let him know he was home now.
I don’t know how well I
did that, but sometimes it takes a really cold, hard, splash of
water in the face, a real reality check to wake some people up
to where they are and to where home really is.
STEVE: Yes, I think
that’s a perfect story. I think you told it really well. We
are going to need to wrap up.
Thanks to everyone on
the team at Global Talk Radio for making this happen for us.
KIM: Yes, thank you.
STEVE: And thanks for
tuning in and listening to us. And we will be talking to you
again next week.
KIM: Bye.
STEVE: Bye.
STEVE: Thanks for
listening to The Love Safety Net on Global Talk Radio.
|
