Dear Anita,

“Intuition/ gut means knowing something without considering or contemplating it.. you just KNOW it.”

Well then my *intuition is that I will know when it is the right time 🙂

“I think that not trusting one’s gut is a result of  emotional predation”

Both of my parents were CCP’s, not sure who was worse but probably pretty equal. Then I upgraded to living with only F, saw my mom’s errors, removed her from the pedestal. Then I had only one CCP, compared to two. Then I upgraded to N, a CCP, but lesser of one than F. So I am swimming in the right direction. Hopefully all this “emotional predation” is making me stronger and not wearing me down.., what do you think?

You quoted: Emotional predators. com: “they claim to be the victim, usually of the person they’re in fact victimizing; they fake sincerity and make emotional displays to influence, intimidate, charm, disarm or seduce others; they pretend to be innocent and ignorant; they trap others in no-win binds where the other person is damned if they do and damned if they don’t…  they isolate and ‘gaslight’ their targets, eliciting in the targets unmerited guilt and doubt about their own sanity; they create havoc, confusion and chaos, and disrupt other people’s natural rhythms… they relentlessly manage their public image, often by omitting relevant facts (lying by omission).

As I was first reading this, “they…make emotional displays to influence…charm, disarm… others,” I thought of myself. I feel I behaved this way with F at times. When he would come to me with an issue he believed I had, it was often those moments that I conveniently decided to share something that would make him sympathize with me… For example, there were two pretty awful things my mom did, one being the last time she cheat on him and another time she did something harmful to me. Both times I revealed them to my dad they were in moments of him coming at me with something, the first time I had gotten in a car accident and tried to hide it (at 16) in order to protect my friend, who hit it. And also to protect my location, I was at a different place at the time than I said I was. When my dad confronted me about lying, we had a long conversation and as we were resolving it… actually pause on my theory here, because it was as my dad and I were having a moment of resolve and I felt closer to him that, that I felt obligated to tell him about my mom. I was going to say I used telling him to relinquish attention on what I had done… but now that I am writing it I think it was more that our resolve, apology and his forgiveness made me feel I owed him emotional honesty. Interesting. See when I first read your response (the one I bolded and quoted) I thought maybe I had been like that before, emotional displays to disarm… and I wasn’t “claim[ing] to be the victim…of the person [I was] in fact victimizing;”

My confusion on emotional sincerity is literally making me question my own emotions, I do not want to be like my parents. The example my mom set for me was that when my dad was upset with her (for money or cheating) she would always cry, I think to disarm him. I wonder if this contributes to why confrontation with my dad was so hard when I lived there, I literally had to preface my confrontation to him with, “I will probably cry right now but they aren’t tears of sadness they just happen.” I wonder if my mom “insincerely” crying when my dad would confront her about real issues…. has something to with why I would have involuntary tears come to my face quite often when trying to have a confrontational talk with my dad. Less now, it has actually been years since I have had a real confrontation with him so I am not sure if this is still a bodily instinct.

This theory evolved as I wrote it, interesting what I came up with though and I am curious what you think…

I have another thought, you wrote “your gut is stronger but the fear that you are making a mistake and letting a good guy go still lingers.” I wonder if my original instinct to wonder if I was in the wrong, when reading your quote from emotional predators .com, above, was this fear still lingering..? It is just hard for me to accept that everything was N’s fault, that seems like a slippery slope, I must have done some bad too right? You know when you read information that is so one sided, and you wonder, well I wonder the other side of the story… I wonder this, the more one sided I present the relationship, as in he did the most wrong, then what is the other side of the story as to make it more reliable information… the self doubt here…

” They avoid giving direct answers to simple questions or requests…”

Wow when I read this, it has N written all over it. This drove my crazy, I would ask the most direct and simple a question could be and he would act like I was speaking another language, it was infuriating actually.

“Books like Protecting Yourself from Emotional Predators”

I need this book.

“he presented himself in these ways but there were significant disconnects in his presentations that you couldn’t exactly put your finger on.”

Exactly.

“His words didn’t fit his energy- you said it yourself. His words were not sincere.”

I questioned his sincerity/ authenticity once, towards the end, and he was really offended. Another example of an emotional predator.

“You can’t fix interpersonal dishonesty and you couldn’t have fixed it back when you lived with him. Even if you paid the whole rent and all utilities and expenses for the whole time you lived with him, he’d still be him.”

Interesting here, because as I read this I noticed, there’s a part of me that doesn’t believe this… Because he said it! He made me feel that if I did those things he would be more available, emotionally. He said specifc things like this, I can’t remember exact words but just little comments that he would respect me more, have more to give me emotionally, if I brought home alot of money. It would even temporarily inspired me into thinking that is what I wanted, and feasible to me, but then in reality it was not what I really cared about.

“– thoroughly understand and remember the affects N  has had on you and will continue to have on you if you go back to him (continuing to be emotionally attacked by an emotional predator), and it should be enough to release the pull he has on you. You will not be tempted to go back to him.”

I like this!

“We are willing to see what is inconvenient to see about ourselves, don’t we? We care about being honest with ourselves and with others for the purpose of seeing and being seen.”

We do! I welcome constructive criticism, I want to see myself! I think a huge drive for me to be this way was constantly being told I was something (by F) that did not resonate with me. He showed me what I wasn’t and I didn’t like it and needed to prove to myself that wasn’t who I was, and to do so I had to learn to see me! I think this was my main drive to go to therapy, for another perspective on me and my relationship with F. I would ask her, please tell me if I am in the wrong her I want to see this correctly.

“N is not interested in being seen as he is, this is why he deceives.” 

Wow. you are so right he was not interested in being seen, and I wanted to see him so badly, I thought If I tried hard enough I could…. wow.

“problem is that his mental strength is rooted in interpersonal dishonesty”

This is so tricky because he would say mental strength advice, and it felt useful to me, so I would then believe he is a good partner because he is providing me with things that are making me better. But then his mental strength being rooted in interpersonal dishonesty appeared in other ways, I didn’t see him as lacking mental strength, he lacked honesty which is like a liar giving you nutrition facts… the nutrition facts might be true, so in a nutritional conversation they appear very smart and honest, then they lie in other areas of life so it is harder to make the connection to their dishonesty, because they were honest sometimes. 

“- this made me feel empathy for him, and concern.”

It is certainly concerning (the substances he used and probably still uses). I gain empathy for it when I think about how his dad is an avid cannabis enthusiast/smoker, like literally always has a joint in his pocket hiding it from his wife, who pretends she doesn’t see it… a lifetime I certainly don’t want/afraid of when I saw his parents. I gain empathy for N when I think of his fathers example, offering N to smoke with him when he was only 14. so sad. Then also when he hired N, in 2020 after his football career ended, he hired him with an insulting wage and insane hours, when I met N he went to work at 10pm (he was in fiber optic installations, so it makes sense it was late, but it is the hours that were concerning.) he worked 10pm-5pm the next day! He worked 20 hour shifts back to back, he slept in his truck, all of this promoting substance use, like energy drinks and nicotine like his coworkers. Him putting himself through that was concerning to me, but I sort of rescued him, I showed him how ridiculous it was , he told me, after he quit that I am the one that got him out. He was in a loop and I showed genuine concern and showed him.

“– best you can do is to not get back to him, including: to not bring children into a relationship with him, and to wish him well.”

Are you saying to not wish him well? I think you are saying to wish him well but I just thought to ask haha.

 “Accept what you cannot change in life, and change what you can, as the Serenity Prayer says. You can’t change his past, who he has become, and who he will continue to be, getting worse, so it seems. It is very sad, but if you went back to him, you’d hurt yourself further, possibly bring children to get hurt… and all along not helping him at all.”

I agree.

Seaturtle