I just read a post by an Advice user in a new relationship with a guy who showers her with affection and compliments – and this seems to be blurring her judgment a bit.
She wrote in saying he is really “wonderful,” but she is a bit worried about a few things.
1. He told her he is in love after three dates.
2. He told her he’d abandon his son for her, after she had a negative reaction to the news he had a child.
3. He told her he “hated” women for a few years.
4. He’s already shown signs of anger issues and huge insecurity.
Obviously, she knows something is wrong but is confused because of the attention and praise he is giving her. Her ego is fighting with her intuition…and the blazing hot red flags that I and the rest of the community see here.
I think this is something we can all really learn from. Do not let compliments or flattery cloud your judgment. We all have a need to feel special, but don’t allow that to blind you from reality. As they say, talk is cheap – so look out for how a potential partner acts and treats others as well.
How many of you have been lured in by a smooth talker?
Grant Langston — Vice President, Content and Customer Experience
Jeannie Assimos, — Director of Content
Jonathan Beber, — M.A.
Marni Battista — Relationship Expert
Monique A Honaman — Author
Dr. Seth Meyers — Licensed Clinical Psychologist
Sarah Schmermund, M.A. — M.A.
Fell hard. Thought I was getting married after two months. A year later, no marriage, thank God, but my self esteem is in the toilet and my friends and family tell me they have never seen me like this before. I went crawling to a shrink to put the pieces back together.
Classic Borderline Personality types will push you to the brink of sanity. There is no reasoning with them, they never take responsibility for anything. They blame you for everything. That attention turns to neglect in an instant and it NEVER comes back, but you won’t be able to get rid of them until they have sucked all the life blood out of you. Then he will hate you with as much passion as he loved you. You’ll be jelly fish by then and will need professional help.
Run, don’t walk far, far away.
Amen!!!
Been there – Done that. Never again, will I get involved with a Classic Borderline Personality type. I feel far safer sleeping with nuclear weapons then those types.
For those that are involved with those personality types – run away from them as fast as you can as if your life depends on it, because it does.
Donna,
You need to let go of your self victimization!!! The fact is really clear… you have yet to take responsibility for the way your life is turning out! No one treats us how they want to… we allow people to treat us the way they do!! Why is it necessary for him to suck all the life out of you… could it be that you enjoy the drama!? You sound like a smart cookie, but i can’t help but think how pathetic and childish a pity party is! There are a million great men waiting to find someone like you but you allow one to push you to the brink, and stop you from moving on to bigger and better! You dealt with his shit for a year!? At what point do you think you became responsible for the daily abuse???? I’m sending you a lot of love and light! Google Mama Gena
Been there, done that. I got sucked in to a 5 yr relationship w/a man through flattery and attention. Turned out to be literally nothing but lies. Looking back, when you get fed a little bit of BS at a time you don’t notice it as much but when you look collectively the questions and doubts are forever at the forefront. I could kick my own arse for being such a sucker but such is life.
I have been in the same boat right now its sad, it takes more time to forget about the smooth talking good for nothing man, than it took falling for him
I fell into this type of situation about 13 years ago. I was a 29 year old single mother, and he laid the flattery on for a few months before I let myself fall… And even within the 1st couple of months of seeing each other, I noticed red flags. ‘Why was i at Target so long? What took so long to get my hair cut? Why didnt I answer my phone?’ were just some of the questions I was hearing. And of course, at the time, I felt he was SO incredibly caring and SO worried about me that he wanted to know my whats, whos and whereabouts all the time.
Well I was wrong. I stayed in the semi-abusive relationship for almost a full year, and it took him destroying my 30 year old birthday party, grilling me throughout whole nights sometimes, accusing me of sleeping with anyone & everyone I came in contact with, and finally holding a knife to my throat with his 7 year old son in the bedroom. Luckily I never moved in with him, or bought anything with him, because when I changed the locks on my front door, Memorial Day weekend, I called and told him where he could stick it and completely disappeared for the 3-day weekend.
That started my break up, key word ‘MY’… But it didnt end there. He would come and lay on my front porch & cry & scream & yell & sleep. IT was very stressful and took probably a full year to get him to finally leave me alone.
I could go on and on with the gory details, but I’m sure you get the point… Just follow your instincts. Flattery is not the bad part of the equation, it’s the flatterer who USES it to get you hooked…
“but you won’t be able to get rid of them until they have sucked all the life blood out of you. Then he will hate you with as much passion as he loved you.”
Thanks Donna, well said. My sweet-talker, borderliner did it all on the email, and turned to be a scammer! I know that this lady has met him physically, but just to be safe, we shall give a margin that he is showering us with talk (either flattery or blame) to hide issues of his own.
Look for those!!!
I too was fooled by someone with borderline personality disorder (although he would never admit it). He praised me to no end, loved me quickly in and promised me a future of forever that of course I never saw. He tore me apart, used me sexually and abused me verbally. Stay away from people like this. They will always make you think things are your fault and never take responsiblilty for their actions. They will break you down.
What Donna wrote is no exaggeration and is summed up so well in two paragraphs.
I married a man with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). Of course when I married him I didn’t know this. He swept me off my feet and made me feel so unique and special. I worked hard and was successful and I fell so hard.
There were signs before I married him but he claimed he’s had this abusive childhood so whenever he accused me of stuff I just made it my goal to prove him wrong and tell him to just let me love him. He was seeing a therapist so I saw that as being very self-aware. I didn’t see the pattern of his accusations and my efforts to prove him wrong as abusive, much less see myself as codependent.
Everything got worse after I married him. He fired his therapist so his reality check was gone and he went for the jugular with accusations. Any effort I made to tell him he was wrong about me was just fuel for the fire and seen as “excuses” and I wasn’t allowed to have a separate view or opinion from his. I even got pregnant to prove him wrong when he accused me of putting my job ahead of family.
So there I was, pregnant. If I thought things were bad up to that point, things then got exponentially worse. Within a week he began pulling the carpet out from underneath me with regular and continuous threats to leave me. He would tell me he didn’t love me anymore and was disgusted at my mere presence. I asked him what I had done and equated his behavior toward me as “treating me like the scum on his shoes”. His response was “I need to put you in your place”.
Pregnancy was supposed to be a special time in my life, but instead it was the most stressful painful time in my life and not even milestones like “the baby just kicked!” could get him to put his silent treatment on hold for even a second. The only people that were concerned for me and interested in my pregnancy were friends and family, so I would put a smile on my face and share my milestones with them. I was so concerned that I was poisoning the child in my body with all of the stress hormones that were coursing through my body on a daily basis that I decided to see a therapist before I had a nervous breakdown.
It was when I was explaining to the therapist all the efforts I made to make him happy and it was never good enough that the therapist slammed her note pad down in her lap, interrupting me mid sentence, to exclaim “There’s nothing you can possibly do to make him happy! This is ABUSIVE behavior intended to control you” Then she proceeded to explain the abusive circular “dance” we do any time I start doing something for myself, he’ll attack, I go to great lengths to placate him, things are good again for a while until the next time I attempt to do something for myself again. I just sat there with my mouth open and then I uttered “I’m codependent then, huh?” She nodded, to which I replied “I thought I was strong and capable and I had to just continue to prove him wrong about me.”
With my new awareness and his commitment to be a better person we continued to try to have a healthy relationship. I also learned about myself that I had an extreme aversion to divorce, so I worked hard to not be codependent and hold his feet to the fire. We had our baby boy, we separated for a year and a half when he was two (I learned about BPD during that separation). We separated again when he was five . Each time I learned more and had more demands and I considered all of my hard work worthwhile and was certain that we would continue to improve. I became aware of NPD and my eyes were opened even further. It was by no means easy and I got accustomed to it not being fifty-fifty, but I was making progress with his behavior and to me marriage was worth it. My motto was “He’s not a bad person, he just has bad behavior”.
Despite my commitment and effort he ended up leaving me for another woman when our son was nine. By then I was exhausted and any chance of reconciliation was no longer possible for me. When he tried crawling back I politely told him no and he immediately turned into the vindictive vicious person I knew he was capable of being and I had to take the high road over and over while he used our son as a weapon and tried to ruin me financially. I had to fight to keep what I had before we were married because he felt entitled to all of it and he wanted me to pay for rejecting him. To this day he feels like he was the victim. The good news is I kept my house and I’m still standing. I don’t miss him whatsoever and I don’t miss the toxic energy that polluted our home with his bad moods and outbursts (otherwise known as character assassinations).
The ex has remarried a lovely woman 10 years younger. My son loves her, so I think the world of her. She’s successful and strong and I definitely see some parallels. I hope and pray that all of my “lessons” has made him a better husband; for her, but especially for our son, because I would love for him to see what a healthy marriage looks like. I hear they’re going to try to have a baby and I just hope and pray for HER that it is nothing like my pregnancy and she gets treated like a queen.
I can’t say that I wish I hadn’t married him because I have my son now, but if I were to advise anyone else, I would tell them if they see things that just don’t make sense, rather than make excuses or try to fix everything, start reading some books. If you do have a BPD or NPD (or other disorder) on your hands, RUN! Run fast. It’s exhausting, and there are plenty of others out there that don’t make you walk on eggshells or jump through hoops to prove your love. Save yourself the heartache.
Passive aggression.
If you are experiencing it, below mentioned will address you.
Each of those women knows that something is wrong – very- wrong-but she can’t put her finger on what it is. The pieces refuse to fit together.
Passive abusive man is often unusually good at expressing an intensity of caring early in a relationship and can make you feel so special and chosen – as if you were the only person who could ever matter must to him.
This was the only time in my life when put so much energy to understand things ( 5years) and I can’t finger out what is going on by myself.
These two books helped me a lot to understand who I am dealing with. Thanks to those two professionals especially Lundy Bancroft.
Lundy Bancroft “Why does he do that?”
Scott Wetzler “Living with the Passive Agressive Man.”
Good luck to everyone in finding your sweetheart !
I would have never believed it could happen to me, but it did. It was so PERFECT, we had such chemistry, such good times, he loved me, adored me, but then there were warning signs. Borderline paranoid comments, snapping when under stress, general dissatisfaction and criticism, condescending tone, unloving touch (grabbing my arm, poking, “gently” shoving), making fun of me in public, blaming everyone, tryign to please and befriend everyone,insecurities.
I started seriously doubting myself, hating myself, hating him. All of this after a couple months dating, what would things be like if I married this man????
I broke it off, it was so painful, I am still scared to flirt, afraid that I will run into another damaged man, I still need to heal.
Sometimes I think that if he admits he has a problem and seeks help I can take him back, but some close friends have advised me against it and after reading the story in the comment above I am convinced it is not a good idea.
I made a list of the crazy stuff that went down, I go over it when I feel weak.
Loving myself, my life and my future, no matter what else is going on or who is in my life, has been a hard but important lesson to learn.
I noticed everyone is using the term Classic BP disorder-ever looked into Narcisstic Personality Disorder? Dealt with that recently-but I guess it doesn’t matter because its all mental disorders (psychos) ;(
Wow, ALL of you women dated/married my ex??? LOL! The only good thing about this is that now we are the wiser. I recently met someone who carried the same attributes and when the radar went off, I was OUT. As painful as our situations may have been, I believe that if we wouldn’t have had them, we would’ve probably been worse off.
These men described have classic behaviors of an emotionally abusive man. They are your Prince Charming in the beginning to suck you in, then like a lobster in a pot you don’t realise until your self-esteem is shattered that you are being covertly abused.
2 good books to read on the subject of emotional abuse are:
“The Verbally Abusive Relationship: How to recognize it and how to respond”
“The Secret of Overcoming Verbal Abuse: Getting Off the Emotional Roller Coaster and Regaining Control of Your Life”
I just went through this. It was long distance and he insisted on texting me constantly even when I told him I was at work or wanted some time alone. He flattered me all the time and kept telling me after 4 weeks that he loved me and wanted me to move and marry him. I kept trying to reason with him that love takes time. One of the red flags was constant nagging for sex even though I said I wasn’t ready. Another was not taking no for an answer when I refused to take suggestive or naked pictures. He would nag, guilt trip, pressure and threaten to leave relationship every week or say “you deserve someone better than me”. I knew what was happening and that he wasn’t stable emotionally or ready for healthy relationship. My instincts told me this but part of me wanted to believe he really loved me. How can someone so smart with such a good job be like this? We have broken up and I feel good about it but miss all the attention and flattery all the same. I wished I listened to my gut right away rather than waiting three months. I kept thinking if only I had explained it better.
I knew I could sniff of the “bull #%*” in one snap of the fingers. I was wrong, he is what’s called a romantic scammer. He turned the charm on, he honest, I could judge him by his words! Calls in the morning, nite and the poems and beautiful emails, heart tugging. We were suppose to meet but he had to go out of town, business meeting? Then the nite mare began, constantly asking for money and I did not give in. He sent me flowers and then he ask for large amounts of money! I cut him off changed my phone number and my email address. Watch out girls, they are sick out there. When you begin to see red flags question everything! Ps. Even with the wonderful conversation oe whatever, guard your heart!!