An Abuser's False Self: Hypocrisy and its Consequences

(Photo by Kyle Head on Unsplash)

In a previous post I wrote about the early stages of a romantic relationship with someone who’s hiding an abusive personality, and how that experience likely damaged your self-image and tarnished your ability to trust your own intuition. In this post I’d like to address another reason why you were led astray — and how you should never, under any circumstances, blame yourself.

Everyone in an abusive relationship needs to realize that a skilled manipulator has an extremely fragile ego. Such individuals demand to be understood and “respected”—to the point of expecting their target to read their minds—but paradoxically they’ll never reveal their true, innermost selves.
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There’s a two-fold reason for this: first, they abhor vulnerability, and letting someone know who they truly are—with the consequent risk of rejection—feels too vulnerable for them. Second, they don’t even know who they truly are.

They’re wandering … In circles.

(unsplash.com)

If you’re involved with someone like this, you’ve likely come to realize that you’re expected to foresee all your partner’s needs and expectations, and to comply accordingly—even though he doesn’t want you to know the real him and therefore, you could never know what his true “needs” are.

And, of course, your own needs don’t matter. 
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It doesn’t make a difference if you’ve been dating for two months (yet are already love-bombed into a fairy-tale romance) or if you’ve been married for fifty years. If you’re with a skilled abuser, you’re with a liar, a manipulator, and someone who hides. He hides his true self from you, and he hides his true self from himself.

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