Help for Partners in Destructive Romantic Relationships

You are not alone!  We offer help for those who have been through a romantic relationship with a narcissist, sociopath, or psychopath, which are popular terms for those with what we call Low Conscience Externalizing Disorders. You probably feel isolated in your experience.  Even well-meaning friends and family don’t completely get it.  We can help you gain clarity and stop blaming yourself, and work toward healing the damage and regaining your lost self.

What is a “destructive relationship?

It is a relationship in which one of the partners is being psychologically, physically, financially, sexually, or otherwise exploited and/or victimized to meet the needs/desires of the low-conscience externalizing partner. It is a relationship with someone with qualities that make the relationship damaging, i.e. destructive, to their partners. Those qualities are:

• ✓  They lack empathy, which allows them to serve their own needs no matter how this affects you. It means they cannot perceive or meet your needs, if they are different than theirs. It means they are not capable of true emotional connection – in fact they would be threatened by it.
• ✓  They lack conscience, and therefore, insight and remorse.  Lack of conscience is based on lack of empathy – if someone isn’t connected to their own emotion, they can’t connect to others’ emotions or the hurt they may be causing.  There is no ability to look at themselves and take responsibility, or, therefore, feel remorse for the hurt and be motivated to change their behavior.  Lack of conscience allows for the deception that is usually present in these relationships.
  
• ✓  They are reward-driven.  They are not motivated by conscience or consequences but by reward.  And, they are usually confident and arrogant enough to take whatever risks to get to it.
• ✓  They are narcissistic.  They always have a high view of themselves internally even if they aren’t overt about it.  They must maintain this high view at all costs, which are likely to be paid by their partner.  They always expect their partner to see them as blameless and flawless, and they externalize blame, control and manipulate the partner if they don’t.  Whether you call them a narcissist, sociopath, psychopath, antisocial, etc. they all have a narcissistic self-perception.

If you are in a relationship with a destructive partner, you will begin to break down in a number of ways. You will slowly over time lose yourself, as you learn that aspects of you or your emotional needs are dismissed, not tolerated, or are met with an angry response. You may experience physical, verbal, or sexual abuse. You may experience a financial drain on your resources. At the very least, you will find out that that seemingly perfect person who presented themselves to you at the beginning of the relationship was a front, or false self, and has turned into a hostile, conniving, and/or deceitful person. You will feel more stress and anxiety over time in the relationship, which will manifest in more physical symptoms and illness, psychological distress, confusion, depression, anxiety, panic, insomnia, loss of energy, loss of focus. You are likely to feel increasingly debilitated, and wonder what happened to the strong, confident person you started out as in this relationship. At the extreme, people have described this as feeling as if they are “falling apart”, or “dying.”

You may at some point be shocked and traumatized to find that the person you thought loved you clearly does not and never has. You may find the person has been leading a double life – perhaps having other women or men, lying about their occupation, income, past, sexual orientation, even their identity. When your world shatters, you will experience Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which is further debilitating. You will likely be confused, and wonder what to believe and what to do. And, if you have children together, your path is even harder to navigate.

If you are a partner of a narcissist, sociopath, or psychopath, you will need support to find the self you lost, to gain clarity and gather strength to figure out your next move, and to find your life again. You will need support (and possibly therapy) to heal Post Traumatic Stress. You will need to hear stories of others who have been or are going through the same experiences, to affirm that you are not crazy and you are not alone. Your friends and family, even your therapist, may not understand what you’ve been going through. But, those who have lived your unique situation do understand.

Our mission is to provide a haven of safety, strength, healing and hope.

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