Fred I feel that even if she is not a certified sociopath, she had enough problems and there were enough red flags.... that, looking back, you perhaps should have thought twice about marrying her.

But we cannot look back. Only forward. You have not wasted too much time with her yet. You can still have a great life for yourself. MB might not work well with a person like her. You can try and if it does not help get out of the marriage.

Gee Pep, sort of makes mine anticlimactic...

As for the stats I site, they come from Harely's writings, as well as other sites. Harely says that 15% is about the max for success from Plan A.He goes on to say that Plan B is successful even less than plan A. I dredged up his articles from which I gleaned this a long time ago. They are on this site.

Zelmo, I have never seen anywhere that he says that "Plan B is successful even less than Plan A." citation, please.

Okay. I'll try to find it, again.

Okay. I'll try to find it, again. I am pretty sure that it was actually in one of our debates, Mel, that I pulled it out.

Please do, because in my 9 years here, I have NEVER heard him say this - just the opposite. And I actually OWN and have read almost every book he has written, listened to EVERY radio show, seen every video and gone through his weekend program.

So, how you, who has never even read one single MB book and have never been through the program have managed to see a comment that no one else has seen is puzzling to me. I would like to see where he says that "Plan B is successful even less than Plan A" because that CONTRADICTS his statement that 65% of marriages DO NOT end in divorce over adultery.

Agreed, Mel.

Oh - and Zel mo... Please include the entire quote, not a fraction of a sentence you take out of context....

How do you know that "no one else has seen it"? Have you inquired of everyone?

[quote=Zelmo]

How do you know that "no one else has seen it"? Have you inquired of everyone?

You are the only person who claims to have seen this quote. Do you have it? [/quote
Okay, I will begin the process of dredging it up. The fact that I am the only one mentioning it, however, is significantly different than the claim that no one has ever seen it.

Watch out for this defense mechanism

Thursday, 17 December 2009 @ 7:00am

You are involved, say, with a pathologically self-centered personality, perhaps a narcissist or sociopath?

That is, s/he wants what s/he wants when s/he wants it, and s/he�ll do whatever�s necessary (his/her entitlement) to get it, or take it.

Key diagnostic trait: s/he reserves the right to punish you when you obstruct his/her agenda.

Now here�s the thing: in the heat of the moment, you may actually be pretty good at confronting his/her abuse. Maybe you stand up for yourself pretty effectively? Maybe, in the moment, you�re even pretty good at setting limits and challenging his/her nonsense?

So then what�s the problem?

the problem occurs when you step away from these incidents.

In stepping away from them, you potentially risk enacting your own form of compartmentalization, by which I mean that, while in the moment you may address his/her abuse with some backbone, yet beyond the moment you effectively �drop the ball� by failing to process, and own, the greater pattern.

It�s a case of our seeing the trees in the forest just fine, yet somehow, defensively, ensuring that we fail to see the forest through the trees.

I�m referring, of course, to a kind of defense mechanism with which some�-not all�-of us may be familiar?

As I suggested, strategically this defense mechanism deploys a form of compartmentalization, while tactically it assumes forms of denial, minimization and avoidance (of reality).

What precisely is the function and, more importantly, the danger of this defense mechanism?

Its function, I suspect, is to prevent us from connecting the dots; that is, our failure (defensively) to connect the dots enables our avoidance of confronting the greater pattern that underlies the series of incidents.

So long as we address the �abusive incidents� separately�-as discreet events�-thereby defensively ignoring their wider pattern, then we can rationalize more easily our �staying in� the relationship with a kind of pseudo-dignity and pseudo self-respect.

To be clear, we achieve this self-compromise by reframing the abuse as a series of brushfires to be troubleshot on an ongoing basis, much like a manageable chronic illness.

And especially if, as I�ve noted, we�re pretty good at this�-somewhat effective, that is, at confronting these brushfires on a case by case basis-�then it becomes easier to compartmentalize in the manner I�m describing.

The danger, of course, is how this defensive process-�in its reframing of the exploitation as a series of disconnected, but manageable, events�-supports our denial that the relationship has, in fact, been globally and fatally compromised by the exploitation.

This highlights, yet again, the basic conundrum of defense mechanisms: the protection they confer is so often exceeded, unfortunately, by their cost to our well-being and, sometimes, integrity.

(This article is copyrighted � 2009 by Steve Becker, LCSW. Edited by Fred_in_VA to make it gender-neutral.)

Finding a label makes it too easy to blame the label and that, my friend, lets the cheater off the hook for his or her actions.

It also lets the BS off the hook as far as examining his or her own actions.