A little while ago, I did a podcast on reflecting on perhaps our fault in these relationships . Our fault being that we expect too much from our cluster b . And when I say that we expect too much from them, I mean that we expect them to love us in the same passion and way that we believe that we love them . We want these people to become something that they pretended to be, but they don't have the bandwidth or capacity to be as the relationship matures . They put up a front . They show themselves as something that we so desire . They are shape shifters . They make themselves incredibly appealing . And we use terms like love bombing and all the other fun stuff . But, you know, the net result is the same . And I find it I find it interesting that we all become armchair psychologists in which we love to throw around these terms, including myself . And I include myself . And say, oh, you know, they're they're a narcissist . They're a cluster b . They're a borderline . They're a covert narcissist . They're a psychopath . We use these terms very liberally . But all of these terms describe one thing, relational abuse . And it doesn't matter because the net result is the same . It doesn't matter what personality type they are . We are not licensed professionals, and even licensed professionals struggle to diagnose people . And now there's so many different spectrums and so many different personality disorders that you can classify people with . You know, narcissism comes in so many different flavors and borderline, closet borderlines, quiet borderlines, whatever . The net result is the same . It doesn't matter what personality disorder the person has been diagnosed or undiagnosed with . We are extremely liberal with these labels . We are armchair mental health professionals . And I think we do this so that we can take some comfort in saying, well, that person's insane . That person's crazy . So maybe some of their behaviors are justified and makes us feel better to say those things . So how do we stop loving a toxic person ? Not necessarily even a cluster b . I mean, I throw it around liberally too that I suspect that my wife is a covert narcissist . Well, maybe she is and maybe she isn't . But the net result is the same . My needs, my desires, my visibility to her is just not there . She doesn't love me because she doesn't have the bandwidth nor the capacity to do so . I am a tool . Does that make her a narcissist ? Well, maybe it does . Does it just make her a toxic person ? Maybe so . But the net result is the same . And we we, you and I, need to figure out why we remain . And I've talked about this for almost 200 podcasts now . Why do I remain ? I know full well the lay of the land . I have accepted my wife's behaviors . I've accepted the fact that she doesn't care because she really doesn't . I am here to fulfill various duties . I am here to, sort of, create the front that she wants to create . That's very narcissistic . That she can go out there and tell people, well, gosh . We've been married for almost 22 years . So people will look and go, wow . In this day and age, that's amazing . You must be an amazing partner . You must be an incredible person . Wow . 22 years . Yet behind closed doors, there's the private person that my wife is . And that private person is not a loving person, not a caring person . And she's said it very openly . You know, people think I'm not a loving person, but, you know, you have to take into consideration the family that I grew up in . And, yeah, that's all well and good . Certainly, our family of origin has a lot to do with how we are and how we behave in relationships . But at the end of the day, if somebody is toxic, they're toxic . And whether they're a cluster b toxic person, well, that doesn't matter . Does it matter ? Does it matter to you ? Does it matter that you've done hours and hours of research listening to podcasts like My Inner Torch ? If anything, it's made me understand . It's helped me deal with the circumstance . But does it make me any happier knowing that my wife is a covert narcissist ? Does it give me comfort ? Does it give me solace ? Does it make me a happy person ? And the answer to that is absolutely no . So why and this is a question I will pose to you . Why do we spend so much time and energy loving these people ? Or maybe we aren't loving these people . Maybe we're being just the same as they are . We believe that we love them but we're loving a mirage . We're loving somebody who pretended to be somebody else in order for us to love them . It's a very strange dichotomy, and yet we find ourselves being drawn into these people's emotional orbits . And it's not pleasant, and it's very difficult . Trauma bonding, well, that's a real thing . Something that I have dealt with and I'm still dealing with . You know, it runs very deep . And the longer the time goes, well, we either do one of 2 things I find . Either we become numb, we just ignore it, and people are like, well, look what she just said or what she did . And we're sitting there going, well, I really didn't notice anything different because we're used to it . We just kinda turn a blind eye to it . We give them an emotional allowance . Or in my case, I'm very well aware of who my wife is to me and what our relationship is . That it's not really a marriage . It's just kind of, well, a caretaking type of thing . My wife is essentially no better than a roommate . I think, actually, I'd probably be better off with a roommate . I wouldn't be as emotionally involved . That person could stay for a little while and they'd leave and well, then I'd probably find another roommate . But that's really the essence of what our relationship is . I can't say it's a true marriage . I can't really say that my wife has my back . And the difference is now that I can say that without emotion . It's matter of fact to me . I'm not sitting here crying . Tears are not streaming down my face . I'm not asking her to be something and to return to being somebody who she never was . So how do we stop loving these toxic people ? Well, I think a very important point would be to remind yourself of the bad things that they said and did and continue to do . We tend to forget those things . We focus on the good stuff . Well, she was actually quite normal today . Oh, she was actually really flirtatious with me today . Wow . Well, that doesn't make up for the 3 or 4 months beforehand that were absolute hell . Remember that they said and did things deliberately . These are deliberate acts . You know, they mean what they say . Remember all the chances that you give them to change, which they only use to blame and hurt you some more . Those are emotional allowances . We tend to kinda give them preferential treatment . Oh, well, you know, they're just angry people . Oh, well, they had a tough upbringing . That doesn't matter . If, again, you, meaning you, are not getting what you need because all you are is just essentially a caretaker to build them up to keep them functioning, that's not a reciprocal relationship . Keep in mind that they lie about love and most everything else . And I don't know if it's a matter of lying . I think it's a matter of not having the bandwidth, the capacity, the understanding of what true love is . Ask yourself if you would even wanna spend time with this person as a friend . And I know it's hard for us to differentiate between friends and lovers and wives and husbands and boyfriends and girlfriends and family . It is difficult to see past those labels . But would you want the person that you suspect is a cluster b and who's abusing you, would you really want them as a friend if you met them in different circumstances and you understood things a little bit better ? I I can tell you right now that my radar is very fine tuned . I can look at people now of both genders and say these are people I don't wish to associate with because these are people that are toxic . It doesn't matter that they're maybe a covert narcissist, an overt narcissist, a borderline, a psychopath, whatever . Doesn't matter . They're just not good people . Ask yourself, would you still want this person in your life if you knew you could be with someone who would truly cherish you ? Who would respect you, who you could have a true intimate relationship with, and not have to constantly try to make make believe a relationship . Would you do that ? Compare and contrast what a value and what value they brought to your life and what you've brought to theirs . You know, what do they bring to the table ? Do they support you ? Do they really care about you ? And just repeat these steps over and over again . Ask yourself . Validate it . And if it's too hard to do it alone, then get professional support . But professional support and therapy from somebody who really cluster b relationship, the dynamics that come with it . Not just a counselor who may be who's taken a couple of courses here and there . Somebody who really works with people who are who they are . These are the things that we need to do . We have to turn our you know, we have to turn inward . And I know it's hard for us because we're very busy trying to be both parts of the relationship . We are acting both parts of the relationship, and we are so frequently disappointed because they can't maintain the act anymore . They did it for a reason and that's very hard for us to accept . There's a book coming out that you should look up for Amazon . Actually, it's a book I'm going to read . It's called Fake Love . Now, of course, it centers around narcissism, but it could be it could be applied to really anybody in the cluster b genre . Fake love . I mean, I think these people think that they're loving, so to speak, maybe in some form or fashion, but it's not really love . It's not a deep, intimate, adult love, a mature love . It's a infantile love . It's a on the behalf of a borderline, perhaps it's it's a, like, a a toddler wanting its mother or father . That's not truly a reciprocal intimate love . It's very one-sided . And I don't think I would classify that as being love . And when you take the physical element out of it, which is important to a lot of us, including myself, What's left ? And even that element kind of runs its course . So the relationship is completely imbalanced, and it is dysfunctional, dysregulated, and disordered . And that's not putting a label on anything . It's just not a normal relationship . And for so many of us, we don't really know what a normal relationship is because we've been in these relationships most of our mature life or perhaps since we were brought into a family . Myinnertorch@gmail.com . Thank you for being part of this community . New episodes uploaded each and every Friday at 10 AM Eastern Standard Time . I appreciate your listenership .
