Should you warn the OW

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#1 Nov 12 - 12PM
Scoop
Scoop's picture

Should you warn the OW

When my narc got together with the OW i had to bite my tongue , hand and feet not to contact her and tell her what i knew about the narc , i could have so easily , she is on face book , i know her, but i didnt and it wasnt easy i can tell you . My thoughts where that she will find out in time , i just had to sit a waite untill his mask fell of and she would know why i dont talk to him . When he did show his true colours with her she slapped an RO on to his sad arse and i did a big imaginary "high five sister " to her in my living room .Heres an artical about the subject ..

"Should I warn the other victims of the psychopath? If this question is largely motivated by the need for vengeance my answer is definitely: NO. It’s not that I don’t support the idea that the psychopath, who harms others so gleefully and remorselessly, get what he deserves in life. But I can think of several good reasons why if you’re motivated primarily by vindictiveness, ultimately you won’t feel much satisfaction from warning the psychopath’s newest batch of victims.

1. It means that you’re stuck in a negative emotion, that will keep you angry and ruminating rather than focusing on moving on with your life.

2. It means that you’re still keeping up with what the psychopath is doing and with whom, when, once again, the focus should be on healing and moving on with your life.

3. Psychopaths usually have numerous simultaneous victims, at different cycles of the relationship–idealization phase, manipulation phase and devalue/discard phases–as I explain in the article Relationship Boomerang: The Psychopath’s Relationship Cycle. It would be a full-time job to keep up with the psychopath’s victims and warn all of them.

4. It’s likely to cause drama in your life, when what you need is calmness and healing. When they can’t get positive attention from you, psychopaths love getting negative attention from you. As extreme narcissists, they need to be at the center of attention, regardless what kind.

5. Even passive contact–meaning reading the psychopath’s communication without responding to it or finding out on the internet or from mutual acquaintances what he’s doing–can set back your recovery.

6. It’s likely to be a very thankless task. Psychopaths, particularly “socialized” or “charismatic” psychopaths, tend to carefully select victims who idolize them. Such victims sometimes stand by the psychopath even in those extreme cases when they’re convicted of rape and murder. The psychology of individuals brainwashed by cult leaders, who are often psychopathic, also applies to some victims of charismatic psychopaths. Even in less extreme cases, most victims pass through a honeymoon phase–filled with lies, flattery, mirroring of their values, phony declarations of love and false promises–which bonds them to the psychopath. During that phase many victims will not listen to anybody’s warnings, even in the face of compelling arguments and evidence. Just ask yourself: Did you or would you have listened to such a warning? I know that my friends tried to warn me early on about the psychopath’s true nature, but during the honeymoon phase I couldn’t see the lack of character, superficiality and malice they saw in him. Only during the much less pleasant devalue phase, which occurred during the final few weeks of our relationship, did I start to open my eyes and recall the red flags they had spotted much earlier than me. I suppose it’s better late than never!

7. A small minority of the victims of psychopaths are disordered and dangerous themselves.

However, if you’re motivated by the other-regarding desire to warn the current victims for their sake–to help them avoid the pain you felt–regardless of whether they’re grateful for the information you gave them and regardless of the fact this will keep you at least indirectly associated with the psychopath and his current life, then it may be worth assuming the risks I enumerated above.

I’ve shown in a previous post, called Stringing Women Along: The Psychopath as Puppet Master, how psychopaths use women against one another to string them along as back-ups and to play puppet master. The more subtle psychopaths also use them to keep their hands clean, so to speak. If a psychopath criticizes his wife to the girlfriend (to justify his cheating and prove his trustworthiness to her) and, once discovered, the girlfriend to his wife (to exculpate himself), then the two women are too busy fighting each other to focus on his wrongdoings. Aside from the entertainment value of jealous women fighting over him, the psychopath gets the additional advantage of not having to engage directly in a smear campaign. He allows the women, who now disrespect and maybe even hate each other, to do it for him. They can spread false or selective information to family members and friends, thus sparing him the dirty job of doing it himself. He’s lied to them both and cheated on them both. In a just world, he certainly deserves to be exposed.

The tricky part is how to do it most effectively. Because such manipulative men antagonize women against each other, it becomes difficult to share information in a civil manner. Once she realizes that she’s been mistreated and that something’s seriously wrong with this man, how does the wife tell the girlfriend about it (and why would she do her rival such a favor?) or the girlfriend tell the wife? Both are likely to suspect the other of ulterior motives, such as wanting to get the man for herself or petty revenge against him. Moreover, the wife, or the psychopath’s main partner, has been morally wronged most. The girlfriend with whom the psychopath cheated on her has wronged her almost as much as her own partner (except more impersonally). She’s therefore not likely to respect the girlfriend (or girlfriends) enough to even want to communicate with her (or them).

A few years ago, I followed with interest the discussions on lovefraud.com on this subject. Numerous women have shared their experiences of trying to tell the other women about the psychopath and his personality disorder, once they have opened their eyes. The contributors reported mixed results. Some of them were able to get through to their “rivals,” which were really fellow victims. Others received further insult and abuse, only now from the woman or women they were trying to help. Obviously that didn’t ameliorate the situation. The main reason, however, why some women reacted so negatively to the truth about the psychopath was not the rivalry he created between them, but the power he exercised over them. Victims of psychopathic seduction don’t all awake from their spell simultaneously, like in a fairy tale. They don’t all realize at the same moment that they’ve been duped and used, just as their rivals were. In addition, as we’ve seen, psychopaths generally undermine the boundaries and self-esteem of their long-term partners in a more profoundly damaging manner than they do those of their short-term girlfriends.

Trying to awake the girlfriend(s) from the psychopathic bond presents a different sort of challenge. Those women are probably being treated “better” than his long-term partner because the relationship is newer, because they don’t have to live with a psychopath day-to-day and because they’re being maintained for sex, entertainment and romance: meaning the most pleasant and light aspects of a relationship. Even psychopaths who are so stingy that they won’t spend a dime on their wives often spend lavishly on their newest girlfriends. A woman who’s been treated like a “princess”–wined, dined, pampered and romanced—is likely to be deeply under the haze of the psychopathic bond. How do you tell a girlfriend who’s apparently treated well the sad truth? How do you let her know that she’s only a temporary pampered pet who’ll soon be devalued and discarded?"

All of us are different and have different opinions about whether we should tell the OW this artical high lights some of the issues to ask yourself first . I do not recomend telling the OW as it opens up a whole can of worms you can do with out . The OW will find out sooner or later what the narc is like , its a given the narc treats all women like objects and any emotions he shows are fake and there is always a time limit on fake .

Big love Scoop x

Nov 14 - 1PM
heritage
heritage's picture

Great info scoop. After his

Great info scoop. After his D&D he hooked up with old gf from 7 years ago. He ditched me Jan 2011 and started going around with her in March. He was with her until Aug. I always thought about saying something but I realized it would just make me look bad. Because he has already probably told her I am nuts and scorned from the break up. He had said all of those things to me about his ex W. He never said one good thing, not one. I did meet with rex W after my 5 years with him. She was nothing like his portrayal so that is how I know he just will continue his cycle of lies about former woman.
Nov 13 - 8AM
zzcem
zzcem's picture

Thank you

for the link and all the best to you. I have also been doing meditation and I found a great site that I downloaded the podcasts from: http://www.themeditationpodcast.com I do a meditation twice a day. It really helps. That along with affirmations, reading the Lisa E. Scott website, changing my phone number/email and blocking him on every possible site that I can think of. The only way we will heal is staying NO CONTACT. I agree also with another poster on this same topic who stated the following: "And I will add one more thing: it is none of our business. It can, and often is, motivated by a desire for revenge. Revenge has a bad habit of boomeranging. In any case, it shows one has a continued interest in the N's life." Thanks to Hermes for that post! It really hit a chord with me! Let's all stick to NC. That also means not in any way being involved with the OW. What is the point? If someone would have warned us we would not have listed. Best of luck to all!!! :)
Nov 13 - 7AM
prettypeeved
prettypeeved's picture

So far I've taken a very

So far I've taken a very stand-offish approach. I'm positive he strung along a friend of mine, but it didn't come up in conversation so I held my tongue. More recently I was told by another friend that Narc Boy had been sniffing around, and that time I did indeed give a warning, but I didn't go any further than to outline that he'd walked all over my feelings and treated me really badly repeatedly, and left it at that. Fortunately The Ice Queen seems to do such a good job of randomly disappearing for months at a time, and abandoning all his friendships in the process, that a lot of people seem to give up on him after a while anyway. I *did* find that after the second incident outlined above, I felt VERY angry for a while, and it was stumbling on this article that helped me release that anger. I would definitely recommend a read of it.
Nov 13 - 5AM
not-there-yet
not-there-yet's picture

That's his mother's job.

His mother sort of warned me, by telling him in front of me "better treat this one right budy, I'm watching you". Probably because I had left my country to come live in her attic. I'm not going to run after every new girl.I wash my hands of his future life.
Nov 13 - 4AM
Syren66 (not verified)
Anonymous's picture

Newp. Nobody felt the

Newp. Nobody felt the burning need to warn me...and I have no interest in what happens to the latest victim...I don't feel sorry for her, I'm not jealous...he's her problem now. I simply don't care.
Nov 13 - 5AM (Reply to #8)
empath
empath's picture

Agreed.

There will always be another woman willing to take them off our hands. Always. To try to "prevent" that by "warning" another target, is pointless. We all have to learn the hard way. The only way that you could effectively warn another target, would be if you tattooed a warning label on his forehead...and even then, he'd find a way to convince someone to feel sorry for him for being unfairly tattooed, and someone would buy into his "poor me" shpiel, and think she was "special"... You can't turn a cheetah into a vegetarian, and there will always be a slower gazelle. We're in the group that outran the cheetah. Keep running, gazelles! Keep running! Cheetah...lol sounds like cheater. I kinda like my little impromptu metaphorical analogy...I am the gazelle that got away, and so are you! :-)
Nov 12 - 5PM
Susan32
Susan32's picture

NO!!!!

The ex-Psych prof's ex-boyfriend warned me. At the time, I was still very much in love. Somehow, I managed to follow his advice to NOT get physically/romantically involved with the ex-P. I think this prof did it out of a sense of duty, He didn't want to be negligent&leave me endangered. But did I follow suit to warn the ex-P's live-in girlfriend (now his wife)? NO. And I had MANY good reasons why. -I was a student. She was a girlfriend. She LIVED WITH HIM. Why would she listen to me? -I'm a decade her junior. When I met her, I was 22 and she was 32. She was of the same generation as the ex-P. She's an adult. Why would she have listened to someone so young? -I would've come across as crazy&jealous. She worked at the museum down the street from the college... but NEVER did I tell her what happened to me. She wouldn't have listened. -More drama. -Triangulation. I WANTED to warn her... but she was living with him, she was more closely involved with him than I ever was. He went home to her... not to me. I never dealt with the ex-P off-campus... it was her daily life. She was in the honeymoon period, swooning over the ex-P as a philosopher... I let her have her dream. It was for me to know and for her to find out.
Nov 12 - 5PM
greengirl91
greengirl91's picture

It`s true, I had that choice

It`s true, I had that choice myself when his OW gave me a friend request back, after I have removed her as a friend. I could have shared or tell my version of the story then and there..but I chose to listen t peple`s voices from here, that advice me not to say anything, because I have no obligation to. Maybe it was a good thing, maybe not, but what I needed then was PEACE..and space away from his drama, and his minions. I could focus more, though it wassn`t easy, because I consider myself an empath, I don`t enjoy crossing people over. But it came to a point in my healing, when I no longer cared whether friends, aquitances were leaving my life, or calling me whatever or judging my thinking. I did my best, tried for 5 years, almost 6 if you count this one with all the ups and downs..it`s simply no way of life. Their Love fr you lasts for 5 minutes, fr 5 minutes, I no longer was Cinderella, I felt like a Queen..but the next day, I didn`t know whether I would still be, or become forgotten, or demonised. It`s no way of life..and I truly did my best. I guess it goes way back in childhod for me, for validation and acceptance, and love from self absorbed Narcisistic people. That have nothing to give me. Thank you for your post btway! There is this tendency, trap, that we fall often to believe that somehow The OW is loved, and we weren`t.
Nov 12 - 3PM
Hermes
Hermes's picture

No to dating sites

I agree with much of what Scoop says. And I will add one more thing: it is none of our business. It can, and often is, motivated by a desire for revenge. Revenge has a bad habit of boomeranging. In any case, it shows one has a continued interest in the N's life. Just another thought: why would anyone want to be the pampered pet of anyone? I am asking.... Hermes
Nov 12 - 2PM
Avid
Avid's picture

I say NO!

they are so lost in the narc they would not believe it. I have tried and all it did was make the woman cling to him more. Just think how we were so into the narc it would not have mattered what anyone said because at the time he is idealizing us we would not care what anyone said, afterall everyone loves to be put up on a pedistal and that is what the narc does to their victims, so telling someone who is on cloud nine is a waste of time.
Nov 13 - 3AM (Reply to #3)
NarcJunkie
NarcJunkie's picture

Yes, the OW thinks she knows him soooo well

and is waaayyy closer to him than we ever were. When a friend tried to warn me and told me the awful things he had heard about the Narc, I actually did listen (and was seriously shocked) even though I was still in the honeymoon period. The accusations were too severe to be ignored, BUT... what did I do? I confronted the Narc of course... and he manipulated me perfectly into believing that he was innocent... that his former colleagues just hated him, because he was in a "bad phase" back then, so unhappy, but now he's different, blablabla... One particularly nasty thing he had said to my friend he claimed not to remember because he was drunk and he seemed very shocked that he could have said such a thing, and later even apologized to my friend. They are VERY skillful... he did not angrily deny the accusations, he seemed to reflect and take them in like a mature person when in reality he was just choosing the best method to make me believe him. I resrained myself and never said a word to the OW all these months even though it was extremely painful for me and I was hoping for them to break up every day. But I knew it was just my ego, and I might have gotten into trouble with the Narc at work. She apologized to me one day and said she was was just trying to not get caught in the middle (heaven knows what BS he fed her about me, but he must have demonized me and she felt awkward bc she liked me but loved HIM). She said she didn't want to talk about him. I said: ok I respect that but if you ever do, contact me. She smiled. She doesn't think it'll ever be necessary. It is unfortunate that it didn't work out for me, but of course, he has her firmly trapped in the belief that SHE is so special, so perfect for him, that he truly loves her... and who DOESN'T want to cling to that feeling for as long as they can?
Nov 12 - 12PM
Gravity
Gravity's picture

Telling the OW

this is very very true! There have been SO many times I have been tempted to warn the OW but as I've said before.. I knew about NPD, I was active on the forum, and even I still wanted to be in denial because it hurt too much to accept reality. Why would she ever believe me when she isn't as informed as I am, AND he will definitely tell her i'm crazy?! One of my expsycho's OW has been in his life about 4 years.. no doubt she's 100% brainwashed and confused. Nothing I could say to her would help.. if she's been in denial 4 years why would she listen to me when he's undoubtedly told her I was a crazy stalker? Also very true that it keeps you ruminating. Not worth it at all! This is her (and her, and her, and her,) and every other victims personal battle that they will come to terms with eventually. I heard through the grapevine that my expsycho slept with one of the OW's friend in the bathroom while they were out together (and in a relationship). I told my friend that story and she said "Gravity, if you've heard that story randomly..SHE HAS TOO!"