Podcast E7: Woman, Know Your Abuser

E7, "Woman, Know Your Abuser," is a podcast hosted by Mette Miriam Sloth, that focuses on women's experiences with boundary-crossing behavior from men in intimate relationships and family relationships. The conversation provides insight into recognizing abusive behavior, protecting children in such situations, and navigating divorces where there is a history of abuse.

• Read more

  Recognizing Abusive Behavior

  The conversation emphasizes the importance of women learning to recognize abusive behavior in order to protect themselves and their children. Emphasis is placed on the fact that narcissistic traits can be difficult to identify at the beginning of a relationship, as they are often masked by charming behavior.

  Examples of abusive behavior mentioned in the conversation include:

  • Manipulation: The abuser tries to control and direct the woman's thoughts and actions.

  • Gaslighting: The abuser makes the woman doubt her own memory and perception of reality.

  • Denial of Responsibility: The abuser does not take responsibility for their actions and instead blames the woman.

  • Verbal Abuse: The abuser uses demeaning and hurtful language to humiliate and degrade the woman.

  Protecting Children

  The conversation addresses the difficult situation many women face when they have to protect their children from an abusive father. Emphasis is placed on the fact that it can be a balancing act to support the children in their relationship with their father, while at the same time protecting them from harmful behavior.

  The conversation encourages setting clear boundaries with the abusive partner and involving professionals to get help and support.

  Navigating Divorces

  E7 also discusses the challenges that can arise during and after a divorce where abusive behavior has been involved. Emphasis is placed on the fact that the abuser will often try to maintain control and manipulate the situation to their advantage.

  The conversation provides advice to women on how they can navigate the divorce process and protect themselves and their children from further abuse.

  Final Remarks

  The conversation emphasizes that women are not alone in experiencing abusive behavior. Help and support are available, and it is important to break the silence and put an end to the abuse.

  References:

  • Why Does He Do That? - Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men by Lundy Bancroft.

  • Should I Stay or Should I Go?: Surviving a Relationship with a Narcissist by Ramani Durvasula.

• Transcript

  Translated transcript of the original Danish podcast

  Host: Mette Miriam Sloth

  Hi, we're live here for the online lecture, which has this very violent name woman know your abuser. And it might sound like it's meant to be provocative. It's not at all. It's actually meant against a very sad background, but also an unfortunately necessary background, which is that there is a very large percentage of women who are subjected to violence, be it psychological or physical, from men. And it can also happen the other way around, that there is also a percentage of women who can belong to the kind of cancer mentality or what is called dark tried. You could say that these are forms of behavior that are continuously transgressive and offensive. However, I would say that in percentage terms it's a smaller percentage, which doesn't mean that it's better or worse. It's not so much to equate it as to say that there seems to be a bit of an overwhelming imbalance here, and that's what I'm addressing. So today's lecture is about the situation a woman can find herself in when she realizes that she is in a relationship that is continuously transgressive, pressuring, abusive, which is a very broad definition. Um, and that's what I'm going to describe today. And how she can find her way out or at least navigate it if, for various reasons, she is not able to walk or will not be able to walk for some time. There may be children, there may be all kinds of reasons why a woman is not ready to walk right away and it is not appropriate to walk. But it could also be that at some point she needs to leave and needs to know about what what does it do to me to be in a relationship like this where the other party is not able to either not want to, not, or not able to have self-reflection and take responsibility for the behavior that he exhibits. So it's a tough topic. Um, and you could say that what I work with is connection. And therefore to a large extent also the pain that is when connection is interrupted, is difficult to re-establish. And also with figuring out, well, hey, because we all experience that. We're all going to be in relationships where we're going to cross boundaries, we're going to freak out, we're going to do all sorts of things. But the difference is whether you find a way through it, whether you have self-reflection, you start to understand your own part, and what traumas you carry with you, everything. But there are some people who may sound like they want to take responsibility for a behavior but don't for various reasons. And being with someone who consistently disclaims responsibility simply isn't possible, even if it's because they're not able to see. So if we were in narcissism, then the person will have a very hard time seeing what he or she is doing. In this case, they he. But some of the other behaviors when we say abusive, when we say abusive like when we say psychopathy, he actually knows that it's a transgressive, an exploitative uh a manipulative and lying behavior. But he has no interest in changing it. And in such a case, it would be harmful to be with such a person. So we can all end up in some of these traps or end up in some of these slightly darker forms of behavior. It can be very human. We can all end up lying. We can all manipulate. We can all freak out and be rude and borderline and pushy and stuff like that. But the difference between them and the people who are caught off guard for me they don't do anything about versus people who have a conscience, who have empathy, who have empathy. Because for the second group it will be Well, there may be some unhealthy things, there may be something you have to learn, there may be something that hurts, there may be some psychological defenses, but there's something about you kind of find your way down like phew, I need to kind of understand here. There are so many conflicts here in my relationship, so I actually have to figure out what my contribution is. So the difference here is actually the key of self-reflection and the ability to be vulnerable and gentle with yourself, while you go in with a critical eye and say, where the hell am I falling into the water? Where am I going to hurt my loved ones? And how the hell do I take care of it? So that's actually what it is, it's quite a striking place where the difference lies. And this is an interesting dynamic, because very often he will, as I keep saying, because yes, it's true that some women also have these continuous transgressions, but this lecture is about where the man is the one who maintains the abusive behavior. So where he maintains the abusive behavior, what can be extremely confusing here is that he can very quickly end up using the situations where she naturally has sometimes been unclear or has been unclear or has flipped out or has been immature or has been too much or as we all are sometimes. But what he's going to do is he's going to use those situations to constantly make her work on herself and it's your fault but without ever looking at his part. He may sometimes say: “Well, I have something too.” He may sometimes just feed her with a word like that. Well, I've got something I need to look at too. But if you start looking at the mapping, he won't. He might just take a single session with a psychologist, which of course he's incredibly seen and met right up until he doesn't. And when the psychologist or therapist or counselor or coach or whoever the hell he is starts to get on his nerves. Anyway, that's fine. What about your own share? Then it's something like storming out and the person doesn't understand me at all and is far too smart for this or you don't even know I know more about psychology than he or she does. And then you're kind of back to scratch. So when we're talking about this kind of dynamic with a woman who is with someone who is by no means perfect, none of us perfect. None of us have to be perfect. But when we're with a person who deliberately wants to put herself down relationally or is narcissistic and can't see her own patterns and can't bear the pain or the guilt or the shame of seeing her own people and can't bear that narcissism and so she switches back in always and makes it someone else's problem so that means if there is a narcissistic defense then it will always be that everything no matter what happens in the person's life it will consistently be someone else's fault it is a constant eternal externalization and there it is much harder for such a person it will be very, very difficult to even get the person to look at their own part. It's simply not an option. So these are some of the things we're going to talk about today, where you could say that this is a bit of a sequel. There's another practical thing. I usually get someone just to, I can see that someone is listening, just to write if you can see and hear me. Um, now you've listened in a bit, and someone has already come in, so you know everything has gone through. But you can just write, yes, sound f, uh, picture fine, just in the comment field. And then another practical thing is picture sound. And always also, it's going really well. Beautiful, beautiful. Uh, thank you. Um, and one other last practical thing I want to say for those of you who maybe haven't been before. I usually have a talk like this here about once a month. Um, for those of you who haven't attended before, the way it works is that I talk for about an hour and a half, then I open up for questions in the last half hour. So whatever questions you have, please just write them down, and then when I open it up for questions, write them in the comments section and I'll get them answered. I answer all questions. Sometimes I don't make it in that half hour. It depends on how many questions you have. If I get them in half an hour, great. If I don't make it in half an hour, I answer them in writing, the ones I didn't make it into the group. So either way, you'll get your question answered today one way or the other. Afterwards, I take the file, the audio file down and put it on Vimeo, which works like YouTube, and send out the link. And then you have the recording for as long as you need it. So a little bit back to this talk is actually kind of a continuation of a talk I had this summer about specifically narcissism. It was about narcissism or narcissistic defenses, where you can say, well, we can all sometimes fall into some narcissistic behavior. It's not the same as being narcissistic. You can see, it's a kind of gradation, a scaling, where you can say that the narcissistic defenses, if they become a constant component of human behavior, then we move towards the person being a narcissist and thus almost constantly in their behavior. Every time the person is triggered, ends up in a narcissistic defense and therefore continuously disclaims responsibility in the relational. And so I had a long lecture about it. And what kind of came out of it was that, uh, what came out of it was that there were a huge number of people who approached me about how much pain there is to be in these relationships. And I would say that when we're with people who fall into this category, I would actually say that we can delimit it. So what I've come across in all my many years of research, because I work so much with connection, is that the absence of connection is so painful for people. Extremely painful. Whether it's connection to ourselves, whether it's connection to nature, whether it's connection to our children, to our partners, to others. And we are constantly falling in and out of connection. Every time there's a conflict, we fall in and out. So every time there's a conflict, we want to reconnect or in some way end the relationship if we don't have anything more to do with that person. And it could be a business relationship, for example. And there we are in our very close relationships, our intimate relationships. And it's more difficult because the more we become attached to a person, our intimate relationship, our couple relationship is the most difficult relationship there is, because it's much more than just a friendship, we mix sexuality on top of that, and we have joint finances, and we bring children into the world together. So it's so complex. And that's also why we hunger for it so much. It has the potential to be so beautiful and so deep and so ecstatic. But the more potential there is for too deep love and ecstasy, the greater the counterpart. And also that we can feel deeply hurt, we can feel betrayed, we can feel unloved. So then the more it bumps out the other way as well. It's a very, very difficult relationship, and it is for everyone. It's also a difficult relationship for two people who are not in the abusive mentality category. You know, who aren't really just relatively, you know, healthily raised people with whatever you bring with you and stuff like that, who are trying to come together in this, because a close relationship will have things for childhood, you know, attachment patterns, everything like that. And what needs do I have? Dare to talk about them. Can you be there for me? And the fact that most people are attracted to the opposite sex. Not all of us. And it's perfectly natural if you're one or the other, but statistically speaking, the majority will also be attracted to the opposite sex. Of course, there can also be lots of relationship issues for a gay couple. But when you're attracted to the opposite sex, which actually works so differently from you, it can also sometimes cause a lot of challenges, a lot of misunderstandings. So I would say that we can really mess each other up in that relationship. And I would actually say that a fairly large percentage of divorces are not necessarily about being in a destructive relationship with a partner who didn't take responsibility. Sometimes it's simply about giving up in exhaustion. You simply haven't figured out how to solve things because you haven't gotten help, and we're still a young species and we have to find our way. So you could say, if you're in a relationship where you say, well, my husband is a good person, but damn, we can sometimes argue. Sometimes it's a hassle and you know, we get something to solve something we don't right here, it's excellent to get help and sometimes you give up and say thanks for the struggle and end up on the other side with a with with with a fine cooperation around the children who have the experience there is so in the big picture. So I would say a rule of thumb can I can almost see it in a woman when she seeks my help like that and she's on the other side of the relationship where she says uh she has such a special way of saying it if she's like I That relationship wasn't meant to be, and we wore each other down a bit, and it was a bit of a hassle and so you then we got divorced, and we have a nice collaboration, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We weren't supposed to travel on together, but we've ended up hurting each other, but it's as if there's this person, she also knows, she's been trouble, and he was trouble, and it was for the best, and maybe they could have worked it out, but there was no energy for that. It wasn't what they chose to do, you know. So it's such a, it's such an ordinary without making it boring flatline. That's how it is, that's the common context. And then there are those who come out on the other side and say, I'm still really confused. I don't understand, and was it me who was the offender in that, or was it him or I don't understand anything. It's a different form. And sometimes she also comes out and has taken all the blame, or she's still in the relationship, and comes to me and says, well, he thinks that I might have some narcissistic traits, and I might have all sorts of things he wants me to come and fix. Of course, I'm willing to look at my own. So let's do that then. I often experience that too. And that's when some red lights and such start to light up a bit, because it can be classic if you've ended up with someone who consistently refuses to look at their own responsibility, talks a lot about development, can be very much on top of you about talking about what you have wrong and what you need to take care of, talks a lot about it but doesn't do anything about it, we're in a completely different category. And that's the category we're going to talk about today. So it can sound like so many words, but it's really to try to differentiate that sometimes this gets mixed up. That everyone has relationship problems and then there are just some people who can't figure out how to solve it and then it becomes violent and then it's people's own damn problem and it's just like no it's not true that everyone has relationship problems because it's such an incredibly difficult relationship but there are some people who are much harder to be with and who are actually destructive for you to be with because they have some behavioral patterns that are embedded for various reasons that they either don't want to do anything about or that they can't do anything about so that's where the relationship becomes extremely destructive for you and that's something completely different so I'm trying just like that of course like that and say there it's two completely different things and the one we're going to talk about today it's the one over here it's not those quite ordinary things that are now a couple relationship because the problem is the advice the way you guide people when I have a couple in for counseling and the things that I counsel them about how they can get to a better place it would be absolutely horrible for me to give that advice to a woman who is in a relationship with an abuser it will only destroy her more and that's why it's so important, that I can tell the difference, and I can't always do that if I look back, but there may be places where I have doubts. There may well be places where I simply haven't seen it, where I and that's also why things can often go wrong in the legal system around visitation cases and things like that, because you have to remember the person we're talking about now, these are women who are exposed to it. The one who is standing here and who has abusive behavior, who does not take responsibility, he has no problem lying. He has no problem manipulating. Um, and he has no problem with, you could say, if he's a narcissist, he has a problem with how he's looked at. He doesn't if he's a psychopath. So he has no problem with going for what's best for him and then changing his mind at the last minute, even if he has a moral compass. So when we persuade this herd mentality, this group of people, that is to say, well we should see it more as a group of behaviors that some people fall into, have had pushed into them in childhood, maybe epikinetically, several generations, or various other reasons. I'm not going to get into why these behaviors occur today. It's actually a lecture in itself. It's just more of a statement that they are there. And it is one, because this lecture is more about what the hell you do about it when you're with a person who is there. And in the group you can say that, which I've kind of narrowed down to say, okay, what is it that I can see here, where we start to really say, this is the risky business here. It might be a good idea for you to come up with an ex strategy and get out of this relationship or figure out what it is in a way where you share as little of yourself as possible, if it's that you actually can't leave or don't want to leave. There can be different forms of that. And I'll probably get into that more. In this group. It's like Hey, I can just try to find the book, because it's actually really good. If you can stand it, it's excellent, I would recommend it. I'll be right there. Uh, it's this guy, Lundy Bancroft. Why does he do that? He describes working with men. Interventions for violent men. psychological, physical, violent men who have been referred to him. Uh, and he goes, and what he does, which is absolutely wonderful, is that he goes in and says, well, hey, we can't, we have to both talk to the person. Hey, let me check, I just had to see if something was frozen. We're still working on that. We've gotten to the point where we have to talk to the man. They he the man comes into a group, but he also always speaks quite cooperatively with the woman he has wronged, because he knows about someone. But I can't count on what this man says. I can because the problem is in this one, the one that he defines, it has that abuser mindset or abuser mentality. I have that concept for him. And it's a fascinating book. Phew, it's tough. But it's a fascinating book because he has like 30 years of experience with it, and he's been working specifically with this intervention program for 10 years, you know. So he has a lot of practical experience also in terms of what can you actually count on? What can you count on when men are here? Also in relation to what can I pass on? to women, because I need to have experience with someone who has had lots of these men in their hands. Because what can happen is when you're with a man who gets caught up in this with an abuser mindset. And a violator mindset is actually about him feeling no, he doesn't feel reported. He is berated. And that's where we can sometimes think that a man who has had a traumatic childhood, well, he feels sorry for him too, so it's to be expected that he freaks out at you, and it's to be expected that he's controlled. It's to be expected that he's jealous, and it's to be expected all sorts of things because it must have been so difficult. But a demanding mindset is not about what he feels, because emotions can, well traumatic emotions can actually be dealt with. But underneath that, when it's an abuser mindset, it's his deepest beliefs, his foundation, he's bereaved. And it's not even a narrative that he himself is aware of. So he has a perception that he is destined to be superior. He is destined to want you to take care of him. He is destined to exercise control. He is wired to think he is the smartest. He is wired to get sex when he wants it. And therefore he's destined to get angry when he doesn't get it. So there will be such a justification that comes up, you know, and which, for example, can be, well, yeah, I had it too, I can see, and then I got too hard, and then I raised my hand, and I can see, I pushed her up, but she was out of it, because she pushed me to the edge, you know, it's kind of, it's kind of, jam, but it doesn't work. Because if you, if you have a husband who in a trauma response or in a negative pattern has come to be too violent towards his wife, and he doesn't have the abuser mindset, then he would be completely, he would be devastated. He would be devastated that he ended up there. And he would actually, he would be like, phew, I need to work on that feeling of aggression and that anger, because I could see that I scared her to death. I accidentally scared the life out of the person I love. I have to do something about that. I don't want to go there again. So that's the difference. The difference is that with him demanding that I get hired, he's going to use the story of his childhood and how women have treated him badly and his employer has fired him. He's going to use this emphasis on yourness to get away with and borderline you, exploit you, uh, flaunt you, uh, you know, be sarcastic, be ironic, brush you off, step on you. So that is, because it's in the manipulation itself. He, you could say in an abuser mindset, the driving force is control. He wants to have, he controls you, because then he has access to you and those resources without having to do anything himself. It's not very charming and it's not nice to see at all. He describes some different types of abusers. Uh, and I might have to admit that I'm a little creeped out because they exist and I've seen different variations of them. I'm not going to go into that today, but I will refer you to the book if any of you want to dive deeper into it. So you could say that's one aspect of it, it's the offending mentality. On top of that, there can be what we call dark tri behavior, which is the dyssocial personality disorders. There we talk about machvellism. Maiavella like it's going to be you know uh and and to saddle up and say you don't really have a moral compass. It'll be like you know I'm going all in to get something. You know, I'm fighting to have my kids. I want my kids. You've left me, or you're abusive, or you're mean to them, or they're my kids, I want them. And then all of a sudden he finds out that it's not to his advantage that he can't get child support, or he finds out that it's really expensive. Or all of a sudden he's found some other woman who doesn't actually want to have children, so he changes his mind, because he was never interested in children. Or it could be the other way around, you know, he wasn't interested in the kids, but suddenly he wants the kids because he can see that it affects you, or he can see that he gets an advantage out of it. So, in other words, there's also a pretty hardcore, uh, not so pretty behavior in it. And then there's what we popularly call psychopathy, which is more of a dyssocial personality disorder. And psychopathy is, well, it's also a bit of a cold-blooded where can I get you? How can I use you? You are not a human being in your own right. You're there to be used by me and you're too damn stupid if you fall in. So if I can push you into all sorts of things, it's just because you're too stupid. I hope you can just say no. That is, if I can make you do anything. That is, a psychopath will basically make you do the dishes and do everything for him. Um, and where he actually thinks it's your own damn fault. Well, I just want to see how far I can go. I mean, what can I get away with? It's your own damn fault for not speaking up. And then there's narcissism, which is also in there, which is this whole external projection. The narcissist opposite the psychopath will not realize that he is so transgressive, because it's more like no, it's always you who is transgressive. In other words, I'm only angry because you've become angry. No, I No, I'm only trying to No, the reason I've I've started a case in the state parliament is because you're trying to take the children away from me. So that means the whole time would be turned around and just kind of no it's not right that our son uh would like to have more time with you. You have alienated our son in order to make him angry with me. That means that you can't every time you come up with something that's a hoof there's something in your behavior have to take care of then it will always be your fault. It will always be there is nothing wrong with me. It's the but it's the but it's what I can't handle in you. It's a huge hassle, the narcissistic defenses. of enormous prayer. They all are. So you can say to that group violator mindset, marival like psychopathy, narcissism. And we can all have variations. All people have variations of these behaviors, but when they become cemented behaviors that the person is deeply identified with, and who exhibit maybe sometimes a bit of a mixture of all of them, and who exhibit every time the person wants to achieve something or feels like they're being called upon to take responsibility, that's when it gets pushed away. That's when it can become extremely No, it can't, it's extremely destructive to be with someone like that. And what is characteristic of all of them, because they are a large group, is exactly how they are characterized by all of them, and which is so crucial to this lecture today, is that none of them, none of them in that group want or are able to take responsibility for a behavior. And that's why that's the crux of the matter. And there's all of them have a sense of entitlement. They all believe that they are justified in doing what they do, for which they find all sorts of explanations, which they answer to themselves why it is that they keep doing these really nasty things to a person in a relationship. Then they defend it to themselves. Whether it's because you're stupid if you fall for it, or whether it's because you're the one doing it, or whatever, but everyone is out there to optimize their chances. You know, it's just the name of the game. So if I don't get the first belief, then you can just, you know, so it's different ways to explain your really shitty behavior. And no matter how you and you can stand and completely yell and scream in frustration on the side. Can't you see how damaging that is? And you're just going to, well there's going to be one of those, look at what you're doing now. Now you're getting violent. Look, I'm standing here calmly, and then you just stand there and freak out. Are you sure you're not the abuser? And then it starts all over again, right? So being around people with these patterns will drive you f****** crazy. And you will have doubts. Any sane person, sane person, but a person who has a conscience and who has empathy and who has the ability to uh uh, what do you call it, compassion and come Passion will have doubts at some point whether you're the abuser in this relationship because you constantly end up in weird arguments or conflicts or situations where you think like, what's going on here? It's so confusing. It's like. Why are you saying this is my fault? You're not, damn it. And when someone stands here and you've done something, you've caught them with their hand in the cookie jar, and they say: “No, that's not really what you see. It's actually your fault that I did this.” Because they're strangers to lying, because they have no problem lying. They have And they get what they get created in their own mind, so that it all adds up. So they have no problem regardless of whether you've taken with your hand in your cookie jar. No problem saying no no that's something you're making up. That's not what happened. Or the reason I did it was actually your fault. So I think you should actually look at that. So you become completely you so you start doubting your own truth. You start doubting your own reality here. And this is where they really start to gain control. Then they really start to gain control because they can see in you that you suddenly start questioning what you've seen. Then I just think yes. So then, if you can get another person to question their reality, you can basically get them to do anything. Especially if you also care about the person and you want to help them. You have children together and you want to save the relationship. You know these people can really make you stretch or pay your bill and always pick up the kids. You know you know you know you know forgive them for cheating. Because what will often happen is if they've just really gone to the edge, really done something gross where you really say now it's f******. You're out. Uh then there's ceiling bumping. So what happens here is trauma bonding. So what's happening here is that when they come back and they're like: “No, you have to change too, but I promise it will be super good.” And you know, they're just as good at lying, just as good at being sarcastic, ironic and nasty. As good as they are at being really uh, I do, I'll do anything for you. Just as much as they have to be so overwhelmingly loving or reassure you that you're the only one in life, they want to do something, and they have to understand, and you have to fight for it. We have children, and oops. And here I just want to say one thing that's really important for women. And there's nothing left for this guy. And that it's a tough diet. I understand that, but we have to say it. Because where I see women fall in the most is where she's actually reached the point where I can't do it anymore, I don't want to do it anymore. He's doing something and I'm not going to do it anymore. And he's playing a fantastic game. He's all of a sudden he's doing everything she wants. You know he makes time for a couples counselor. He starts buying her flowers. He says, well, I'm gonna give you some space. I'm moving right out. And so on and so forth. He starts, you know, really criticizing her, asking about her day, you see her feet. You know, all that stuff. You know, you've been craving for years maybe he starts doing. And because your system thinks it's so nice that you're not in conflict with him, you're like, oh that's nice. Saying hope tennis gives you a little breadcrumb. Like you say you've been starving for three years, then you get a breadcrumb, it tastes like caviar, right? It's not. It's not. So therefore, when he gives it to you, it's actually part of trauma bonding, because you're just like no, that's wonderful, look how lovely he can be. And we can, we can sometimes have such naive hope in people that if he just sometimes shows that he's a little sweet, then it must be in him. So if I just give him lots of my love, then suddenly he's there for me. So he's there all the time, right? If he has that group of people can't give you love or feel love in the way that you want it. So that means your love, your longing for love, your way of giving love, carrying the relationship for both of you, where when he's into these behaviors and when he's fully identified with these behaviors, he can only come to exploit your love. And the London he describes in relation to when you're in that field of the boiled frog syndrome. And now I don't know if that's what went away when these buffs were just teasing me. It was. Your love can change. That's perfect. That's where you heard it. Your love cannot change. It simply can't be done. And the more you are in the relationship, the more be, the more broken, the more power you're going to give up because he would constantly confuse you. And then he gets you there. That's also why you can say that a woman who has no inhibitions is simply the hottest thing for a borderline picky man who is there. Well, it's the hottest because he really just needs you. He's not interested in you going on, in you going to him, in you demanding anything from him. He's just interested in being serviced by you. And it's hard to say this because you probably think all men are, so no, no, not all men are. Absolutely not. That's also why it's so important to separate this. We all have the normal day-to-day relationship stuff that we all deal with, but this over here is a completely different monster. It's something completely different. And that's also why, I'm really trying to have made this lecture also narciss simply to get differentiated it's very different also because we must finally not use these approaches that we use for quite m relationships for this group of men because they will always exploit it always it can't it can't the only thing that can say where they will not exploit it is if they actively go in and change their behavior and I would just say such a rule of thumb again back to him here, what he says where he because when we fall into the whole love bombing thing and we see no now he has changed it's absolutely wonderful and all that you know then there is a period he can maybe stand for a week. He might last for a fortnight, he might last for half a year. All of a sudden he fell back again. Then everything went back to the way it was. He hasn't kept his promises. Then you start going to him. You haven't kept your promise. Then he starts driving at you. Then that again. Then you reach the point of exhaustion and say I don't want any more. And then again, now you have to understand. And so on and so forth. And all of a sudden you look back and see that he's had an insane amount of chances. It's him saying, well, if you look at it that way, it's possible that it's possible for a man right around narcissism psychopathy. But there's something there that the clinical material doesn't look very good in relation to those behavioral patterns. But when he talks about offender mentality, when someone is in offender mentality, but they are not narcissists or psychopaths, he says there is a small percentage that he has in this program that changes. But he says it's a small percentage. “It's theoretically possible, some walk the walk, many don't. And the reason they don't is that it takes an insane amount of effort for the man to change his behavior. Because every time he has chosen to manipulate you, he has chosen to lie. He's gotten used to not just feeling betrayed, but being betrayed. So he suddenly has to get used to looking at you as a person who has your own freedom, your own needs. And then he has to get down and feel everything that lies emotionally underneath. Because of course, some of these ads will lie like a layer over some trauma s***. If any of you are working with people and trauma, you wouldn't have figured it out. So of course there will be something down here that he will have to look at at some point, but he can't feel it. So because he can't feel it, he has no problem with having the behavior, because right now it's not a feeling, in him it's not an emotional thing. It's a thing. It's a conviction. It's an attitude towards life and towards you as a woman in a relationship. It's only when he starts to break down these attitudes, and he starts to say, that's not possible, I have to change my behavior. Then he can start to get in touch with some feelings that he then also has to go through. So that means it's a very, very, very, very, very, very long, descriptive, painful journey for a man to take. And I will definitely always say to him, it's worth it, but he's the one who has to walk the road. He's the one who has to walk the road. There is no one who can do it for him and it will take everything he has. That's also why he says as a rule of thumb he says to a woman, if you're with a man where you kind of know he's in this category and you've come from there, he's bumping you, he's trying to, and please, you should actually say, you know what, you have two years and I need to see in two years that we're not together that you have your nose right in the groove. You're never bossy to me, you're never demanding, you never raise. So you basically the things where you've been impressive onions, you're knife-sharp. Two years he has to be able to keep it that minimum until it integrates. And that's of course a rule of thumb, but it's just something else we have, so if you know, he gets a month and stuff like that. No and then he has to and it actually has to be so that he just says you know what I'll leave you alone I respect that you think I've overstepped your boundaries I hope that when I've taken care of it you're still there and I have the opportunity and we have the opportunity to maybe be reunited but I can't know and I cannot demand that a man who has not taken his abusive behavior seriously will not do so he will constantly try to pressure you you must understand and it is for the sake of the children and I cannot live without you he will constantly try to pressure you so a really good warning sign if you have come to a place, where you can't be in a relationship. Just say, I can't do it anymore. It's that thing where I cringe all the time and I expect there are things I dare not say to you and I can't I don't think you're taking responsibility and I feel pressured into sex and I don't want to. I know that when you and the reason I say no is not because you are forcing, but you are being nagged and you are not taking responsibility for it. I don't want to be with you anymore. I just don't want to. But if he suddenly starts lying all sorts of green and yellow forests, and he makes such a k, can't we, would you please reconsider? Would you like to reconsider, where you feel pressured again to stand by your choice? Just a little bit, and then you see him disappointed again. And you don't take care of his disappointment, and then he goes off on you, then he gets hurt and angry, then they go in a cycle. Well, then he's exactly in a cycle because he hasn't accepted that you've broken the relationship. He hasn't accepted that he can no longer lean into you, you take care of him. He's acted like a little kid in an adult body, which is hugely scary, you know. So then as he as his thumb he says, there are some men who really go in and look at this, where they can see, well some of them have, they are themselves violence, so they grew up in a maybe with a violent danger, so where you can see, well they are damaged. But they start to work with it and work with the mindset and work with the emotions that lie underneath and things like that. The women who say how the men have changed because you don't need to know it from the man, it's for the woman, you need to know it's the woman who has to say what is he like to be with now, that's where we say it's a completely different man, it really is a completely different man, that is, the behaviors that were there before are simply gone. That doesn't mean he can't get angry because then he moves into this category, you know, where you sometimes get yelled and screamed at but you find each other again. So you know he doesn't stagnate here. Here. So this group of men here, if they're going to be able to move over here and be quite ordinary people, where we mess around, but we actually don't want to do, we don't want to hurt our island our partner. And we actually want to take responsibility. All this, if they're going to move here, it only happens if they're under insanely strong pressure because it takes so much for them to make that choice and go that way. They only do it if the pain is great enough or even if the pain isn't, they only do it if they're stripped of so many privileges that they can see that there's no point in having that behavior, because nobody cares, nobody cares about me when I have that behavior. It's actually, it's actually saying, no, but no, you don't get sex and you don't get love. I'm not going to give you care and stuff like that. I'm leaving, I want to see, I don't want to bring anything down before I do. If you can't get it, if you can't get that behavior under control, I'm f***** out of here. And here, of course, we have a small group of women who are afraid of being killed. And we have to say that. And therefore, when I talk to women who are here in relation to having an exit strategy to say that you need to get a huge kick in the pants, because I no longer want to just share everything I have. And you don't understand a damn thing that is this. There has to be how afraid is she of whether he is violent? I mean, how afraid is she really of him physically attacking her? Um, because there's someone who is fortunately we live in a pretty strong rule of law, so for men in this category, they know it's a hassle to be too violent. I mean, it can hit them too hard, but there are some who do it. And he and many women ask questions like, how do I know how physical he's going to be? How do I know if I'm at risk here? Um, and he also gives advice where he says, well, it's actually typically your feeling, your intuition, that is strongest. Of course, some women can be afraid when I ask them, and then more and feel the body is peeling between two, because we also have remnants from a very dark past, where a lot of violence has been done against women throughout history over the last 1000 years, couple thousand years, maybe more 3000 years. And in certain parts of the world, right now we see what's happening in Iran. In certain parts of the world it still does unfortunately. So we live in our own little relatively safe island. It's not perfect. There are all sorts of things that can happen in Denmark that haven't happened here. But it is safer than if we lived in Iran as a woman. So you could say that where we live right now, in terms of feeling, you can sometimes feel some pain in your body, even if you may have been exposed to violence in your childhood. Um, so you can sometimes feel some pain and some fear, which is not always related to him, but which he has obviously pushed up a little too much, which he somehow becomes a trigger fluid for. So what I try to feel into with women is like, okay, what is that? What's the residue of the past, which is a bit more of an indefinable generalized fear of men in general. And it's not because all men are dangerous, but it may well have entered the system because epigenetically there are so many boundary violations against women over time. And then that feeling, when it starts to affect him specifically, let's just say that women think he has a pretty good feeling about it, kind of like, well, okay, he might puff himself up. He might throw things, and he might be violent, but if I stay in it long enough or turn around to leave, he doesn't follow me and no, he doesn't hit me. So there's actually something about the woman typically having a compass here. That's what it means, and it's not nice. It's definitely not nice to set a clear boundary where he deliberately tries to freak you out or scare you by throwing things and stuff like that. He also has a crazy good point here. He says that when men throw things and you think they're in a blind race, ah, not this group, he's been surprised again and again and again. And when he's asked men about these situations, you know, he's asked, well, what did you throw? And then they describe some things that they just threw, where they sit and re-enact these situations. And then he said: “Well, that's funny, because that wasn't the closest thing. Why didn't you throw the chair and my computer?” So no, it was my own computer. Shouldn't go out of my own stuff, you know. So there's an in in this group, when a man goes crazy in this group, it's not him it's not blind racism. He's allowing himself to go crazy to get you to conform. He allows himself to throw things. You are so conscious that he takes things that are not annoying to him that break. So that's just to say that there's consciousness in it. And that's also why it becomes a mindset. He's entitled to freak out because you're annoying. And a man who's not here will. He will simply he can sometimes freak out, and he can sometimes get furious, but he doesn't feel justified because you're annoying. He might say something like: “Okay, I got to the point where I was so powerless that I simply had no idea what to do. Shut up, we got to where I could feel my aggression. I could feel myself wanting to hit and I didn't want to. So I threw something that way. The narrative would be something else. It would never be but it was because you were stupid and so I did it. But it will be over here. It will be over here. So it's true that we women can also end up somewhere. So we can end up in places where we really put each other on the spot and we see the worst sides of each other. But it's still a whole different ballgame over here. And that's why I'm really trying to give examples of how you can separate this. Because he doesn't feel like he's he's narrated. And he's superior and you're there for him. So it's down here. It's not that it's nothing. If you ask him, he won't say it like that. It's not directly in his consciousness that he would say that he's saved. If you're a grandiose narcissist, yes. But not otherwise. But it lurks in his subconscious. And it's lurking in him subconsciously. And you can see it coming out in his conversation. It's kind of, well, yes, but I can understand that you find it annoying, but I had to, I had to see what I could get away with. If he just reveals himself, his mindset about life is all people trying to see what they can get away with. And you'll be like horrify like no we've been married for 12 years and we have a son who of course I'm not trying to see what I can get away with with you I'm trying to solve this so it's fair for all parties you know so it's actually that when they get furious that there's someone who comes such a psychologist talk I have control and I understand it and I understand where you're coming from but for some reason I was telling you for some reason you were annoying and for some reason you have to understand I got angry and when I get angry it's okay I just take it out on you so that's where you can see he's not aware of what he's doing or he's aware of Don't give a s***. So he's not going to do anything about it. And it's right here, it's right here that it becomes destructive for you. So now I think we need to move on to what you do about it. Because now I've spent a lot of time defining it to see what is it, what is an offender mindset? Because I've written a lot about it. And what's the difference? Well, if you have a person with an abuser mindset and dark tri is something completely different than if you're over here mulling over your relationship, which we all do. That's two islands. And if we're going to get men to move out of here, I would actually say, you can't ask them to be nice. You can't cajole them. You can't say, can't your love for me and for your children and stuff like that doesn't help a damn thing here. So the only thing that helps them to start looking at themselves is that they no longer have access to privileges. And the privileges of having sex with you, of you taking care of them. You pay their bills, you drive their kids around or whatever you do. Um or you listen to them, emotion is available in all kinds of ways. So that's the only thing that if you really if you really want to see if he can change, then you're actually going to have to say, you have to either completely leave, move physically or stand in relationships practice to be so force you just say forget it you know my reality. Fuck you now I'm going over here so you will have to make tough boundaries, you will have to open up and feel your body and now he is manipulative. And then not physically now you have to say forget it forget it. And it becomes so uncomfortable for me because the only way you can deal with these people is if you are so strong with your boundaries that it's just like you think it's not going to happen. So you can just get to the point where you just look at them and you're like, what are you doing right now? Well, it's not going to happen. And then they start blaming you, or it's your fault, and you're just like, it's not on me. It's there's no buddy, you know. So you just see that you don't take that s*** in. You don't let yourself be manipulated, you don't let yourself be pushed around. And you don't stand up, you don't waver. So you stay standing even when they get aggressive. There's a clause here. If they are dangerous, you don't choose that strategy. If you're afraid that if you stand your ground, he'll become physically violent, you need to get help either with me or someone else to get a call to a crisis center. So then you need to find another way. So if you're initially really afraid that if I say no, he'll become violent. That's a different category. But you want to try to listen to yourself. I think you want to know that no, he wouldn't go that far. I know women will say, he won't go that far. And of course there's a chance you're wrong. Yes, but you have, I would say your instincts, you've evolved to have pretty good instincts in relation to unfortunately as a side effect, positive side effect of women being as it has been with so much unconscious behavior where women have been very oppressed and we carry that legacy. Um, and then your instincts in relation to how dangerous he is can often be a damn good clue. And here you can start to either move away completely, start setting boundaries or start practicing setting boundaries when you're there. It depends on how curious you are about practicing boundary setting and how much strength you have, how long you've been there. And that's also something I or others can help you with. But it's more to say that's what it takes. If you want him to start taking responsibility or get him out of your life because he refuses to take responsibility, it's because you're not giving him the privileges he's asking for, that you're saying, forget it, it's not going to happen. And then, no matter how much trouble he causes, you stand your ground. And that's when it can happen. Either he starts to change, or he might leave you and find someone else to pray on. But anyway, and of course it's really sad for the girl he finds, but at least you don't have to deal with it anymore. So I know this sounds very violent, and it is very violent. And that's also why it's so important to say that not all men are like this. Some women are like this too, not as many, but if you have a female narcissist, she's just as destructive to a man as she is, she'll do the same thing. There aren't as many female psychopaths as there are male psychopaths, but there are a lot of female narcissists. There are probably statistically more men, but they are out there, and that would be accurate. She just wants to do the reverse. She'll go into the victim role and then she'll uh say he's he's abusive and he's not. She'll project that he's the one who's violent. He's the one who is alienating. She's actually the one doing it. And she refuses to take responsibility for it. So it's just to say that some men are also completely destroyed by this, but proportionally it's the majority of women. And that's also where our focus is today. And that's why you could say there's an offender mindset? Uh, unconscious violator mindset, not conscious violator mindset, I'm entitled. Uh, you know I, you know, and then you have narcissism and or psychopathy and or Markellianism on top of that. Well, then it just becomes a more dangerous cocktail. So there are some of these people out there, there are some people in the world. There are some men who are fucking dangerous, and that's what we have to say out loud, but it's just not the man who is dangerous in himself. And that's also why it's so damn important that you start being able to spot. You can spot these things. We can spot things in behavior. And that's why I want this to be taught. I mean, we simply have to teach what to look for. How can you spot a predator? Because if you can spot predators, then you can go out in time and just like that, they don't want anything to do with that. Just like that, there you are, suddenly there's a lie. Hm. And that's also why, for example, when you meet a man, and the thing about checking up on him if he's very uh, it's a shame for me and all the other women who have just been b***** and taken the children from me, and they've been violent, and they've been psychopaths, and they've been mentally ill, and they're fucking crazy. That's a warning sign. You can meet a man who has had difficult relationships in the past. You can actually meet a man who may have had relationships with one or two narcissistic women where there is a lot of difficulty in him, a lot of confusion, but the way he will talk about it, he can have anger, and he can have all kinds of things and feel borderline, but he will still talk about it in a way where he will look at that. But I also have to understand, how the hell did he have one of those, why did I end up there? Shut up, it was so painful. Um, and how sad it is and I have a deep longing that we could have met each other. He would talk about it in a completely different way. So then a good thing is that if a man is really trying to keep you from having anything to do with his island former women, not to talk to them and he comes up with stories trying to keep you. And it's always that it's always been the woman's fault he's always been the victim in it. It probably hasn't because that's how it is sometimes when you've ended up with someone like that. You don't find out. But typically, when someone has ended up there, there's a reflection that if you've been with a narcissist, you've had something with you, a childhood pattern that has clicked in with it, where you've had someone you learned early on that you should take over responsibility in the relationship. So on the journey out of that, you can say: “Okay, I can see why I had such a desperate desire to help.” You know, I can see became more and more in the end, the more and more I helped, because the person was in a vulnerable place and needed some guidance, and it was phew, and I was filling a helper role. Like I did in my own life when I was a kid. And so I didn't notice, I've been sucked in. I didn't notice that relationship and it's such a dynamic. So when you come out of a relationship with someone who has belonged to this group, there will be a boundary of why did I end up with you? And here it's hugely important that again, this is a very paradoxical place, because yes, it's true. You can have some patterns of childhood. You may have some attachment patterns that put you at a slightly greater risk of missing the warning signs of ending up in such a relationship. But at the same time, the literature shows very clearly that all women, regardless of how securely attached they have been and how much love there has been from their parents, everything else is at risk of ending up in a relationship. And the reason why that is, is because you have to remember that these people have no problem lying and manipulating. And that's why it basically becomes very confusing. It gets really confusing. And they're very typical, they can also be very charismatic. They can be very good at like, oh, you're the one in my life. And they can be very good at sensing what your needs are, what your longings are, and where you are a little vulnerable, and then using that. It's a kind of predatory instincts they put into play in an attempt to get their own needs met. So it's more to say that it's a good idea to look at what do I have with me? What kind of forgiveness patterns do I have with you? But don't see it so much as, oh God, it's my fault that I've ended up here, because that's the classic class. You stand on the other side of an abusive relationship and think, it was my fault. And it's not. The person has tried to make it your fault, but it's not your fault. It happened to you. And it can happen to all of us. It can happen to all of us. So, it's more with a little bit of benefit to look at, okay, it happened. Now I'm trying to move out of it again. And then consider, okay, what can I do? What can I do to not end up in a relationship like that again? And that, that's always beneficial for all people. Well, because that's what it is when we're in this group with the common relationship issues and the difficulties and misunderstandings and all the things that are sore and difficult over here. That's one of the main advice is just that we get into understanding what kind of attachment patterns we are with for our childhood and how they sometimes you know really click in an unfortunate way that if you have kind of like you get pressured and you just want to run away will often end up with someone who gets pressured and wants to cling on you could see that so then you really get induced so you get really retraumatized each other when you are pressured not because you are evil not because you want to exploit because we have wounds with. We have wounds too. Um. So it naturally arises. And here it is excellent that both parties work to understand each other. Ah okay, so when I do this, this happens in you. Phew. I can understand this too. So that means reaching beyond each other to understand each other's sorrows. But you can see it becomes a weapon in the hands of someone who has no desire to understand you, but wants to use you. That is, if he knows your vulnerabilities, he will just exploit them. So that's why you go to couples counseling with a person who is over here. It's horrible. It's horrible. It becomes an arena, he's going to exploit you. He's going to walk all over you. He's going to make it rich, it's completely bad. But where or what is called or couples therapy, sorry couples therapy, but couples therapy over here and for advice and guidance you understand each other and you learn about psychological processes. You learn about emotional reactions. You learn about attachment wounds. You gain a deeper understanding of what you carry with you. You start to stretch yourself more. You start to support each other when you get hit. All that knowledge for a person to get over here. And that's actually why some people choose to go to therapy with their partner. It's to gain insight into this, so they can use it to manipulate. So that's also why, and what often happens, is that if you're in couples therapy with an abuser, it will and I can't guarantee that I haven't done it too, because it's extremely difficult to spot these dynamics. So you can very quickly, as a therapist or counselor, actually end up supporting the abuser's abuse towards you. It can be something like, well, you should probably give him a little more freedom. It may be that he feels that you're a bit, you're sitting on him a bit much, or you also understand when you get so angry. It was actually offensive to him. So you can see how it's ales, because it's true that if we're over here, where we talk openly and you can say like phew, but I can understand that when you get angry, and he has experienced angry childhood, it triggers him. Over here it's a vulnerable context, we want you to want to understand each other more deeply. Over here he just wants to exert his control and manipulation over you deeper and make you even smaller and make you wrong. And here he can use the therapist as a weapon to let that happen. And that's also why some of the cases that are going on around visitation when we deal with these people. It's really frightening. So I want to and here we hit something that hurts like hell. I would definitely recommend that when you come out of it with someone like this, try to avoid them coming in and having to have the state intervene at all in relation to their children because I would say that there's no fucking guarantee that you can puuh it's risky business because they can't they can't it's so difficult dynamics to see through even some of the psychologists um What's her name? I follow one. She talks a lot about narcissism. Why can't I remember her name? Well, I can write it down. I can find it later. Uh, Ramani, I think her name is. Dr. Ramani. Uh, she described herself and she's been working with dys-social personality controlling narcissism for an incredible number of years. And she says herself, well it can take months when she has a when she has a client who comes before she spotting like ah, or she has a couple who go a long time before she spots it. So because you're dealing with people who can be charismatic, who can be eloquent, who can have a language that shows that they're empathetic and like they have psychological insight about themselves. They can also appear to be extremely understanding of the other person's perspective. Island talk and giraffe language and all this stuff. So they've learned, but they haven't learned it to become better relationally and connect deeper with you. They've learned it because they use it as a tool to get you more deeply involved. So that's why it becomes that's why it's such a little bit scary s***. And that's why I love that this guy I love that this guy when he has conversations with men every time he's had a man in group therapy or it's not therapy, it's a different form he works on, but has had in group or had individually, he always asks, he always calls the woman who is either still with him and to say, okay, how did you feel he was when he came home and he has experienced several times, he has sat with a man and just like that, but it's so, I can I can see it now, and it puuh, thanks for this work. It's absolutely wonderful. And now I'm really aware of, he was thinking like, oh how amazing, he's taking leaps and bounds, he's evolving. And then to find out that when he comes home to his girlfriend, he's freaking out on her. That he's just pretending, and then he comes home all frustrated, he has to sit and listen to that shit and be done wrong, and he has to take responsibility for something he doesn't want to do. So he has this pretty face, and then he just comes home and beats her up when he gets home, right? So we need to know what the hell happens when he comes home to her. And it's this thing of sitting and watching it when you're a caseworker or psychologist or something, it's almost impossible. And that's why it's such scary s***. And some of you who are here will possibly right now have cases going on in the state with men who are abusers, who are narcissists, who have psychopathic traits. And the fact that I say that it's best to stay out will also make people scared shitless and sad. And someone will also say, well, how the hell can you say that? How can I avoid getting into these things? And it's also an art form. Sometimes you can't, because sometimes it's the guy who reports you for violence or abuse against your child or whatever the hell it might be. So there's no guarantee that you can avoid it. It's more to say sometimes when I'm there you can work that way. If you're on your way out of a relationship and he doesn't know it yet, you can work with his patterns in a way where you can try to prevent you from ending up there. So it's possible to tread lightly. And if you're thinking about this, I'd like to be able to help you further in terms of finding out how he works and what he wants and then get some guidance on how to find the best possible way to get out of it or sort things out. Because one of the reasons why many women don't go for these men is because they fear. They fear going. They fear, speaking of him taking a case, they fear that he's going to be he's going to fight to take the kids even though he might not really want them or or that he's going to be so jealous, that he's going to infect the afterlife or that he's going to try to alienate the kids they fear. There are all sorts of things. And it can be really good to have someone to talk to. It doesn't have to be me, but someone who can help you here to get some of these things out in the open, so you can map out what are you afraid of? So let's look at what is his behavior? Where do you really need to be concerned? How can you puncture it in advance or deal with it in advance so it doesn't build up? So the thing about how could you have avoided, which I now Some of what I wanted to get into uh and avoid ending up in such a situation and relationship. Well, of course you might not have been able to. Well, that's because they are extremely skilled at pulling you into such a relationship. Once you're there and you're there for a long time, it becomes difficult no matter how bad a** woman you are. I've had women who are just like that, I don't understand it. I'm damn good at setting boundaries. I'm bad a** at work. I speak up in my relationships. Why was I in that for 10 years? Why the f*** didn't I leave? And that's more to say be second like to yourself here. Because when you're with a person who has no problem manipulating, who has no problem lying, who has no problem ceiling bombing, who has no moral compass, who has no problem seeing what he can get away with. It's so violent, it's so opposite to how you yourself operate the world. Because where you can end up doing that sometimes, and then you get a bit pissed off about it, he's in it all the time. He has no problem with it. There's probably no problem with it. Or he doesn't really know he's doing it, or he knows a little bit, but he can't stand the discomfort. So as soon as he feels that this might have something to do with me, he has to push it away. And it certainly hasn't. Confibulation. He has to change his inner worldview to fit with the fact that it definitely has nothing to do with him. So it's more to say that this is so confusing. It's very confusing. Um and that's also why I have to point out that either get away from it or really share very little of yourself in the relationship and get him shut down where you will not accept the behavior. Because otherwise you're going to get to the bottom of it. You will simply disappear more and more and more. Um because he realizes that unless he's pushed to extremes, he can't see, he can't understand why he should change anything. Because why lose access to privileges when you have no problem demanding them. Well, I can, if I just, if I just give a little guilt, you'll probably clear the table. If I just give you a little guilt, you'll probably go shopping. If I make you feel a little guilty, you might just put the kids to bed or something, right? If he doesn't have a problem with it. If he doesn't have a problem with you ducking, he thinks like this: “Great, I don't have to do that.” If he doesn't have a problem, if he can't feel that it's uncomfortable to do that to another person, then he's not going to end up with you saying, I don't want to do that, you lucky guy. And then if he starts driving all over the place, I don't want to hear that shit. Stop it, or I'll leave. And if you say you're leaving and he keeps going, and you don't And he's already figured out, well, you don't mean it. Then he'll start pushing you again. So if you say, if you don't stop, I'll leave, and he doesn't stop, then you have to leave. Because then he won't learn anything. So you can't necessarily avoid it, but you can leave the relationship or say so much in the relationship and show that you don't refuse that behavior. You don't respect that kind of behavior. And then you can go through your own, if you're curious about it, or a development, you can easily go through your attachment patterns and things like that, where you can say, hm. How do I avoid this for another time? I'm just practicing my boundaries. Uh, I'm just looking at why I'm so quick to, you know, often times we can be quick to take responsibility. I'm just going through it and figuring out what is really my responsibility, what is not my responsibility? Plus, I simply do some psychoeducation in relation to these behaviors. What are the red flags you need to keep an eye out for? Among other things in a new relationship. Well, if he says that he's sorry for what I did, he makes an effort not to do it again. Uh, how does he talk about his ex-girlfriends? How is he with you? I mean, is he quick to jump? He's quick to go to you. I mean, how is this? So you actually have to collect data sets not on what he says, because of course of course he would say, but I would never treat him badly and stuff like that. Everyone will say that. You actually have to collect data sets on does he do what he says? What is his behavior like? Is his behavior consistent with what he says? And of course, you also need to see him as a human being. So on the other side of a relationship, if you've been in an abusive relationship, you can either be terrified of ever getting into the relationship to be exposed to it again. And or become very defensive as soon as the slightest thing happens. That is to say, you might actually meet a really good lovely man who has his everything with this group, you know that we have all these ordinary troublesome things in relationships with our childhood and all that, you know, so sometimes when he falls into it, it may well be in your system if he comes to speak harshly to you because right now if something hits him, it can taste of something you have tried that can make you very quickly a threshold for what you can handle can become very small where he can feel like an impossible task and say I can't always I'm also a human sometimes I have to be there in And there you can work with me or others to heal some of the blows, you've received here, so that you can tell the difference between, okay, in my new relationship he does what he says he does, but at the same time, he's a human being, how if we end up in a conflict, he's also responsible for his part, and can we actually find each other again? That's actually the trick. So typically, women on the other side of the relationship will either say, I'm not going to be with any men again, I'm not crazy. And we can work on healing that, so that there can be some courage to try to move out again, if that's what the woman wants. Some women also choose not to get back into relationships. And that's also a choice. Sometimes they also think, it's too much of a hassle. I'm of an age. I don't want to do that. I just want to live life without having to deal with it. And that's not a wrong answer. It's more to say there. It depends on where and who you are and what you want to spend your life energy on. That's actually the most important thing. If there is a desire in you, a longing in you to meet a man and create a deeper relationship with him on the second truth, then it is possible. It is possible to work with your system as you come to stand. It's actually about you having to go in and rediscover your power because he has actually, he has taken your power. He has forced you to give up your power again and again and again and again and again and again. It's actually about taking your power home to you, landing in yourself and thus starting to put yourself into play, where you both put yourself out or glue, as you might say, and you also pay attention to these warning signs. Uh, in terms of does he do what he says, right? We have to go and be vigilant all the time, but we need to see if people in our relationships are taking responsibility as well as demanding that we also take responsibility of course. So it's such a thing to have several tracks at the same time and it's something it's possible to work with. It's just that I'd like to see women who are broken on the other side of a relationship and who have recovered and become insanely powerful. Just like that, they don't take any bullshit. But in that sense, it's not like they become ballbusters, so they just leave all the time. It's understood in the sense that they are still open and loving, sensual. So it's not that they entrench themselves, that they actually take their power home, where they can easily put themselves into play and also our vulnerability to a man and can actually constantly demand that I want to be able to show myself the way I am. I want to be able to show my vulnerability. I want to be able to show my lightness. I want to show my sensuality. I want to actually put all the sides into play. But also that if you do something that I think is bullshit, I'll let you know. And I can fucking speak up and I can speak up in a way that's not nice for you. And a real man can use his words. A man who is over here who has either moved from here or who is already here and working has realized that actually working on the relational is the most precious thing any of us can do. It's the most rewarding thing. Yes, it hurts like hell and it's hard and everything. But when we get through all this mess and start to feel what's really possible in connection when he starts to understand how utterly delicious it is. Believe me, what he craves is a powerful woman. Not a ballbuster. Not an entrenched woman. A powerful woman who dares to put all her aspects into play. And even if he finds it insanely uncomfortable. When she calls his bullshit, she calls him dirty, that's when he knows full well that's when he moves the most. Because when a man over here falls into something stupid, he doesn't know it himself. But when she calls him because she dares, because she's not afraid that he'll attack her, because he won't. He might say: “f***, that hurt. Uh, I'm not willing to take that on.” He might drink that humor in just like, okay, I'll think about it. f***. And then he would come back like you're fucking right. I mean, thank you. You're right, you're right. Yeah, I was like, you know, that was some fucking BS I let out there or something. And then he actually uses your power because we women have an excellent ability to sniff out bullshit. We're fucking good at it. The problem is that over here it is, you've had it over here when you were with this man, but he wasn't interested in you sniffing up his bullshit. So that time, every time you called him, he blamed you. Either he would pound you, or he would push you, or we would talk about it for hours. He wore you down. Used different tactics to make sure you got away from and had your eye on his bullshit. This guy over here he wants you to call bullshit because he wants to move. He wants to grow. He wants to grow. And he knows that you see him better than he does. And he needs you to see him better than he does. He needs you to dare to say hey, that's not enough. Or just so I can feel there's something off in what you're saying there. There is something off. Figure it out. I'm not going to figure it out for you because I'm not your mom. But there is something off. So figure it out. Come back again. Just like that shit. I thought I came up with something cool. Then he goes out, feels, comes back and like ah, now I know what it was. And just like, hey, there you are. We women, we have that with us in the female body. That's the difference between the sexes. In all this, where we have so many things in common, there's something here in the woman that we can feel into. So we are the man's oracle, as David D would say. That's what we are. We are the man. We are the one to wake the man up. The problem is that some men have absolutely no desire to be aroused, but want to use you. And they should not be allowed to do that. They should not be allowed to use you. They should not be allowed to use your power. Because that man standing over here, he wants you to dare to put your power into play. So it's more to say that getting out on the other side. We can get you there and find your power if you're willing to make the journey. It's not namely. It's certainly possible. And there's plenty of help to be had because some of the journey you have to do yourself. So some of the journey is lonely, feels lonely. Um, so you have to be able to bear that. And it's almost unbearable, but it changes. If you can be in the unbearable time, then it changes So but but just because it's lonely doesn't mean that you can't get help that there are common human patterns in the posts on the road light on the road. Uh that you can get guidance in following. So it is certainly possible. It can also be coming and saying no okay I just want to have fun with my girlfriends and I want to have a dog and some animals and I want to just relax and I don't want to relate to men. Fine, it doesn't matter. So there's no requirement that you have to take a developmental path. But if you're longing to connect deeply with a man, then this guy over here shouldn't be allowed to fucking ruin that and destroy that in you. Because there's someone over here who wants to be awakened so badly. This one doesn't want to, but those over here do. So I say, in a way, we women have a relational responsibility. We take it all the time. We take on too much responsibility and we've come to take it in a way where we get a little tired of having to get the fuck into the fight. But we have an ability to wake up the people that we need to generate. And that's actually going to be my next lecture, I'm going to talk about that. So I'm just mentioning it a little bit here, because that's what's in the cooling water, that if you're on the other side and a few feet away from this, there's something about finding your power. How do you want to translate it? You may not want to stand in your power. So women have more power available to them than men. That's not to say we're better men. We're just different there. The woman has access to an incredible amount of power. So if you're into shamanism, then you want to know this. Uh-huh. It's a different kind of power. And you could say that the more you bring that power home, if that's what you're longing for. And I imagine you do. So I imagine you feel that you have a power potential. Then it's your choice how you want to put it into play. To be with a man and develop a love relationship in the hour we live in today, you will have to use a lot of your power on it, because the chasm between the sexes is so huge, because we have had such a violent past with so much unconscious behavior that has been passed on generation after generation. So actually, this also demands an enormous amount from him. So it's not something where you just have to give him power. And then he just eats it. That's what happens over here. When you're with a man who wants to walk the road with you, he gives you help. That is to say, the power you give that light, the healing you help him with to wake him up and raise his vibration, he uses to anchor it in himself and constantly move with you. But it is you who holds the light. It's like it's easier for you to vibrate things up than the male body. So you can choose to sacrifice some of your power on that journey for him. But only if he's worthy of it in the sense that And the man is worthy, but this guy over here just wants to use your power. He doesn't want to move. He actually wants that when he gets that gift, he sees it as an extremely wonderful gift that he gets from you that he uses to move and find out what's underneath all these rigid structures. It can be a tremendously beautiful journey to take together. Uh, and there are many variants to it. It can also just be, which is beautiful and wonderful, that you find a partner on the other side, where you think like, we have a great life together, and we're not in conflict all the time, and he has a genuine curiosity about who I am, and he's loving towards me. That would make a world of difference over here too, wouldn't it? But what you seem to experience on the other side is that you would be bruised in relation to men. You would be possibly afraid of men or angry at them. Just like f*** you, f*** you. And underneath that, there can be such a sadness, deep sadness of feeling hugely hurt and disappointed and devastated. And that can be healed up if you choose to go that way. And you can also choose to heal it up without wanting to put it for the power you get out of it. Because you could say all these wounds bind your power. So yes, with your power being released, you may well find out that way. Anyway, men, that's fine. But no, no, that's actually not what I want to use my power on. I want to create something else, because if you're in a relationship, it's always going to be quite energy-intensive, because it's the most difficult relationship. It's also the one that's the most ecstatic when you succeed while falling in and out of it. So it's just to say that there isn't some recipe that now you're out on the other side, you have to heal to find a new man. No, maybe that's right for you, but I would definitely recommend taking on the healing journey and bringing your power home. Uh, get it released. Because then it's you who decides what to do with it. Whether it's in a relationship with a man, or whether it's in all sorts of other ways or a relationship with a man along with other things. Not just you making that choice, no one else. And that's how you regain trust in men. And that's actually working with this. It's standing on the other side, getting help to spot where you're most hurt, where is it the most doubtful. Uh, work with it. There are different ways to work with it, as I do myself. Uh, there's both health and cognitive and nervous system. Uh, trauma therapy to work with it. And then it's actually also about what kind of relationship, if it's a relationship you want, or what kind of life you want, and what does it often take to get there? Uh, and then it's actually to put some structure in place where you move towards it. Because it can be hard when you feel broken on the other side to find the power to create the structure, because it can be nice to have someone to help create it and start taking steps towards it. Because let's say you've somewhat told your husband over here that you want a divorce. You're not there yet because you have to go through property division. You have to go through visitation with the kids. And you know he's going to be a pain in the ass. You don't know how much trouble or for how long, but you know he'll be a pain in the ass. Maybe that's why you've been in that relationship for two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight years too long, because you've thought, wow, how do I get this? Because then there's no more relapse. So you could say that standing on the other side when you have to end the relationship, many have chosen not to leave the relationship for a long time because it's the ending itself that they dread. How will it affect them financially? And here I would definitely recommend that when you're in the process of winding up, reach out to your family and ask and try to see if you can find some financial support so that you can get a lawyer so that you don't have to negotiate your division of property, for example, simply because dealing with difficult people, if you have to land things, you can hardly land anything with this group of men over here. You can only land something if it's in their favor. If it's not in their favor, they'll split and go at you and everything. Oh, and they can also pretend to know everything about the law and say it's like that. You just have to accept that. You owe me this money. And they can sound extremely convincing because they're used to making you cringe. You may end up making deals that are incredibly disadvantageous to yourself because they've been so convincing that they've looked into it, or you may end up in court, and you may get really scared. And some women can be like, I can't, I can't relate to it at all, so I'll just actually say, do you have any money? Do you have a family you can reach out to? Do you have someone you can borrow some money from to say, find some money, hire a lawyer, so you can take care of all that. I would almost say it's the best money you can possibly spend, because then you don't have to talk to him about selling the house or distribution or whatever the hell it is. Um. And that lawyer would also typically be able to take care of visitation if it is. Because what you'll dread are the many conversations with him that lead nowhere other than you end up completely drained and confused on the other side without anything having been finalized. And that's the good thing about lawyers, that they can just say, well, if you haven't answered by now, it will go to the probate court. Or, you know, there's very clear legislation about how it should be handled. And you may be afraid that if I put a lawyer on the case, he would see it as a conflict on the stairs, and that's just not the case, because you have to remember that he only really takes action when he gets a harsh consequence. That's how he works. So it's possible that he'll get into trouble and he'll write to you, and he'll pretend that when you do it, it's because he doesn't want the consequence. He doesn't want there to be any. lawyer someone who has to dictate because he wants it his way but it's just a smokescreen so that means if something lawyer on then it's also something about not seeing messages from him or just writing that we take with lawyer you know really short him out and you can also get help to deal with it because you will many women get directly almost anxiety attacks when a message comes in from a man they have been with who is in this category. It's extremely frightening for them and you can also deal with it in terms of coming out on the other side because at some point when you start such a case, it closes again. So it gets closed. Because even if he refuses to hand things over, it goes to the probate court, and then the lawyer can get direct access to it himself. So he can't help but not act. And I would actually say that many women avoid it because they are simply so afraid of conflict escalating. I understand that, but the problem is that you can only land something as a rule of thumb. You can only land something with men in this group if they agree with your proposal or if it's to their benefit. So get as much help as you can legally, psychologically and in every possible way. Hey, someone just wrote that there's a power outage somewhere. Um, well, it's been strange here too. I mean, if things go completely wrong, sometimes time is strange at the moment. If it goes completely wrong with sound and stuff like that, then I record the other stuff. Now I'm just looking through what's out there. Then you'll have to give feedback on whether it's completely choppy or whatever the hell it was. Then I'll have to do it again today. Um, but even if the power has gone out somewhere for some of you who are watching and it's choppy for you, the recording can still be fine in its entirety, because it's based on my connection, and I haven't frozen. So my my island I think there's been something with my headphones has been really annoying, but I'm not the one who hasn't done the bad connection thing. So if any of you have, I can see that some of you have dropped off and on in the number of participants, so if any of you have internet protocols locally, then when you see the recording, it should not be a problem, because I have not experienced it. And if there's anything when you're reviewing it, drop me a line and we'll figure it out. But I think it's okay from here. Uh-huh. And then the trust in men, it's a healing process on the other side. And it's the same with a combination of actually getting a short map of what kind of things you need to be aware of. So some warning signs. And that's also something that this lecture can perhaps also give you warning signs about narcissism. Giving this book is excellent in terms of just being, what are the warning signs of these behaviors? So it's actually just, what do you have to be on the lookout for, but you have to be aware of what makes the person tick in terms of, is he doing what he says? It's again about looking at behavior. So how do you make sure you don't miss any signs? Well, it's actually about educating yourself on the signs and also knowing how your system works. Because when we fall in love with a man and we've had sex with him, his scent and stuff like that. We become hugely, we become hugely blind in love, we become hugely blind to warning signs. So just be aware of that. So be aware if, during the infatuation period, you're just like, okay, he's talking about his, and there's something she's not there, and there's something he's not saying here. Just make a note of that. Okay, there's a little hint here. Then he might come later like this. Okay, I haven't really told you about mine, because you know it went completely, and I've you know and it I phew, it went completely wrong, and I'm scared shitless that you would judge me for it. And I don't think I was a very good girlfriend for her when I was young, and I couldn't fucking figure it out. You know, if he comes and says that, well, then something has been difficult for him, but it's not necessarily because he's an abuser that he's trying to keep you away. So that's the thing about just being aware and knowing that your system tends to believe everything he says when you're in love. So you also tend to, when he describes past relationships like that, think, holy shit.... he's been together, you know. So it's like just like just keep an open mind, it's hard. Just know that it's these mechanisms that are in humans when we fall in love. If we eat everything raw, and then it's kind of driven by infatuation, then we start to see, well, but he can also be a bit annoying there. He's a bit of a pain in the ass and all that. But is it annoying in a way where you can talk about it, where you can meet again, right? So it's something about doing some psychoedation, because actually the good thing about this, even though we don't like it, I can also see some of the comments that have come up here, but I can also see, you know, those who feel rattled this month when I've written about this, because it's tough. Nobody wants to look at this. We don't want to hear if we'd rather have something like three steps to a forever happy relationship. Well, it would be better if I were to make money on this myself. Then we should have sold a little bit, but it's an illusion. It's an illusion because these things happen. So it's actually about trying to map the darkness. We have to do that. We simply have to, because it's possible. This behavior is actually incredibly well mapped, so you can actually educate yourself in like okay, but am I with someone who has these behaviors, because you don't actually want to fall into his trap with him. Another thing he describes, which is tough, and I know it's tough for those of you sitting here and those who have bought this lecture. Um, because most of us choose to have children with those we are with for a long time. I haven't experienced any of the women I've helped on the other side of these relationships. I wouldn't say they haven't regretted having children because they love their children. But having children with a man like that has made their lives so much harder. It has created many more worries. And it's easy to naively believe that things will get much better. It will be much better when we have a child. Because then our love will grow together. Not with a person like that. Because he's not capable of love. He doesn't have the ability to love your children either. What he is capable of is something else, but it's not love. So there's a whole new variant of complexity in that. And he's describing the same pattern, because I had I had spotted just like okay, I don't have that much data set. He says, well, he's helped over thousands and thousands of women. He says he sees the same thing. He's never met a woman who says that life got easier with a man like that after she had children with him. It's always gotten harder and given them more worries. Always, always. We can work with that too. Understand, we can't solve it, but we can work on how the hell do you help your children? How do you help your daughters, but also your male children. How do you help your children through this? Because it's something, it's both something about, it's both something about a bit of forced maturation of them, that you actually have to let go. Well, some things, like the fact that if you split up, dad is on his own, he has sometimes been able to cover for you, and you have taken over responsibility and smoothed things out. Now he's on his own, he has to be alone, with these children. So he can try to lie about it. But at some point, they may start to notice that there's something strange in his behavior. So you also need to have some trust in your children. And the most important thing is actually, it may sound counter intuitive, but the most important thing is actually that you stand, that you work on bringing your power home, and you work on creating the life and the life and the reality, the values that you don't want to give your children, but that you want to represent, because those are the values you have. Because your children can choose whether they lean into it or not, because at some point they go out into the world themselves at some point, and then you live that life of I have them contact, but they become adults. So that means that they'll be living in two different realities, but better that than some muddle where they don't know what the hell is up or down. Because you could say the one thing that might be soothing for you is when you look at the literature on it in the short term, when a breakup happens, men here can seem to get away with being, you know, the fun cozy second weekend or can can buy a little bit and can talk bad about you in a way or manipulate and stuff like that. So he can succeed with alienation in the short term. And yes, sometimes he succeeds with alienation. I have to say, he does. Where you actually feel like you're losing your kids, but statistically in the long run, most kids will actually eventually figure out there's something wrong with dad. So I couldn't count on him. Because what you have to keep in mind is the behavior being exposed here. I describe that a lot more in the uh uh uh, what's it called? The lecture on narcissism, it's that one of the illusions that breaks when you're with a person with narcissism, is that you think it's only you who is exposed to it. You think, of course, people will never expose these things to their children, but that illusion is shattered because these are the behaviors people have. They have nothing else. So everyone they are close to is exposed to this in one way or another. Of course, a person who has many narcissistic traits can be sweet and funny and lovely. Just not when the person is the trick. Well, not when the person gets hit on something. That's where it comes up, right? So it's very much that it's always measured by the person not feeling threatened, not feeling criticized, not feeling rejected, and there is and we all get to that. So this person will find it extremely difficult if their children start to reject them. And that will very typically happen if you have really annoying redførs that pop up that you don't take responsibility for. Of course kids eventually eventually like that: “That sucks.” And here there may be something about, the older they get, they can more just be allowed to go and opt out of the parents, if that's it. Not that we have to dictate it. We should really just keep your rule to say, you have the right to love both your father and your mother, but you also have the right not to be with your father and your mother. I find our behaviors annoying as hell. We have to own it, we simply have to own it. Um, so it's about avoiding that the more war he will try to create and constantly think that he buys more expensive gifts than you do and tries to find out what you bought for, so he can surpass you all that stuff. It would just be such bullshit. So it's the more you pull away, the more you let the person mess around in their own sh***. And there's something about working with painful feelings you have that sometimes you think you're sending your child back into the trenches. Because if there's a custody arrangement and you're holding the child back, that's something you shouldn't do, you know. So sometimes there can be a visitation arrangement where you think, “Oh, I'm not sure this is good for the child, but it's also the child's father. So, you know, there's also something here about what the child has to do with the other parent that has nothing to do with you. And that doesn't mean you should just be indifferent but it actually means that there is also something that you have to you have to take you can clean up your own karma. with the man you were with. You could you can make sure that you stand in your own power and and and land things and live your life. And you can and you can work with your children where you don't speak badly. Where you don't alienate your ex-partner, but at the same time you don't spare him if he's done something stupid. If the child comes and says, mom, dad had promised he would come and he didn't. And so I understand that. I just got so upset just like that, I understand that. I got upset. I know when dad is there. I know when dad promises things he doesn't keep. It's incredibly disgusting right here in front of you. Right here you're really just giving your children the opportunity to say, yes, what you see and feel is right, and it's right that dad has that behavior. Of course, you should only do it when it's right, but you want to know. If you have been with a man like that, you will know where he falls that behavior and you will be extremely concerned. Sometimes you try to see if you can educate your children in advance. The trick is that you actually have to let them take some blows and make the realization themselves and keep your relationship open where they look to you for some experience and some wisdom. And coming from a certain place is not to make the man wrong. But at the same time not at all sparing him in that the behavior is uncomfortable. And then it can and then it pauses, so maybe the child says, do you ever think daddy won't do that? And then you have to I don't know. He hasn't, so you don't really know. And it's also possible that the child says, I don't want to be with dad when he does that. When I'm older, do I have to be with him? Your child may well ask such a question. And that and there are things, what the hell are you supposed to say here? Because you don't want to alienate. But that answer can be like that when you get old, so it's you who chooses who you want to be with. So if you think I'm a pain in the ass to be around, then you don't have a right to be around me, and you don't have a right to be around dad either. So you know, you're actually trying to invent a new language for when the kids come, because they're trying to make sense of this behavior. And they typically won't see the behavior more clearly until the moment you've split up, if it doesn't. Uh, let me see. Hey, it's also at half now. I'm just checking my notes to see if I've covered all the things I want to say. Yes, but I think you have, more or less. I could elaborate on all of them, but I don't have that much time. But I have covered all the points that I want to talk about. So right now, it's actually open for questions. So feel free to write in here whatever you have and I'll answer them. Um, and if you need further help and finances for it and stuff like that, you're also welcome to reach out for help. And the way I help is both, I haven't talked much about that, I have it on my side, but it's both working with it cognitively, that is, working practically and understanding psychoeducation and getting a plan and all that mapped out. Right. Where is he confused? What are the areas where he is consistently abusive? How can you best set boundaries in that and for being in that? Whether you stay for a period of time or whether you stay or whether you go. And then I also go in and work energetically you could call it. So I go in and work with the stresses that have been on the system that will have been there in such a long-term relationship simply to go in because having given up your power and being forced to do so creates some things. So there is both work but actually the emotional regulation that cleans out some of the things that are stuck. And the way it happens is that you actually go in and I ask you to go into some of the things that have been most difficult. Some of the conditions that have been most difficult and then I help you release that in real time. So it's more if someone is interested in that. And it's not important who you get help from. So if you have a good friend or a pre So the most important thing is that you get some help, and you get some help and support, and you don't feel like you're all alone. And some of the skills you can also acquire without necessarily having to go out and spend money on it. It's more about making sure you get some support. How do you live with a man like that without triggering him? Uh, so you might avoid some of his bad behavior. Yes, you really hit a paradox here, because you can't. You can't, you can't live in a relationship without tricking him. Because no matter how much you bend over backwards, all of a sudden it's like this, you've smacked him, or you've breathed too loudly, or you open the bedroom door a little. So when he's in that state where he has to regulate, especially if you have narcissistic traits, you end up regulating yourself. That is, every time you have an irritation, every time you experience something internally that is unpleasant, you have to find something externally that causes it. Because you can't figure out how to deal with it yourself. So that means that if you haven't done it, if you just sit completely in the room and you're the only one there, then the narcissist will have to find something you've done that makes me feel bad right now. Or you'll complain that it's also because it's also corona, or it's the government, or you know, whatever the hell it might be. And that's not to say that there's nothing with the corona government, but there would be something. So it could still be Ukraine, or it could be there, there will be something, or it could be because you think Trump has the truth, or it could be something else that has the truth. In other words, you want to jump on something. So whether he's throwing it at you somewhere because he says you've done something that has annoyed him, or he'll throw his annoyance at something that's going on in the public debate, depending on who he supports, who he agrees with, and then he'll force you to listen to it because he has to get it into circulation. And if you either disagree or maybe just don't want to go down that road, you have, but it's hard to know, the midterm elections or there are many things in the corona. Well, you're probably right that the state is trying to audit, but you know, I don't want to deal with that right now. You know, then he would trick you there. But then you don't comply. And conversely if you if you then go with him, then you have to sit down and listen to that for hour or two and then you have to sit and take his his here we can really talk about negative energy or heavy energy. His whole his whole l*** in here, he's just thrown himself into some societal debate that he can't solve at all. He's not interested in solving it. He just wants to interact with it in order to have it and vomit over it. And then you have to sit there and take his vomit. So that means no matter what you do there, no matter if you say, I don't want to talk about that right now, but then he goes for you. Or you have to sit there for half an hour, an hour or two hours and listen to his vomit. And you can feel your system getting heavier and heavier. You can actually feel it. It's actually like there's someone standing and you know, breathing bad breath inside your head. And you can't speak up, because then the person becomes steady. So it's more to say that you can't avoid being tricked in a relationship like this. You can figure out how to trick the person as little as possible. You can map out the person's patterns, say, okay, that is, if you can often figure out that if I do this, he triggers. If I do this, he triggers. Then there are some things you go around, you deflect. You can stop sharing. Finally, don't share vulnerable material about yourself because he will abuse it. Avoid spending too much time with him. Uh basically and and stick to topics that are maybe kind of humorous, where you get him in a bit of a good mood, but you will all the time. In other words, you can be with a person where you reduce the trigger points, but it's at the expense of turning yourself off, and it's at the expense of having to constantly monitor what you put into play. And it also has to do with the fact that if you think, okay, we're going to Jutland and I'm not going to sit in a car with him for four hours, because then there are all kinds of complaints I have to listen to. If I say, no, I can't go out and then we have a row, and I don't want to do that. You know, you might have a bit of that, you might have that: “Well, you know what? I don't think it was a good super good idea to uh you know I'll just take the kids the day before and then you can drive because you think you just need it so much because you've been so much on tax and you have so much you need it so I think you need to sit in the car alone and just recharge a little and then I'll take the kids because then you can be like my friend you haven't suspected it because you not at all so you do all that while there's a friend you want to see and that's fine you do it basically to avoid sitting in a car with him for five hours so that's the way you would have to live with such a person you can't tell him I can't stand sitting in a car with now I'm doing something else so you will have to wrap it up as if you are doing something for his benefit. Or you're doing something for your benefit that is also for his benefit. So you will constantly have to live in such a way. So it comes at a price. If we think that the children are swimming in the water that flows between the parents and the relationship is toxic because of the warrior mentality. What's the best way to help me as a caregiver? Yeah, it's a tough one because it's true. The children, the children are a lot, they absorb all that, and they also absorb the conflicts between them, and it's hard for them to figure out. It's really hard for them to figure out who does what. Because it could be that dad has been obnoxious, that they haven't seen, and mom is freaking out, so mom is the bad guy. And now they have to protect dad. Um, other times I can see that with other times, and now this is the only example I'll use, where it's been the other way around, where it's been a completely clueless narcissist where she can't read, she simply can't read her son. She simply can't, because he's an extension of her. So when she tells him to do something, he just has to comply, because you want to, you want to go to this, or you want to play with these, or you want to spend Halloween with me, or whatever. And if the child says, I don't know. Then there's something wrong with the child. There can't be anything wrong with her. So, you know, she's constantly pushing the child to fit her inner image of who she is. Because she can't, she can't tolerate that there might be something she should look at in herself because she has to be a perfect parent. So when she has to be a good object, a good parent, the child has to be a bad object. And then this goes on in relation to the fact that when the child rejects her more and more, the only explanation she can have is that the boy doesn't like her at all and you know hits her and calls her nasty names. So the boy is getting more and more desperate to push her away. Just like that, you're all over me, you're annoying, and it's going away. So he gets really mean to her. The only conclusion she can draw from it is that daddy will do. That is to say, so here's what the abuser does, the other parent of the abuser will say you're alienating, you're psychopathic, you're violent, because try to see what the child does. My child responds to me. I'm a nice mom. I don't do anything. Ergo, it must be you. That's a huge oversimplification. So it becomes it becomes it's chaos. I mean, it's chaos with these people. It's simply chaos. So when you're looking at it as a relative, it's crazy, because you're like, what should I do here? It's actually a mixture of having to set some boundaries for yourself and your children. Because you may not want your children to be there. If you can feel that they're being nagged and there's all sorts of things going on. It may also be that you absolutely don't want your children to spend the night without you. And then and there, you may actually have to give notice. It may actually be that you feel you have to risk the relationship by saying listen, you're talking to each other in a way or maybe if you've decided that you've actually identified who the abuser is, I would actually say depending on whether you're afraid of that if you shed light on whether you're afraid that he's going to be violent if you're not then I would actually say you need to speak up because again we come across this group again with these men they change there's only a small possibility of them changing behavior if they're stripped of privileges if they're told, forget it. I'm not going to put up with that. Me and my kids, we're walking right now. And it's hard because we don't like it. Humans don't like these conflicts. We don't like to break the good atmosphere. We don't like to shed light on this. We don't want to stir up conflict. It's extremely unpleasant. So you may well have a period where you feel like you're withdrawing a little. And you can also be extremely worried as a relative if it's a sister, or a cousin, or whatever it may be that you feel is in that situation. And there may also be something about her being aware of it herself, that she listens to talk about it, is she reaching out for help, or is he trying to isolate her? So you can't say you can help them if they are open to help. If you if you if you're in doubt right now, you can see there's something going on between you don't know are they having a bad period or which one of them is more demanding. If you don't know then it's even more confusing. But if you've already identified and it's pretty obvious that one party is being clingy and even the other party has talked about it in a hurtful way to you and it kind of stays there, then there might be an opening for the party who is being clingy to do something about it by simply setting boundaries and leaving, right? Because you can say, you can't do that. So, uh, if we're in this category where it's part of the cancer mindset or dark trials, you can't sit down and say, I think you have this ugly tone, and I think it's a bit annoying. Can you not do that? Well, it won't change anything. And what can be really sad is that the person who is in a relationship where she is being violated can start to become isolated because people actually start to withdraw because they don't like it. I mean, it's not typical for a woman to be on the other side of a relationship with a man who is annoying as hell to say the least, right? Because in these types of behavior, not everyone is violent in places like that. Many just have really annoying behaviors, you know, like really annoying. It's something like, you know, you just know, well okay, if we need new handles on the kitchen cabinets, yes, but you get to choose, because then we have to talk about it for four hours, where you just know there are so many things you avoid, because it's just like, shut up, you're so annoying. And then it's only when you're on the other side that you realize, okay, you were a pain in the ass and you lied and you cheated on me and you said nothing. I mean, you were really annoying, you weren't, and it's a huge sleeper. So there are different degrees here and it can all be said somewhere that transgressive behavior but fortunately not all of them are violent. But that doesn't mean it's any less exhausting because it certainly is. And the thing about being on the other side - it's not atypical for women to experience being on the other side and suddenly finding out that the people around her never really liked her former husband. I mean, I just thought he was kind of annoying and overbearing and difficult to be around, but they just never said anything. So there's also something about sometimes having the courage to say things out loud, knowing that you can risk the relationship pulling away from you because she doesn't handle it. You can't know that. So it's a choice in you, but you're right. It's not easy. It's definitely not easy to stand on the sidelines and witness. And you may not be able to stand being in that environment either. And your heart may hurt for the sake of the children. How can I tell my ex that he is a narcissist? Can he get therapy if he knows it himself? So just say in relation to a narcissist with no the short answer. Uh he there is someone who knows it. Um and it may well be and it may well be that he finds out. The problem is therapy. The likelihood of having changed in therapy is very small. So uh you can't actually you can't actually you can't actually you can't really it's no use telling him he's a narcissist. What you can do is when he has a behavior towards you that you find annoying when you You can, when you know right now he's making me the problem, when it's not my problem. That is, you can go in and say stop, I don't want to talk about this with you. I don't want to discuss this with you for two hours. It's you who started it. Figure out how to fix it, and then you need to move. I'll take it from here. I'm having a sleepover with the kids. So you actually have to move. You actually have to set tough boundaries in terms of what you're willing to accept. And he'll probably freak out about that. Um, or else you have to do what I mentioned earlier, which is that you have to let it all slide. You have to constantly choose, what do I do right now? And so on. You have to constantly age him with the hair. Uh, where you actually sometimes have to take some verbal abuse because he's in a place right now where he's using you to regulate himself, so he can't figure that out. So you're the one who's in a difficult situation, so to speak. So it's actually you who decides what you're willing to do here. So yes, I have to be honest and say that the literature in relation to narcissism, in relation to actually coming out on the other side of narcissism, narcissistic defenses, it almost never happens. And the reason why that's the case, I'll get into the lecture I have on the narcissistic defenses, if you might be interested in that. But the reason for that is that the narcissist can't hold the self-reflection. The thing about the narcissistic defense is that every time there is a feeling of discomfort um for various reasons it's not possible for a narcissist to differentiate the discomfort to figure out Like whoa that was uncomfortable. I wonder if I have something to do with this. So the discomfort will just be uncritically turned into this it's uncomfortable. It must be your fault. It's simply that it's constant as if there's such a membrane that they're hidden behind. So every time something hits them it just bounces back again. Something hits me. You're uncomfortable. But it's your fault and it will be consistent. So you'll be able to talk yourself to death trying to explain this to him without him still understanding anything. Because he can't feel it. And even that window where if you're a narcissist at some point they're going to piss off so many colleagues. They have to change jobs and stuff like that. At some point, when they know that they're being caught with their hand in the cookie jar, as if they're going to be silent and completely, but then they reboot. So they don't realize it. So I just want to say that it's not theoretically possible to give in to narcissism. It is possible to work with it, but it requires an enormous amount of human effort. It requires you to go in and work on simply breaking down behavioral forms and building yourself up again. So it's really about whether you have the confidence that he will cope. He will take it on. That's enough. That's where you need to think. Can you do anything other than clarify your own values so that your child distances himself from the abusive behavior by being and avoiding the child defending the father in his story about him? The child is seven years old. I stepped forward when she was three. Um. Well, there can be something about her defending daddy. And you probably have to let that slide a bit. Well, you could say, um, one of the most important things is that sometimes children can come over, and they have sometimes taken on their father's behavior. So if dad is directly forward and talks badly about mom, it's actually not nice for the child. So sometimes the child comes over, so one of the most important and most difficult things to do when the child comes over to you is that you actually have to reassure the child. Because it might be that the child is a bit resistant to you, because if they've been filled with all sorts of things, so it's actually the more you, and this is what's difficult, the more you, the less worried you are about your child, the more you're at home in yourself, the more you can see that, okay, my child comes back and has been in your war zone. Um, so the more you can give the child time to lean into it and rebuild trust in you, and this is where we can sometimes come to you and say, mom, sometimes dad says something about, is that true? And then the child will sometimes try to test you. Sometimes the child will try to say what the hell is up and down in this. They'll get vulnerable sometimes and say, where does it go and then you can just say, and maybe you can, it's something about finding the words and just saying, well okay. Yes, but I can understand that. Maybe without talking about him. Just say, yes, I can understand that you don't think it was nice. I can understand, because you have to be allowed to love both your mom and your dad. So you can actually, the more, I would actually say, the more you have an ex-partner who has no problem saying nasty things about you to children, the more you stand, you can't always, but avoid it, but you can still talk and behave and you can still say, I understand that you don't think it's nice. You need to have space to love your mom and dad. So because the child can then confidently say, okay, this way there will be no criticism of the other parent, because it's the mutual criticism that creates the conflict of loyalty. And you can stand there. Sometimes you want to scream out loud or smash something because you're like, why the hell can't I just say your dad, your dad is a f****** wimp and then understand it because he's saying all kinds of nasty things about the problem is that the child is only seven, so the child can't is not where she can act like that. So you actually have to think about the long term. You simply have to think about getting your life back on track. And actually also here you have to think about potentially losing the relationship. That's one of the hardest things, uh, when we have children with someone who has been demanding in different ways or who we know has no problem lying and trying to pull the child close and everything else, because we don't know if the child might surrender to it for a while. We can't know, but even though we can't know, it's actually important that you refrain from entering into that kind of competition and saying, well, these are my values, this is how I do this, you know. And you actually open up, that is, you work on bonding with your child so that it becomes safe for your child to be there, and so that your child can come and tell you about what they've done over there that's been nice, just like that: “Well, that sounds nice. The more you work on your field, the more you can accommodate it without being about to puke. And at the same time when I think dad, when he does that, it's not nice when he's like, oh, I remember that. Dad can do it. When he's right there, he can do that. That's what's annoying. When he says he wants to be there, he's not. Or sometimes he can get really angry. It's not because I understand that it's not nice. Do you need your help, or can you handle it yourself? You know, so you actually have to deal with it when we have divided things up in a rather different way. And that's a worse way, a way of parenting that you can both get help and sparring for, but that you can also kind of land in over time. And it's a relatively new phenomenon, yes. We must also remember that we imagine the world that it's acceptable to get divorced. And fortunately for that, it causes other problems that you can just get divorced in relation to the children. But the fact that you couldn't totally let it go wasn't good either, was it? There, there, there, but it's still relatively new. So what I I'm 43 right? And as and as and as I'm so it's within my generation that it's kind of become everyone's property you could say or it's kind of become less taboo. It's difficult and it's hard and it's possible, but it's no longer taboo to get divorced in our part of the world. But that means we're still figuring out how the hell do we land in this, and especially in these relationships, how the hell do we navigate these waters? And that and that is something we live out. It's something we're creating together with our children right now, because it's quite new. It's also quite new that we understand these patterns much more. Previously, it was just like, you know, we didn't know how to talk about these relationships in the same way. It was a bit like violence against women. It was if she was beaten, right? And you can see that this is much more complex. So we're also in the process of mapping behaviors that our children actually need to have, but we need to give them in the right doses, and they need to have them in a way where they are allowed to look at their father's behavior or mother's behavior, while they are allowed to feel love without being mixed up too much. But we also need to be able to accommodate if the child chooses to say, well, I don't feel love for my dad or my mom. I don't want to be with that person anymore. We must also be able to accommodate that. We just shouldn't, we shouldn't have been the ones who have pressured, manipulated them to get there. It's simply something that has to land in them. And that's what I meant by saying that some of this journey, my parents and the child simply have to go on their own, and that can give you sleepless nights. So also getting help and support for that part of the journey. I am seriously worried about my children who are with their father part of the time since August. My daughter chronically suffers from silent riflux and excessive growth. He has embarked on an independence campaign towards our seven year old daughter and as part of that. And won't he help her when she has severe flight pain at night, for example? Yes. And I can understand that you think you're extremely worried about that. And you could say that sometimes this happens, which is actually one of the most difficult things when we are in situations with people in this category. It's that when we get divorced, they will have certain behaviors where they very rigidly suddenly get some idea about something. This is the answer to all problems. If you just support this sport over here, the child will want to do it, and then the child is never bothered. And that's how it becomes so very square. The explanations for men in this or women when they're here, right now we're talking about men, it becomes very rigid how to solve things. And it's like if you just, if you just spoke nicely about f, if you just supported sports, then you would shine. Or or if you were just less there only, there could typically be a phrase on what you're describing here. If you were just less stuffy, then our then our daughter could handle it herself, right? And you can say right here you actually have to do it that you are there and you help her. That is, you create the everyday life and the reality and are towards her that you think is the right thing to be as the mother you are. And you actually have to let him do the things he does knowing that it might actually push his daughter further and further away from him. It's possible. So sometimes you'll stand over here and you'll just look at this parent over here like, you know, like a train dragon slow motion just thinking like, well if you do that, that's what I was trying to tell you, if you keep pushing that independence, if you keep pushing those activities, if you keep pushing that you have to do that even though you're tired because you have to or whatever the hell it is, if you keep only having that singularity or one-sidedness, then eventually it hits your relationship, and then your child doesn't like you. Because what people over here don't think about is that when this child turns 12, 13, 14, well, then you get this door in your head. So at some point you don't want to be micromanaged, to be controlled, being bossed around or whatever or pressured or whatever it may be or having to sit and listen to some long lectures about something or other or constantly having to sit down and talk about now you have to take that guilt on you and then you have to understand when you do that you know you are constantly being done wrong or whatever the hell it is they make up in all their in all their mess over here that they do not take responsibility for so that means there are blinders on there are very square things in relation to how things work, and how do I get you to do something and then it pushes it off your mind so you actually have to sit and look at it over here you can't really do anything about it unless of course you're so worried that you have a little bit I simply have to seek full custody. In some cases it's the right way to go. It can go bottom up. So it's really get legal representation over it because and and get it through. There are not very many. So it has to be, in court, it has to be egregious. It has to be very demonstrable before it happens. So it's more to say that you can stand there and think well, that's not good, but the problem is to get it through a court case and win the probability is not very high. And therefore, instead of letting yourself in some cases at least let yourself wear yourself down through a trial where you have to be subjected to all the abuse, he will run on you and possibly he will enjoy it. Some of these, especially the psychopathic traits and Marivelle like and the pugilistic part too ø they can enjoy and get such an adrenaline high on the more drama there is. But if you're about to pull out and want to kind of collect yourself and get your power and calm, then it would be crazy uncomfortable with you to interact. So then some of it is actually standing and witnessing, it's actually the thing about when your daughter comes over and she gets really really really upset about what not just like that I understand honey it's uncomfortable you have to face her like that why doesn't he want to I don't know and so have you have you have you what does he say when you ask him he says I have to be independent just like that yes I can understand that he sees it this way or that way he looks at it I do not. And then that and then leave it there and then it may well be that at some point she may well look up and say like this mom what can I do about it can I get mad at dad you can well sometimes when I get mad at dad he gets really mad at me yes what is it like to be in that is really good it is really nice and then he wants me to talk. For hours. I really don't like it. And then it's like he doesn't talk to me for days. Yeah, I can do that. I remember when my dad was there. It's really uncomfortable. So I think I'll just deal with it on my own. Okay. Uh... I understand that you don't want to end up there with Dad. Is there anything I can do to help you? What do you need to be able to handle it on your own? Then you're actually helping her. You can't save her, but you can help her deal with it. You can also help, you're not holding his hand. So this thing about, because you can say, she actually gets back in the trenches, but she also builds up some power in terms of saying, okay, daddy didn't listen to me when it, when she gets older. And it's not that I have any desire for her to reject her father. It hasn't led to any children. But on the other hand, if parents are transgressive, don't see their children and don't take responsibility for their own behavior, then children will at some point say, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. It's not just, it's not something about when we have to come back. So someone may well be, well, then the children will call us, then come and visit us when we get old. No, not if you go to hell. It's not supposed to, you know. So I would say it typically hits like a boomerang. From your point of view, it can be painful to watch, but you'll rarely be able to do anything about it, because if you could do something about this, you wouldn't have split up, or you wouldn't have ended up in that kind of divorce, because then he would be responsive, you would be responsive to what the hell is the best way to deal with this right now, we're like well you can do it yourself because you have to learn to be a little more resilient or no phew it seems like that's not possible. So she really needs some care, right? They are both valuable tools in parenting, but the problem is that sometimes one person can be very rigid in their view of their children and that will worry you deeply. Just keep an eye on the time here. I just have time for the last question. And then I'll answer the others in there. You mentioned that the author of the book you recommended always contacts the woman if he has an abusive man in therapy. Do you do that too? And does that also apply to children? And how do abusive men typically deal with it? I imagine that they often won't be very happy that their boyfriend is the goal. Yeah. And you know, I've actually thought about this, this is absolutely brilliant. And I've, I've really thought about how I'm going to approach this myself, because I don't. Um, and the reason for that is that Jo Jo, let me put it this way, if there was, because you could say, he is, he is, I don't know if he is state funded, but it's typically the men who come to him and have to do group work, so it's like group therapy or a program where they are also taught what I have no behavior, how they can change it and so on. They are actually sent to him by municipalities where she has made reports and stuff like that. So he can set up the system so that it's like this, you should know. When you come here, I'm in contact with your ex, or I'm in contact with your girlfriend or a wife that you're still with, and I always compare. So that's part of it. He doesn't reveal what he talks to her about, of course. And you could say that the way I approach it is that when I get, uh, 99.9% of the people who approach me are women. And so it's women I help primarily. And then there are some men. Um, and so I actually have to use my spit-spoon style in order to understand, where does she stand? So I actually have to use my sense of where she stands. However, I would say as a rule of thumb, if a woman had an abuser mindset, because often there are women who are on the other side and have a hard time landing a relationship with a man, right? Uh, if a woman had an abuser mindset, she wouldn't pay me money to solve it, she wouldn't, she wouldn't be interested in that. So you can say right now, because I'm not, I'm not someone who the state sends, you know, violent men over to me, and I'll try to fix them. So men who are abusers will never book an appointment with me, because there's nothing wrong with them. And also because I can't psychologically work in the state and I'm not in and give testimony to the court or bring children. So yes, I do sometimes help children, but it's because parents call me in as a parent so that the children have an unwilling person to talk to. And then I can make a statement, but I don't have any direct influence on a case that goes to court. I can come in as someone who works with children who has, you know, a degree in psychology who has stated something or other, but it comes in like this, so it doesn't carry much weight. Because I'm not in the system and I'm not brought in to do child welfare investigations. So he doesn't get anything out of manipulating me. So there's nothing, there's no gain in him somehow doing something to me. Of course, he benefits from the fact that his wife doesn't have to seek me out, his girlfriend doesn't have to seek me out or seek information. But that's something else, because it's typically her who comes. So you could say, and what I've become extremely aware of, is that if I concentrate on a close fight, I can find someone where I have a little, I don't know if he was possibly more abusive than I thought, that I might have used some of these tools over here, where I've actually come to shut her down more. Uh, I can't do that. I have to take that on, because it's so damn hard. But that's not an excuse. I can just see that I will be much more reserved. I've actually become much more cautious about taking couples into couples therapy or couples counseling. Um, because that's where the dynamics can arise. I see someone I already know, or I've had them both in, so I have a feeling for them, which can make sense, because can they use this vulnerability for something? So I've actually become more aware of how well I know them, or do I have a feeling for them? Have I had both of them in, and what the hell is going on here? Um, so that I don't end up in a situation where I end up supporting an offending party. And then I've also become much more square in or so aware that if a woman comes in and says I think my husband is a narcissist, and phew, if I force him in here, wouldn't it be a good idea to just say, I'll just say no, it won't come to anything else. Well, I've tried, you know, like, well, try to come and have a chat and stuff like that. And that was before, when I simply didn't understand these behavioral patterns as well as I do now, where I can say, well, it's a lost course. Then I sometimes have someone, I've had a couple of men who have approached me, who have seen my lecture and who know that they have very clear narcissistic traits, and who have said, phew, we would like help to say, well, we can do that. You have to be willing to take on work. And I can also reveal that both of these men have had a realization and have done nothing more about it. So it may well have been part of a, uh, part of a ceiling bombing of their partner in terms of pretending to do something, but they couldn't keep it up. And I'm completely honest, I'm just kind of saying that we can do that, but you have to change, you have to be persistent, you have to choose to invest in it. Uh, and I'm not going to pull my hair out, but we can work with it. So I can do that. Um, so I would actually say that if it would be it would be advantageous, and it's also the same thing, that you only get one perspective, it's risky business. Because you can't really know. You can't really know. So I've been thinking about how the hell do you avoid that? And how do you avoid getting a narcissist who would love to come to therapy and sit and be listened to and told that it's everyone else's fault? And you can get to that point. Because sometimes it can seem like it's a person who is very vulnerable. So you hit on something here that we have to deal with. When the hell does therapy actually become a space where we get to actually support a behavior? So that's an extra dimension to this. So I hope that was a very long answer. Now we're done for today. There are a few questions left in there and I promise to answer them in writing. I'll go in and do that right away so that you all get answers. Thank you for now. And if you need anything else I can help you with, feel free to reach out and get help in the situations you're in. Um, and then the next lecture is going to be about bringing your power home. It's not a specific link on um, women who have stepped out of it. It's women in general and also sometimes women who mess around, as we all do. Sometimes we get into immaturity. Because I would also like to address the fact that we women can also sometimes be extremely boundary pushing towards men. Uh, and we can sometimes misunderstand men, and we can actually make it worse. But that category is more about us being able to bring understanding into it. Because if women are over in this group, what we've talked about today is actually similar for women, if it's female narcissists. It's very similar. Uh, she can she can she can she's good at giving you a little more fragile, a little more vulnerable. That's why in the legal system she can sometimes unfortunately succeed in making it look like he's the abusive one. Uh, because unfortunately, and it's a bit the same sometimes, I also described in a post that got a lot of heat, that, uh, he also describes him here unfortunately if a man, uh, as a rule of thumb, we shouldn't prejudge anyone, of course, but if a man spends a lot of energy on his Facebook page constantly complaining about, how much you know now all his children have left him and the system has screwed him, all women and bitches, and the more he has nothing to do with it, the more unlucky he has been all his life and he has been violated, and he has never done anything, the more it can close off that it is a little bad. Because there's a tendency for men over here to turn it around and say that he was violent when it was actually a cover for his own violence. And I've seen two very specific cases where I was familiar with it, where I saw that the man was doing what he did, how the hell do we relate to that? Plus this guy, he describes a pattern. Of course, this doesn't mean that men can't be victimized by women, because they can. But when we're talking about physical violence, it's a small minority, in the sense that men don't have the same stage followers of violence, because they're typically larger than women. So it's a bit, that is, your child hits you very unpleasantly, and that shouldn't happen, because children do it, but there shouldn't be violence in relationships at all. So it's not to say that it's okay for women not to hit at all. It's more to say what the consequences of it are. So some men will use this to portray themselves as victims and use the spirit to get a lot of sympathy to cover up their own abuse. And it's just, it's just, it's just as bad. And when the man and the woman do it, it's also the female narcissist doing it too, so for some man dragged through out. And right here is the female community among teachers and social workers, if they're all women, they have a huge bias that it's the man who's the bad boy. Here, right? And the same sometimes in the legal system, the woman can look like, well, you've collapsed, you look mentally ill. So you can experience a huge amount of bias in this out in the public space and in the various institutions. So it's extremely difficult to navigate, and it's extremely painful. So it's something we simply have to learn to deal with in a different way, because these behaviors are simply so destructive. Uh, yeah. Right, good. Those will be the words for now. Uh, it was this whole thing about you should always reach out with But get some help, seek some help yourself depending on finances and what you have resources and everything. And it is possible to walk away. That was at another lecture. That's what I was talking about. Exactly. So this is actually about bringing your power home. And it can be both if you're on the edge of a relationship like this, or if you find out that God, well, I also have some dark darkness in me, as we all do. We all have darkness in us. The difference is that if you're over here, you're willing to have self-reflection and the vulnerability to look at your own darkness. Not all the time. It's fucking uncomfortable. It's always rather look at dark, but you're actually able to do it over here. Ah, there's no accountability for that, so that's the difference. So if you can get something there, you're also very welcome. Otherwise, I'll just say good weekend when you get there and thank you for today.