You so want to be seen, heard, known, acknowledged, appreciated, and accepted. We all do. #Hijackals know this and do their best to NOT give that to you. Control tactic! Recognize these unhappy truth about a narcissistic or anti-social person.
HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS EPISODE:
- Why Hijackals cannot be emotionally intimate
- The difference between being proximate and being intimate
- Why you’re desire for intimacy is their opportunity to weaponize your vulnerabilites
- Don’t mistake the desire for control with the desire to know you better
- Important understanding of the psychological definitions of intimacy
- Why emotional intimacy requires the emotional safety you’ll never have around a #narcissist, a @Hijackal
Being known, seen, heard, acknowledged, approved of and accepted…Those are the very things that a person with narcissistic or anti-social tendencies will not give you. That’s how they manipulate you.
You want those things and they pretend, suggest, or promise them. You know now that you’re not going to receive them.
I hate to have to be so strong, but it’s essential: STOP HOPING!
That person who manipulated and love-bombed you into falling in love with them is a mirage, a charade, a facade, a chameleon. That person is made-up and put on. That’s not the real person.
If you keep hoping that that mythical first-date person is real, you’ll keep thinking that if only you could find the right formula while making yourself into a pretzel–that person would return. You know that you only see that person now when the Hijackal is really afraid of losing you, or really wanting something you don’t want to give them, right?
Sad, but true!
That’s why today’s episode is SO IMPORTANT! Good people hold out hope that difficult, toxic people will change. It seldom happens….and, I mean REALLY SELDOM! They will make some surface changes for awhile, but their basic nature most often wins out and they go back to their damaging ways.
Yep! That’s the bottom line: stop hoping, OK?
TRANSCRIPT:
It’s sadly important that you need to stop hoping you’ll ever be able to create emotional intimacy with a narcissist, a Hijackal®, a person with antisocial tendencies. They will not give that to you. They can’t give it to you because they don’t have it in them. And even if they did have it, they wouldn’t give it to you because that erases the power differential between you and them, thereby putting both of you on an equal footing.
Hijackals will not ever consider themselves on an equal footing with their partner. They’re really good at giving you a false sense of hope for a moment or two…that’s usually at the moment that they need you to forget there is an imbalance.
And then you know what happens? Nothing good.
It’s a ruse to suck you in, to give them what THEY need. Hijackals are never intimate. They can’t be intimate because intimacy means that they’re going to create closeness, they’re actually going to let you in, they are going to see you as an equal, reciprocal and mutual partner.
There are three must-haves in a healthy relationship, namely; equality, reciprocity, and mutuality (here’s a video that explains them). Sadly, none of that will happen with the Hijackal.
And they’re not interested in the idea of doing life together as mutual partners living in a reciprocal relationship.
They get their kicks from having power and control or dominating someone else. And they are emotionally manipulative, and you can see these in their ability and willingness to create an artificial intimacy because intimacy means closeness.
But closeness is not the same thing as proximity. Proximity refers to physical nearness like when you’re standing next to someone. Intimacy, on the other hand, means that you are emotionally close to someone, not just physically. So, there is a big difference.
It’s imperative for us to realize what intimacy is because if it’s something that we want or something that we’re desiring, then we have to recognize it’s not available from the Hijackal.
And for the three must-haves I mentioned earlier, it is only available as a manipulation strategy. It is not available from a wonderful loving place that wants to develop a relationship with you. And this is very important to know. I know it’s sad. I know it’s not what you want to hear; I know you want to hope. And the reason that you want to hope is that you want to hope that that person you fell in love with initially is the real person. And I’m sorry, it’s not true. The real person is the person you’re experiencing on a daily basis now. And the sooner that you can tell yourself, the truth, the better.
I like to talk abou the “Gotcha Factor.” The Gotcha Factor is the Hijackal pretending to be someone else in order to get you hooked. And then you spend the rest of the relationship, longing for and hoping that the person that you think you fell in love with exists—but they don’t. That’s their love-bombing persona. That’s the person that they knew you would fall in love with. They can read you; they know what you want. They know what you want to hear; they know what you want to do. They know what you want to be given. They give that to you, and preferably as quickly as possible, to get you to fall in love with them and to then come under their control.
I know it’s sad; it sounds awful. You don’t want to believe it. But the fact is, there’s no intimacy to be had with a Hijackal. And one of the things that it becomes important for you to do is to create self-intimacy rather than continue to try to please them. That means you need to get close to yourself. You need to really see for yourself, and say okay, I fell in love with a person who doesn’t exist. And this person I’m with now, and they keep showing me every day that they are not that person I thought they were. And there’s some part of me that wants to believe that that person will reemerge.
And you know, the only time they reemerge is when they want something, or they’re afraid you’re going to leave them and then they only emerge for a quick second, and then return to the real person. So you need to be close to yourself. You need to have that emotional intimacy with yourself and be honest with yourself and say, “yeah, you fooled me. I recognize it. And it’s not in my best interest to keep hoping that I’m going to have that person come back that I fell in love with. I really need to understand that I have my hopes misplaced.
That person that put on the display to make you fall in love. They’re not who they claim to be. It was all an act. And so, you want to stop trying to please the Hijackal and start being emotionally intimate with yourself. And this becomes extremely important because, as I said earlier, Hijackals are never intimate. They cannot create emotional closeness. They can create physical intimacy, sex, etc., and they can be close to you. They can also be affectionate when they want to be. There’s physical intimacy, but it’s emotional intimacy that you will never have with them because they have no desire to have any emotional intimacy. What they want to do is to take your desire for intimacy and use it as an opportunity to weaponize your vulnerability.
Now what I mean by that is, what they want to do is they want to get you into that place that goes, Oh, there’s the person I fell in love with. How wonderful I’ve been waiting for that. And then you will try to get closer because that’s what you want. And at that moment, you will disclose things; you will apologize for things, you will accept things, you will forgive things because you’re so hopeful that that’s the real person.
And what they’re doing is they are remembering all these things, and then they’re going to use them against you. That’s what I mean by weaponizing your vulnerability. You were vulnerable. You were raw; you were open; you were trying to draw closer. And they are just keeping a little list of things to get you with later. So they’re going to weaponize your vulnerability. Because the truth of the matter is that they don’t want to know you, they want to control you.
And the only reason that they want to know you and could be disguised as wanting to really know who you are is so that they will have the ability to control you. They will know what makes you fearful. They will know what you want, so they can withhold it and have power over you. It’s sad to think to acknowledge, but they really don’t want to know you. They’re not curious about your day. They’re not curious about your feelings. They’re not curious about how they affect you.
They’re cute, and they know how to get what they want. Their relationship with you is all about control and manipulation. They dismiss, discard, demean or devalue you, and that makes them feel powerful. But the only reason that they’re interested in you is to get something out of you so that you will allow them to have weapons to use on you later.
Have you ever had an experience where the Hijackal seems to remember everything about you and why you fell in love with them? And you’re so excited. And then you tell them something, you know, maybe it’s something simple. Maybe it’s like, well, you know, I’m really uncomfortable in the dark. And they’ll say, Oh, I didn’t know that about you. That said, you know, come here, let me protect you. And then what will they do? They want to have some control over you. Maybe they’ll use it in a social setting where they will say to somebody to make fun of you and be like, “Do you know he or she is afraid of the dark?”
And you’ll feel blindsided, let down, that feeling of someone just publicly disclosed something that you thought was your little secret between you. Or even worse, if they know you’re afraid of the dark and they want control over you. They’ll go and turn off the master light switch in your home and leave you in the dark.
I have been working with people in this regard for over 20 years. And I know that they can very well do these things to you because I’ve seen and heard them do it before. And yes, one of the reasons I’m so interested in all this is because I was raised by two Hijackals and I also married and later divorced one, so I know No.
So, let’s go back to some of these ideas Hijackals are approximate, not intimate. Now, I said that before, they’re very interested in having control over you. So being close, and you know, that thing that they do that, in the beginning, was so endearing. You know, you, just leave them and they text you and say, how are you doing? You know, I miss you already. And that degenerated into blowing up your phone, wanting to know where you are all the time. You’re five minutes late, and they make things up about you that you’re having an affair and that you don’t care about them, and you’re a bad parent.
They go to extremes and as I have said before, an all or nothing thinking is a hallmark of a Hijackal. They go to those extremes, right. And part of this may include secret surveillance, yes, they’ll put cameras in your home or install a tracker on your phone.
And you have to watch for that. Also, make sure to look through your car and search for any tracking device installed on it and then do the same thing for your phone because Hijackals like surveillance. It makes them proximate, and they know where you are all the time. But that proximity is never going to become an intimate relationship.
So these are very important things because proximate you know, as closeness in the physical sense, in the same room in the same house in the same car, but intimate is private and personal and in your feelings. And the only reason they ever want to get in there is so they can manipulate your feelings.
So then what is an intimate relationship? How do you know if you’re in an intimate relationship? Well, this is a relationship where people feel free to express their deepest thoughts and feelings and in safety. You can express your deepest thoughts and feelings, and you’re safe to do it. Not just in the moment but then and forever. Knowing that what goes between the two of you will not be disclosed elsewhere. Rather, it will be used to deepen the special bond between both of you. That’s what happens in a healthy relationship. But in a relationship with a hijackal, your insecurities and vulnerabilities would be used against you.
An intimate relationship is one where you feel truly free, with no concerns whatsoever. You have no fear of saying what you think, feel, need or prefer with your partner. It is important for us to understand this, and I want to give you two very important definitions of intimacy. The first one is from psychological research. And it describes intimacy as a process of interaction in which social partners, as a result of sharing personal and private thoughts and feelings, come to feel close, understood, appreciated, and cared for by each other. There’s that mutuality that I talked about earlier and the three must-haves.
So, it’s a process in which you deepen your relationship by coming to know each other better, by disclosing things by feeling safe, and then you feel cared for by each other. And another important one is from the American Psychological Association, and it says, intimacy is an interpersonal state of extreme closeness such that each party’s personal space can be entered by the other party without causing discomfort to the other.
To understand better, you have to stop hoping for this level of intimacy if you’re with a Hijackal. Because it is never going to happen, and it is so important that you understand and accept this. And it’s sad that it’s not going to happen because you were so hopeful it would. But you can see how it happens that you fall in love, and you don’t want to be wrong about that person. You don’t want to actually say the person I’m with now is not that person. And I chose them. You don’t want to be wrong about that. I understand that. But I would much prefer that you be safe at this moment than have to say, I chose the wrong person. I was deceived. And now I realize that they’re not that person. That’s not a problem. That’s wisdom.
To be able to say the person that I chose is not the person I thought They were for these reasons, I need to reconsider being in a relationship with them. Do you see how important that is? Because intimacy requires emotional safety. You have to be able, to tell the truth. And you have to be able to keep agreements. And you have to be authentic and open and be able to solve problems together for the benefit of the relationship, as well as for the benefit of each partner.
Remember, there are three people in a relationship, maybe not people, more like three entities, but there are two ME’s in a way. And we have to be as interested in each we, each me, and the way. And sometimes, we have to make decisions that are in the best interest of the UI. And sometimes we have to make decisions that are in the best interest of one person or the other. And sometimes, that means you have to make decisions that are in your own best interest. Regardless of what the other person wants, and when you’re with the Hijackal, of course, it’s all about their own entitled self-interest. And you have to wake up and smell the coffee at some point because they want you to continue thinking that they deserve everything that they can get from you.
So, remember what I said; intimacy requires emotional safety. And you’re never going to be emotionally safe with a Hijackal—it’s just never going to happen because they are 100% determined and focused on getting the best of you for themselves and doing exactly what they want, regardless of how it hurts you. Because they’re only interested in what benefits them so you need to work on your self-intimacy and your self-approval. Because that is just so important.
And you know, on this topic of intimacy, there are four kinds of intimacy. And, yes, you’re going to get sexual intimacy from a Hijackal. But the emotional intimacy or affection, which is what most of us are longing for is absent. Emotional intimacy allows us to be seen, allows us to feel like someone actually acknowledges us, and knows that we are present. Affection is your partner running their fingers across the back of your shoulders as they pass you to say, I see you, and I want to connect with you. As opposed to running fingers across your back to say, I’m watching you. I’m here. That’s not what you want. That’s not emotional.
Okay, so we have physical intimacy, which sometimes leads to sexual intimacy, which is, you know two different animals really under the same name because physical intimacy is really affection and sexual intimacy is just that it may be a wonderful expression of physical intimacy or it may be a power move. And you know that sex can be withheld or sex can be demanded by Hijackal, and that does not count as intimacy. Intimacy is the desire for closeness from both people; emotional intimacy is being able to share ourselves equally and safely. Intellectual intimacy is being able to exchange thoughts and ideas and enjoying that interchange, that level of closeness. And then we have spiritual intimacy where we can share our inspiring moments and things that uplift us and all. And on all of these levels, you have to ask yourself that question like, Am I safe? Am I safe in my relationship to have these things?
And if you’re with a Hijackal, the answer is usually no. And I know you want to hang on to that moment when it seemed like it was available to you. You really want to hang on to that, you want to say, “oh, when I remember, or there have been times.” But we’re looking at the majority of the time and if the majority of the time you are trying to say well, “I remember that he or she brought me flowers two years ago, and told me they loved me.”
You know, I remember a client who came in once and she had a big scar across her face. And I said, what happened? And she said, “he hit me with a hairbrush.” And then she said really quickly, “but I know he loves me. Because three weeks ago, he brought me flowers and told me he loved me.” And I said, “Did he bring you flowers after he the last time?” She said, “Yes.” I said, “Are you trying to convince yourself that this mark on your face is a love tap? Because it isn’t. This is him showing you how little he cares and how much power over you he wants. And yes, it may happen that the flowers arrive in a day or two, but you need to remember this mark on your face. Because this mark on your face shows you how unsafe you are with this person.”
So let’s talk about some things here. I want to give you some signs. Healthy emotional intimacy. So that you can see what an emotionally safe relationship looks, sounds, and feels like because that’s what you want to be in. Okay? So you want to be in a relationship that you can trust the other person has your best interest at heart and treats you like they do. That they truly care that you have the life you want, that you feel good about yourself, that you are going in the direction that you want to go, and you are there for them in that same way.
Another hallmark of a healthy, safe, emotionally safe relationship is that there is accountability and reliability. When one or the other person makes a mistake or says something that they know is hurtful or does something that was irresponsible, they own up to it, and they apologize for it. They’re accountable for it; they take responsibility for it. That’s healthy.
That’s not what you’re going to find in a relationship with Hijackals. And, you know, if you’re listening to this, and you’re saying, but what do I do now? Well, know that I’m always here for you. And all you have to do is go to BeAClient.com, and we can talk. But you have to be able to trust the other person. And you have to be live where both of you are accountable and reliable. And what’s another Hallmark of emotional intimacy, there’s no name-calling, there’s no use of demeaning language. There’s no trying to hurt you with words or physicality or withholding of affection or giving the silent treatment.
A healthy relationship is characterized by conversation and communication, not with the desire to have power over you, but to engage you in a mutually rewarding relationship. If you’re in a healthy relationship, each partner will take responsibility for their own feelings. They won’t blame the other person. You know, when I wrote Kaizen for Couples, I talked about this frequently, especially in chapters six and seven. The most important thing you can learn is in chapters six and seven (how to use the communication strategy that I developed in order to have a healthy relationship). You can get Kaizen for couples on Amazon, just look up my name on Amazon, and you’ll find all my books.
So, taking responsibility for your own feelings and not blaming other people for your emotional inadequacies is what would happen in an emotionally safe relationship. On top of that, there would be no verbal threats. There would be no attempt to dominate the other person.
And there’s a compromise. If something’s really important to you, and it doesn’t hurt me, and I’m happy to give all the energy to you. Sometimes we have to make a decision on what’s best for the weak, with the focus on “we,” how do we make this relationship the best possible, and emotionally safe. And then you’re each other’s best cheerleader. You want what the other one wants for themselves, and you cheer them on, and you’re intrigued, and you talk with them about it.
And you’ve learned what it is that is so important to them and, and why they want what they want. And you help them create a path to it. And you share in that because it made you more emotionally intimate. But that’s not going to happen with Hijackal. Because they don’t want you to have more than they perceive that they have, so they don’t want you to have anything, they want everything. And yes, while everything may be inaccurate, they want more for themselves than they ever want for you. And that’s it.
Another thing in a healthy relationship that’s emotionally intimate is you won’t hold each other hostage and make demands about how a relationship has to be or must be and, you will have the tools and ability and willingness to talk to each other and work things out.
You know, I remember a couple that came to see me probably 20 years ago, and they had four kids, and they shared a business together. They were very successful. And they came in, they said, Oh, we want to have a closer relationship, we feel like we’re kind of missing each other. And there was no Hijackal involved in this. So this is an example of what can happen in a non Hijackal relationship.
So at one point, I said to them, (I think I’d seen them four or five times), “okay, the homework for this week, is that you get in the hot tub, and you have a 45-minute conversation together, that does not involve the business or the kids.”
Talk about your feelings, your desires, your wants, and what you’d like to create and why. And you make those things really super important, important, and you talk about them, and you’re interested in your partner, and you help them develop in wisdom and understanding.
And they said, Oh, that’s a really good idea. So, they came back to the next session, and I said, How did that go? 45 minutes? Oh, we didn’t have time for that. Do you know what I did? I said, Okay, you’re not ready to work on your relationship. Apparently, 45 minutes out of an entire week to spend just with each other is not the way you wanted to invest your time.
So we’re going to have to do some individual work to find out why that wasn’t important to you why it was okay with each of you to just let that go by. That’s a very important thing to understand. Because you’re holding each other hostage with your demands about how the relationship should be. And we never are going to feel good when we’re held hostage, and you know how Hijackal holds your hostage, how they want to and how they do, and how they exert power over you.
And then the thing in an emotionally safe relationship is you can negotiate your needs. You can talk freely about it; nobody’s going to put you down, nobody’s going to laugh at you. They’re going to be interested and curious, and you’re going to be safe to talk about it. And then you’re going to be able to negotiate. You know, the, “I’d like more of this.” Well, I don’t know if I have it to give. What could it look like? Well, let’s try that. And they’re interested in building the relationship. Building the relationship is not something on the sideline; it’s the main thing.
And the last thing that happens in a healthy relationship is that you don’t withhold things from each other. You don’t withhold resentments and use them as ammunition or weapons. You talk things through, you’re really close to one another, and you talk things through.
Now, all of these are very important when creating emotional safety, but it’s important to stop hoping for emotional intimacy from a person who is not able or willing or interested in providing it to you. They may not have the capacity to display emotion or have compassion, and you cannot fix it. But what you can do is notice that you deserve to be in a mutually reciprocal relationship that has the three must-haves, and if it is unavailable in this relationship, maybe work towards seeing it.
If it can help, I often work with the couple to see if it’s possible, to see if everybody’s just too scared and get some level of interaction action where there can be some mutuality. And maybe you’ll find that it’s never going to be. And that’s important.
So, if you’ve recognized today, that you were hoping for emotional intimacy, you keep hoping that person you fell in love is going to return. And they’re going to love you, and they’re going to care about you, and they’re going to want to fill your cup. Please stop. That’s just not the case. They don’t have it to give. And if they did, they wouldn’t give it to you because they would not want to be that way.
They would live in fear that that would give you power over them. I know it’s sad. I know it’s difficult. But if you’ve been hoping that that emotional intimacy is just around the corner, and you’ve been making yourself into a pretzel or a doormat, hoping against hope, I want you to know that it’s not going to happen. It’s sad, but please know it’s not going to happen.
And if you want to talk to me directly and if you are a new client, remember, just go to BeAClient.com, there you can talk to me in my introductory offer for $97. But you can find so much on ForRelationshipHelp, and also visit my YouTube channel by the same name, ForRelationshipHelp. So, as you digest this information as you think about it, spend some time asking yourself what is real in my relationship? And what am I hoping for? And am I hoping for things that are never going to come my way because they’re unavailable. And that’s so important because you need to be in an emotionally safe environment. And emotional safety has to precede emotional intimacy.
So I hope this has been helpful. To you. And as I say, every episode, treat yourself extremely well, take good care of yourself because you’re precious and you matter. Talk soon.
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