People who are really good at deflecting responsibility
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Anonymous
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How to people get like this? I was raised Catholic (guilt-ridden) by parents who were huge on personal responsibility and who also blamed my siblings and I fit everything all the time. For a long time I was too good at accepting responsibility for stuff and had to learn that not everything is my fault. I feel I do okay now, and have hit a happy medium.
But I encounter a lot of people who are amazing at just avoiding any kind of responsibility for things they definitely did, and it amazes me. It’s so foreign. Some examples: 1) Colleague who cheated on his longtime girlfriend with another person in their social circle, later married other woman. Treated ex truly terribly— lying, gaslighting, etc., and she had serious mental health issues. Everyone knows about this. But he appears to have no real guilt, even talks about it like “Yeah, it’s unfortunate how that worked out” like it just happened, instead of being something he did. 2) Friend who has multiple times really harmed people with gossip. She just compulsively looks for and spreads gossip about people we know, never even caring whether it’s true, and there has been some awful fallout, and has contributed to a number of big falling outs (fallings out?) in our group. She’ll kind of laugh like “I know, I’m so bad!” But never changes or feels bad. It’s amazing to me. I’m really trying to understand. It actually seems blissful and I almost wish I was like that. Is it just a front? Do they actually have guilt they don’t show? Or are they just really good at not even thinking about it? I’m curious. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
Why are you friends with #2? I suspect that one reason she gets away with it is that it doesn't have any negative consequences for her. She still have plenty of friends who listen to her gossip, after all -- like YOU. |
Anonymous
| If I don’t accept responsibility, then I don’t have to sit with the shame of what I did in hurting others. Accepting responsibility means acknowledging that this narrative I’ve written for myself and am trying to pull off is a false one. |
Anonymous
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This whole idea that for every bad at he must confess and do penance is very Catholic idea.
Also I find it very Catholic, having a very Catholic family, and maybe it’s an Italian thing that every single solitary act has to be put into a category of good or bad and somebody has to be blamed for being the bad one. I you should read the book just mercy and learn about grace. Stop worrying about other people and whether they are good or bad, if they admit they’re good or bad, they do penance for their bad acts. |
Anonymous
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I had a serial cheater ex. It all blew up when I stumbled across proof of the cheating. Ex wanted to maintain the relationship, so I insisted on psychiatric treatment with access to treating doc for me. During therapy in an individual session with me, the psychiatrist said he was trying to narrow the diagnosis between psychopath and sociopath. We I discussed the various components and which diagnosis was a better fit.
All this is a long way of saying that some people do not feel the pain of others and as such feel no empathy or real guilt. They are very instrumental or transactional in their relationships with others because they do not have feelings based on what others may feel, except feelings that have to do with themself - whether the structure around them makes them appear as a good person (which they like and feel good about) or a bad person (which they don’t like). But rather than change their behavior, they change the narrative around their behavior. It’s reflects very disordered behavior/personality. My now exDH grew up in a family with an alcoholic and mentally ill mother, and he himself is mentally ill. He is good at masking, but underneath there is a lot of secretive, compartmentalized behavior. |
Anonymous
Two words: personality disorders. Nothing to admire. |
Anonymous
| There’s nothing to understand here. There is something wrong with them. What’s more interesting in a way is why you are so fascinated with this. Could be you want to ditch some of your internal guilt and be freer to make mistakes or consider yourself first. That’s also ok. |
Anonymous
OP here and this is a fair criticism. I will say I've really distanced myself from her in recent years. She's been like this since we met but it didn't seem so awful back then because we were in our 20s and that kind of behavior was more prevalent. But she's just never grown out of it even as she's seen how much it creates drama and conflict, and in the last few years I've chosen to spend less time with her and with that friend group in general because I don't like it. But I definitely could have called it out more strongly before because it has always bothered me. I thought it was enough simply not to participate (and to sometimes speak up on behalf of the people being talked about). But it wasn't and I do wish I'd done better. And yet, I probably feel more guilt over this than she does. |
Anonymous
OP here and this is 100% why I'm fascinated by it. The idea of feeling free from guilt and an intense sense of responsibility towards other sounds extremely liberating to me. Like I said, I used to be much more burdened by guilt than I am now, and I do think I've found a reasonably equilibrium. But I am still conscientious to an above-average degree, so I am pretty interested in people who are not really conscientious at all. I don't think everyone should be like that (or maybe even anyone -- they are freeloading on those of us who try harder), but I would love to be able to forgive myself for things more easily and definitely to feel more free to make mistakes or put my own needs before others. Those things are hard for me and I'd like to see if I can learn something from people who do this easily, even if I don't really want to become like them. I want to be accountable, I just wish the feeling wasn't so burdensome. |
Anonymous
Why are your only two options: 1) Accountability and shame Or 2) No accountability and no shame? Why isn't there an option where there is accountability, an apology and adjustment in behavior to do better, and shame never comes into it? |
Anonymous
| I'm dealing with this in two close relationships now. (Both grew up Catholic, so that goes against your hypothesis.) One is my best friend, who apparently cannot apologize. She wasn't there for me after my divorce, and when I tried to discuss my grievances in a neutral, dispassionate way, her response was, "So you're calling me a terrible person?" Uh, no, but if that's your takeaway from these factual statements, then...? And she hasn't spoken to me in the 4 months since. |
Anonymous
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Often this happens with people who have narcissistic traits or who aren’t terribly differentiated. They have trouble separating their emotional responses from others and aren’t able to regulate their own emotional responses. For the narcissists, it is partly a front in that underneath there’s often a narcissistic wound and a profound sense of insecurity and fear of abandonment. I’m not sure in your examples if those people have that other hidden shame which often creates a need for positive admiration. Likely it’s a byproduct of how they were raised. The serial cheater probably didn’t get his emotional needs met in childhood and doesn’t know how to form healthy relationships. It could be something similar for your gossiping friend. Keep in mind people typically adopt maladaptive coping strategies to ward off their anxiety. I agree their actions are shitty, but I also have empathy for the two people in your examples. Have you been to therapy OP? Just bc it will help you explore the way guilt was used as a weapon in your childhood and all sorts of internalized shame etc
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Anonymous
That's really frustrating, PP. It's such a red flag when you try to talk about a specific hurt with a loved one and they want to turn it into a referendum on whether they are a "good" or "terrible" person. It's a rhetorical tactic designed to distract you from the issue at hand (her lack of support during your divorce) and to reverse the dynamic so that you are then comforting her ("No of course not! You are a wonderful person, blah blah blah."). It's a dynamic called DARVO (deflect, attack, reverse victim and offender) and while you haven't said anything to indicate that this is an abusive relationship, it's an extremely common tactic in abusive relationships to prevent the abuser from ever having to take responsibility for their behavior. Even the freeze out can be an abuse tactic. If she believes you will cave first, it will put her in a power position because if you came to her and said "I hate that we're fighting" or "I miss you" then she gets to force that conversation on her terms. Also, the one friend break up (like real break up, not just growing apart) I had was with a person who behaved just like this and who, coincidentally, was also raised Catholic. But it had nothing to do with her Catholicism. She was a youngest child in a big family who had been doted on most of her life and never really had people close to her expect her to be accountable. She had an allergy to apologizing even for obvious things that almost anyone would apologize for, and was incredibly stubborn. When I told her (calmly, without being overly accusatory or unkind) that she'd hurt me and that I needed an apology and a promise that she wouldn't do it again, she immediately went the DARVO route plus enlisted mutual friends in it. It was really trying and I felt pretty awful about the whole thing until I learned about DARVO a few years later and it helped me realize what was happening and made it easier for me to let that friendship go. |
Anonymous
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OP, you could read The Sociopath Next Door if you are curious about people who lack a conscience. I think there also is a book literally entitled Without a Conscience. There is NOTHING to admire about such people. They lie and scheme because they have a massive void that they need to fill with stimulation, which they do by pulling one over on unsuspecting “normal” people. They are envious of people who have the full panoply of human emotions, which they lack. That “lack” causes tremendous boredom. They love causing chaos, being the center of attention (or conversely, creating chaos then acting innocent of their role in it), all for the purpose of creating drama aka some meaning and excitement in their life. Since they can’t bond with you, and since they are jealous that you can bond (but they can’t), they’ll use what they can get out of you then enjoy spitting you out in the end as a final hurrah.
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