Okay, we’ve talked about “red flags” and we’ve talked about type. Now we’re going to talk about getting out after the bait and switch.
Something MovingOn said about depressives in the “your type” post made me think of this.
I was friends with a guy who was FUN…oh my goodness we had so much fun together for over a year. We were best buds. As the relationships we both were in were taking a swan dive, we got closer. Needless to say, we got together. All of a sudden, he was depressed…like ALL THE TIME. We would go out for a lovely weekend and have fun and I would wake on Sunday morning and he would be DEPRESSED. Staring at his navel. Wishing he could die. Cuddling? Out of the question. Sunday brunch? No go. Nothing. Nada. Just stare at the ceiling and groan.
I said whoa what is going on here, I was attracted to you because you were so funny and so much fun and we went out and did things and had fun together.
He said, sniff sniff, that he could only reveal this side of him (the gloomy depressive) because he TRUSTED me so much. Most people would be complimented by this but part of me knew this was only going to get worse.
In the year I was friends with him he never once told me he was ever depressed. You would think you might mention that to a close friend. Nothing. Always laughing, always bubbly and charming. And as soon as we went out, he turns into Gloomy Gus.
I should have left in a New York minute the first time he ruined our weekend with this stuff.
But I put up with it for several months and the few times I had enough and left I felt guilty and would apologize but part of me was thinking, “ENOUGH” of this. And I should have JUST LEFT when the bait-and-switch was evident. But I didn’t. Eventually I had had enough and left. No guilt whatsoever…but I hung in way too long waiting for fun boyfriend to come back. And even when I thought he was back, he was gone.
One night we had a fun night which were getting fewer and further between but this night had been fun. We were out late (he was a musician) and we stopped to get breakfast.
He sat across from me and as soon as we ordered he said, “I think my son hates me.” And I wanted to throw a plate at him. I felt like WHAT???? And then he was all gloomy Gus at that point. The whole evening’s fun…gone. For something he was making up in his head. His son didn’t hate him. He thought his son thought he wasn’t cool. He was 40 something years old, his son was 17. Who cared if his son didn’t think he was cool? And why bring this up now? WHY? He turned into some kind of martyr/victim. YUCCH!
Bait-and-switch is different from a red flag or it’s a LATER red flag. It’s something you can’t see while the baiting is going on. And it makes it harder to leave. But once you know the switch is on, ya gotta go. Seriously. And it’s different from a person not being who you thought they were. It’s when something that was a major reason you were attracted to a person turns out to not be true and, even worse, the OPPOSITE is true.
I eventually learned to just leave at the first sign of nonsense. It’s hard but what are your bait-and-switch stories and what did you learn?
This is kind of a minor one to most people but it’s a big deal to me.
I have a “different” kind of sense of humor. I’m very impulsive and fun loving (and maybe it’s the ADHD I don’t know). Sometimes I do crazy things.
My kids are certainly into it but I’ve found that men aren’t always. I sometimes play mild practical jokes or squirt someone with water or something like that (I know you are all thinking…”how annoying that would be”) but anyway…I started going with this guy who claimed that he loved how fun-loving and young at heart I was. But then a couple months later he would constantly tell me to “grow up” which is kind of a deal breaker to me. I am grown up. I hold down a good full-time job (and he didn’t) and I raise three kids on my own. I’m very responsible (most of the time). I just love to really let loose and have fun sometimes. And there is no alcohol involved LOL.
So is this bait and switch or just one of those type of deals where what attracted him initially eventually turned him off? I don’t know. But his complete turnaround turned ME off. It was like all of a sudden I wasn’t good enough for him anymore. And it hurt. And I beat feet out of there.
My bait & switch story is how I came to GPYP, and how I’m not at about 14mos of NC.
I was initially attracted because she was the, “life can be anything, I can do everything, I’ve gone to all these places, listen to the universe type of person.
I bought into it hook, line and sink me. And I acknowledge that part of me needed that as I was not fulfilling those things in me myself.
But beyond this initial veneer of the anything is possible mantra, was a very angry and upset person who had yet to work out and through a lot their own issues. At first, the bait and switch change completely caught me off-guard … I had no idea why this person who wanted to climb every mountain in the world was having fits of rage over the smallest of things.
I stuck it out for about 7mos, thinking “if we can just ride this out.” Well there was no riding it out. It was unfinished business on her part with major issues that she didn’t want confront at the time … and for me, unfinished business as to why I would tolerate that for myself. Eventually tho, I didn’t.
Still … bait & switch is SO disorienting. It comes out of the blue and can really confuses you if you haven’t experienced it before. Don’t be too hard on yourself if it takes you a while to get out if it happens to you. And at the same time, despite the pain you might go thru, appreciate that once bait and switch has happened, that it is best for you to move on given that the person you are with is not the original person they presented to you.
Looking back at a year plus later, I’m relieved and thankful I moved on.
My switch occurred 3 years into the relationship when we moved in together. It was a fast change and my head was reeling, and sometimes I still have a difficult time grasping that it was the same person I was dealing with (physically but not mentally obviously). He was gorgeous and innocent looking, easy to trust, loved to laugh, so romantic, sent me flowers and cards, wrote me poems just because, he would declare his love for me to anyone who listened, and he became such an important part of my life. I found my identity through him because I had no self esteem and craved something new so I picked up and moved to him. I loved who I was in his eyes (which I found was classic Narcissist relationship). When we first moved in he made me dinner all the time, he had a surprise party for me for getting a new job and only weeks after that party things drastically changed. All the issues that he had never dealt with piled up on his shoulders and I took the brunt of all the anger and pain that he had felt. The guy who would send me those poems now didn’t talk to me, wouldn’t touch me. I stayed for a long time longer then I should have waiting for that loving boyfriend to come back. He never did. I moved out and he didn’t shed a tear just said to me “dont think I wont call you” … and eventually he came back. Said he loved me, he was sorry, and then again … switched. Found a girl and posted pics of them on myspace for me to find. This guy that loved me so much and claimed to even when I moved out. He used my loan to buy furniture, made me pay rent for the months I didnt live there … he was 100% not at all who I thought he was. There were a few red flags that I had ignored that I will not overlook again, but there are still some days that I have a difficult time remembering that sweet guy I once loved who never existed at all.
My bait and switch story brought me to GPYP too. I had been working hard on myself for over 3 years getting healthy, fit and cutting out the dross from my life. I felt great and went on a ski hol on my own, had a great time, met some lovely people. On the hol I met a lovely man who was working there at the time. He had all the qualities I had ever wanted to find in a partner. He was humble, kind, honest, attentive, a true gentleman and talented and handsome to boot. I thought I had struck gold and was finally getting the jackpot after all my hard work.
We kept in touch, we met up a few more times and then he came to visit me and my girls where we live. I was convinced that this was the guy for me BUT….pretty soon after he had moved over to live with us he started to clam up on me, he took bad migraines, scratched at himself compulsively and was distant and android like. At first I was supportive and still felt good enough to carry on my own life, hoping that when his crisis past he would go back to being the man I met.
Things got worse….my abandonment issues were triggered and I slowly, bit by bit descended to the level of a crazy woman. I hung on far too long but finally saw sense because of the way the one way relationship affected me which in turn affected my children. It is 10 months since he left and around 6 months since I last had contact with him. Due to the severity of the symptoms he displayed and after some research, I found that he matched all the criteria for Avoidant Personality Disorder. It is sad because underneath his symptoms he is a great guy.
Its taking me a long time to recover from this one but mainly because I was sooooo convinced that this time I had got it so right, how wrong can a gal be! Now I am dedicated to doing the ‘real’ work I need to do, i realised my previous ‘recovery’ was nothing more than a glass ceiling.
“Bait and switch” is another form of “You’re not who I thought you were.” It’s falling in love with one person and winding up with someone quite different and far less appealing. In a sense, it’s a form of being duped.
That’s an instant dealbreaker for me. I’ve had enough drama and tumult in my life to last a few lifetimes, and one thing I MUST have in a partner is stability. Not up for wild tricks up their sleeve or “surprise! so-and-so is wrong with me and I’ve hidden it all this time.” First sign of that and I am bolting out the door.
I don’t expect anyone to be perfect. I know everyone has issues and everyone is annoying in one way or another. It’s a given. But anything really dramatic or crazy will spell buh-bye. Life is full of guessing games — no interest in dealing with that from someone I love.
“Bait and switch” is another form of “You’re not who I thought you were.” It’s falling in love with one person and winding up with someone quite different and far less appealing. In a sense, it’s a form of being duped.”
Amen…this was my last Bananahead!!! I was SOOOOOO DUPED!! I beat feet out of there faster than I had ever before in my life.
My bait and switch is not a romantic one. It has to do with a friend.
We were good friends during graduate school and had a good friendship for 10 years. We confided in each other, took trips together, were good girlfriends.
Throughout the frienedship, she was the “streetwise” one and I (according to her) was the one who was “too sensitive”. There was a long standing issue of her being a bit insensitive, a bit harsh, but we wrote it off as “just differences”. I would try to teach her that just because she thought something (usually judgemental) doesn’t mean she had to SAY it. She wanted the “freedom” to say “whatever I want”.
In the last year of our friendship, her digs became insults. Things that she previously accepted about me became unacceptable. She would not drive to my part of town to see me because her neighborhood was suddenly “better”; my clothing, personal habits, outlooks, mannerisms. etc. beame so “annoying” to her, to the point where she wanted “distance”. She pondered aloud in one of our last meeitngs, “My other friends don’t annoy me as much as you do…I wonder why.”
I stood my ground and told her that I felt something had changed. That friends do bother each other, at times, and that good-natured ribbing or joking is within the realm of “OK”, but that insults, put-downs, negative competitiveness, saying something then denying it was said, was not part of a friendship I wanted.
I thought she would come around, and acknowledge something was goin on. I thought she valued me in her life as much as I valued her. I received a half-hearted apology, then reasons why her annoyance of me was justified. At that time she became involved with a man and that was that.
I felt so right about standing up for myself and saying that obviously our values and definitions of friendship had changed. What was devastating was a good, close, trusted friend could turn, just like that.
I checked out my behavior with other friends, a therapist, just to make sure there wasn’t anything I was missing about my part in her turning on me. I somehow found the phrase “devalue and disgard” related to narcissism, and that is how I felt.
At one point she said she put me in her will, that I was her closest friend, etc., them BAM! thrown out like last years shoes that aren’t “cute enough” anymore.
I have processed, processed, processed. She did send me a chatty email or two out of the blue, as if we hadn’t NOT TALKED for over a year or two. No “I know we haven’t talked, but…” No acknowledgement. I felt like she wanted me to respond as if nothing had happened.
But it DID. So I chose not to respond.
I know I was treated badly, and that friendships sometimes end, but this was something I had not been prepared for. I am still very sad to this day. Whn I run into people that know her, I become anxious. Most people who knew us knew us as best friends and are “shocked” (as the last person recently siad) that we have not been in touch. No one asks why. I become more anxious as if her insults to me were correct. Then I breathe, and move on.
But it still hurts. A lot.
I am a lot more cautious now with friends. I still have to work this through, I know.
Libby2, I wonder from what little I know about it, could your friend perhaps suffer from a personality disorder such as borderline? The traits you describe certainly fit the criteria of that PD. It doesn’t take the hurt away but somehow the possibility of your friend having this PD or similar may explain some of her unacceptable behaviours. One thing is for sure, her behaviours had nothing to do with you.
(this is Chrisell / chrisell1980 – I discovered that while I’m chrisell1980 on WordPress it will let me change my nickname back to Chrisell and post using that. Hurrah, I’m me again! Anyway . . .)
The bait and switch in my relationships was never dramatic or sudden, it was always a creeping subtle thing that I didn’t notice until I was swallowing it whole. All of these guys, in their own way, would know exactly what to say to reel me in – they were loving, affectionate, supportive, admiring, gentle, generous, and so on. But little by little they would change the script, and before I knew it I was being derided and dismissed and told I had to change and having demands placed on me regarding what I could or couldn’t do.
My most recent ex, for example, started his bait-and-switch with the out-of-left-field comment “If any of your students’ parents are single fathers and they invite you to dinner, don’t go. If I find you’ve been alone with another man, it’ll be over between us. And don’t go to the pub without me either”. (The context being that I had just moved 100km away to a small country town for my first teaching job, 3 months into our relationship, and we were discussing the courtesies country families might extend towards teachers, such as inviting them for dinner). WHOA. I protested this utterly unreasonable request, and he got defensive and said he was just worried about my safety. I didn’t believe him, and yet I couldn’t quite believe my wonderful boyfriend had said that, so I ignored it. And it just kept getting worse. He always wanted to know where I was and what I was doing. If I went to a friend’s for dinner and drinks I had to be home and online at an exact time or there would be a complete meltdown (screaming, crying, running off to be sick . . . oh my God).
On one occasion the school staff took a bus to an event so I had no idea when I would be home, and he went on about it for a week, just demanding that I find some way of insisting that we got back at a particular time so he would know when I would be there. It was crazy-making. And while all this was going on he frequently wouldn’t even talk to me online during the evening anyway – he’d sit there playing games and occasionally throw a comment my way – but I had to be there regardless, or . . . you guessed it, screaming, crying etc.
It all happened so gradually that I became used to it and never really stopped and did a reality check. I’ve had to learn to become very, very conscious to try to avoid that happening yet again, the way it’s happened with the last four exes!
Chrisell
That sounded a lot like my last ex. He would get jealous and try to make me conform to his way of thinking. He tried to pull me away from my friends and family and even my kids! (always a red flag but it happened in an insidious manner so I didn’t see it coming) He could be very charming…but in a snakelike way. When I refused to stop doing things with friends he started trying to turn me against them. And yes…screaming and tears. And not even real tears but manipulative fake tears designed to make me feel guilty and yes it worked at first.
Now I have to add, that I have no problem with men crying. I actually admire men who can cry without feeling like it makes them weak. But sincere tears not crocodile tears. His crying got to the point where all it did was make me sick and make me want to run in the other direction. Which I eventually did though it took me WAY too long. When the tears stopped working he tried threatening suicide. And that just ticks me off. I hate being manipulated. And I went in kind of wide eyed and naive having not been in the dating seen much at that point. But boy I sure learned a lot.
Good post, movingon11; thanks for using the word DUPED. It is precise.
My 14 year old son said it best the other day when I made the comment that I hoped his father’s new girl friend wasn’t as stupid as I was to fall for his narcissistic game.
He said “Let’s face it Mom, you weren’t stupid, you were duped.”
“It’s kind of like Dad was the casino, he invited you in; he distracted you with all his bells and whistles and flashing colored lights. He told you to take a chance on him; that everything would be OK; he told you not to worry…he’d make you rich!! What he neglected to tell you is that HE’s the house. He’s the only one who ends up rich… the house always wins.” How true. But the N always loses. He may not realize he is empty, but he is.
I am one of the fortunate ones. When our marriage split up, both my son (11 yrs at the time) and my step-daughter (the N’s daughter that I raised with the N, 21 yrs) were old enough to see through his mess. When we found out their father was dating someone, my son said with disgust, “the one thing I don’t understand is what kind of woman would ever want to go out with Dad????”
I never really paid attention to the fact that the “bait” came before my son was born and he only knew the man who was the “switch”. It allowed me to explain that when his father wants to hook someone new, he doesn’t show his REAL self, he shows his FALSE self. I then gave him some examples from my past with the N. It allowed both kids to better understand what they were witnessing when exposed to their father’s new behaviors. They understand and see through him now.
His daughter told me that she can be sitting at the kitchen table with him, witnessing the the flat, dead expression that we all know is his “real self”. If his girlfriend happens to walk up, he springs to attention and is energetic, excited and full of life. Like the flip of a switch, she says. The kids still play his game when they are with him; we always called it “tap dancing on the electrified squares” and agreed that life with him is a series of anticipations on where to “stand” so you won’t get zapped. But now, both kids are inoculated against the confusion of his false self.
I try to give them a sanctuary to be open, honest, emotional and fully themselves. They are loved and it radiates between us. It’s all worth it.
WOW, that is one perceptive 14-year-old boy you have there! I love the casino analogy. Very smart!
Out of the mouths of babes as they say. Very nice analogy and VERY smart kids you have there. And he thinks he’s fooling people huh? Guess the joke’s on him. Sounds like you are doing a wonderful job with parenting and are a great mom and stepmom.
I agree with you ALL…
mynewlife4now – Hold your head up Girl!!! You are OUTSTANDING and the love you have given the children speaks volumes to just who you REALLY are!!! Forget the N…they never get it and have miserable, empty lives.
As far as I’m concerned ‘bait and switch’ equals Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). I had to learn about NPD before I could understand that bait and switch is THE routine with Ns. Ns are the bait, the hook, the fishing reel, and the fisherman.
Until I realized that there was really no way I could get away. Until I realized that I could not know that with an N I would ALWAYS be caught and eaten.
I agree totally that bait-and-switch is a characteristic of narcissists, whether they’re NPD or simply self-obsessed. My abusive ex I’m almost certain was NPD or something similar; and the others such as the one mentioned above were definitely narcissistic. They all shared that classic characteristic of having everything happen to them – they couldn’t accept that people might have motivations that had nothing to do with them.
“with an N I would ALWAYS be caught and eaten.”
Yes! I’ve finally cottoned on to this too :)
Great insight, seeif. Truly.
The ‘relationship’ I refer to above had this component of N with the other person — really, just because I’ve done a lot of personal research and educating, I can’t claim to be able to do a psych eval on a person.
But I will say that the bait & switch I was involved with had a complete lack of empathy. Perfect examples of conversation being her saying, “I hear what you’re saying, but listen to me so that you hear it the “right” way.”
Again, great corollary and how “bait & switch is the routine.”
I met Mr Kind, tolerant, love everyone, great fun, non-judgemental beautiful outlook on everything.
Vey quickly he became Mr cruel and unkind, hates everyone and complains about them, fun at others expense, judgemental harsh and critical.
I remember hearing him launch into a blistering attack of a ‘friend’ and thining to myself that it was the exact opposite of what he’d seemed at first to be.
My bait and switch occurred three years into the relationship, a few months after the wedding. My husband admitted that he really wasn’t Catholic, and that he wasn’t interested in having sex with me. (Frequency dropped down to once every few months.) I felt trapped because I was Catholic and believed that I had to make the marriage work. Knowing what I do now, I should have left him and gotten an annulment, but those were different times. I remember the priest saying “Sometimes a wife has to just suffer, just as Jesus did.” What a load of it!
But I can’t regret the two beautiful children that we had together and I was somewhat happy for those 20 years of marriage before he left me.
Thanks for your comments, Klarity Belle. Yes I often wondered that. The devaluation was so subtle and the converstaions became so twisted that it was hard to pinpoint untill there were very many examples to put together. My “friend” thought I had dependent personality disorder (as I had dual careers and she lived in a family-owned bldg and recieved $helf from her family). Ibegan to see her bahavior as projections. I am tryiing to figure out why it hurts so much, still, years later.
Speaking of bait and switch, I know a woman who is 60 and has a very push-pull, breakup-make up relationship with this guy who is in his 50s. They’ve been dating for about 5 years and have broken up a few times in that period. The last time I thought might be the last one, but no — they began seeing other people and then eachother, and now they’re back together.
I spoke to both of them after the breakup and it sounded like the best thing for everyone involved. He admitted that he had never really loved her the way she loved him; she said she was tired of his abuse. What has changed in this equation? Oh yeah, absolutely nothing.
It makes me sad for them, but also grateful that I’ve learned at 28 what they still haven’t at 60. It really just shows that dysfunction can easily span a lifetime without hard work to the contrary.