Pieter Hintjens - The Psychopath Code - Cracking the Predators That Stalk Us

❂ Fix the economics . Mallory depends on you refilling the cup every time she demands it. You stop doing that, and staunch the loss of money, time, and other resources.

❂ Collect evidence . Mallory depends on privacy, your poor memory, and your forgiving nature to distort history. You repair that by keeping a journal and collecting material evidence against her.

❂ Provide subtitles . Mallory depends on her charm and fluid lying to confuse others. You prevent that by explaining to others what Mallory is doing, and why, as it happens.

❂ Create consequences . Mallory depends on your fear to escape serious consequences. You train her to understand you are willing and able to create real problems for her.

I explained in Attack and Capture how "every psychopathic relationship has the same structure. At the heart, Mallory places a core of lies and promises… The Narrative." To untangle your relationship with Mallory you must decode and redefine the Narrative.

It can be difficult for so many reasons. The Narrative usually has elements of truth. These are small, yet real, and Mallory uses them to push through larger packages of lies. They’re hard to discredit because we so want to believe .

Let me give some examples of Narratives, to draw you a clearer picture:

❂ Mallory has caught Alice in a relationship. He tells her over and over, "you are naive and over-sensitive, and you overthink." He shakes his head with concern: "You need professional help." The first part may be true. She accepts that and finds it hard to challenge the rest. He succeeds in undermining her and keeping her dependent on him.

❂ Mallory is taking money from Bob, using sex and emotional violence to keep him hooked. The Narrative is, "you want me because I’m a difficult woman. Surviving me makes you a powerful man. Keep giving me expensive gifts and I will be yours." The first statement is true. What follows is false. Mallory is cheating on Bob, wasting his money, and will leave him as soon as she can move to a wealthier contact of his. She is not the trophy. He is.

❂ Mallory has convinced Alice to become her house slave. Alice works for free and Mallory bullies her into thinking this is normal. The Narrative is, "I paid to bring you to this country. I am now your family and you must do what I tell you to. Obey and I will protect you." Again, the first statement is true and the rest are lies. Mallory will abandon Alice on the street without papers or money as soon as she becomes too large to lock up.

❂ Mallory has convinced Bob to join his project. Bob is working unpaid and Mallory demands more and more from Bob. The Narrative is, "this is an important project. You are serving humanity. I am your glorious and infallible leader. If you suffer, that is normal." The first statement might be true. Mallory is good at finding causes. The rest are lies. Mallory will steal Bob’s work, drain him, and blame him for any failures.

❂ Mallory has convinced Alice to move in together. She invests her savings, and they plan expensive renovations together. The Narrative is, "this is our house. You are investing in our future. I will be a loving and caring husband. If I’m sometimes moody, it is your fault." Again, a truth followed by lies. Alice will go bankrupt before she wakes up. Mallory invests little if anything, and has cheated on her nonstop.

To untangle the Narrative, there is a small yet powerful mantra that you use. You repeat this to yourself whenever you look at past, present, or planned events. The mantra is: " Mallory is lying ."

Not now and then. Not maybe. Almost always. You must assume that every statement Mallory utters is false. He may sometimes tell the truth. That is accidental and irrelevant. When it mattered, and often when it did not, he lied and lies and will lie.

This takes practice. We tend to assume innocent till proven guilty. You need the opportunity to watch Mallory as he talks to you, or others. You feel his sincerity like a warm glow. You hear his words. You watch his face. Now you repeat your mantra: "Mallory is lying."

You may ask why he is lying, or how he can lie so well. There are answers, which I’ve already provided. He lies to bully people into accepting his authority and to deflect blame. He isn’t inventing, when he lies. Instead, he is the sincere teller of a story that happens to be false.

The power of this mantra is that it forces Mallory to work harder. It works especially well in a group. Mallory’s aura of sincerity is like a diamond: hard yet fragile. If you can prove a single lie, then you can teach others the same mantra. From then on, the Narrative starts to fall apart.

If you are alone with Mallory, you must put yourself outside the Narrative to see the lies. This is difficult. You must want nothing, and believe nothing. That means switching off all the responses that brought you to this place. It means accepting that you have lost your investments. It means there will be no more sex, no money, no power.

Once you can see the lies, the next step is to see the truth. What are Mallory’s real intentions? The sad thing is you already know them. They are your deepest fears, the ones you’ve pushed aside since the first day. Mallory wants to use you then throw you away. He means to use your network to climb up the social ladder. He intends to empty your savings, and those of your family.

Mallory cares about one person, himself. He will do whatever benefits himself, without limit and without remorse. If he is not worse it is because that would be counter-productive. Your relationship is a sham. It is window dressing to hide the crimes.

Can it be so simple and so calculated? Yes, it can be, and it is.

So now you have a new Narrative. You could never have made the relationship work. Every time you invested in it, you made it worse. Good intentions pave the road to hell. You fed him and reinforced his bad behavior. So now you have your next action. You stop feeding Mallory.

Even if you do not base your life decisions on economics, Mallory definitely does. She does play with people for practice. Yet when she creates an extended relationship, it is for her profit. Unlike a win-win social relationship, Mallory always builds win-lose relationships.

You should be able to measure how much it is costing you to give Mallory her profit. You can count your time, money, goodwill, and the cost of lost opportunities. It is worth putting a dollar figure on the damage, if you can bear to do this. Mallory has worked hard to make you undervalue yourself, so don’t be shy about adding zeros. It is not for a court, just for your own sanity.

Your next step is to close the taps. I call this "disabling." There is passive disabling, and active disabling. Use both, as you gain confidence and courage.

Passive disabling has a mantra. This is: "Every request is a test, and the answer is always No."

Mallory has a classic pattern of extracting resources from you. First she asks for a small favor, something small and innocent. This aligns you towards liking her, the Ben Franklin effect. Then she creates a problem that she cannot solve, and leaves it on the table for a while. Then she comes with a solution, in the form of a larger favor you must provide. If you do not agree to the larger favor she gets angry and brings the relationship to crisis.

By refusing the small favor, you break the pattern. Mallory has no backup. If she creates a crisis over a marginal issue she looks unstable. If she asks again you just refuse again. If she asks for something different, you refuse again.

You can refuse in different ways. An outright "no" is fine, if you can find the confidence. Or you can say "I’ll try" and then fail to deliver for random, complex reasons. Pretending to be incompetent is less healthy than rejecting Mallory’s request outright. Yet it can be more fun, as Mallory has no tools to deal with such trickery.