If you’re trapped in a relationship with Mallory, you will be in a bad state which shows as depression. The slave, feed, and wreck phases of the relationship corrode your sense of identity. When someone asks you "how’s it going?" your answers revolve around Mallory. "She’s in a good mood today," or "crazy day today." You seem little more than a puppet, reacting to Mallory’s every whim. And when Mallory isn’t there, you feel empty and passive.
You can reverse this process of destruction of self. You can become more resistant to manipulation, better able to fight back. You can imagine and construct better futures than "when will this pain end?"
The tools of mind control come in many shapes. Likewise, there are many ways to invest in self:
❂ Rebuild relationships that broke as you went deep into the rabbit hole with Mallory.
❂ Build private space and time where Mallory cannot create chaos or try to take control.
❂ Start new projects to replace the failed projects you invested in with Mallory.
❂ Find positives in your situation. Every day can be a valuable lesson, if you are able to learn.
❂ Turn your pain and emotion into creative art, music, dance, photography, or writing.
❂ Use this creative process to create positive energy, and happy moments. It’s both good for you, and confusing and distasteful to Mallory.
When I said psychopaths are lazy, that isn’t true in all senses. They work hard at their core skills. They will bring people together, so they can get control over them. One irony of psychopathy is that this energy can produce positive and creative outcomes. We often have a better person hiding inside us. You can use your encounters with Mallory to find and develop that person.
Move to Exit
The last move in solving this complex puzzle is to create exits, and move towards them. You are only as trapped as you believe you are, unless Mallory has restrained you by force. When you can imagine a future beyond your current situation, then you can create it. Even if it takes years, you define the path to freedom by your own imagination and determination.
Your goal must be to rebuild a healthy, complete, professional or personal life. One where Mallory does not exist, and where he cannot interfere. It may be a matter of cutting contact with Mallory.
As you get a grip over things, Mallory will decide whether he intends to stay, or leave. If he decides to leave, it will be sudden and total.
More often, Mallory wants to stay. He will either force you out, make you accept his control, or do something worse. If there is a moment of real physical danger, it is this. There is an old pattern of suspicious deaths of those divorcing their abusive partners.
In most countries with modern policing, Mallory cannot get away with physical violence. He knows it. In a corrupt country, if Mallory has powerful friends who can protect him, the risks of violence go up.
The most likely outcome is quite banal. Mallory will just become "normal." He will turn into the perfect parent, partner, or colleague. Anyone looking at him for the first time will see a lovely, hard-working person.
If you are not careful, Mallory can convince judges and peers that he is the sane one in a relationship. They will believe you are the one with issues. So, you must collect your evidence and witnesses long before he realizes your intentions.
Think of the Children
The most delicate and difficult cases are those involving shared projects. This means: homes, businesses, and above all, children. You can walk away from these, and people do. If you have children with Mallory, then it’s not enough to save yourself. You have to also think how to save your children, and give them the tools to deal with their abusive parent.
I explained in Hunting Mallory how Mallory divides his children into winners and losers. Even with occasional access to his children, Mallory can shape them.
One strategy is to fight for exclusive custody, to remove Mallory’s influence for good. This is a worthy goal in any eventual divorce or separation. Mallory will often be the one to walk away. After all, he is not interested in raising children.
Yet, there will be times when Mallory refuses to let go. It tends to be hard to separate children from a parent without evidence of physical abuse. You may see Mallory as toxic and abusive. A judge may see two parents who argue a lot.
You can try to catch Mallory breaking the rules, and get a judgment on that basis. This works only if you can afford it, and if Mallory’s delinquency is dramatic and undeniable. Do not assume a judge will see things your way. No matter how well you explain, Mallory always tells a better story.
A more pragmatic backup strategy is to use Mallory to inoculate your children. This gives them tools to defend against his tactics. It also helps them in later life as they cross other psychopaths. I explained about providing subtitles. You can reinforce this by showing what parenting can look like. Shower your children with affection, love, and structure.
Over years you can teach your children self-reliance and inner strength. Mallory will keep trying to undermine that. It’s just his nature. You use each case as an exercise, until your children have learned to read what lies below the words and smiles.
This is hard to do without asking your children to hate their other parent. Hate is not a useful emotion, when dealing with a psychopath. Neither are fear, anger, jealousy, self-pity and so on. Mallory merits careful observation, analysis, and explanation. If you can maintain this mental state, you can teach it to your children. Mallory has no emotions for his children beyond, "these are mine." It is fair that his children feel dispassionate about him in return.
This sounds cruel, yet it’s making the best of a bad situation. In most families with a psychopath parent, the opposite happens. The other parent becomes the enabler. That is, they defend and justify Mallory, over and over. Minors cannot defend themselves, not alone against a single adult, and not against two.
Being the "disabler" parent has many positives. It teaches you to move forwards, not dwell in the past. To work from the desire to help yourself and others, not to punish from anger. To seek peace, not revenge. To understand and explain, not to blame.
Conclusions
In this chapter I’ve explained how to end a psychopathic relationship from the inside. The key lesson is that if you flee an abusive relationship, you leave as a damaged person. You take with you self-hate and a form of addiction to abuse which can last a lifetime.
As an alternative, I propose a process: Diagnose, Observe, Inhibit, and Terminate (DOIT). Through this process you will untangle the lies and distortions, and rebuild your self-image. By facing and beating your fears, you recover your inner strengths.
It is the deliberate act of freeing yourself from Mallory that heals you. It can take months or years. It will often be a painful and terrifying process. The pain and terror become routine, and then they pass. It is the shifting of power back to you that matters. When you end your relationship with Mallory, do it on your own terms, and as a whole person.
When you can look at Mallory and feel gratitude for making you a stronger, happier person, then you know you are free.