Life Code: The New Rules for Winning in the Real World (11 page)

At the absolute most,
they use calculated “modified
mea culpas
” to
seemingly
admit responsibility or take accountability on a safe, miniscule, and irrelevant part of a problem. But that’s just deflection, not genuine ownership of a problem. Oftentimes these “modified
mea culpas
” are in fact self-praise in disguise. The master manipulator will find a way to narcissistically compliment himself or herself, all the while disguising it as taking ownership in a problem.

If the BAITER is caught red-handed physically abusing his wife, he will justify it: “If I allowed her to go off on me like that, I’d be cheating her.” In other words, he’s actually doing something good by abusing her. He’s
helping
her. If he didn’t abuse her, he’d be letting her down, failing to take what he sees as his responsibility to draw the line.

Deflection, deflection, deflection. These guys are good. You have to be better.

Everybody lies. You do it, I do it, and everyone you know does it at some point. So, why is this in the BAITER’s “playbook?” Because you and I are amateurs! When I say “lie,” I’m not talking about a husband who swears to his wife that “those jeans” do
not
make her look fat when in fact he is thinking “Whoa! It looks like two pigs playing under a blanket! But those are the tenth pair of jeans she has tried on, and we are already 20 minutes late.” Failing to share that little tidbit is a lie by omission (and also a life-saving “edit”). When a BAITER lies, however, it is all too often for a very nefarious purpose and designed to mislead someone who, if they knew the truth, would likely behave very differently. The BAITERs’ lies are, by design, material misrepresentations that they are counting on you to accept as truth. Therein is the power of their lies.

BAITERs are masters at three types of misdirection: affirmative misstatements (“I saw him kissing her”), lies by omission (failing to tell you what they really saw or didn’t see), and “half-truths” (“I saw him kissing a blonde at the airport,” but failing to tell you it was his sister, which he well knew because he was introduced to her and had seen her before!), all of which give you a false picture of reality. Because they have no conscience to struggle with and have had a lot of practice, they are good, really good. They are committed liars who will stick with the lie to the point of destruction, if need be. Many times, as I mentioned earlier, when they are in the actual moment of the telling, they may actually believe what they are saying, at least at some level. They immerse themselves in the role-play, like skilled actors. Daniel Day Lewis is known for being a dedicated method actor, and it’s been said he’s done everything from living off the land for six months when he starred in
The Last of the Mohicans
to being spoon-fed by the crew while playing a character with cerebral palsy. BAITERs love the drama of the role-play and feed on the exhilaration of the lie. If they are playing the role of victim in the lies, they can actually feel sorry for themselves!

The BAITERs are also good because they pay attention to what you seem to respond to the most, and they will hammer those points. They embed a verifiable “kernel” of truth to gain credibility to the overall story. They will often misdirect by confessing to a lesser offense if it distracts you from their more egregious transgression.

People who have nothing to hide, hide nothing. BAITERs hide everything with a menagerie of lies that would boggle the rational mind.

I was taught in first grade that you don’t take what isn’t yours, you don’t copy off your neighbor in class, and you don’t allow someone to think you have achieved something you did not. Contrary to what many seem to think, and the misguided credo BAITERs live by, my parents taught me that the world did not owe me a living. My parents taught me that you work for what you want, rather than expect it to be given to you. BAITERs apparently missed those lessons. Among their tactics is the simple pattern of taking, not earning, what they want. Their behavior is based on the belief that you get a free ride any time you can. If people are dumb enough to leave themselves open to exploitation, if they “allow” themselves to be defrauded, well, then too bad for them; they got what they deserved. And it is hard for non-BAITERs to wrap their heads around how elaborate a fraud they will build. It seems as if, had they worked that hard at something legitimate, they would have been a great success! I once had a guest on the show who went to such great lengths to convince his mistress that he truly was leaving his wife that he actually procured a false set of divorce papers, filled them out in great detail, forged signatures, stamped them, and handed them to her, all to suck her further into his lie. Fraud all the way—and he made no apology for it when he was found out. “You nagged me so much I had to do it.” They believe they are entitled to whatever they can get, and the easier, the better. It is the “having” that the fraudster is wholly focused on, not the method of getting.
You
may believe that if you cheat to win, it isn’t really a win. To the BAITERs, a win is a win is a win. Earned or stolen is no different to them.

But because they live their lives as a masquerade, they always feel like they’re only one step ahead of being found out. This is one of the reasons they have a history of short-term relationships. They have to keep on the move and maintain mystery to avoid being discovered. They never consider that the fraud will eventually “hit the wall” and come crashing down because they lack both foresight and insight. But on a short-term basis, they are great salespeople and can tell a great story and make you believe they are “cutting-edge” competent. They work the sale so hard because they need to disarm you so you don’t run off and independently verify their claims, check their references, and otherwise confirm who and what they are. They need to ease your mind so as to kill the need for investigation. Control of the target is essential to any effective fraud, and the BAITERs know it. If they keep you occupied, they can work you from close in.

The number-one weapon of abusers in general is isolation. If any BAITERs are “working you,” setting you up because you are going to serve a purpose for them or have something they want, they will first attempt to eliminate as many of your other contacts and support systems as possible. They don’t want you having any reality checks, encouragement, validation, or differing opinions. They are much too insecure to have others in the mix. It might be subtle at first, because they just try to be ever-present in your life.

Remember point #1 in this chapter:
They infiltrate your life, seducing with promises and flattery.
Then they will escalate to dominating your time just one-on-one, by always asking you to go to lunch, come over to their house, catch a movie, power-walk in the mornings—anything that gives them a private audience with you. Soon, they will begin to alienate you from others, and others from you. Lies and gossip about others are their favorite tools. If they can get you to believe that others say mean things behind your back, laugh at you, don’t like your children, or are sabotaging your career or marriage—whatever your hot buttons are—then they have you in their grips. Healthy relationships have balance and a consistent pattern of give-and-take, with each party receiving no-strings-attached support from one another. BAITERs strive for imbalance, and they achieve that by overdoing for you, going way out of their way for you, so you are in their debt. If any relationship is too one-sided, you should be very wary. I can’t tell you how many abused women have told me that in the early stages, their abusers just could not do enough for them. That’s because the abuser wants to rope you into his debt and thus his control. Don’t be seduced by the BAITER’s early service to you and an unwillingness to accept anything in return. You are being set up. As the old saying goes, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

They will try to convince you that “
but for them
,” you would be miserable. Without them, you would be lost, alone, incompetent, and downtrodden. I shudder to think how many abusive husbands have, behind closed doors, convinced their abused wives that no one else would ever want her, love her, or even let her stay around. The early helpfulness and giving were never genuine and quickly morphed into control and demand: “I must do this, because you can’t! You need me, and I
own
you because you
owe
me!” If they can convince you that you just can’t get by without them anymore, they have tremendous leverage that can be used to threaten and intimidate you. “Do what I say or I am gone, and you will be lost and alone.”

If you have people who insist or even imply that but for their largesse, you would be lost and alone, people who have actively cut you off from those you once trusted and enjoyed, or people who believed in you and were happy for your success, alarms should be going off in your head right now as you read this sentence.

It has been said that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This is too often a true sentiment because many people simply don’t know how to wield power, and the control goes to their head. With BAITERs, it is an intoxicating circumstance made exponentially worse by their lack of empathy and inability to feel remorse when abusing another. Believing that the world is “theirs for the taking,” they will frequently take advantage of a situation and everyone in it in ways that, once discovered, are shocking. To be under the thumb of a power-intoxicated BAITER is a place you never want to find yourself.

Bernie Madoff is a tragic example. He gained people’s trust and purse strings. The liberties he took with their money, to the tune of billions of dollars for unprecedented luxuries and lifestyle, destroyed many hardworking people’s retirements and even their lives. Once his fraud was discovered, investigators universally asked, “How could he? How could he take the retirement funds of people in their 70s, money from charities that did wonderful work for disadvantaged children, members of his own faith?” The answer should now be, at least in part, clear. He had no ability to feel guilt or sorrow. No ability to comprehend the pain he caused to the elderly or children so that he could buy a third yacht or yet another vacation home. He had way more money than he could ever spend, yet he continued to steal.

The only difference between a Madoff and those in our lives is a matter of scope, a matter of zeros in front of the decimal point. You cannot give them power over you, because they will abuse it and you. If you are working for any BAITERs, you and yours are in harm’s way. Get out of denial and start making plans for a change, an escape, right now. It’s not a question of “if” but a question of “when” you will be victimized.

We all have “hot buttons,” and that knowledge in the hands of a BAITER is emotionally dangerous for us. Maybe you have self-doubts or are hypercritical of your appearance, lack of education, or less than stellar past. Whether real or imagined failures and vulnerabilities, the BAITER will pound at you in those areas when he needs you to be less than 100 percent confident. Maybe it’s a hot button about child abuse or politics, animal cruelty, or the favoritism your parents showed for one of your siblings. If the BAITER discovers your buttons, I promise you, it goes in their ammo bag, to be pulled out the moment they need to enforce control over you, distract you, or defeat you. A good policy is to share personal information only on a need-to-know basis with new people in your life, until they’ve earned, and I mean really earned, your trust.

They work to find out what sets you off, and barring that, they will use your general human decency or your concern for them as a lever. It is what I call “emotional extortion.” They may threaten that if you leave them or reject them in some way, they will kill themselves, and “their blood will be on your hands!” They will use children as hostages, threatening that if you divorce them or throw them out, they will take the children and live on the streets (a favorite among young mothers mooching off parents or grandparents and resisting helping around the house or refusing to stop drugging or drinking). All of this is designed to induce guilt in you. Feeling guilt is painful, and BAITERs understand that you will do almost anything to escape that pain. These scenarios might sound intense, but remember what I said about much of life boiling down to a war between good and evil. These are just examples of how the battles can play out in your life.

I am hypersensitive about loyalty. It is a standard to which I aspire and to which I hold those in my life. I am highly intolerant of those who are disloyal, either to me and my family or to anyone else for that matter. I see people in Hollywood who work for a major celebrity for years and who, upon having a falling-out or being released from employment for whatever reason, race to write a tell-all book to cash in on the trust and access they once had with the celebrity. I have never, nor will I ever, buy or read one of those books. I have been pitched time and again to have them on the show to “reveal shocking details about the private life of some star.” Nope! I’m not interested in having some opportunistic scumbag on my show to betray a former friend or employer. They have no sense of how unbecoming that is to them.