Craving Love Can Produce a Toxic Relationship

Psychopaths never want to be found out. Often, we enable them by protecting them, making excuses for their behavior, and remaining in denial of the personality disorder they have. This can happen within close family relationships—partner to partner, parent to child, or even child to parent.

Source: Rauter25 / CC BY-DA2.0

1945 thriller "Mildred Pierce"

This is exactly what happened in the 1945 movie, Mildred Pierce, starring Joan Crawford.¹ Her relationship with her daughter Veda (Ann Blyth) was toxic from the start. Mildred lived to please an ungrateful daughter who was a classic textbook psychopath. Though Mildred had two girls, Veda and Kay, it is Veda, the daughter who manipulates and can never be pleased, that captivates Mildred. The more Veda rejects her mother’s love, the more her mother courts her. Mildred's husband, Veda’s father, saw through Veda’s cunning and conniving ways. He tried to caution Mildred of the type of person Veda was in comparison with Kay, their younger daughter. “Kay is twice the girl that Veda is and always will be.” Mildred remains unconvinced, commenting merely that “Kay does not need so much."

Denial fuels the craving

Inwardly, Mildred denies that Veda can never be satisfied and cannot love her back. She plies her with gifts and praises, as Veda spins her manipulative behaviors to ensnare Mildred. What becomes evident in the movie is the extreme deference and great sacrifices Mildred will make to satisfy Veda—while Veda exudes a cold, callous, self-centered demeanor of indifference to everyone except those whose bootstraps could lift her. When this happens, she evinces the psychopath’s trademark charm and phony effusiveness.

Psychopaths are untouched by love

Mildred, a hardworking woman, seeks to give her daughters the best of everything, stopping at nothing to satisfy Veda. She identifies with some of Veda’s longings, but, unlike Veda, is bound by conscience. Veda’s inherent personality remains untouched by her mother’s love and craving for affectional bonds. Veda is quick to insult her mother and purposely alienate her. Only a teenager, Veda lies about being pregnant to extort money from the rich family of a friend. When Mildred turns on her and says she was wrong to lie, Veda acidly replies, “With this money I can get away from you. ... You'll never be anything but a common frump, whose father lived over a grocery store and whose mother took in washing."

Relationship toxicity never improves … only worsens

Veda has no feeling, no remorse, and shows no love … only possessing an insatiable appetite for whatever pleases her. According to Otto F. Kernberg, “They [psychopaths] are incapable of significant loyalty to individuals, groups or social values. They are grossly selfish, callous, irresponsible, impulsive and unable to feel guilt or to learn from experience and punishment.”²

By the end of the movie, Veda gets intimate with Mildred’s new husband, Monty Beragon, a celebrated polo player who comes from old money. Mildred, craving Veda's love, had married him solely to entice Veda to return to her. Veda murders Monty when he refuses marriage and calls her “a rotten little tramp.” Mildred’s relationship with Veda was so toxic that she sought to frame a friend for the murder and, when that failed, she was willing to assume the blame … all to protect Veda. Veda's psychopathic coolness is on display in the closing scenes, as she is being led off to jail, when she turns to her mother and calmly says: “Don't worry about me mother. I'll get by.”

How far do we go to protect someone whom we love, staying loyal until the end when they are not? Having had a psychopathic mother, I can tell you how easy it is to fall into the same trap that Mildred Pierce fell into. I made every excuse to protect my mother. Time and again, I saw her as a victim and not a perpetrator. I forgave her for every disloyalty and gave her the benefit of every doubt. I stylized myself to suit her. The “hurts” she gave me must have been my fault. The “pushing me away” was because I was not good enough. “If only” became my motto. When she disappeared for my birthday without telling me, I forgave her. When she belittled me in front of others, it was forgiven. When she ruined what should have been festive occasions, I never blamed her. It took me all too long to stop the craving and finally realize that, like Mildred Pierce, I was trapped in a toxic relationship with a psychopath.