White Knights and Rescuers: Men Who Are Drawn to Women Who Need Saving

As described in my last blog entry, parentification is a form of role reversal in which a child of a personality-disordered parent is inappropriately given the role of meeting the emotional or physical needs of the parent or of the other children. A type of parentification that is seen in adult males is the Rescuer.

Having been responsible for taking care of a parent and/or sibling(s) in a parent’s place, these men are attracted to “endangered” women—those who report histories of abuse or trauma, usually at the hands of other men, and stories of being exploited or demeaned at home or work.

Having heard the woman’s sad stories of being treated terribly, he knows how much he can do to help her; after all, he took care of so much while growing up. He can do better than those others, and he can save her from her demons. Because of their idealized view of themselves as caretakers, Rescuers are almost poignantly easy marks for women whose lives are filled with drama and chaos. And thus Rescuers put themselves at risk for abusive or exploitive relationships.

Part of becoming a parentified child is learning to ignore one’s own needs while looking outside for the source of self-esteem. Even if a relationship is hurting you in some way, it must be ignored because the alternative is to be abandoned.

As an adult, a man’s need to “rescue” a woman often overrides his common sense; he’ll idealize his partner and mute any sense of suspicion that she may be amplifying her history a little…or a lot.

Even if Rescuers do raise objections or suspicions, they’ll back down right away rather than risk a confrontation, because those who rescue have great a need for acceptance and a tendency to be afraid of conflict. An unstable woman will manipulate the Rescuer into fulfilling her needs and, worse, convince him that doing so was his idea in the first place.

But while the Rescuer was hailed as all good and wonderful at the start of the relationship, real life intrudes and now he’s cast as the abuser. He may even believe it as he redoubles his efforts to take care of her. In so doing, he tolerates misbehavior directed at him: screaming tantrums, extravagant spending, emotional affairs, and even physical attacks.

Other unstable women might take advantage of his need to please and fear of abandonment by using it to excuse their own bad behavior.  It’s his fault she made a scene while they were out at dinner because he was being overbearing… or not attentive enough to her needs. It’s his fault that she cheated on him because he abandoned her when she most needed him, so she had to find someone else to take his place.

And he keeps making excuses to himself. After all, it’s hardly her fault that she’s like this—she’s been the victim of horrible circumstance, and it’s his duty to help her.

When a Rescuer enters therapy, it is usually for “depression.” Nothing he is doing is helping his partner, he cannot figure out what to do next, and he is demoralized. She may even have told him she no longer cares about him because he’s depressed and non-functional. He has been expertly gaslighted.

Next time, I’ll discuss how the therapist must act like an expert hostage negotiator to assist a Rescuer to overcome an emotional version of Stockholm syndrome. But first, the gaslighting must be revealed.

How do you navigate this process with patients?

Leslie Durr, PhD, RN, PMHCNS-BC is an advanced practice psychiatric-mental health nurse with a private psychotherapy practice in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The views expressed on this blog are solely those of the blog post author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Psych Congress Network or other Psych Congress Network authors.