Finding a real relationship after a sociopath
PDF The following story was sent by the Lovefraud reader who comments under the name “LovingAnnie.” This woman—we’ll call her Annie—spent four years waiting for a relationship to materialize with a policeman who tantalized her with flattery and promises. Here’s what Annie wrote:
Annie and the cop
I called 9-1-1 for the first time in my life (a neighbor problem), and when I answered the door, my first thought on seeing him was, “wow—he is sooo cute.”
We ended up talking for almost an hour and exchanging phone numbers.
He told me he’d been a cop for almost 20 years, was divorced with two kids. That a few years after the divorce was final, he had a girlfriend who was also a police officer, but they had recently broken up because they saw life differently, and she drank too much.
I’d see him every week or so when he was driving by, and he’d stop and chat for a while. He seemed such a perfect fit for me, and that we had so much in common. He was close to my age, so clean cut in lifestyle and appearance, liked to cook, liked to read, liked to exercise, had a great dry sense of humor, was politically incorrect and religiously indifferent, and we were physically attracted to each other as well.
He called, but he wasn’t asking me out. I tried to play it cool, let things unfold slowly, with no pressure, but something just felt wrong. He’d ask me what I was wearing, talk about how he wanted to kiss my neck … He seemed so connected to me when we talked, and I loved talking to him about anything and everything, it was just comfortable and easy. But he didn’t try to see me off of work; there were no dates. It was frustrating but I didn’t want to be aggressive.
This went on for months. He’d call, tell me I was beautiful, sensuous, intelligent, loving, warm, giving, beguiling—and that he was sexually and emotionally scared of me. That he knew I wouldn’t hurt him, but he’d hurt himself. That I was dangerous, that he got flustered around me …
And then he would disappear … For a month or two, and then come back, always smiling, always sweet. (It turns out he had never broken up with his girlfriend at all, and in fact, they were about to buy a house together.)
But by that time I was hooked. I was so naive and hopeful and trusting, I believed every word he said. He was a cop, a good guy, he seemed so sincere and genuine …
I thought he was really a nice guy and behaving himself, that he was waiting until they were broken up to do anything with me, being honorable. He told me he was fiercely loyal.
This went on for 3 years … I’d only see him occasionally, but he always made it seem like if I’d just be patient, things would work between us. I’d try dating other people to get my mind off of him, and nothing ever worked out, so back to the policeman my thoughts would go …
He’d cuddle me; we’d just sit on the sofa for an hour or two wrapped around each other like 16-year-olds who don’t go past second base … He’d always be obviously aroused, but didn’t try to have sex with me—again, I thought he was treating me with respect, and that meant I could trust him. He wasn’t cheating on his girlfriend, we were waiting until things were right and we could be together.
He’d talk about how pissed off he would get at his girlfriend for passing out drunk, throwing up blood, going into rehab and then coming home and drinking again immediately, etc.
I thought for sure by comparison I looked like a prize since I rarely drank. I was financially stable, didn’t have any kids of my own, and had no baggage with an ex-husband. I even told him that he could come live with me if he wanted to, and that I adored him. He said I was so open and he was so guarded …
He’d tell me he drove my house three times a shift. (He was lying, he drove by once every three weeks.)
I said, “If you know you aren’t ever going to break up with T, and you know you don’t want me for a girlfriend when you do, blow me off right now.” He didn’t. I said, “well, are you going to blow me off ?” And he said “no.” He told me he looked for me, that he was so happy when he saw me, that the chemistry was so thick it was tangible, that he couldn’t keep his hands off of me, that he was emotionally, intellectually and physically attracted to me but that he couldn’t act on it—YET.
One of his friends told me that he was watching me when he was on the midnight shift, checking out my windows, (I live up on a hill and it is easy to see in from a street across the way) even spying on me with binoculars a few times to see what kind of life I led.
Even though it would have creeped me out if another guy had done that, I felt like I had nothing to hide and I was flattered; I thought it really meant he wanted me, and when he was available, he’d have gotten his courage and his info. Together enough that we would be solid.
He finally broke up with his girlfriend over her drinking, and then disappeared on me for five months.
The same friend who had told me the other stuff told me that he was so stressed out about the bad real estate market, he was on the verge of foreclosure (even though he was working major overtime), depressed, not eating, and isolating himself. He had told me once he was borderline suicidal, so I got really scared. Behind his back, I paid his overdue property taxes, to try to help him out.
When I finally called him and told him I was lonely and I missed him, he told me to “go work for habitat for humanity and that we hardly knew each other; that he wasn’t ready to date but when he was, there was a probation officer who was interested in him.”
Then when I started to cry in pain, three years of hope now smashed in a minute, he told me I was guilting him and he hated it, and hung up on me.
He found about about me paying the property taxes and came to my house and was furious. I said I could cancel the charge on my credit card, and he said no, he’d pay me back when he got his income tax refund (he never made any attempt to pay me back) and he yelled at me, saying I had no right to control his life, and that he couldn’t trust me, I was acting obsessive.
I was absolutely horrified—I’d really been trying to help, to do something loving and supportive when the chips were down that only a family member would do for someone. I hadn’t meant anything bad at all by it, and yet he took it that way.
He told me I misread everything he’d ever said and done, that he was just being friendly.
Then he stood at my door and told me that he had wanted to make love to me every night, that he had fantasized about me so often, wanting me every way a man can have a woman.
I uncovered about a dozen lies after that … It seemed like he lied almost every time he talked to me. But I blamed myself. I thought if I hadn’t pushed him, if I’d just let him take the action instead of me, things would have worked out differently.
He came back nine months later (my burglar alarm had gone off by mistake), and basically just totally played head games with me for six weeks, e-mailing instead of calling, telling me how aroused I made him but saying that his little voices were telling him to “run baby run …”
Then he just stopped contacting me at all, although he still read my blog on the web twice a week for the next two months. We finally got in a huge fight one night and he told me that he was never going to ask me out, never have a relationship with me, and never have sex with me.
I keep thinking everything is my fault. That maybe he really is a good solid decent guy and it was just me pushing that turned him off and made him go away.
I don’t understand how he could have played me for three years if he didn’t mean it …
After all, he was originally married for 10 years, and then later on after he was divorced had a girlfriend for six years, so clearly he has long-term relationships.
Why aren’t I lovable? Why didn’t he value me?
I’m still grieving and stuck, and thinking I lost out on Prince Charming, that something is wrong with me that he didn’t want me, didn’t want a relationship with me … It’s so seldom that I meet a man who seems so right for me, and I’m just devastated. I don’t recover or bounce back easily, and now I’m terrified that there is something really wrong with me not to have known all along he didn’t want me.
This cop likes power
Sociopaths, as Dr. Liane Leedom says, want two things: power and sex. Some sociopaths—like this cop—want power more than sex, and are quite capable of withholding sex in order to assert power. That’s what this guy was doing.
For him, it was all about the game. The cop was getting his jollies from knowing that Annie wanted him, adored him, loved him—and he could mess with her mind and emotions with his push-pull routine. With his little intrigue, he was satisfying his need for entertainment.
That’s all Annie was. Entertainment.
In a previous e-mail that Annie sent me, she wondered if this cop would treat another woman better. I’d say it’s extremely unlikely. Although he might actually go ahead and have sex with someone else, that woman will be used for entertainment and sex. There will be no love.
Waiting too long
At the end of her story, Annie also expressed that she was afraid something wrong with her for not recognizing that the cop didn’t want her. That’s not quite the issue here.
When I was single, I also spent quite a few years pining away for men who never showed up. I kept thinking if I gave them enough time, enough space, eventually they’d come around. It never worked.
So did these guys want me? They seemed to, when they were around. But they did not come around enough for our interaction to advance to the point of being a relationship.
Here is the issue: By waiting for them, I was not believing in myself. Annie did the same thing. She spent four years waiting for this cop. This particular guy was a sociopath, but that is almost beside the point. The point is that any relationship involves two people moving towards each other, step by step. If that is not happening, there is no relationship, and no point waiting around.
Fear and relationships
I am not being critical of Annie. As I said, I did exactly the same thing.
So why did I do it? Why did I hang in for these men who did not show up? Fear. I was afraid that there was nobody else and I would be alone. I could only think in terms of the men that I knew. I could not think in terms of men whom I hadn’t yet met.
Fear also made me vulnerable for the sociopath, James Montgomery. When he rolled into my life with flattery and the promises, I fell for them. I noticed he was moving far too quickly, but it was a welcome relief from the men who didn’t show up at all. His agenda, I later learned, was manipulating me out of my money. He was also playing a game of keeping multiple women on a string at one time.
Finding a real relationship
The key to finding a real relationship, I believe, is overcoming fear and believing in ourselves. This is possible, even after a run-in with a sociopath.
Many Lovefraud readers, having been victimized by a sociopath, have commented that they no longer trust themselves when it comes to relationships. This is fear still speaking. They are afraid they will be fooled and victimized again.
We all know the devastation that comes from the encounter with the sociopath. Here’s what we all need to know and believe: Healing is possible. This seems unlikely while we’re in the midst of the turmoil, but it is true.
Healing does, however, take time. It requires processing the emotional pain, re-establishing connections with the people who truly love and support us, and perhaps dealing with legal and financial consequences. But this can all be done.
The devastation is a phase. An ugly phase, but a phase nonetheless. As we go through it, our goal should be to eliminate the fear and begin believing in ourselves. We now know what a sociopath looks like and how a sociopath behaves. We can come through this experience wiser, more in tune with our intuition, and with an open heart.
Then everything—including a new and real relationship—will fall into place.
written by Donna Andersen • Permalink •
OxDrover says:
Rosa, I think there is a big difference in appreciating a lovely girl ARTFULLY posed (or guy) and say a hardcore FV<k flick, which I do NOT appreciate as "art," but "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" I guess and so is the definition of "porn." I also have not had any interest in seeing those tapes or videos and have not. Just nudity or part nudity in humans doesn't qualify TO ME as PORN (and some raunchy crap does disgust me) but that is only MY opinion. I also think that REALLY graphic VIOLENCE is PORN in films and I do my best to avoid that kind of film. The thing I hated about Braveheart, otherwise a good movie was the LONG BLOODY BATTLE SCENES when this could have been depicted with less graphic violence. To me it debased the film.
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pollyannanomore says:
Porn really irritates me – I think since the advent of the net and the porn explosion on it men have changed their expectations of women to align with porn models – hence the popularity of procedures like brazilians and anal bleaching (WTF?!) I am not sure if women are driving this in thinking they want to look like porn stars or if they are thinking this is what men expect but at the end of the day men are behind it and these unreasonable expectations go far beyond the ridiculous body expectations we had in the era of super models. Now there is a behavioural aspect to it – that women will be ‘liberated’ enough to engage in casual sex, threesomes and all manner of practices that twenty years ago would have been considered perversions.
It worries me immensely in looking for a good moral solid man to date. I have encountered so many that are wanting someone for ‘fun’ which presumably means no strings sex. There are others who are explicit in looking for a cheating relationship, friends with benefits, F buddies and all the rest of the categories. where are the men who are looking for a good supportive and loving companion to have a monogamous and exclusive relationship with?
The dating landscape has changed so much in the time I have been out of it. Back in my day women who had casual sex were kind of thought of as skanks but now it seems to be expected and I have even encountered some men moaning that all the women they meet are ‘just looking for sex’. I can’t see how it is ‘liberating’ for a woman to engage in multiple sexual relationships that have no meaning. The practice of sex as an expression of deep emotions between two people has been cheapened to a form of entertainment and a hobby almost. It makes me very sad and concerned that maybe I won’t find someone normal to settle with and have a family with. It’s quite shocking what is considered normal in society today.
That;s my rant over for now lol
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OxDrover says:
Dear Polly,
I agree with you, but I think it is more a MORAL COMPASS problem than a visual or media problem. The media makes things that SELL and if no one is “interested in buying” they quit making it. Just like a whore house couldn’t survive if there were no buyers for the product for sale.
Children are bought and sold all over the world, including the US, as “sex workers.” Psychopaths prey on the weak, and exploit those less able to fight back. It is a fact of life.
The cops arrest a woman for selling her body, but the buyer goes free! As long as people want an illicit product there will always be a seller. The underbelly of society will always be there, we just don’t have to be part of it, but there are those who will choose to be.
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Hopeforjoy says:
Okay, this discussion about porn is one I can’t pass up. I agree with Oxy about the beauty of the human body. Some paintings of nude women are very tasteful and beautiful. There is beauty in both sexes without just focusing on certain body parts. It’s all encompassing.
I found porn on our computers and the part that bothered me the most was the lying about it. In front of the psychologist, “I never looked up that stuff, who would think up lesbian mayham?” Really? It’s here where I feel that sex has become distorted, looking up “Teens first lesbian encounters” “Big t** sex” and black girls. I feel like a backwards stick in the mud, but it’s sick and wrong.
Seriously, I getted turned on by sensuality more than the pure anatomy when watching the act of people doing it. I know men are more visual, but then look up playboy or something and don’t freaking lie to me!!!! Bigger problems happen with the lies.
My oldest daughter is an artist and has painted and drawn beautiful women, some naked. She doesn’t have hang ups about the nude body but has no love of porn either.
Seems like I’m on a soapbox, so sorry for the preaching, it’s one thing I can’t come to terms with. It is diffinately a hang up of mine. (as if you couldn’t tell)
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pollyannanomore says:
Good point Oxy – if there was no demand there would be no supply, but the objectification of women has just gone too far now and the ‘fashions’ from porn have become mainstream. Women are now measuring themselves against fake characters they see their partners watching. So now it isn’t ok to have pubic hair or armpit hair (admittedly armpit hair has been out for a while!). If you don’t comply with these crazy standards you take the risk of someone thinking badly of you as they measure you againt a plastic woman who is always ready willing and able for sex. I find it distasteful in the extreme.
I think porn in general has become really mainstream now that people can buy it anonymously. Back in the old days a person would have had to enter a sex shop (which in itself is an embarrassment) or order from a catalogue and take the risk the item isn’t wrapped in brown paper. Now they can order and watch in real time online with nobody knowing who they are. It’s creating a really false view of women … my friends and I talk about it and find the same things – they are silently appraised against porn star standards and that’s even nice guys. Just about everyone will have watched some. It’s sad. My boobs sag because they’re real and that’s what real breasts do but how many men think the plastic ones are the real standard to measure against? It makes me feel even more uncomfortable with my imperfect body. And after the psycho relationship I am very guarded about my mind and body! I can see why you just don’t bother so much – it’s quite depressing when you look at the world of dating!
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Hopeforjoy says:
p.s. I could really use spell check.
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Hopeforjoy says:
p.p.s. pollyanna,
Totally agree with everything you said, and try not to be discouraged, you have the love of your friends here and elsewhere. To me, it’s priceless. It is such a shame that it has twisted some mens views on women. I don’t know that I will date for a very long time. Heck if I’m going to shave down there!!! That would itch like nobodies business and I’d look bizarre itching my crotch all day. No Way. They can keep their ‘it’s all about sex’ anal waxing for weirdo world. No thank you.
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OxDrover says:
In the article I wrote about “loving myself one piece at a time” I have thought about all these things, and once upon a time I was a very beautiful young woman. (I actuallly didn’t realize it for quite some time) But as I have grown older (and I hope wiser!) I realize that YOUTHFUL BEAUTY of body is very fleeting! It comes to “bloom” and then like a rose, it quickly fades and the person physically changes, but at the same time I find that there is beauty in a wrinkled face filled with compassion, wisdom and love. How many of you loved the wrinkled faces of your grandmothers and great grandmothers if you were fortunate to remember them?
Now days too many times I think “grandma” is trying to look 25 at 55, and dressed like some sort of twisted Barbie doll, rather than being healthy and vibrant, and real. No woman bears children without a few stretch marks, but to me that’s okay.
My late husband was a very charming man, but he was NEVER HANDSOME even in his youth, he had a large nose for one thing. As he aged and spread out and gained weight, no one would call him “handsome” but he was so charming that every woman from 6 to 96 feel “in love” with him. Because HE MADE THEM FEEL BEAUTIFUL. To me he was always “good looking and sexy,” not because of his looks, but because of who HE WAS.
One of the most “homely” women I ever knew would literally LIGHT UP A ROOM when she walked in and every one there actually thought she was “beautiiful” physically, by the force of her personality. You can look at a photograph of this woman and she was very ordinary, but in person, she was STUNNING.
I’ve had my pity party about the wrinkles and sags, but you know, I’m not any more. I’m just fine with who I am and how I look NOW, and not grieving over the Oxy that WAS when I was younger. The Oxy that I am NOW has wonderful things that younger woman didn’t have, no matter how beautiful or sexy she was, or how wrinkled or saggy I am now. I’ll take NOW over THEN any day. If someone doesn’t appreciate me for who I am NOW, then they don’t deserve to get to really know me! Their loss! Let’em go cuddle up to their Hustler Magazine of “dirty pittures.” LOL I’ll cuddle up to the doggie who really does love me! Besides, he loves me no matter what!
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ErinBrock says:
Hey oxy:
Had an interesting convo with a spath family member today….
He said…..how are YOU…..
I said…..it’s been a tough week for kids and I….
he inquired why…
I said, I’m sure you’ve heard….he asked, heard what….
I said well the kids father is facing 15 years and it was all over the news this week here.
Pretty humiliating……(humiliation stance).
It opened up the door…..
He said, he was aware….as he had received a call from jail…..
I said…hmmmmm bail request….he said he didnt ask, but he was NOT going to bail him out.
He DID set up a calling card for him so he could contact people……
He asked how the kids took it…..I said….well…..they have been validated, as this was what broke up our family…..
He said, he wasn’t surprised….as he has suspected this with all spaths high flyen stories of living on yahts and traveling all over…..he asked him outright…..how are you makeing a living….he said he lived cheap.
He also shared with me his stories of how the separation went ‘down’…..and he siad he questioned him as it didn’t make sense.
He said EB, your a smart woman and what spath said….didn’t jive…..
Any man who would kick in a door knowing his child is on the otherside and break childs arm is a MORON.
He claims I kept the kids from hin via a TPO…..
He ‘forgot’ to tell him about the bonding trip to the drug house…..THAT WAS THE END!!!! and I wasn’t even present on this ‘daddy and me’ kids trip. Nor did I know where they were going when they ‘set out’…..it was a road trip….we;ll call you and check in.
He siad….none of it made sense, spaths stories…..he knew there was more. He said…28 years you tried eb…I give you credit.
I said…..I NEVER imagined it would end up like this…..
He said….I know you didn’t.
He also said that gramma suspected what spath was up to and even told Spath…you don’t want to end up in jail….they’d like your kind….
She died a week before he was incarcerated.
INTERESTING….
And for me…..another validation……
So….now he is exposed…….exposed himself…..and under the circumstances of…..I”M IN JAIL….and no one will bail me out……will you offer??
How spathley!!
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ErinBrock says:
OXY…..did I read that you are in HUSTLER????
LOL…
I got a glance of me in the mirror today…..and damn it …I LOOK GOOD!
I’m NOT skinny….actually….well….okay we won’t talk about my weight…. HA, i’ve got a bit of bidunkadunk going on….
but the past few years….I’ve looked in the mirror and thought…damn girl….you’ve aged….and I have….
I have weird calcium deposits that have popped up on my eyelids…..and wrinkles under my eyes…..and I didn’t like any of it….
But…..last weekend I sat out and got a bit of vit. d…(sun)…and just a bit of color on my face…..and I was beaming this week…..out in town with my bouncy hair…..feeling good.
Put on the face…and walked the town…
I think it was my attitude that I saw that made me look good, I was smiling, with an all over face smile…..
My eyes look bright and I look healthy….and I think others noticed my all over look/feeling/aura!
It certainly was not that my wrinkles went away…..or my bidunkidunk disappeared…..
it was my attitude! (and a bit of a tan).
So….. embrace the wrinkles and the bidunkidunk….put on a smile and let the world know YOUR HAPPY!!!!
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OxDrover says:
Dear EB,
WOW!!! Great validation!!! Can’t believe the uncle is so “heartless” to fail to OFFER TO BAIL HIM OUT! LOL ROTFLMAO and I am sure you are too. It really sucks when you have used up ALL your friends and relatives that can come up with bail money! Oh, well, he can sit in jail til his trial comes up!
Actually though I’m glad grandma died before he got arrested, at least she didn’t have to face that!
Just hold your head up, you’ve been validated and when he goes away you will at least feel safe that he isn’t snooping around your place in the middle of the night! If he gets 15 yrs, he will probably be out ihn 5 or less, but my bet is he will cop a plea so may get less time, most of the time whenthey can’t make bail the DA will let them cop out to a lesser charge. Was he arrested with someone else? they might let him rat the bigger fish out if he will. The TH-P could have gotten 15-20 years but they gave him 5, with 2 suspended. He spent about 14 months or so in prison then got out on parole and would have gotten out in 10 months if I hadn’t raised hell. Also if this is his “first offense” he’s been caught for they might let him have probation. So don’t count on a long sentence.
But in any case, you got some validation. Love Oxy
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OxDrover says:
Peggy, I think the ratio of single men vs single women VARIES greatly by AGE. I think that is where my statistic gets so “bad” because of the age range. Not sure it is accurate though, my mind ain’t what it uster be! LOL
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ErinBrock says:
LOSER!!!!
HA!
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OxDrover says:
Peggy, did I state it backwards? I meant to say that there are MANY more SINGLE FEMALES per males, in the 40+ age range than males. Sheesh, now I am doubting what I said and can’t find the post! Anyway, there are many FEWER males in the over 40 age range and it goes UP as the age goes up so that the older you are (female) the FEWER single males you have to choose from. Plus,, the males that are single tend to marry younger women than themselves. So, a woman my age, say 63-65 has for a pool of “available men” guys aged 65-75 or older, and the guy who is 65 has women from age 45-65 to choose from. I think it is over all something like 30 males for each 100 females in the single over 40 age range (and can’t remember where I found that) but by the time you take out the winos, people in bad health, idiots and psychopaths, it doesn’t leave many guys to choose from!
And if the old ladies have as bad a short term memory as I do, you couldn’t remember his name if you met him! LOL
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OxDrover says:
EB, WOW!!!! That was fortunate! Federal drug charges, great! Did he spend any time in the joint for that? You are like I am, apparently, save every piece of paper that goes across your finger tips. Just like I saved probably 99% of the letters from P son. Still don’t know why, but glad I did.
I’m thinning out a lot of that junk now, but keeping the letters from son P, in fact have them VERY safe! In case I ever need them again. Plus the lawyer has copies of the really “good” ones. Just decided I don’t need to keep the stuff that isn’t worthwhile as a tax proof in case I need it. The rest of the stuff can go.
Well, the bad storms passed within 4 miles of us, hit several places in the state and killed some folks, I hear, blew away some houses, but it is time to go to bed now. See you guys later.
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one_step_at_a_time says:
well, it just gets more and more solid and difficult for him, doesn’t it.
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ErinBrock says:
Stay grounded oxy…..hope your safe!!!
I do keep everything….and now, knowing I have used things I never thought possible, I thik I’ll be hard pressed to get rid of anything EVER…..
YIKES…..when I’m 90 the kids will find my body under file boxs and documents……
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ErinBrock says:
Ya know……
I’ve been thinkng this week….about a time when I found a letter written from a chica in switzerland that he got at a friends po box……and hid in a clients garage…..
and I just so happened to find the dang thing…..naked pics and all…..
Long story short…..I told him……then….IF, he ever lied to me again…..he’d regret it always!
Well…..hmmmmmm…don’t think he thought I was serious….
I did give him a heads up ya know……and I meant business….and now….I’m following up on my meaning business.
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one_step_at_a_time says:
when you are 90 HE will be long dead and you can chuck everything the eff out.
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ErinBrock says:
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geminigirl says:
TOWANDA EB!! The law of Karma will get them all in the end!
As if we wever doubted it, -you have living proof that the Law of Karma WORKS!!!! I know at times we think maybe God isa bit slow on the job, and maybe he could use a helping hand from us? RELAX!! he knows what HE?SHe is doing!
Boomerang Karma is when it comes back to hit you in the teeth, real quick!
people think God and Jesus are patsies, only kind and loving, but NO, says in the Bible,”VENGEANCE IS MINE says the Lord!
While I agree with Oxy thata lot of us were brought up to fear a vengeful, tyrannical God, spitting thunderbolts,if we LOVE Him and do our best to be good, He sees it. But he hates liars, thieves, adulterers, sadists,murderers.phoneys,and sex perverts{pedophiles] and criminals. It isa TERRIBLE thing to fall into the hands of the living God, IF you are a spath.We can relax, sit back, and leave them {the spaths,} to Gods divine JUSTICE!!
Mama Gem.XX
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ErinBrock says:
Thanks Gem!!!
I SOOOOOO believe in the Karma effect.
And I KNOW…..it all turns out the way it should!!!!
And SO……IT IS!
OXY:
I just saw your post wayyyy up…..
YES darlen….I certainly will be there with my (XX state emblem shirt) In NEON GREEn…..with the hwy patrol emblem and my friends……
I’ve got almost 6 months to plan!!!
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one_step_at_a_time says:
KARMA – i can’t speak to the Hindu concept of karma, but i can speak to the Buddhist concept.
we are creating karma all the time – good or bad, it is ALL still an obstacle to enlightenment and completely WITHOUT moral reasoning – it is more like a law of physics. you do a and b will happen to you. it also says that we have been all beings mothers and children.
and that karma is what drives reincarnation, propelling us form life to life. we accumulate and wear off karma form life after life.
and here’s the good news for those of us who mix karma up with righteous retribution (a more Christian concept, and def. NOT a Buddhist concept) – the karma we experience in this life has little to do with what we do in this life – we are still burning off karma from eons of other lives –
WHICH MEANS IT’S GONNA BE EONS BEFORE HE GETS THE KARMA FOR WHAT HE HAS DONE IN THIS LIFE EB!
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pollyannanomore says:
Buttons your comment made me laugh – I am similar to you. I do depilate my legs and underarms but there is no way a wax strip is going anywhere near the enchanted forest! I trim but that’s for personal hygiene down there … I did try shaving once upon a time and your thoughts about prickles and itching are right on! I ended up with what looked like a bad case of juvenile acne complete with ingrown hairs – never going there again lol ( what a topic – light relief!)
Oxy I can relate to some of what you say about getting older – particularly seeing how beautiful we were when younger. i am ok now but when I was 17 I was absolutely stunning …. and I had no idea. I thought I was fat and average looking! I am seeing wrinkles form and my body change over time and am coming to terms with it slowly – it is inevitable with time. No point in stressing about it. I too see women dressing younger than their age and have to say … some of them look stunning and some look ridiculous. Age shouldn;t be an excuse to be drab and wear shapeless garments – women of all sizes and ages can be beautiful but I do think your personal style should evolve over time. I wear far less makeup than I used to. when my skin was perfect I wore heavy foundation and dark lipsticks but now tend to go for a light mineral powder, a sweep of mascara and a neutral lippy and it looks better – heavy makeup looks awful on me now.
EB that must have been validating for this person to realise you put up with decades of this chit from your ex. Funny how one incident can illuminate what you’ve been trying to explain to others for years. The same happened to me with not such a dramatic example but my mother actually said “Now I understand some of what you were putting up with – this makes it clear.” I felt validated and it opened the door for me to talk a little about what else happened. Rather than telling me I was exaggerating or misinterpreting his motives, she actually listened from a different space now she had this clear example of his behaviour.
One step = I like the idea of karma – it helped me to recover from this by putting it in the perspective that it was a learning my soul needed for some reason – maybe I was a bitch in a previous life! I have seen the spath get some ‘instant karma’ too though but think he will need eons to burn off what he’s accumulated in just this life.
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one_step_at_a_time says:
hi polly!
what you say is true – if we can frame it for ourselves in that way, we get to own the journey.
oh, he’s going to be in trouble for a long long time.
re ‘instant karma’ – in Buddhism it would be considered the ripening of old karma – the things that brought him to that point over many ‘kalpas’ (a gazillion million eons or something….since ‘beginingless time’), and since he did nothing to mitigate that karma (ie by changing his ways, and purification meditation, etc.) he’s burning. thing is, we all burn, can’t avoid it – but we can take steps to incinerate less often and to come out only partially charred over time.
okay, that’s a bit of a gruesome metaphor.
and now i feel inspired to go sit and meditate.
xo one step
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OxDrover says:
Dear Polly,
Yea, there is a gal I see sometimes who is referred to as “Botox Barbie” and that is what she looks like–great descriptive term. Personally, I would rather be me! Oh, I am anything but drab! LOL I’m like you, wore all kinds of fake make up when I was younger, but that was the “rage” then, for part of the time any way. Wear little now, even when I do go “dress up,” but the donkeys really don’t care if I “dress up” or not! LOL I love retirement because I don’t have to dress up to go to work every day!
I saw the actress Ann Margaret the other night on a TV series and she was hideous! So much plastic surgery the dimple in her chin was formerly her navel, and the “young style” hair. It all looked so hideous on a woman 65+, she looked like a melted Barbie Doll in the face. The thing that “hit’ me was, how pathetic she looked, like she had thrown away any DIGNITY or GRACE in aging for a very FAKE-looking “youth” that actually made her look ridiculous.
I thought to myself–heck, I look better than Ann Margaret! LOL ROTFLMAO
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one_step_at_a_time says:
http://www.pooler-georgia-home.....er-web.jpg
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OxDrover says:
Dear One_step,
It sure ain’t for sissies! Sharing your bed with “Arthur-itis” takes GUTS! I hate the SOB!
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pollyannanomore says:
Yep I am getting more relaxed as I get older … God forbid I end up like one of these disasters!
http://www.oddee.com/item_96587.aspx
One Step … the concept of karma allowed me to let go and stop focussing on revenge against him – he is his own worst enemy so I don’t have to do a thing – he will wreck his own life in the end. Is there a worse punishment than having no soul???
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one_step_at_a_time says:
polly – i can’t imagine what it is like on the inside of them or what it must to be like to realize how different they are from everyone else. must be QUITE odd. and he is his own worst enemy, no doubt.
there are still moments when i’d like a crack at being the ppaths worst enemy, but i am just not as F**ked up as she is.
oxy – yah, that dude is slamming me right now, and don’t get me started on his demented cousin, fibro myalgia!
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truthteller says:
If is true that 80% of men ADMIT to looking at port in the past 8 months (probably higher since there would be many scenarios when men wouldn’t admit to using porn – even to themselves) this begs questions:
I know that there are some religious people on this site – but I haven’t noticed any fundamentalists. So lets assume, for conversation, that pretty much all ladies on this site approve of sexuality expressed in some medim.
However, the question of interest is the CONTENT that you personally like, OR the type of “porn” that you would find acceptale for a partner to consume.
Erotica/porn ranes from overtly sexual abstract paintings or sculptures, erotic literature, nude photography… it could be the porn videos produced by women centric companies showing an actual interest in the peasure of the woman and casting women with a bit more range in body-type and age.
OR it could look like the porn that is actually being mass consumed.
After discovering the P, I spent a year researching the current status of porn. Just a couple of my observations from my time sitting in the grimy bottom of the trash can:
Females be at least 18 and look even younger. If you have only two shots, one is always a full frontal highlighting your breasts (usually augmented) and completely waxed bald pubic area. The second shot should show the teen bent over, rear to the camera spread to show both orifices, with her head turned back. Here face does have a bit of variation: she can be overtly trying to look sexy, or she can be grinning ear to ear like an innocent schoolgirl. Sorry to be so grapic. I could write so much more but will spare you all.
My personal opinion has always been: the body, erotica, portrayals of varied sexuality = healthy, beautiful. Fine, fine, no-brainer.
However, I think that mainstream porn objectifies and demeans and degrades women, lowers our society in every way, and the lives of the participating women are most often shredded – women with hx of rape and molestation, drug addicted, sex slavery in 2010. Yeah, there are a few exceptions.
I am wondering, among the women on this site with boys-will-be boys attitutes…. Or those stating a general appreciation of erotica….
What % of the men that are looking at porn do you think are looking at the type of porn you would approve of vs. the actual porn that is being mass-consumed (The mainstram porn machine is a huge by $$$ as the legitimate entertaiment industry.)?
Um, unicorn.
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bulletproof says:
truthteller
ha ha What a conversation stopper!
I decided to look at pornography for a few reasons. I am a recovering Catholic and really wanted to embrace sexuality, learn a few things and just see what all the fuss was about!
Prior to this I was ardent feminist, never felt the need to know about porn, I related to my boyfriend as an equal etc. sex was great even though it was on my terms (no dressing up in silly frilly things) I was anti feminity -Now I really want to re claim being feminine, and that’ what prompted me to observe the porn world to see what delights awaited! allowing myself at last to go into the cake shop and see whats on the shelf…..
At first it seemed fine even exhilirating, but that old feminist side of me was getting disturbed as I watched normal mainstream porn….why? because It left me feeling sad, depressed, sick and I think it’s because of the objectification of female sexuality….there is something cruel going on and I am not talking about healthy vigourous sex, I am talking about a subtle undercurrent of ridicule, mockery, disrespect, force, stuffing, frenzied, gagging (to go into the extreme of it where it is all heading)
Porn offers an escape from intimacy, feelings, affection, love, and goes into objectify, humiliate, anger and what looks like to me hate. I always end up feeling the woman is USED and ABUSED and its a cumulative effect.
I will not watch it anymore unless in a research mode, because I am seriously concerned about the subliminal effect of this so called ‘healthy sexuality’ has on formative children-teenagers-young adults.
At the end of the day for me, sex is about being present to another person, it’s about feeling warm, loved, respected and from there much can happen…but skip over the building of that trust with another human being and you are in trouble.
I wish that intelligent empathetic human beings ran the porn industry but they don’t and psychopathic love will soon be mainstream.
Empathy is lacking in the porn world, yet it’s what sells most???? something is well wrong and I guess we are heading towards a new sexual revolution that will “get it” that to hurt a woman isn’t sexy
My feminist take on it…. is, men are afraid of women and thats why they objectify them….another conversation stopper anyone??? but don’t mind me, I fell in love with a psychopath player robber scam artist!!! who pretended to be the love of my life…
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Buttons says:
Truthteller, I appreciate your insight into this issue of pornography, 100%! As an artist, nudity and the human anatomy has an impact upon me as subject matter, but I was completely unaware of what “pornography” was until I met th ex spath.
As an adolescent and young adult, I always had a high level of sexual energy – not necessarily perversions, but (perhaps) a misunderstanding that sex=love. When I married the ex spath, I was exposed to things (photos, videos, activities) that I could not even have imagined in my wildest dreams/nightmares. Because of the damage that I associate with it, I revile hard-core pornography.
What I discovered with the ex spath was that the material had to escalate in shock value, as the years went on. The materials became more and more demeaning, humiliating, violent, and objectifying, and I quickly found nausea replacing arousal as he began demanding that I perform whatever he was viewing. “It’s NATURAL! What the hell is wrong with you? Have you gone asexual on me, or have you gone lesbo?” was the vein of his rants. Then, it moved from demands, to rape. “How can a husband rape his own wife? Tell the TRUTH! ALL WOMEN fantasize about being raped!”
I never even could bring myself to tell this to my therapist, after I left him. I couldn’t open that door because of the humiliation, degradation, and objectification that I still felt for many years, afterwards. I can vividly remember a PSTD episode with my husband (new partner) when he said, “If you do _______, I’ll give you a kiss!” I went off my cog and exploded into an absolute rage screaming, “Don’t you EVER try to trade with me!!!!!” and other accusations. He was not intending to objectify me, whatsoever – he was just JOKING, but I went back to that place where the ex spath would force himself upon me and spit in my face in exchange for purchasing groceries, birthday cakes, medical care, or other needs, usually for our sons.
Hard-core pornography feeds a deviant monkey. Porn isn’t about love, healthy sexuality, or respect.
Holy cow, sorry for the rant!
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Hopeforjoy says:
Dear Buttons,
Thanks so much for opening up, it’s absolutedly horrendious what you went through. You are a brave woman who never deserved to be put through that hell. “All women want to be raped”? OMG! Porn escalated the brain rot in your husband spath head. LOSER!
This conversation has helped me with my healing because I see like minded people who are open minded and enjoy sex, intimacy, and are playful, but think main stream porn is demeaning. I do hope our next generation say enough is enough. With teenagers sexting, etc. They are getting the wrong message about healty sexuality.
The porn industry now is huge! The sad thing is, of the men and women who are in the industry, around 90% have a drug or alcohol addiction and most were sexually abused as children. Do you think they have high self-esteem? Patrick Carnes talks about porn addiction in his books, (“Out of the Shadows, Facing the Shadow, and In the Shadow of the Net”), are good books on the subject.
Blessings and hugs! You are so brave.
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one_step_at_a_time says:
Truthteller, Buttons, Bulletproof, Hopeforjoy.
Thank you all for the research you have done, and your thoughtfulness and generosity in speaking to the subject of porn as it has related to your lives and your experience of ppaths.
I am again, made strong by the company I keep on lf. The intelligence and creativity of the posters continues to edify me.
It makes me wish we had another forum, where we could discuss an even wider array of topics. But, this conversation shows me that this forum can be used to take the personal to the political and back again in a very intelligent and healing way.
My ppath was not what he said he was. In any way. Was not, in fact, a he. We met on a fetish community website. Of course sexuality was a big part of our friendship and then part of whatever the hell else that was that we were/weren’t/were…you get my drift.
I too have always been a very sexual person, although my sex life has been quite wedded to my love life after I was out of my 20′s, so has been quite unexpressed as I spent 18 years alone. But I joke endlessly and sexuality is part of it. And the not real boy and I joked/ talked endlessly about gender and sexuality. I felt I finally had met someone who was fluid, courageous, deviant and true to themselves – and I admired ALL of this. There is a heap of stuff I am just not comfortable telling here. That we met on a fetish community website I keep to myself mostly, as people tend to sensationalize this aspect and that is reductive and alienating to me, and rather makes anything else in the conversation moot.
I never felt a sense of degradation around sexual practice with the ppath – there was emotional coercion though and it had to do with the expression of the parameters of the relationship. I wasn’t going to say much about this, but what the hell….shortly after we connected, another person came into his life – a boy he had known as a young child. This person became his lover also. In theory, I had no trouble with this – especially given the dynamic of the boy always falling to pieces physically and emotionally – 2 people seemed like a GOOD idea. It’s the tribe thing. My desire for tribe WAS manipulated – this is where the emotional coercion comes in: the fairy story she told me, which reflected my deepest wishes. The other person was not a nice person; became jealous, possessive and belligerent over time, and ultimately this behavior would have driven me away, if both the boy and the other person hadn’t fake died. As you may have guessed the other person was ALSO the spath – one of many sock puppets. She stirred this; she used sexuality to stir jealousy and insecurity in people. In hindsight I see that she did it with others in the community – always trying to provoke fights. I think she gets a BIG rush out of people’s weaknesses and fears being exposed and them hurting one another. It must be a VERY good spathy day when she can get a couple of folks to undermine one another in some way in public. When I read comments others make about her (when they know who and what she really is) there is such wariness and pain in their writing (there is a blog kept by own of her other dupes). It is their writing more than anything that makes me wary and protective about the sort of havoc she can wreak when she is outed.
One of the things that I find continually interesting is why so many of her scams involve her being male. I don’t believe that ppaths have a sexual orientation the way that others do. That she was female doesn’t disturb me; that she was a lying sack of crap does. Her boy character was one who was submissive AND had been abused endlessly in his life – sexually, physically and emotionally – the pity ploy. She once wrote me this long email (as another of the sock puppets, the boyfriend, not the main character) about the boy’s sexuality. I need to go read that. She goes on at length about HIS need for degradation, blah blah blah.
Now, I don’t for a second believe that she personally wants to be degraded or humiliated or contained or whatever the $%&* she babbles about. In part she does this to attract compassionate people who try to talk her characters out of it – and try to coach him to become more ‘whole.’ Mind you I should ask another of the dupes about this, see what her experience was. but I think the ppath wants to get others to treat her characters in a certain way so that she has ‘secrets’ about them that she can later use to threaten and blackmail them – as she is want to do. Coercion is a big thing with her. She is trolling around in ‘queer’ space often. Queer people, as a group ARE easier to take down – we DO make better prey – we HAVE been at risk of threat often enough in our lives, and we also often keep parts of our lives private/ secret from significant other parts of our lives. And this can easily be used against us.
Oh my, she is such a bag of dirt.
Thankfully, today will be my first day in the REAL dirt this year; going to the garden to turn the soil.
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OxDrover says:
Guys, I enjoyed your various takes on this subject and I think that it is very relevent to our conversations about psychopaths.
Because I think at least for a woman’s perspective of bonding with the person she has sex with (oxytocin hormone release) this is a biological process evolved over eons. Males may not bond as strongly to ONE woman as the women do to the males they have sex with. Of course, culture mainly was focused on the males, and on the offspring being his, so the woman had to be chaste but the man wasn’t expected to be, or could have multiple partners (wives) etc.
Still, prostitution for male sexual release (and subsistence for the woman) and for “religious” purposes was acceptable or expected. Our western culture openly despises prostitution yet, it is still very available because it is still USED. No buyer, nothing to sell=the practice goes away. So it obviously hasn’t.
I think in a way porn is now accessible to the masses where for most of history it hasn’t been. There has been “porn” and erotic art since it was painted on cave walls, but it wasn’t available to everyone, only a few. Prostitutes were available to all but the poorest men.
The objectification of women I think has gone on longer than the idea of “love” though. It still does. While our “ideal” of sex being a “bonding ritual between two people who care about each other” in a one-on-one relationship for life is rather unrealistic given the nature of humans and our society.
With 50-60% of all married males cheating at least once, and 40% or so of married females, with a 50% divorce rate for first marriages and 75% for second marriages….finding and holding on to a “loving partner” I think is difficult at any age.
I’m just no longer willing to accept less than “a caring partner” in a one-to-one relationship. But that is MY decision based on several things from my moral compass to my desire not to acquire something antibiotics won’t cure!
When groups of people are debased and objectified (and I think generally in porno that is women) the person who is objectifying tends to become more and more jaded and require more and more “deviant” porn to excite them. Sort of like drugs, it habituates requiring stronger and stronger doses to reach the same level of “high.”
With nude ART variety and various poses might be nice, but the beauty of one doesn’t make another less beautiful or desirable I don’t think. Kind of like the older “artsy” Playboys before they showed pubic vs Hustler. It is hard to describe but you “know it when you see it.” I think a supreme court judge said that but can’t remember who!
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Buttons says:
OxD, I agree with your insights. Objectification is the point, here, not arousal or even fetishes. It’s what happens to the psyche that determines whether or not it’s beneficial.
Personally, I like nude and erotic art – but, there’s a difference between erotica and pornography, I think.
This is a good discussion and offers some very important insight.
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OxDrover says:
Yep, I definitely agree! In a painting class I took years ago we painted nudes and I have always appreciated “good” photographs of nudes or semi nudes as “art” but not turning the person (male or female) into an object!
The largest sex organ in the human is the BRAIN!
However, in the psychopath it is a perverted one!
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Hopeforjoy says:
Thank you kind people, for being so honest, it is refreshing and real.
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ErinBrock says:
Well…..ya’ll made it easy for me to decide on what to give ya’ll for Christmas this year…….
I made an apt with a brain photographer this week!
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Hopeforjoy says:
Too funny!!!
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OxDrover says:
EB, I’lll volunteer your X for the photograph (it will be porno) but I will practice my surgery in opening his skull! Maybe with a piece of rock! I’mm out of practice in surgery since I retired, but that’s okay, we’re only looking for a LITTLE BRAIN!
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ErinBrock says:
I’ve got a dull rock that might work!
Ya know….I remembered a few months ago when our oldest was 2…….spath disappeared with jr for the day….
Spaths mohter is an artist, water colors…..
and for some reason he ‘got inspired’…..
When he came home…..he said, he took Jr to an art class….
I thought this was odd….because he had never mentioned it to me prior AND any activity for Jr, I was always ‘behind’……and signed him up and took him….spath never participated in taiqwon do or swimming or dance or whatever……BUT ART CLASS???
A few days later, Jr was talking about being naked with Daddy……in front of people.
I queried him……and it came out that they were POSING for an art class…..
The farker took my son and they BOTH posed naked in this class.
WTF???
Uh,isn’t this something you discuss with the WIFE and MOTHER of the child?
I totally understand the prefice of the art – neked posing thing…..
BUT THIS WAS MY CHILD…..and in NO way did I feel comfortable with it…..
With children being raped, exploited, kidnapped……
I didn’t need to provide the ‘art’ community with my child as a study!!!!
I was pissed!!!
And……hmmmmm, how does this ‘opportunity’ just pop up one day ????
What a scumbag!!
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Buttons says:
OxD, you use a rock??? I prefer rusty butter knives….especially with spath circumcisions…..
omigawd…..what an evil idea….
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Buttons says:
EB, OMIGOD!!!!!!!!!!!! some people just need some killin’…
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ErinBrock says:
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OxDrover says:
Dear EB,
WOW! How can I top that one???????? WTFark!? Anything for money! and oh, I bet he loved posing nekid for all the world to see it hanging out, his pride and joy!
Taking a baby to pose nekid! ROTFLMAO I would have been pithed too. I’m not laughing at what he did, just at his gall to do such a thing. the Ps are always suprising me, even when I think I have SEEN IT ALL!
Yea, Buttons, we get pretty sicko sometimes, but it is just my gallows humor coming out I guess. Gotta laugh at something! Actually when I do animal surgery I use a single edge razor blade, cheap and reasonably sterile. Never actually done any bone cutting, but used to work for an orthopod and watched him do it many times. They actually use a lot of tools that look like they were bought at ACE hardware or Tool-CO. Just can be sterilized and cost a LOT MORE!!!!
The last attempt at surgery I made was castrating a chicken and it was a miserable failure! What I was looking for was the size of a grain of rice, and found it, but just too tedious for me now. Ended up cutting his head off instead! My hands are not as steady as they ust’a be.
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OxDrover says:
Buttons, in my county it is a valid excuse for knocking someone off “He just needed killiin’ ” I think EB’s P qualifies. I hope the kid peed or shat upon him.
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Buttons says:
OxD….we used the same thing at the barn where I worked for abcesses. Straight, flat, regular razor and all. Oh, that was always more fun than a porcupine in a nudist camp.
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OxDrover says:
I got abscesses in a heard of dairy goats once and it was a mess. I cleaned them all out and it was like “surgical central” and of course once they got one, even if you cleared them up they were in the herd. Sell off and repopulate is the eaziest thing. I’ve kept almost a closed herd of cattle for nearly 20 years and quarentine new additions and kept them few and far between and have had very little disease or problems with my cattle. Have them tested and vaccinated for everything possible, still quarentine 60-90 days–has saved my bacon a couple of times. But in the long run worth it. I even practiced “safe sex” for my cattle as cattle have STDs too. Only a virgin bull. Can’t really get them to wear condoms and when you can, it cuts down on the reproduction rate! ROTFLMAO
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