Lovefraud Blog » Blog Archive » After the sociopath: How do we heal? Part 11

After the sociopath: How do we heal? Part 11 – Trust

Sunday, 21 June 2009 @ 9:02pm • My Weblog

I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.
– Frederic Nietzsche

In recovering from a sociopathic relationship, one of our greatest challenges is to rediscover the meaning of trust. Trust is a kind of glue in our lives. If we are going to be vibrant human beings, living with healthy curiosity and developing ourselves through calculated risks and learning from our experiences, we have to be able to depend on some background truths. When our lives are rocked by unexpected disaster, the impact on our ability to trust our perceptions or our world around us can be massive.

This issue comes up over and over on LoveFraud. We hear it most clearly from the people in early recovery. But it’s an issue at every stage of healing, including the process of forgiving discussed in the last article.

This article will look at some issues around trust, and offer some thoughts about why a relationship with a sociopath illuminates this issue, and what we can do to recover.

Catching the sociopath’s disease

As readers of my writing know, I have my own perspective of the psychology of sociopaths. It sometimes overlaps current theories, but is based more on what I have observed and lived through. I believe that the core issue in the sociopathic dysfunction is a virtually total blockage of interpersonal trust.

I settled on this, because it can explain other symptoms they exhibit. It also matches the personal stories of everyone I’ve known who arguably could be diagnosed as a sociopath, a psychopath, a malignant narcissist or a decompensating borderline. Their personal stories tend to be about the social isolation caused by their differences in temperament or circumstances, or about massive breakdown in their safety or nurture, especially as infants or toddlers. I believe they skew toward the independent, rather than dependent side of the disorder spectrum because of the developmental timing of these crises, as well as lack of support and validation at a crucial time.

Be that as it may, they not only gave up trusting, but blocked off need for it as dangerous to their physical and psychological survival. And they became chronic, eternal loners, living by their wits on the “mean streets,” and viewing any part of the world based on trust-related structures with envy, bitterness and disdain. Their highest sense of the outcome of relationships is winning, because it supports their survival needs and because getting what they want is the only type of interpersonal exchange they can regard as both safe and pleasurable.

With only transient and shallow human connections, they live with emotional starvation, grasping after anything that makes them feel “real” or rewarded. Except for expediency, they have no stake in the world of mutual agreements, like laws or social contracts, and no motivation to behave altruistically. As eternal outsiders, they assume that anything they own or build is vulnerable. So, they are highly concerned with neutralizing threats and building invulnerability (wealth, social acceptance, etc.). But jumping ship, when necessary, is relatively easy, because their need to feel like they are winning or in control is more essential to their internal stability than their attachment to any person or thing.

All of this is important in the context of contagion. Feelings and feelings-connected ideas are contagious. We know this from mob psychology. Peer pressure. The way the character of an authority figure, like a CEO, can shape an entire organization. Many of us have gotten involved in “project” relationships where we feel like we have the resources to help someone out of depression, addiction or some kind of life failure, and discovered they’ve dragged us down as much as we’ve dragged them up. And of course, we are influenced by emotional vocabularies of our families of origin, as well as our intimate relationships, because we strongly desire to stay bonded.

Relationships with sociopaths put a special spin on the issue of contagion. The sociopath urgently wants to influence us. On our side, we are typically comfortable with sacrificing some personal independence for a positive and intense connection. (All relationships involve some compromise, but people who evade or escape early from sociopathic relationships may more resistant to early concessions.) So we have one partner, the sociopath, who needs us to give up our autonomy and another partner, us, who is willing to do so in exchange for the benefits of intensely positive relationship.

We feel like we are in agreement. We feel like winners. But as the relationship progresses, our objectives begin to conflict. We are looking for ongoing emotional support and validation, to feel loved and to know our wellbeing is important to our partner. They are looking for control of resources in their ongoing struggle to survive as unconnected loners. Once they have won with us, they turn their attention to new sources, unless we threaten to revolt. Then, they may re-groom us with loving attention or try to diminish our will through verbal, emotional or physical abuse. For them, the choice of technique isn’t meaningful, as long as it works. Over time, they are more openly annoyed at “wasting” energy on us, unless they are getting something new out of it.

For us, living with a sociopath’s reality is both a radical re-education and an ongoing demolition of beliefs we need to be true. LoveFraud is peppered with statements that begin with “How could he…?” and “I can’t believe that…” and “What kind of person would…?” One of the core pieces of our learning the sociopath’s reality is feeling alone, unsupported and unable to depend on a supposedly trusted connection. Another piece is the feeling of emotional starvation and being in a game designed to keep us in the loser role. Another is the discovery that trust is a fool’s game, and we have to stop if we’re going to survive.

That’s not all. There is the chronic bitterness, envy and resentfulness. There is the aggrieved entitlement to any behavior that serves them, as payback for whatever forced them to jam their ability to trust into the locked basement of their psyches. There is the whole mechanical modus operandi, rigidly designed to avoid the fear and grief of abandonment. There is frantic need to keep busy, developing new schemes to avoid slipping into a pit of depression that they equate with suicide. Ruthless survivors, at whatever cost to themselves or anyone else, is probably the most accurate way to describe them.

All this is what we have been exposed to.

Understanding the lesson

“When the student is ready, the teacher will arrive,” is a well-known Buddhist saying. Another bit of Buddhist wisdom is that we fall in love with our teachers.

When it comes to relationships with sociopaths, this perspective can be a hard pill to swallow. However, we can agree that falling in love with these people initiates one of the most costly and painful lessons of our lives. For those of us who are vulnerable to these relationships, the lesson is also difficult to untangle and ultimately profound. Eventually, it leads many of us to question some of our deepest beliefs and to find the courage to let go of beliefs that have outlived their usefulness, even though they once gave us comfort and feelings of safety in the world.

Fortunately, that courage pays off for us, though we may not know it while we’re grieving something we loved. The greatest achievements of our lives often involve surmounting fear to take huge risks. There is no more fearful risk than letting go of a foundation belief that we trusted for our survival. But we let it go when we have no choice, because it is clearly no longer adequate to support our survival.

In a relationship with a sociopath, we are immersed in an entirely different human reality than our own. The mutual attraction between people of a sociopathic type and people who have codependent tendencies is a cliché that is probably not accurate to all the people and situations described on LoveFraud, but it does describe an interpersonal dynamic that is reasonably consistent. Even people who have been blindsided by out-of-the-blue personality changes face the challenges of dealing with sociopathic relationships with our non-sociopathic beliefs and survival strategies.

This interpersonal dynamic is a kind of head-on collision of radically different survival styles. The sociopathic partner is committed to depending on himself, no matter what temporary dependencies he or she might arrange. The other partner is oriented toward depending on agreements of mutual support. This doesn’t mean that non-sociopaths cannot survive outside an intimate relationship, anyone who would attract them or even consider a relationship with one of them probably is the type of person who feels they do better in reciprocal, committed and trust-based partnership with another person.

The reason codependency comes into this is that codependents and others on the dependent side of the personality spectrum experience needs (rather than wants) in their preference for mutual support as a survival strategy. The more intimate the relationship, the more they need the other person to become actively involved in the preservation their wellbeing, especially in the emotional realm. Those perceived needs (rather than wants) make it more likely they will bargain away important aspects of their identity, resources and plans into order to obtain that caring attention.

Sociopathic survival depends on other people’s agreements to provide them with resources. We could argue that they are just as dependent as we are, but the key difference is the way we make decisions about our lives. Sociopathic decisions are “me” oriented, whether they are impulsive in-the-moment choices or important long-term choices of change in life direction. Their partners – who are both targeted by the sociopath and self-selected by their tolerance or inability to escape the sociopath’s treatment in relationship – have the tendency to put “us” first in their decision-making.

At this point, I can hear rumbling out there of “Tell me something I don’t know.” I know you know. But I hope this long description clarifies the real nature of our challenge. We have been closely involved with someone who doesn’t trust or connect emotionally, and who uses our need or desire for a trustworthy partner to enforce our involvement and extract resources that he or she has no intention of repaying. We have immigrated to planet Sociopath and our visas are all stamped “loser.”

Since this is their world, what would they tell us if we asked them about how to get this loser stamp off our visa? If we caught them at a moment when they were blissed out with anti-anxiety drugs stolen from their last girlfriend or feeling generous because they were feeling flush after some big win, they might say, “Don’t be such a dope. The world is full of people and situations in which other people win by using you. If you don’t care enough about you to protect yourself and your resources, this is what you get. Save your whining for your victim friends. You must like it or you wouldn’t volunteer for it.”

Ouch. Well, the Buddhists don’t say anything about the teacher being a nice guy.

Power and Resilience

The meaning of this lesson changes as we move through our phases of healing. People in early-stage recovery are terrified by the prospect of a world without trust. People in the angry stage are fighting back, sharpening their skills at identifying situations and people that cannot be trusted, building better boundaries against aggressive users, and getting active in neutralizing threats to them and people they care about.

After we develop and practice these skills, we earn some confidence about our ability to deal with incoming threats. This enables us to gradually shift our focus from vigilance against threats (what we don’t want) to interest recreating our lives (what we do want). We don’t forget what happened or minimize its importance. But we build on what we learned about our power and entitlement to make choices. Maybe for the first time since we were teenagers, we invest serious thought on how we want to feel, who we want to be, and the way we want our lives to play out in this new world.

With our power to choose comes increased emotional independence. We start viewing our lives as something we create and our results as something we earned. We still value relationships, but we are less willing to compromise our identities, give away our resources or change our plans. We become more interested in less dramatic relationships with other people who are learning through living. We share stories, validation and encouragement, but we are also conscious of each other’s limited resources. A relationship may naturally deepen. But we don’t need that to survive, and we are cautious, because we don’t want to discover too late that our great friendship did not prepare us for the different needs of a love affair.

When we face the idea of never trusting again in the way we once did, it can be very scary. The scariest thing is what might happen inside us. We don’t want to become suspicious, angry people. We don’t want to live in a constant state of anxious alert.

But we’re not giving up the ability to trust. We’re giving up something else, the trust of a child who has no choice but to trust, because it is dependent. And so that child turns to magical thinking to preserve belief in the trustworthiness of its parents or the safety of its environment, no matter how much evidence there may be to the contrary. This is the mirror-reverse of the sociopath’s survival strategy of blocking of trust. If we are still doing this magical thinking as adults, we also are dealing with blocked development that keeps us in a childlike reality. In learning to trust conditionally, and to limit our investments in other people’s lives to match what we get out of it, we are transitioning to the world of grown-up trust.

The childlike trust is a trust in being loved and supported, no matter what. In truth, we haven’t really believed in this for a long time. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have kept paying more and more to be accepted and loved. Even though we can live in ways that reduce our risk, we already know that no one can really buy an insurance policy against things changing. Everything changes. An awake, aware life creates itself with the knowledge of change. But it doesn’t mean that there is nothing we can trust.

It just means that we trust conditionally. We trust what is consistent, until it isn’t consistent anymore. This makes almost everything in our lives trustworthy. The sun rises and sets. Snarling dogs are likely to bite. Cars eat gas and steel bumpers are stronger but more expensive to replace that plastic ones. Roses like a lot of rain. Tomatoe plants don’t. The leftovers in the refrigerator that smell icky are bad to eat. People who don’t share our ethics or world views are interesting at dinner parties, but risky to do business with or marry. These are background truths we can conditionally trust until something changes.

These smaller, conditional trusts serve the same purpose as our desire for larger, unconditional trusts did before. The real difference is that we trust now in a way that leaves more room for life. Knowing that trust may be transient makes it that much more lovely. We have limited resources – intellectual and emotional – and one of the risks of life is to trust what appears to be stable, so that we can use our resources to make new things grow.

For readers who are not anywhere near ready to feel powerful about their choices, here is a simple rule you can use until you are. Guard your trust as though it were an extension cord from your heart. Don’t give it away to anyone you don’t firmly believe deserves it. And be prepared to unplug the cord at a moment’s notice. You can always plug it back in again, if you find you’ve made a mistake by unplugging it. No one who really cares (or who is capable of caring) about you will mind you taking care of yourself. But your trust in other people and in the world should be a conduit for good into your life. That’s what it’s for.

If it brings anything else, don’t thing twice. Unplug it. A good life should have lots of these extension cords, some heavier duty than others, leading to all kinds of things that bring us good. People, institutions, books, artists, blogs. If unplugging one or two makes us feel lost or destabilized, it probably means we need to find more things we enjoy without our lives depending on it.

In conclusion, you’ve probably all figured out that this is really about “becoming the sociopath,” but in a good way. We use the contagion to strengthen some of our weak spots, and to gain access to the “inner sociopath” when it’s appropriate. There is fundamentally nothing wrong with what sociopaths do, except that it’s all that they do. They can’t respond to love. They can’t trust anything but themselves. They can’t stop replaying their primal drama, because their lack of trust blocks them from ever learning that they are not alone.

Fortunately for us, more dependent types are open to input. We not only can learn, but many of us are truly excited by anything that breaks us out of our limitations. We know we’re not losers, but sometimes it takes a long time to overcome our training. In getting involved with a sociopath, we took the biggest risk of our lives. We stuck our heads into the mouth of the lion, and if you’ve gotten this far, you’ve taken a good look around and said, “Hey, I can do that.”

Next time, unless I get distracted, we will discuss love. This week I will not be available to follow the thread, so I hope you enjoy it, that it makes some sense to everyone, and it makes you feel good about wherever you are now. If you are on LoveFraud, I think you deserve to feel proud of yourself.

Namaste. The spirit of enlightened self-caring in me salutes the spirit of enlightened self-caring in you.

Kathy

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written by Kathleen Hawk • Permalink •

housie says:

Kathy…Thanks so much. This is great reinforcement to continue the path of healing and hope. These souls are pathetic human beings. I always felt that he was so much better than me because that was the unspoken feeling he always left me with. The price he pays every moment is something I can’t imagine living with. Robert Hare has something on the inside front cover of his book (I think it’s called The Mask of Sanity, or maybe I’m confusing a Hervey Cleckley book), but nonetheless, that eludes to the fact that we should have some semblence of compassion for these people. What you wrote above helps me to understand them for myself, so that I may continue to move forward. I had to turn him over to God, let go and move on with my life. I have arrived at the place I left off when I met him 42 years ago on the beach at Waikiki. I am getting a second chance to discover who I am without him, and it is so wonderful. I’ll share a miracle that happened just a few days ago when I was waiting for my son in a small park that happened to be across the street from the apartment that I lived in when I met the S. My son lives across the street from that apartment and the small park is in between. As I was sitting there I glanced over at the apartment I lived in when I was 19 and met the S. What a coincidence that 36 years later my own son would be living across the street from the very apartment I lived in when I met his S dad. Feelings flooded me of depersonalization and floating for about 2 hours, even as I went home and journaled. I felt crazy and “back there at that time”. In a while I knew I was on the other side and had re connected with the me that was lost all of those years ago. I am moving forward, letting the teacher appear, because this pupil is more than ready.

(Report abusive comment)

Sunday, 21 June 2009 @ 11:23pm

Betty says:

Kathy’s articles are a lifeline for me right now — they, along with your postings, are a big part of what I’m holding onto as I find my way. As I read this, I realized I’ve become much more aware of how trusting other people works best for me: instead of them starting off with 100% of my trust until they do things to deplete or loose it, new people in my life start out at neutral — it’s up to them to earn and keep my trust, and it’s up to me to set healthy boundaries. It’s a process now instead of a single initial snap judgment.

The hardest part for me right now is regaining my own trust! I let the destructive n/p chaos machine into my life, and I let her stay while she caused incredible destruction and wreckage that I’ll be dealing with for years. Once I was able to allow myself to look back over my life, I found one destructive person after another that I’d let harm me — this latest was simply the worst. And she got my attention and woke me from the fog (Fear Obligation Guilt — thank you, Oxy!)

So I’ve decided that I’m going to give me some room to earn my own trust: hang in there and see how I handle things as I get my life up and running again. Keep telling myself the truth with compassion: I like the idea of gentle correction, “You blew it there, Kid — we’ll get ‘um next time,” figuring out what happened and then allowing myself space to fall back, regroup, and try again. It’s amazing how much energy ya burn trying to be perfect and meet everybody’s needs while ignoring your own, so I’m thinking I need to keep pressing for new plan of operation that puts me responsible for myself, and then others when I choose to be. There’s still generosity in that plan, but this way, I don’t get left out.

Don’t think I’ll ever trust blindly again — but looking at where that took me, this isn’t such a bad thing.

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 3:41am

Escapee says:

Thanks for your post Betty. I’m swinging back and forth. Most days I feel I am ready to do the self-forgiving but some I slip right back and raille at the mess I am because I allowed the S to manipulate me and didn’t listen properly to my own inner guts screaming at me that ‘this just isn’t right’.

I liked your comment about starting off neutral. I try to stand back and observe before I ‘jump in’ in any new situation in my life (believe me I have no intention of it being a relationship ever again! Sad isn’t it?). Like you, I don’t think I ever ’set healthy boundaries’.

It’s hard to come to terms with the fact that that ‘nice’ person has gone – the one who always saw and looked for the best in others – My curve at the moment is getting over the resentment that I have had to change something I liked in myself because of the inadequacies of others and the need to protect against allowing one of the nightmare human beings into my orbit again.

Kathy – ‘the demolition of our belief system’ – spot on – I agree with your points and take heart from them but it does feel like the ‘destruction’ of something good. My mother taught me to always see the good and it sometimes feels like a violation of her memory (she passed 7 years ago) as she was such a good woman and I use her advice and wisdom in my life, usually as my first point of reference esp. pertaining to family, emotion and love etc. Is there no end to what these S/N/P s take from us?

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 7:44am

Elizabeth Conley says:

and…

I’m upset that you manipulate innocent people into doing your dirty work,

I’m upset that you’re infinitely high maintenance and totally one way,

I’m upset that you are unpredictably hostile and chronically violent,

but…

most of all I’m upset with myself, because I didn’t see all this from the first.

In retrospect, it was rather obvious.

Lying was only part of the picture, at least in the case of the S I dealt with.

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 10:00am

Kathleen Hawk says:

A quick note. I’m on deadline and shouldn’t be here.

First I apologize for the length of this piece. It is the only one I couldn’t edit online, because of some glitch in the software, and I just finally posted it raw.

Okay onto some of your comments.

First, the process of learning how to spot them, practicing defending ourselves, and actively neutralizing “bad actors” in our lives is where we start to rebuild our trust in ourselves. It’s not only what it appears to be. It also begins to change our responses in terms of jumping to be more helpful, more cooperative, more generous when we’re presented with someone else’s issues. Trains us to sit back, wait, gather information.

Our anger “wants” us to respond. That’s what this recurring flaming of ourselves is all about. We have emotional systems that have been ignored for years on end. In some ways, we’re retraining our own emotional reactions to learn that we will respond. They don’t have to keep on nagging us.

And in this sense, it’s compassionate wisdom to not hate the emotions or try to surpress them. Just keep telling yourself, as Betty said, I get it, I’m working on it, it’s important to me to get better at survival. All these voice in our head, all this emotional noises is us being worried about us. There is a part of us that is responsible for our survival and wellbeing. That’s the deep source of all this emotional noise and, I think, a lot of these hectoring and self-critical noises. It want us to take ourselves more seriously.

If this makes any sense, I also think that the appearance of sociopaths in our lives is part of this attempt by our survivor selves to get heard more clearly. We imagine them to be strong and protective. We’re using them to fill in for our weakness in these areas. But this time we picked a person who is really clarifying the fact that we have to do it for ourselves. And that quote from the imaginary sociopath that comes toward the end of the article could just as easily have come from the part of us that is interested in our survival. Wake up, it’s saying to us. No one is going to take care of this for you, but you.

Escapee, eventually we do see the good. I’m with your mother. But seeing the good in these relationships take a bit of travel. I keep trying to introduce the concepts that get us there. And the fact that we absolutely have to give up our childish ideas of what trust means is an important part of it. The sociopaths are replaying their primal dramas, but so are we when we look for unconditional safety in relationships. And when we’re so excruciatingly vulnerable to failures in that safety.

Everything in our lives tells us we survived. We figured out how to get through everything until now, and we did it well enough to survive. We may not have cleared away all the emotional residue from our past, but these relationships with sociopaths are really helpful in doing a lot of that internal housekeeping. They expose us not only to their dysfunction, but they teach us what they’re good at, if we’re paying attention.

We don’t have to go to the extreme that they did, giving up trust entirely. But we can see that a greater degree of self-reliance and self-interest and commitment to our own dreams and agendas is not only possible, but that if we don’t do it, we’re vulnerable to every stiff wind that comes alonge. And even more than that, if we don’t do it, we get into relationships where we’re expecting people to take care of us in ways we could be taking care of ourselves, and the cost for that kind of “service” is always high. No one wants to do it, unless they have equivalent issues with unfinished emotional business, or if they’re trying to use it to exploit us.

Psychologists say that we get involved with people who are at approximately the same level of emotional maturity as we are. Forgetting the sociopath, what this means about our future relationships is meaningful. If we want a grown-up, responsible partner, we have to be that. If we want someone who has a life, we have to be that. If we want someone who is truly comfortable with himself and so able to be emotionally generous without feeling threatened, we have to be that. For me, this was the work I faced in getting better. And it’s one of the reasons I’m not looking for a serious relationship now. I’m not finished with myself.

Where the sociopaths fit into that comment by psychologists I’m not sure. We have a broad spectrum of experiences here, and it would be hard to generalize. It would also be a highly inflammatory statement on this site, and I don’t want to draw the heat. However, what I do believe about my last relationship with the sociopath, is that we made each other worse. My inability to put any brakes on his behavior (when I had all the power to do that) let him spin out into more and more irresponsibility on an interpersonal level.

His behavior triggered all my latent issues about being safe, loved, belonging in this world at all. And I became more and more needy and functionally inadequate, not just with him, but with myself. Which left him dealing with someone who was not only desperate for what I imagined he could give, but throwing everything I had at him to try to convince him to behave differently. It gave him power over my life that excited him, but he was totally unprepared to handle. He behaved stupidly with the resources, and he was generally not stupid about money. It was just more than he could handle, and so he acted like a child throwing money in the air.

It was a total meltdown on my side, but on his side there were none of the usual social controls that a person in any relationship would expect. (Like, if I had a temper tantrum with a client, the feedback I would get would immediately make me consider whether that served me, or if I ever wanted to do that again.)

There is a lot of talk here about sociopaths not learning. And I think we don’t articulate this well. They do learn about what works socially and in relationships. They just don’t progress in terms of emotional maturity. There’s a big difference here, and it is meaningful to us in learning to navigate a world in which other people may care about their own objectives more than they care about us. (They don’t have to be sociopaths; sociopaths are just the worst case.)

Knowing our own limitations about what we want and don’t want, being able to communicate and enforce boundaries in a friendly non-judgmental way, saying what we want and how we want things to come out, dealing with the reality that’s in front of us and “trusting” that people will continue as well or as badly as we have already seen them behave, this is the stuff of a life in which we actually can create what we want. Circumstances are not always helpful. We may have to accept setbacks, and deal with the occasional disaster. But intention, focus and follow-through are powerful things. And this, too, we can learn from sociopaths. Everything about them is what they want.

I was in awe of the way this guy insisted on arranging his life to his own objectives. I hated the way he treated me (as a tool, as an objective, as something that was only there to help him get where he was going next). But he was doing something I’d never done in my life. He gave me exactly what he needed to give me to keep moving forward with his own plans. He regarded his life as his own responsibility and mine as mine. If I was there, I must be getting something out of it. If I didn’t like it and didn’t leave, I must be masochistic or crazy.

I kept looking at him, trying to figure out what he knew that I didn’t. Why was I totally involved in making him and everyone else happy, while the years were ticking away, and I wasn’t any closer to doing anything I really wanted than I was 30 years before. He used what I gave him to finish a novel, write a collection of short stories, learn the movie business, travel to places he wanted to go. While I was groveling around, asking if it was enough yet, did he love me now?

I hate it that he didn’t care, that he knowingly exploited my feelings to get what he wanted, and didn’t think he had any responsibility for my progressive self-destruction. He used me in other ways, to amuse himself when he was bored, to explore ugly power trips with other people, to subsidize things in his life that just disgusted me. There is a lot about him that is not nice, to put it mildly.

But as far as I’m concerned he was in my life for a reason. He taught me why I was failing in every way that was really important to me, while I was succeeding in every way that was important to everyone else. And some of his unguarded statements, when he exposed his real thinking, were some of the most helpful things. Though I was hurt or outraged at the time.

He was a tortured, broken, often ugly, selfish, false, uncaring monster who was also a tragically damaged victim of his own history. This is still true for hem. He was also the person who forced me to get over my past and all the self-negating and self-destructive “survival” strategies I took away from it. With him, although most of it happened after he was gone, I grew up.

And like you can feel compassion or even love someone you can’t trust, I feel for him. I wish I could have done something meaningful for him that was as valuable as what he did for me. But what he got was the best he could imagine for himself. The money, the chance to write, the broadening experiences. I used to be angry because I thought it would just make him more plausible. I’m not angry anymore. He is what he is, charismatic, needy, limited, broken.

And dangerous. That, too, is real. Dangerous like a scorpion or a frightened and cornered dog or botulism on the raw chicken. The only way to deal with them is to protect ourselves. We can’t fix them. They survive the way they do. Some of them, like my ex, are self-aware, know what they are, but it doesn’t help. They can’t feel what they can’t feel, or act like caring people. So we learn our lessons and keep our distance.

And some few people, like me, are grateful and continue to care about them. From a distance. He’s tragic. He spreads it around, if he gets involved with women, they become tragic. And I write my stuff, hoping that they find their way out of the pain, and learn the lessons. I used to hate him. I just can’t feel that way anymore. It’s not worth what it costs me. and the truth is that I got more of it than he did.

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 10:24am

“And like you can feel compassion or even love someone you can’t trust, I feel for him. I wish I could have done something meaningful for him that was as valuable as what he did for me. But what he got was the best he could imagine for himself. The money, the chance to write, the broadening experiences. I used to be angry because I thought it would just make him more plausible. I’m not angry anymore. He is what he is, charismatic, needy, limited, broken.

And some few people, like me, are grateful and continue to care about them. From a distance. He’s tragic. He spreads it around, if he gets involved with women, they become tragic. ”

Thanks Kathleen. These are words I can definitely relate to. While not involved in a romantic sense, I definitely did care about the S. I wanted to see him live a joyful, productive life. He had skills, and many good work habits. When he tried, he could be charming.

People who get it ask, “Why are you so tolerant?”

“Because he can’t help it, and he’s harmless as long as he’s not indulged too far.”

The people who don’t get it ask, “So you recommend him for this position, right?”

“If you’re satisfied with the background check, then go ahead and hire him. You do follow your insurer’s guidelines with respect to those background checks, don’t you? “

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 10:45am

In the end, what I find most distressing about sociopathy is the “practically incurable” part.

It goes against the optimistic faith I was raised in.

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 10:50am

Elizabeth, I still have hope about the incurability thing.

It’s one of the reasons I insist on describing the pathology as I do. In terms of developmental blockage.

If I can go back and unblock my own developmental paths, and live through all the risks of allowing a sense of personal authority in my own life to grow up from about three or four years old, I think there is hope for unblocking the ability to trust and finding a way to provide a safe and supportive environment for that sort of belated through-the-years developmental process to occur.

The current wisdom is that kind of integration would cause terminal decompensation n a sociopath because the person would be facing the same unresolved crisis issues that triggered the blockage, and would be unable to deal with adult reality anymore than he could deal with it at the time. I think it’s worth questioning whether that is true.

In my case, I had some idea of what I was doing — in the sense that I knew that I was opening a very old issue, that if I unblocked this developmental path, I would be unblocking at the age I was when it occurred. So a “dead” part of me was resurrected as a very small child.

I had to live through that child growing up. It’s not quite the same thing as the years-long learning path of a real child. And that’s because there is a tremendous amount of life experience already stored for usage. That child didn’t have the typical child’s resources of a restricted access to real-world knowledge or a typical child’s condition of survival dependency. However that child was, in terms of emotional maturity, a relative baby. So I had to observe it and live through it working its way up, gobbling experience, reacting as an older child, then a teenager, then a young adult with all those stages of emotional maturity.

I was lucky that I was able to keep myself relatively sheltered. I was working a little, but I had to really watch myself. In some ways it was absolutely delightful, because I got all the benefits of a child’s and teenager’s perspectives on what to do with all this life material. I think that this process helped me re-think what I wanted to do with my life, because that’s what teenagers and kids do. They play with their own potential as though they have all the options in the world.

But I also went through being whiny, demanding, selfish, inconsiderate, not understanding why I had to submit to rules, etc. It actually was nothing new, because this blocked piece of my child was always in the background. We can block them, but we can’t stop them from pounding on the door and yelling at us. But it was different to have it at the conscious level and to gradually support and teach it up to the level of the rest of me.

I only had to believe in my authority in my own life, to respect myself and my right to care for myself. That’s significant, but the challenge of opening a self-isolated psyche to the idea of connection is, in my opinion, considerably more challenging to the person and to anyone therapeutically involved. The good thing about being a sociopath is that they live in a world of very limited input. A great deal of internal noise and drama, but it’s like a cue ball on pool table banging around in the same limited space.

Opening their minds and emotions to outside realities means they are going to have to learn how to deal with a lot. Learn how to filter, learn how to discriminate, learn how to judge what’s helpful and what’s not, learn how process negative input, and on and on.

These are the same issues that codependents deal with everyday, and we take it more or less in stride. But a former sociopath dealing with increased ability to grasp how other people feel … well, it’s an intimidating idea. When you throw in the new understanding about the impact of their past behaviors, it just gets bigger.

But hey, addicts have to go through it in recovery. I had to go through my version of it, because unlocking my authority over my own life made be realize how all my behaviors, which were based on my dysfunctions, impacted other people as well as destroyed the potential of years of my life. Growing up is growing up.

But this all wanking. No one believes it’s possible. And until they do, no one will think about how to do it.

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 1:07pm

Kathleen

What?!! Does ‘wanking’ mean the same in the US as it does in England? !!!!

Some one please explain – I’m shocked!

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 1:14pm

Yes, it means the same thing. I used to live in Mallorca and picked it up from British friends. It’s one of my favorite descriptions of possibly amusing but ultimately unproductive activity. Sorry if I shocked you.

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 1:51pm

Gosh, if you’re really shocked, I’ll watch my language. It was used so casually among the Brits, that I’m anesthetized to any implication of profanity.

I think of this as something along the line of my son and his online friends spending untold hours trying to create the mathematical equations necessary to code four-dimensional rollercoaster baseball as a video game. While I’m waiting for him to mow the yard.

Clearly I have an attitude about this. Which is why I categorize it as mental masturbation.

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 1:57pm

Tood says:

Just popping in quickly to say that the article above is, in my opinion, your best work to date. You perfectly describe the path, the process, “this thing of ours.”

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 3:02pm

OxDrover says:

EC,

There are several “truths” we are taught as children that are FALSE.

“There is good in everyone”

“there are two (valid) sides to every story”

“it takes two to fight”

“If you’ll be nice to them, they’ll play nice with you.”

I could go on but you get the idea! It is unfortunate that this is NOT true, but even the Bible shows us that there are people who WILL NOT repent, who WILL NOT change their ways no matter how many times their wrongs are pointed out to them.

There are those who will lie, cheat, steal, put up a false front of piety and who will CRUCIFY anyone, including the Christ, for pointing out their lies and bad behavior.

If we blindly trust everyone until they prove us wrong, then we are in for a big lot of hurt in our lives. We must use caution and good sense I think, in order to pick who we are able to trust and to what level.

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 4:36pm

I would add to Oxy’s excellent comment that, once figure out what we CAN trust about them, it makes it much easier to run our lives. In the case of my ex, from observation, listening to what he said and dealing with my own feelings, this is what I could trust

He would not do anything to accommodate my feelings, unless he was trying to extract something new from me.

He would be unfaithful and would continuously be looking for new opportunities.

He would take whatever he got from me, and immediately forget where it came from. It was now his, and that was its entire story.

He would sneer or hold his hands over his ears if I tried to talk about feelings.

He preferred neutralize anyone who was in his way, rather than wasting time seeking a win-win solution.

He would show up in my life when he needed money and decide that he “just didn’t feel that way about me” and leave when he didn’t need money.

Every encounter with him left me emotionally devastated, hating myself, and feeling bereft of the “love of my life.”

This is only a partial list, but I could trust all these things to be true.

Now, where’s does my hope that it’s all going to work out and he is going to figure out that he really loves me, or my wondering if he really loves me despite all of this, fit into this?

Let’s see. We’ve got a slew of proven facts. And we have my wishful thinking.

Which am I going to trust as trustworthy background information for deciding my next steps?

Of course, I went with the wishful thinking, because I had to go through a few years of healing work to figure out why I thought this has anything to do with love.

But the point is, when we get better and we look at what we can “trust,” it’s a lot easier discard non-useful advice from our parents or whomever, and just trust our own two eyes about who is bad news and who is not.

Of course, it helps when we’ve been through LoveFraud U, and have they tremendously valuable knowledge we get here about how they operate. Too good to be true. Too fast. Too interest in pushing past our normal boundaries.

Time to back up, look them in the eye, and say, “I don’t like to be pushed.”

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 5:00pm

Grant says:

Hi Kathleen
Agree with Tood 100%.
I hear what you say about learning from the S, and becomming a little more like them. I think, though, that the only thing they have worth learning is clarity of self interest, and that there is absolutely nothing whatsoever in their method that merits copying. Because, really, they are thieves, and frauds, and rapists.

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 5:38pm

Dear Oxdrover,

Thanks for this:

“There are several “truths” we are taught as children that are FALSE…”

I’ve been a “good girl” all my life, and there’s a big part of me that feels guilty about distancing myself from anyone.
In the past, I’ve had to get really discouraged before I’d do it. Now I’m trying to figure out how to stay away from cluster Bs. Historically, they’ve had way too much fun at my expense!

I was raised to hope for change and forgive. Like Kathleen, I tend to hope. Unfortunately, I also feel guilty for abandoning hope. Is it OK if I hope from a safe distance?

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 5:43pm

Grant,

I appreciate how you feel. I also understand why you might want to just wipe your hands of them categorically as bad people.

I spent some time trying to decide if he was a bad person. Up to that point, I was confused about whether the whole thing was, as he said, all my fault for one reason or another. (Typical blame the victim behavior.)

When I clarified in my own mind that, whatever he was, he was bad for me, it freed me to move on to other things. Like getting angry, learning how to defend myself, taking my losses seriously, etc.

Now, where I am now, is to extract the good from it. I name him a sociopath here on LoveFraud, but personally I’d rather categorize it as a sociopathic relationship. Which doesn’t let him off the hook, but enables me to focus on the dynamic, which included my activities as well as his.

My belief is that he really did teach me a lot. Not intentionally. But by living his life in front of me. There’s a lot that he did that I could never do and live with myself. But he may have been the first up-close role model I have had for exactly what you say: clarity of self-interest. And then how he organized his life around it, and also what it cost him. Self-interested people don’t spend so much time at people-pleasing. So all those relationships I was “buying” tended to fade away when I developed more focus and better boundaries.

This is important to me. What I learned.

My feeling is that the universe sent me lots of gentler opportunities to learn this. But I needed the full-bore hard lesson. And in the end, I’m grateful for the experience.

And as for him, I have moods when I call him a thief, fraud and rapist. (Nice list.) But it’s more when I’m thinking about what I lost. When I think about what I gained, I have a different perspective.

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 5:55pm

Dear Kathleen,

I think behavior modification might work on Sociopaths. If a sociopath is incarcerated, I think the government should at least attempt treatment.

I also think that sociopaths might get better if they were surrounded by people who were harder to play. For this reason, I think broader education about the nature of sociopaths and conduct disordered youth might be helpful.

I particularly believe that our public schools need to stop being naive about the nature of conduct disorder. Conduct disordered kids need serious intervention, and being allowed to bully their normal peers isn’t part of any rational plan.

After all, if bad behavior no longer worked for sociopaths and sociopaths in training, maybe they’d take a stab at good behavior. You never know.

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 5:57pm

JAYNE HALE says:

Hi Kathy

I am a victim of a sociopath, I have lost my home my money and worst of all my Trust.

I would love to know how to begin to heal as while I have supportive friends and family they do not understand why I let a man con me out of everything I have worked for. He has taken so much more from me than the material things and I do not know where to begin to heal.

If any one can make any sugestions I would love to hear them. I would love to start up my own support group and if anyone is interested or can help me set up one would love to hear from you.

I live in a small village in Staffordshire England.

Thank you to anyone who reads this.

Jayne

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 6:02pm

Dear EC,

“Is it okay to hope from a safe distance?”

Of course it is! The greater the distance the better, though! LOL

Even the Bible talks about people whose hearts are so “hardened” or “seared with a hot iron” so that truth cannot get through to them. Even those of us who do our best to practice Christianity and “love our fellow men” are cautioned by Jesus himself and St. paul to look at the FRUIT (behaviior) to see if it is good or bad, and if the fruit is bad, the tree is bad….and we are to distance ourselves from these bad people. “Do not even eat with them.” so that they do not poison us!

I can understand why people would WANT to think that there is “good in everyonoe” but unfortunately it is NOT true, and it leaves us open to false information that makes us vulnerable to the psychopaths’ behaviors and abuse.

Dear Jayne,

Welcome to LF, I’m glad you have found your way here. this is a healing place and there is so much good infromation here to learn and KNOWLEDGE=POWER, and the more we know about them, and about ourselves as well, the better we can take back our power from them.

Again, welcome.

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 6:04pm

Elizabeth,

They distance. We hold back. The difference is that we’re willing to engage more closely, we’re just waiting to see whether we want to.

Regarding Cluster Bs, there are some rules of communication that hold for pretty much anyone. If someone presents you with the opportunity to add unnecessary drama to your life, the most efficient way to deal with it (if you don’t want to get involved) is to acknowledge whatever they seem to want you to acknowledge, usually feelings, and then remove yourself.

Them: “Yadda, yadda, yadda. Outrageous…he did… i’m offended…think we should…etc.”

You: “Sounds like a really challenging day. I hope it get’s better. I’ve got a call on hold, gotta run.”

“What’s the matter… never listen…what about me…yadda, yadda, yadda.”

You: “You’re right. We should catch up. I’m usually at Starbucks at 7:30 before I get to work. That’s about my only free time if you want to meet then.”

Acknowledge, be agreeable, get out of their line of sight. If they’re drama queens of any sort, they’ll look for another, more rewarding target.

As far as hope goes, I prefer to call this dreams. And start working with the universe, instead of seeking any one particular outcome. I want relationships that allow me to be myself. I want work that leaves me feeling good about what I’m doing. I want a life that isn’t dragging me down with possessions and relationships that are not worth the time it costs to maintain them.”

And then convert the hope energy into optimism. Hope gives all the power to something else. Dreams and optimism make it about what you want and what you do to get it and what opportunities the universe is pitching at you.

Half the work, I sometimes think, of getting better is upgrading our language. The only time I hope is when something is entirely out of my control. Like it’s been raining here for weeks and I hope the sun comes out soon. Otherwise I’m more interested in finding good investments for my time. If something’s hanging fire and there’s no more I can do about, I think about what else I can with my time. Even if it’s grabbing a book and going out for a half-hour Vitamin D break (assuming the sun every comes out again.)

As far as being a good person, well this is one that can start arguments. I frequently do argue with my sister about this. She thinks it’s important to worry about it. I don’t. I am good person. I’ve been doing the best I can all my life, trying to be far-sighted and understand how things are going to come out. I believe in good outcomes, and I work for them. I’m capable of getting Machiavellian, and I think God for it. But I prefer to be cheerful, friendly and enpathetic.

What more is there to discuss? Or worry about? If something either inside me or outside me wants to question my motivations or my ethics, I’ll give a listen, decide if there’s merit, and then adjust my course, if necessary. Usually it isn’t, because I’m a thoughtful person to begin with.

I’m not trying to be flip here. I’m supposed to be working, so I’m thinking and writing fast.

We can pick the things we worry about. Worry is concern about the future. We can also decide whether worrying about it is the best way to create the future. Except when we’re under active threat, it’s usually not.

Namaste.

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 6:39pm

James says:

Welcome Jayne,

There are links and “Monthly Archives” where more subject are listed from past posts. LF also offers some books to purchase here at LF. Some members here are new as well, still others have been here for awhile. I hope this site can and will be of some assistance to you. Many here too have experience great lost due to this disorder with those who suffer from a lack of empathy of others. Many come here with fresh wounds and I try to be as compassionate and understanding as possible, many us do.

Welcome again!

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 6:42pm

Jayne, welcome to LoveFraud. Congratulations for finding us, and I’m sorry that you’ve had experiences that bring you here.

It sounds like you’re already educating yourself and working on a knowledgable support system. As far as I know, no one here has set up a local support group, though it’s been discussed. I think it’s a great idea, and maybe doing some book discussions might kick it off. If you haven’t read “Women Who Love Sociopaths,” it’s one of the most useful books I’ve ever read. The beginning part is a round-up of current information of sociopaths and the larger second part is based on research on people who’ve been through these experiences.

It gives an excellent overview of how these relationships work. More important, possibly, is the detailed information on what kind of people get sucked into them. It’s actually encouraging, and it makes people feel better about themselves at a time when they might be inclined to be beating themselves up.

Otherwise, of course, there is the whole archive of articles her on the site. Lots of helpful information.

You asked specifically about beginning to heal. Probably the best thing to do here is to take advantage of this big, amazing support group. Pick any thread and write what’s on your mind now. You’ll attract people who are working on the same issues and ones that may be a little further down the healing path.

I feel for you. You are speaking of your life in short sentences, but I can only imagine how you feel. Again, you are so welcome here.

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 6:49pm

I just caught your post on behavior mod and conduct disorders. We’re on the same page, at least as far as rewarding kids for socially acceptable behavior and getting clear with them about the rules.

My experience with people like this, for what it’s worth, is that punishment doesn’t accomplish anything. They have a tremendous tolerance for what other people would consider punishment. They are not attached to the same things as we are, and attempts to shame them or exclude them just contributes to their anti-social mythology about themselves.

If this is what you want, this is what you’re going to have to do to get is the kind of clear messages that work. It requires a lot of effort and thought on the part of people who are programming this kind of intervention. Just as it takes work on our side to get clear about what we want in exchange for what we’re willing to give. It’s so much easier to say “don’t do” this or that. Unfortunately the human brain doesn’t process “no” as effectively as the rest of the statement.

Like the famous Nixon line, “I am not a crook.”

Liane talked in one of her columns about an early childhood school environment that taught sharing behaviors and rewarded it. I thought that was a great idea. And there are other educational initiatives that are based on increased attention to positive social interactions in the classroom. The aim is to reduce bullying and make people “real” to one another.

My sociopath once said to me, “I don’t think you understand that my ambient emotional state is desperation.” It was an interesting comment. I think that one of the reasons sociopaths are parasitic is because they lack fundamental resources that the rest of us take for granted. No trust, no empathy are conditions that ripple out over a life, creating more and more problems.

I don’t think that behavior mod is the end-all solution, especially for a fully developed sociopathic disorder. But for kids who can be rescued by turning their energy into more productive channels and by beating out that trust thing with lessons that show them that they can work within a socially structured environment, I think it’s a good idea.

It’s good for the rest of us too, to practice with clear statements of what we want, withholding if what we’re getting doesn’t meet our needs, and rewarding behaviors that do. I think these classes would be great for everyone.

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 7:32pm

Lonnie says:

I am currently dealing with what I believe is a female sociopath. I am a gay female as is she. We were in an 8 year relationship and I am now back in court fighting for my life due to her accusing me of maliciously vandalizing property that I own and was part of our co-owned home. Her claim of $130.00. I could lose my job of 20 years and she obviously could care less. Has anyone else dealt with gay sociopaths. Her behavior as well as her family behavior fits all the descriptions to a tee. I think sometimes I am paranoid. I just want to get off this crazy merrygoround with her. The break up was over 2 years ago and she is still after me…Any ideas or input would be greatly appreciated…

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 8:09pm

“I don’t think you understand that my ambient emotional state is desperation.”

That is indeed a very interesting statement to make to someone. Being and feeling surrounded by an emotional state of desperation is it self a call for help or pity play? Was this in fact a way of being honest as any s/p can be or yet another attempt to manipulate?

Yes, Kathleen Hawk! A very interesting statement indeed..

And yes I agree your view about being them very parasitic because they lack fundamental resources. Albeit emotional psychological and/or financial. Perhaps this also explains this feeling of being surrounded by a state of desperation.

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 8:29pm

Lonnie,

We do have some gay members here that might be able to relate to this. One I believe is also a lawyer and has helped others with legal questions. Also our sexual orientation may not be an issue for some inquiries and questions. Many of us have found that the many patterns of s/p (sociopaths/personality disorders) seem to read from the same book. Like some characteristics traits and power plays. Best of luck to you!

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 8:44pm

James,

He said it in during the last chapter of our relationship. It was an unsolicited comment, not part of any particular conversation that I remember, although at the time, I was beginning to really shut down to him. But I didn’t get the impression it was a pity ploy. Both of us were beyond that. I was out of pity. And he was out of new ploys.

When I saw the little leader to your post, I thought you were going to say, “My ambient state is homicidal” or something like that. Just a joke. It’s hard to be sympathetic to these people. When you’re dealing with them, they just burn it out of you.

But over the years, I saw enough evidence of the truth of that statement. There was a frantic, anxious, unhappy quality about him that seemed to me to be almost his baseline. That and the occasional disappearance into black depression. Everything else about him seemed to be his way of battling this back. He didn’t like himself.

I’m a watcher. And curious. I ask a lot of questions. I had reason to try to figure out what made him tick. Nothing I learned helped me. The only thing that did that was stopping it, getting him out of my life. But over five years, if you’re really interested, you can see and put together a lot.

His “success story,” the thing that was going to bring him to all the things he really wanted — mostly related to status and invulnerability — were all connected to a certain life strategy. He felt he was overcoming a lot of disadvantages. His track was a straight-line as he could make it. He anguished over possible mistakes. He was constantly scanning for opportunities, leverage.

I’ve never seen anything like it. Everyone I know, the people I came from, our lives are largely about minimizing self-sabotage. He figured our that the world was not his friend, and his mission was to cut through the obstacles, not let them stop him. It was kind of impressive, would have seemed heroic, if I wasn’t part of the roadkill. He had no grasp on the fact that what you do on the way has an impact who you are when you arrive. And my best effort to explain this sort of thing were brushed off of mushy babyboomer thinking.

Back to work…

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 9:05pm

“Both of us were beyond that. I was out of pity. And he was out of new ploys.”

LOL

Yea, been there done that…

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 9:13pm

justabouthealed says:

I experienced the contagious nature of their world view. I started experiencing his envy, esp., as my own. His view of the good life as my own…which couldn’t be further from the truth. For awhile, it was really hard to shake! And his view of himself as above me.

I don’t view the P as blocked but rather emotionally retarded in a way that thus far we don’t know how to fix, just like we don’t know how to fix Down’s Syndrome. It may be caused by genes, emotional trauma, or some combination. But after a certain age, maybe pre-teen, I think there is no mitigating it.

I really didn’t learn a damn thing from him except a HUGE awareness about P’s. And since he was so extreme, then I could see those same traits in others and it helped me deal with them, as much as they needed dealing with, but I had pretty well learned to stay away from them. But overall, SORRY, my life would have been much better had I never met him.

Speaking of which, I think it was a weird set of factors that made me suspend my usual values. He was my first love, returned after 40 years (though he had kept contacting me), and we reconnected over the Internet and phone, where it is easy to imagine someone is someone they are not. And I was in a vulnerable spot in my life. And he was so rich and successful, I mistook that for mental and emotional maturity. And he recreated the relationship I had with my mom, blah, blah.

I say “blah, blah, blah,” because the insights I gained from him were NOT worth the pain of knowing him.

Nothing redeeming about the whole mess whatsoever! So, out of the almost 60 years of my life, he dominated 3-4 years total, including the time in my teens. So that means he was a bad tooth ache for 6.6% of my life. And that percentage goes down each year I live. And it is over with.

I’m feeling strong today.

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 9:19pm

Lonnie, welcome to LoveFraud. I’m sure you’ll find some support here.

We have gay members, but in general, their stories sound pretty similar to the straight ones. Though you may have some property rights issues that are special. Watch for postings by Matt. I don’t think he’s on right now. He may be a source of advice for you.

Beyond that, there are a lot of people here who’ve lived through dealing with Sociopath ex’s who just won’t go away. I’m sure they can contribute something too. Drop the same post on other threads. It will help to attract the people you need to talk with.

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 9:25pm

kate_592 says:

JAYNE HALE – I feel your pain and you have come to a very healing place with wonderful people. The exact same thing happened to me in a village in Scotland three years ago.

It is painful. I have found Kathleen’s series of posts so beneficial because there is a big shining light at the end of the tunnel if we put in the work. She is also a realist.

Take Care and post often and keep reading. your family and friends do not know what you were up against. Please read as much as you can and if you need any help come here. I am happy share my email address too if you do so through Donna. Someone did that for me three years agao and we are still in contact. knowing I was not alone and someone else went through the same thing saved my life.

Kate

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 9:41pm

geminigirl says:

Ive posted my story about my ex and my two daughters here before,–Im stil finding it unbelievably hard to deal with the fact that the two most poisonous people Ive met in my entire life are my two girls,{now aged 43 and 45}, You are supposed to love and cherish your children for ever, but thanks to Oxy, kathy, and others here, I am beginning to see that NC is probably my only option now. Ive tried and tried, turned myself inside out for them for over 30 years,{since they hit puberty} and its vey hard but I now know that I know that I CANT change them, they dont love me, they only use me, they see me as totally expendable,{except in Debs case as cash cow}they have no sympathy, remorse, compassion, kindness or love in their hearts,if indeed they have hearts.
Like the joke,”My children and I have the perfect give and take relationship, I give, and they take.” That about sums it up. But now Im determined to shut off the cash supply to Deborah. Ive written to her to tell her that the Mum bank is now closed,-permanently. Sice then, I havent heard from her at all., either by phone or email. If these women were not family I wouldnt want anything to do with them! They are highly toxic to me! They care less about my life. I havent seen Claire in 16 years, or seen Deb since 10th Dec. last year.So, its getting easier, Do I miss them? Not really! I dont miss pain, Im not a masochist! I dont think they will ever change.AsOxy says, they are not my dear little girls any more,they are grown women, they are hard, selfish, cruel, manipulative, toxic NSs .I deeply dislike them. I cant believe I gave birth to them!

Monday, 22 June 2009 @ 11:44pm

Geminigirl,

You wrote:

Ive tried and tried, turned myself inside out for them for over 30 years,{since they hit puberty} and its vey hard but I now know that I know that I CANT change them, they dont love me, they only use me, they see me as totally expendable,{except in Debs case as cash cow}they have no sympathy, remorse, compassion, kindness or love in their hearts,if indeed they have hearts.

In the spirit of this thread, I’m going to make a small suggestion about something that might help you a lot right now.

You are a grown-up woman and you don’t have to have the slightest justification for what you feel or what you do. Other than that’s what you think is best for you.

At some point, the history doesn’t matter, except that we know it’s a drag on our spirits. What’s more useful is to make today what you want, and by doing that begin to shape of future that brings you happiness.

So I’m going to make what might seem like a radical suggestion, but then again, it might be easy for you. God knows you’ve been suffering through this for a very long time. Maybe you’ve done enough grieving.

Be done with it. Just shut the door on the whole unpleasant thing. Not them per se, although they come under the umbrella. But shut the door on abuse, ingratitude and disappointing relationships. You’ve had enough. It’s not making you happy. The quality of the rest of your life is important. And you have every right to take control of it. And make it what you want.

I saw your first letter. It was a good start. If you decide to communicate with them again, to clarify things. I would limit it to this. “My relationships with you two are unsatisfactory. Unless you can figure out how to be more kind, courteous, caring, grateful, interested in my wellbeing, and all those things you apparently know so little about, there is no reason to waste more of your time or mine. I wish you a good life. If you ever grow up, give me a call.” Or something like that. Cut if off. Give them a way back in, if they want to rise to it, but otherwise close the door.

This is not because you are mad at them. It’s because it’s your life, and you get to pick what’s in it.

If you’re like most of us, you’re also upset with yourself for putting up with this for all these years. There are some posts earlier on this thread about behavior modification. You can do these two a favor by stopping all rewards for bad behavior. If they want anything from you, they can earn it.

Good luck with this. You sound like you’re on the right track. Congratulations for deciding to put your foot down. This is the only thing that will change the situation, if anything can. But don’t count on it. Just go on and make yourself a happy life. If they come around, it will be gravy.

Tuesday, 23 June 2009 @ 12:18am

thank you, kathy! Thank you for your support and wise council. your right. Im getting better at this all the time. I know I musnt weaken, and call Deb. I now choose to shut the door on relationships that are selfish, toxic and self serving.Your right, im upset with myself for putting up with all this for so long, but,truly, until I found this website,{and a couple of others re NS personalities,} I was ignorant of this mental condition.But now, armed with this new knowledge, and the loving support of all you great guys who have been there too,I CAN DO IT!! I am printing out and keeping all the blogs re my situation, they are like lifeblood to me right now
Also, Im not doing this to try to turn them around, Im doing this for ME.I know I cant count on them ever changing, but I CAN change, and move on, and have a great life.I have a wonderful supportive husband, a few good friends, worth while voluntary work, my “new” kids,Roya and Abbas, and a holiday in S, Africa to look forward to in 3 weeks time. No more drain on my pocketbook, no more drain on my spirit. Thats it!Thanks again, and bless all of you! {{HUGS}}, geminigirl.

Tuesday, 23 June 2009 @ 4:42am

Kathleen,

WRT behavior modification and sociopaths:

Behavior modification is always more effective with rewards for good behaviors. Punishment doesn’t hold a candle to reward when if comes to altering behavior patterns.

Like you, I think altering the behavior patterns of conduct disordered youth is easier than working with adult sociopaths. Easier doesn’t equate to easy. There is evidence that conduct disordered youth experience pleasure (reward) when they witness the pain and/or misery of others. This makes it particularly critical that rewards for good behaviors are provided.

Yes, this is expensive and time consuming. It’s also important. There is evidence to suggest that sociopathy may actually be on the rise. What percentage of sociopaths in our society can we “carry” before our culture implodes? This may not remain merely a theoretical question for much longer.

Tuesday, 23 June 2009 @ 6:11am

juliesarjeant says:

Jayne Hale
I am also in England – West Yorkshire – and also just out of a 3 year ‘relationship’ with a sociopath. Its tough but I am trying not to let it define who I am although I am shocked to the core knowing what I now know.
If you want to contact me ask Donna for my email address.
keep strong – look forward not back – you will survive.

Tuesday, 23 June 2009 @ 7:07am

Vision says:

Here is my first post:

I have been reading at this site for about 1 year now….I first came to find answers for my 3 year relationship and then as I continued to read, started a new one with another man……

Thanks to this site and the stories of others and the wise words by OxDrover and others, I at the very least have started to see the light……

Although the flags started for me about 6 months ago in the new relationship, I was still slow in really getting it…..It was like the guy had flags dropping and I didn’t think he “fit” the role…..But the difference was I kept reading here which enabled me to start seeing what he really was……

I saw him start to make up “excuses”( for his behavior), which I believed, and was duped with his far out stories…..He told me he was once in law enforcement and had to kill a man trying to kill his partner….He cried crocodile tears over his past life….and all the mistakes he made…….He eventually led me to believe that I was his only woman…..All the things I have read here…..and I started to investigate………

I found out he is on many sex sites, and if you really listen to people, they will tell you exactly who they are…..He even told me about “past” experiences and then tried to bring me into his game….in a very subtle way…..

The article above on boredom hit home in so many ways with him…..his sex addiction and need for change and bizarre situations…..his need for drama with his life…..

I was stood up many times, I observed his constant phone calls to others and phone texts….on dates he was constantly on the phone or texting and said it was about his son or a friend in need….. his obsession with his own troubles….I got a phone call everyday and every morning from him for 6 months…..all about him…..he would put me on hold and then disappear….calling back the next day like nothing happened…..when I was talking about myself he had to go……or the phone would hang up mysteriously….

When I met him, I was getting over my ex, and he listened to me for 2 months, with lunches, and “concern”….when we finally started to see each other is when I started to see the flags….

I ignored them and didn’t think he really fit the mold….but after he “borrowed” $ and also after I found he had a girlfriend, I was still believing he had a good heart….HELLO! He was just going through rough times and had stopped seeing her……right…

It all became clear to me after he stood me up and I realized he was doing this since the beginning…..even with the phone calls….

I saw he didn’t give a damn about my feelings although he would give an “awww” when I tried to express how I felt…the man has no remorse, no conscience, full of lies, deceptions, and seemed to have no idea of why I would be upset….

I let him play his game for a while as I really studied him and let myself “see” what I was suspecting, that he really was a sociopath..

He borrowed my camera to take on a trip he planned with his son, and never returned it. When I asked again for it back, I told him I’d make a meal for him before work and he could bring it then. He stated “That sounds like a bribe.” Yes, maybe the way he thinks….He keeps it so he can have something I want, to further feel in control…..He is strange….even gave me his shirt he had worn and change into another one….I asked him did he want me to wash it and then I gave it right back and said well just take it with you…..He then with an odd look said no I will leave it with you….????

I see that all the good things I did where not appreciated. That in his life all that matters are his “needs”. He didn’t do one thing out of “love” or real concern for me at all…..Not even a card for my birthday, nor one little flower, and although he made out he had big money and cars, etc, and how he had bought every flower his ex loved when he took her out to win her back in the past and told me how he went all out for her, he could not give me anything….because he doesn’t have anything to give….

I see an empty person and I might as well have loved a tree stump…..Although because of this site and the knowledge I was learning, I didn’t allow myself to really fall in love…..Yes, I had strong feelings for what I thought he was, for the person he led me to believe he was, but I guarded my innermost heart….

It was a slow let down…..I saw and heard him playing me and my heart sunk…..and each time he “played” me or I allowed him to do his thing…..I saw more and more about what he really was……and as if I needed more proof…..and I got it…..so I was able to reason out that I made him into someone he was not….and although sometimes I had seen some good in him….(he wasn’t verbally abusive and never put me down in words just actions) I realized he can’t love….not even himself….

He liked to torture me with the “unsure” if the date was on or off…once even calling me while he was outside my home and asking me what I would do if he said he wasn’t going to make it….and then laughed and said he was outside….then when I got into his car…..hugged me……

He also wanted control…..big time…..and when I said once I was going to start to date, he came up to see me immediately and told me he had a surprise for me and it was him! and he was going to spend the night with me……

Not once did he ask me to his apartment and told me his son was there so it wasn’t a good idea….but he wasn’t married….and this I do know as a fact….but I am sure he has a girlfriend or several…..I was taking things very slowly for me since my last relationship so I didn’t really feel these were issues at the time…..I like that he was taking it slowly as well and little did I know, he was taking all that time to get to know me and study me as his prey…..

I look back and wonder if I was brain dead at the time…and a lot of this has to do with my past life, as a child, and other issues…

For a while now, I have been working on myself and my reasons of allowing all this…..I am not entirely out of this since as this writing I have not cut him off…..I plan on not answering his calls anymore and I am sure he will go away…..although from this site I realize that he might not be done and try all sorts of things to bring me back into his game…..

Any thought for me would be appreciated……I need support right now….

Thanks…..

Tuesday, 23 June 2009 @ 10:08am

Sounds like you’ve been very strong already! Good for you guarding your heart. Definitely not a guy worthy of your love. The torturing of you…the P I was involved in did the same sort of thing. Or, hate to admit this, have sex 3 times with me in 15 hours, and then completely ignore me for 3 weeks. Not a word. It just will get worse the longer you stay in, or at least that was my experience. Others will chime in soon I’m sure. LF is full of caring people who have been through the same type of experience. But it seems like you’ve been much more aware through the process than most, so don’t be too hard on yourself! They are great manipulators!

Tuesday, 23 June 2009 @ 3:39pm

KATYA says:

I thought the book WOMEN who LOVE PSYCHOPATHS was very well written and really made me look at myself and my relationships. In my mind, I know a difference between a SOCIOPATH and PSYCHOPATH. I also am looking very hard at the reasons why I find “normal” men to be un-exciting and un-interesting. I am making a choice not to date for various reasons, one of which is because I can’t trust any human being yet, another, – because I am so vulnerable and afraid to “fall for the same prototype”. Vision, even if you were “brain dead” I commend you for catching this early on and posting. I think it’s crucial that we see ourselves not as some handicapped HALF of the illusive other, but as a whole, who can function independently of a meaningful long term relationship. It’d be awful to imagine a world where halfs keep bumping into each other

Tuesday, 23 June 2009 @ 3:50pm

Rosa says:

Vision:

You sound like a very smart and stealthy individual. Good for you for keeping your heart guarded in this suspicious new relationship.

“if you really listen to people, they will tell you exactly who they are.”
Isn’t that the truth, Vision?!?! The problem with me was that I just overlooked the questionable logic, ignored my gut instincts, and kept right on falling head over heels in love!
It is VERY EASY TO DO when you are COMPLETELY unaware of a little disorder called sociopathy, and do NOT have access to Love Fraud.

Consider yourself lucky (and blessed) that you had this site as a reference while this questionable relationship unfolded.

“I am not entirely out of this since as writing this I have not cut him off.”

CUT HIM OFF!!!

If you have been reading this site for a year, then, you know that NO CONTACT is the only way to go with this guy, RIGHT?!?!

I could tell you what will happen if you let this relationship progress for, let’s say the next 6 years. But, it is not pretty, and you will not like it.

CUT HIM OFF ASAP! (And don’t think twice about it.)

He is a chimp in a business suit. You deserve better.

Tuesday, 23 June 2009 @ 5:50pm

shabbychic says:

Vision: It almost sounds like we were dating the same guy! I did the same thing you did, I was here reading after my 14 year relationship broke up and I had been surfing the web looking for answers, then I was involved with another guy for about a year, they really do tell you who they are!! I think I was in a brain fog for about a year, this last guy really was, IMO (I’m not a doctor) a sociopath. I have not heard from him in 8 weeks and at this point do not expect to (unless, of course, he thinks up some kind of way to ask for more $$$, which I won’t give him). The NC is helping the pain fade away. I think my part in the whole thing has something to do with my childhood.

Tuesday, 23 June 2009 @ 10:31pm

Dear Vision,

I am so glad that you have stayed here and continued to read even though you have not posted until now….if you’ve been here a year you know one of my mantras is “Knowledge=Power”—–only by knowing what they are, and that they cannot change, can we take back our power, reclaim ourselves and get them out of our lives, our heads and our hearts!

I have gone through so many “incarnations” of my own, as we all move through the different stages of healign, and sometimes we back track, get off track, or go back into the FOG, but if we keep on learning, keep on moving, I believe we wil lfind our way to the “city limits of Healing.”

Thank you for posting, and I am glad that LF has helped you with your journey! No one desrves to be abused, and it is only we ourselves that can stop it. (((hugs)))) Keep on posting, and keep on learning!

Tuesday, 23 June 2009 @ 10:41pm

Jayne Hale

I’m in Cheshire. Don’t think it was the same bloke do you? !!

Your brief description is almost a carbon copy of mine but as you read this blog, you’ll see that is not uncommon – regardless of the circumsances, relationship – either partner/parent-child/child-parent – it all seems to be the same story – just to varying degrees and timescales.

I do feel for you because I know exactly what you mean about friends and family not fully understanding – why should they? Thank god they don’t – at least it means our loved ones haven’t been ‘damaged’ by these slugs the way we have.

I would be interested in the possibility of a ‘help group’.

Keep posting here for strength – it’s a wonderful site and has helped me and encouraged me over the short time I have been visiting.

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 5:47am

Esp. liked your post to Grant about – gentler lessons being presented for you to learn. I also like your comments about people-pleasing versas self-interest. I am trying to develop a ‘healthy’ self-interest at the moment. I am beginning to realise that it doesn’t come too naturally to me – it feels ‘guilty’ even when it’s not anything major that even affects anyone else.

I went out yesterday and wasn’t back in time for my adult daughter coming home from work. She had to get her own dinner – which she is quite capable of doing and happy to do – she didn’t make me feel in any way uncomfortable. In fact, when I came through the door she greeted me with a great big smile and said “mum, you’re covered in mud (been cycling), where did you go – did you have a great day?!

Why then did I still feel a pang of guilt? I’m working on that one – I can’t blame the S for this entirely. So, yes you are right that are valuable lessons to learn from being involved with them – perhaps I would have been like this without ever having met him, perhaps I wouldn’t.

All thanks for your insights and wisdom Kathy.

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 5:56am

Brilhancy says:

My God…I am so happy to find you people. I have been searching in silence for over 10 years for a place like this. I survived all the horros from this page with two children and no family or friends around to hold my hand. The S, grabed whatever he could and left to the other side of the Globe, abandoning the children as well (but he was so sure that I would accept him back when his money was over, because he knew he left me in a state of despair)… But he never counted that mine and the childrens answer was going to be: ” you are not my husband and you are not our father”. He hung up in despair, and tried several times, but our answer was always the same. We came out on the other side beautifully and this has been 10 years. My son who is now a successful business man with only 24 yrs old decided to give his old friend a call and see what life reserved for him… He is not in good shape , now he is older and poor and no longer Mr Charming..and thank you Godd he is so far away….but the trauma , scars and pain still very much alive inside me.. but I am healing. and I am so glad I met you all..

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 7:38am

Brilhancy

God you’re a strong bird! How proud you must be of your children and that you lived through the turmoil of the S.

We need folk like you here – it encourages me that standing firm against these maniacs (the NC) is the answer to healing and moving on to a better place.

Thanks a million for your post – hope you’ll keep coming back to share.

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 7:52am

Dear Brilhancy,

Welcome to LF, this is a HEALING PLACE….the more you learn about these monsters (I suggest you go back and read all the archived articles, there’s a list by month on the side) the better you will be able to heal.

Sounds like you are, as escapee says, a “strong bird” to NOT go back to him, and kudus to your kids too! No Contact (NC) is the only way to free yourself physically, but there is still the problem of getting them out of our head, and healing the damage they did there. All teh questions of “why me?” and “Why did I put up with it so long?” and 1000 other questions.

I am happy that you got away from this creep, and I am also happy that he is in miserable circumstances and you and your children are doing well. Hang around here and blog and read and welcome, you have come to the right place to validate yourself and your story, and to heal. (((hugs))))

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 8:08am

OxDrover

Just about to sign off when I read your comment. Always supportive – I slip in and out of the ‘why did I go back’ stuff on a daily basis. Have been feeling a bit stronger these past few days but it still nags in my head.

I find it sad (picking up your comment about ‘being happy he is in miserable circumstances’) that we come to this. I was never a vengeful person, I never took pleasure or satisfaction in hearing of anyone’s misfortune AND NOW (as you expressed so succinctly) where Ss are concerned we, at best think ‘good!’ and, at worst (where I go from time to time) wish the worst torment and pain would befall them. This is what they take from us – our humanity. I totally understand it but I actually resent that it too. Soooo confusing! The conclusion that I reach is that, ‘maybe I was too soft, too caring before’ and it left me vulnerable to inviting the monster into my life. Maybe this harsher perspective ‘protects’ us from them – save your compassion for those who deserve it? What do you say? I don’t want to turn into some kind of ’sicko’ myself.

Thanks for reading.

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 8:49am

Hi and thanks! I feel another long post coming on but I need to let it all out!!

If there is anything that sums up how I feel right now it is the above quote “I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.”

Yes, OxDrover, I have read about your knowledge/power and once I applied what I was learning, and saw the light, it was an upsetting thing as Nietzsche stated……. I did not want to believe it and sadly have accepted it…..sad in the sense that it is still a loss….a loss of my belief that he was a good man….Yeah, like my friend likes to state “Keep It Movin!!” She will tell a man to take a hike as soon as the bs starts…..Maybe my new motto will be, “Can’t Touch This” like the song…..

and Rosa, I might have been stealthy indeed, but you are correct that I need to actually cut him off……the time to act on that by telling him it just isn’t working for me……and then NC….

I am reading the article about the chimps and how true it all is….

Justabouthealed: He sure is a manipulator. Wow…..all makes me feel I escaped a prison sentence….

Katya: I am staying strong and thanks…..I had a new date a week ago with a new person (not current SP) and we met his friends, some men and some women, it was a BBQ at a local inn …..He then told me he had to run out with one of his men friends to “help” someone……the two of them were gone for over an hour…..He later said I liked to be in control (since I asked him to allow me to finish my sentence since he kept interrupting to take a phone call)………..this was our first and last date…..I thanked him later and told him we were not compatible….and mentioned how he left me, etc….He said he wouldn’t do it again…..damn right……not to me…..What knowledge this site has given a “nice” person like myself and what power!!!

And ShabbyChic, I like the NC, since for a month I had not seen him or talked to him and during that time of NC, I was able to get back into me and really reflect on who he really was…..

When I felt strong feelings for him and was a bit infatuated with him, he stood me up…..I was all dressed and I looked so beautiful that day….it was the first time I didn’t think about my ex…..I had my nails done, bought a great outfit, and my hair was just right….

I felt “in love” and he played a game on the phone…..He called and his voice was very strange…so strange I didn’t recognize his voice and thought it was a trick….But it was him and he then said, “Maybe I will take you to my home and make love to you and impregnate you or maybe I will stand you up.”

I was dumbfounded ….He laughed and said he was joking and liked to tease and how I need to grow up and take a joke…….He said he would be there soon……

.As I sat there, I knew he was not coming…..this is when my gut feelings started…..I was devastated but I went with the feeling……I stared at myself in the mirror where I sat and asked myself what I was now going to do….The night was early and I took a cab to a nice local pub…..As a friendly person, I have no problem talking to people and so I made talk with some of the girls…..We shared stories and they empathized with me and said how could he dump you, you look so fine…..sometimes strangers are the best people to talk with……..

So as the night went on…I felt strong…..I didn’t need this man…..and I didn’t push away the feeling of being cheated, lied to, or even hurt…..and I never cried coz I didn’t want to…..like the song, I saw your true colors….

As I think about the last 6 months, I see turmoil, anxiety, depression, sadness, etc…….This is not my idea of a good start on any relationship……Many “normal” ups and downs of dating or getting to know someone can take this shape but the difference is all those nasty actions of the SP…..

Years ago, when I was out of my divorce, my daughter was involved with a bad man…..I gave her a book, “When your Lover is a Liar”. She loved the story about the Frog and the Scorpion……We read fairy stories to our girls about the handsome prince to take the fair maiden to his castle…..and here was a better story, now that she was all grown up….

The frog ready to cross the river. The scorpion needs to cross the river. Frog can and Scorpion can’t, coz he’ll drown….So Scorpion asks Frog if he can jump on her back……She denies him and tells him she knows all about how he will sting her….Scorpion tells her that its not true, why would he do that as they both would drown in the middle of the river…..He pleads with her, jokes with her, and finally she agrees, thinking he isn’t as bad as that…..He jumps on her back, and across the river they go….As soon as she jumps on the river bank, Scorpion whips his out his tail and stings Frog…..As she lay there dying she asks, “Why? Why??” And Scorpion answers with a big grin, “Its what I do!”……

You probably know this story but my daughter found it hit home….Happily, she is now married to a wonderful, warm hearted, loving and responsible man…..

I have decided to spend time on me…..to take a long break from dating for a while…..and recover from a bad trip….and heal….

I am fragile……like a warrior who has been cut up and needs to retreat to heal the wounds…..and as she heals, she shines up her armor, sharpens her blades, re thinks her position, and then heads back out with a new strategy……not that I think life is just a big battle although it might as times feel that way when you have hardship but in the sense of armed against this type of person, the SP’s and Narcissists….

One more thing: When we fist met, on the job, our very first words were about one of my employers and I told him she was a narcissist. He then told me about how his ex wife was a narcissist and how they will hurt you and he understood all about them…….After 6 months, when I last saw him, I subtle said in a very sweet and smiling, and teasing way, ” I think you are a little, just a little bit, a little tiny bit, a narcissist”……
.He said not a word………

Thanks for letting me spill my guts here and for the support! Hope it helps others as well as myself…..

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 9:09am

Dear Escapee,

QUOTE: “Save your compassion for those who deserve it”

Yes, that is the ticket right there! When we give “compassion” to a person who is hitting themselves in the thumb with a hammer and refuses to stop hitting themselves, we are wasting our time! Giving compassion to a psychopath is just as futile. Poooooor baby, he is in jail….WHACK….poor baby, he got drunk and wrecked his car….WHACK….poor baby, his wife left him and took the kids cause he beat her up one time too many…/.WHACK…..pooor baby, he can’t get a good job with a criminal record….so he has no money…..WHACK

We cannot rescue them from themselves, they keep on whacking themselves in the thumb with the hammer and then cry to us because their thumb hurts!!!!

Well, personally, I am reserving my empathy and compassion for those VICTIMS of the psychopath, not for the psychopath who gets caught or causes his own downfall.

The Bible tells us to not cast our pearls before swine, lest they turn and rend (tear) us. when we give love or compassion to psychopaths we are casting our pearls before the swine who cannot appreciate the value of these pearls and because they do not value the pearls, they get pithed and turn and “rend” us instead. What a waste of our pearls and our time, and a risk to our lives and souls.

I don’t have to “wish” bad on them, as they will bring it on themselves….justice.

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 9:13am

Oxy

Love your no-nonsense approach!

Oh how I long for justice – in the meantime intend to try to keep telling myself to use my energy to make my life better and stick with the good guys. Little by little, I am beginning to trust myself to know who they are. That’s got to be the right track eh?

All love.

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 9:30am

Vision

‘That what I do…’ said the Scorpion. Wow! Hadn’t heard this story before. Will think on this one because I already feel that helps me to ‘put him into a box’.

It’s a hard concept to grasp that another being could be so self-aware that they are evil and have no qualms about it. I think this answers alot of my ‘whys’.

Thanks and boy have you done the right thing getting rid of that monsterous sicko from your life.

Keep posting for strength.

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 9:35am

endthepain says:

OXY…I always love and enjoy your posts…I always walk away with just a bit more that I’ve lost!

“I don’t have to “wish” bad on them, as they will bring it on themselves- Justice”

WOW…I will be thinking that ALL day..I love it and so true!! Compassion I have and had has been completely wasted on the S…but no longer…..I took a major stand yesterday…and I am so proud of myself….this is for you KATYA and ERIN….

I unplugged the phone…sent an email to the S (really for my court appearance coming up for documentation) he called my son..as if nothing was wrong…hasnt sent anuything in over 8 months is taking me back to court to modify…sends a “milk Truck” to my son and I guess he believes he is father of the year..or something….He called and left the most arrogant message..”Hey boy..Its me…” WTF!!! are u kidding me!!!
SO….I didnt respond…..didnt have my 3 yr old hear the message and have not given him the truck yet either…..asked him if he wanted to call his dad back as he did call…he said “No…I wanna watch backyardigans” LMAO..LMAO…CLASSIC!!
I havew cut off the Mother…the Wife (even tho I like her and I know they are splitting up) I cant be a part of anything having to do with him…and it feels SOOOOOOOO good!
I called him out on his Shit (in the email) cut him off at the knees in tryin g to use my son to hurt me….HELL NO!!! as he is angry that I will not talk to him…any communication pertaining to our son is in writing and he HATES that..and now cuting of the communication has PISSED him off…..so again feel good….court is coming up pertaining to his modification and all I can do is hope for justice and stay on track thanks to all of you!!!

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 12:52pm

JaneSmith says:

Awesome essay, Kathleen.

You have given me oodles of food for thought, your own special, unique perspective which has time and time again…educated and revitalized my thinking.

I don’t wish to focus on any particular thought, idea, insight as I’m viewing it as a complete process not as an individual concept. Does that make sense? I’m not an eloquent writer such as yourself and I still have a difficult time expressing my thoughts into the written word.

But I can understand your seeking to acknowledge and elaborate on what you consider beneficial after the involvement with you ex. What he has shown you and unintentionally taught you over the years.

If I may presume, that without that huge life/survival lesson he laid out for you, the same old song and dance routine would have continued for you and enlightenment, growth would have been impossible to attain. I get that. I feel that way also.

He was the proverbial straw that broke the poor camel’s back. The last in a string of destructive, unfulfilled relationships through life that I believe helped you to finally pause in the direction you were going, spend countless hours pondering, ruminating, searching for answers, truth in a most solid effort to fix what is broken in yourself.

Because if we don’t seek to work out the disfunctions in us (most assuredly caused by childhood neglect and/or abuse, imo) we will stay upon that miserable path, never able to visualize the true, honest, reality oriented path where peace, joy and love are not only possible, but are eventual.

I think I can say that I’m in a sort of limbo place of healing. Not moving backwards, of course. Still moving forward, but striving in my way to emphatically understand my own direction, my motivations, my search for answers. Within and without.

I would be a liar if I said I don’t give a damn if I’m ever in a relationship again. I don’t see that happening any time soon as you touched a specific nerve when you discussed relationship addiction. In a good way, sweety.

Here I was believing I must be so resilient to be able to hurt for a couple of months after a break up, then jump head first into another relationship. I would do this time and time again, projecting my values onto that new man expecting him to be just like me. How naive! How arrogant and foolish, right?

I have resignedly surrendered that stagnant belief because it didn’t seem to give me what I would want: you know, love and caring and generosity.

I have grown up more in the last year than I have in all my years. I really didn’t have a choice. If I continue to engage with the world as a young minded, magical thinking, utopian believer I will continue to be hurt. To feel emotional pain that I could have prevented.

By facing my maturity. By facing reality at it pertains to me and my decisions. By fundamentally realizing I can change, I can move forward, I can adapt and evolve.

It is my choice and I am making it. Of my own free will.

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 6:01pm

confused2 says:

Feeling a bit better today. It’s been four weeks today, since NC. Took my son to a baseball game last night, just me and him, no S. We were both relaxed and happy. I thought to myself this is what summer is suppose to be like. I saw some pretty young women and if S was with us I would be watching him check them out. Not to mention timing is loooong bathroom breaks. Sometimes I felt like I was being overly jealous or “being silly” as he used to say. Now I don’t have to worry about anything I can just go to the movies, baseball games etc. and just enjoy myself. When I start feeling bad, I stop thinking about the “good” times I’m missing with him and instead think about what he’s missing with me. If he can allow himself to even think or feel that emotion. Which in all honesty, the most he misses about being with me is the money.

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 6:35pm

witsend says:

JaneSmith,
Do not under estimate yourself! I think you have a wonderful way to express your thoughts “with the written word”. Although we havent chatted in the past I ALWAYS read your post. I think much of what you say is thought provoking. And makes me, frankly want to be a better person.

I love your upbeat attitude and I wished you lived down the block with me and we could go for a nice long walk. LOL…

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 6:43pm

Confused

So glad you are feeling more upbeat and enjoying ‘normal’ – oh how that eludes us when we are in the ‘heat’ with the S creeps!

Re pretty young women – another nuggat from the S nightmare from hell that I was involved with (when I found him fawning over a 23 year old – he was nearly 50) at a work occasion (mine) – ‘well why wouldn’t I go and find the prettiest girl in the room and talk to her’ – embarrass her and bore her to death more like – he seemed to ‘miss’ the fact completely that the guy she was with (0ne of my work colleagues was 29 and a real ‘hottie’) – at the time I took this to heart and now I think ’silly old bugger – made a right arse of himself’ – oh, their egos! He just ’showed himself up’ – and, of course, the people I was with were way to polite to make an issue of it – funny how everyone else gives them such leaway isn’t it? What a prat!

Good on you girl – keep enjoying and remember ‘Your truth, not their lies’.

All love and keep strong.

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 7:03pm

Thank you escapee. I read the articles and posts at LF everyday, and I identify with so many people here. The lies, the pity ploy, the things S’s do and say are the same I’ve heard too!! My S is 55 he has a 22yr old daughter who he is very “close” to. When people first meet them together, they think they are a couple and S really enjoys that, always told me about it when someone mentioned that to him. He said to me that his daughter’s friends were dating men his age and wasn’t that “cool”. I still get irked when I think of all the stuff he would say to me. A few weeks before I broke up with him he asked me and my son to a church festival, I couldn’t go because of a prior commentment, later that day I tried to call him and left a voicemail and text and said I would be free to go. He never returned my call. He told me later that day he took a 27yr old neighbor woman with him instead. Like that was perfectly acceptable, she didn’t mean anything to him, he said. I told him that I didn’t like it, I couldn’t go on this way and that was the end, turned off the phone and went to sleep! The next morning he was at my door begging for another chance, and like a dummy I said okay. I thought he must really love me to come over and beg like that. Then I saw him online “hooking up” with young women on a porn site. Women who liked group sex, freaking sex etc. I was so hurt and disgusted. The next day I went to the doctor’s and was tested for STD’s. I called him and told him I never wanted to see him again and to stay the F*** out of my life. I actually screamed at him, the first time I ever did that. It felt good but I was shaking at the same time from anger I think. My friends and family know nothing about this, I’m ashamed and embarressed. I knew this man was lying to me I saw the red flags but through it all I believed he loved me, and that was the biggest lie of all. I read in a post here, that they mirror what they hear and see from us. I believe that is soooo true. It was all an illusion, none of it was real. I loved a lie, an illusion, as James said. And somehow that has made it eaiser for me to let go of him and all the hope and promises he made me. Thank God I have LF to “hold my hand”, I don’t think I would’ve made it without your support.

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 7:36pm

To All ….in summary it is like we have slept with the enemy…It is beyond our capacity of compprehention…the person who we loved so much, who we put in first place before ourselves, who we felt sorry when he was sad, we give our own soul to safe hes soul….we have children together we bulit a life together (at least this is what we chose to believe in).(22 years married – 3 very happy 10 with ups and downs – 7 of hell)..and then ……when you have no more tears left, no more energy left, no more capacity to love yourself, no more hopes or self steem, no more room to breath…and you see yourself falling apart and the future and safety of your children at risk. When you see everything that you work for and that you built is collapsing…somehow you still have the wisdom to jump out of the sinking ship and give him the ship for him to navigate safely. And you decided to swimm alone caring the children…and them you see him going loughing and you are nearly drowning with the children and as you struglle to survive he loughs…. and then suddenly you find yourself on the shore. you feel safe. and the ship caring him with all your hopes is gone. That is how I describe my experience. But he didn’t know that he left behind not three drowning souls but three diamonds, three strong beings, with a lot of wisdom and self love. That the best thing we felt was to be able to feel safe againg but traumatised by the experience. But never, ever disbelieving in ourselves. What wonderful children did I have and they still are, each and everyday flourishing. We have rebuilt spetacurlaly and never have done anything to destroy the father. Instead we gathered the litle bit of energy we had left and start climbing again. and climbing and climbing..Today we are on top and we have no time to think of what if or what is happenning to him. but we know. I only start understanding who I was married with, after I let him go. The man who I believed I have married never existed. It was a lie since the first day but I felt for it, because I didn’t know better. I survive through it because I didn’t know any other way. I only knew what was happening after he was gone because I had time to start learning and understanding. Boy oh boy How relieved I feel. The pride and joy of seeing us so successfully I can not describe. The pride I feel for my daughter and son is undescribible. The pride they feel towards me is beyond words..

So for those who is going through this pain one word of advise. Use your energies to be strong within yourself. Rebuilt, reconstruct, because we are all here to listen and share. I wish I had this support when I was going through the storm. Slowly I will give more details. But one thing he forgot……we were the people who made him feel so powerful , so wonderful, so desirable, so charming…without us he is nobody..he is nothing. he will not impress because time will tell the whole word the truth. and then is when they break down.. we do not have to move a finger. our success is their disgrace..

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 7:40pm

confused2

I still feel and believe that’s what really hurt me the most. That I loved an illusion and that I wasted 17 years of my life believing a lie. This is something I still haven’t gotten over with and some days confused2 I really don’t think If will ever get over that. But yes, confused2 once I accepted this it made it so much easier for me to let this dream and illusion go….

A lie to me no more
An illusion forever gone
I saw that this mirror did crack
Then looked at my mirror
and saw me starring back

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 7:57pm

Thank you so much for the post. Filled with sorrow but also filled with courage and hope.

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 8:06pm

What a disgusting piece of filth he was. I had similar experiences (though, in my fog, I wasn’t grasping what was going on – we make so many excuses for their unacceptable behaviour). the last evening that I spent with with the ‘devil from hell – I’d already started to ‘root him out’ – he was trying to get me to watch some disgusting porn channel (I won’t go into details because it revolts me, but suffice it to say it was all about some dirty old men with a young woman – very degrading and NOT my ‘thing’ at all – retch!) – I said “PLEASE, turn this off and he said ‘I think it’s funny’ – it’s all so twisted and not – and never was me – whenever I think of this ( and I try not to) I think ‘ He made my life dirty and tainted’ – my life was never that way and isn’t now – so well rid love………… errrrrr!

I totally understand your comments about feeling ashamed and embarrasses – I have never told anyone else about this but I hope it helps you to feel that your reactions are ‘normal’. Well, I think they are. I couldn’t really care what ‘floats someone’s boat’ just don’t foist it on me –

The whole ’sex’ thing with S/N/Ps is another dimension – I’m just glad I’m out and didn’t get into anything on that front.

Halleluja!

All love to you doll and keep posting for strength!

E x

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 8:10pm

James

Your comments are so poignant – so brave. It inspires me to share things and connect – even the really uncomfortable stuff to ‘confused’. If anything can come out of all that ’s***’ (sorry) – and help another trying to recover from these ‘half-humans’ it’s worth it.

I felt so alone, so mad and crazy for the past year – so many things that I felt sooo ashamed about – not my shame, I now realise (I wasn’t the one cheating, lying, manipulating, being unfaithful and downright dangerous) – this site has been a godsend – thanks to you all.

Thanks.

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 8:32pm

James, Escapee

James, letting go of the hopes and dreams…the illusion, was the hardest for me. Even after I said goodbye I had some doubts after a few days. Then I found this site, thank goodness. It may be a week now that I have had a low point where I thought, if he called I may take him back.

Escapee, your comment about “twisted” hit home. He twisted my mind and was proud of it. My son said to me once, “He is empty inside and is trying to fill the emptiness with you”. My son is only 9 years old and he saw S’s true self!

Mostly I feel relieved that this S is out of my life, but I still catch myself thinking of him. I try to stay busy constantly keep my mind occupied always. The more time that goes by the easier it gets for me.

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 8:36pm

Wow out of the mouth of babes…

My youngest once said “Dad, it’s like she is full of cancer”. I look at him and said “yes, son I guess you are right”

I didn’t know what he meant at the time but later I thought to myself that maybe he was talking about emotional cancer a type of sickness inside of her. My youngest is more like me then my oldest insomuch that J is a very passionate child. J loved his mother very very much and what happen hurt him just as much. Seeing a little bit of her dying inside of him almost killed me emotionally. I asked a counseling at his school to talk with him and let me know if she saw anything I should be concerned with. Thank God she never reported anything back to me concerning J. I asked her if I should get J into therapy (she was a therapist) but told me how she force her child into therapy after his dad left and how his therapist told her she was wasting her money because her son wasn’t ready to open up to him. So I didn’t force it on J unless I saw something I thought he might have to deal with. I told J this and we both agreed that if I witness anything we both should be concern with that he would have to attend therapy.

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 9:14pm

Hi, I’m just back from being gone for most of two days at a trade show, and scanning through the posts above. We have some new people who have come in with a lot of thinking already done. Welcome. You’re posts are wonderful.

Someone wrote:

I was never a vengeful person, I never took pleasure or satisfaction in hearing of anyone’s misfortune AND NOW (as you expressed so succinctly) where Ss are concerned we, at best think ‘good!’ and, at worst (where I go from time to time) wish the worst torment and pain would befall them. This is what they take from us – our humanity.

In the spirit of the article which began this thread, I’d like to suggest that they didn’t really steal our humanity. It’s more like they borrowed it — or rather all the resources that our feeling temperaments offered — and likewise our contact with them caused us to become a lot more familiar with how they feel.

Feeling envious, angry and vengeful are pretty par for the course for them. And if my theory of contagion is correct, we’ve come away from them with a whole new set of emotional reactions which we ordinarily don’t allow ourselves to feel. Part of the big challenge of recovery is to integrate their stuff with our stuff and come out of it a more well-rounded person.

But it’s tough to do. It takes getting used to new feelings, and figuring how to use them and actually master them. A lot of the conversation on this thread comes out of the angry phases, and some of it even before that, when we’re still flirting with full-blown anger.

I believe that this is a crucial part of our healing, and our growing ability to take care of ourselves. I think that if we had been good at anger before we met these people, we might have been more reactive in the face of things that were hurtful to us. No matter how involved were or enmeshed in their lives, we would have been faster to blow up, get these things out in the open between us in a no-nonsense way, get clear about what is unacceptable in our lives, and if it couldn’t be cured, dismiss these people. No matter what it cost us or how much it hurt us.

So getting angry, getting comfortable with our right to be angry when something bad is done to us, making that entitlement a fully integrated part of our lives, and then learning how to do all in a way that is graceful and efficient is a kind of progressive mastery of anger that can literally change our lives.

Later, when we gotten through all that, we can begin to turn our attention to what we want, rather than what we don’t want.

But all of this takes time. Which is why the recovery process doesn’t happen overnight. In a way — actually in a lot of ways — a relationship with a sociopath not only introduces to what’s wrong out in the world, but to weaknesses in our own survival strategies.

And certainly an internal rule against being angry, envious or vengeful can block us from responding in a timely and effective way to threats to our wellbeing.

Here are a few definitions (mine) of these words.

Anger is a normal response from our deep survival system (brain stem) regarding a threat that part of brain regards as potentially damaging and requiring fast action. Anger both focuses the brain on the threat and prepares our body for battle. (Just because our survival brain demands immediate action doesn’t mean that our higher layers of brain won’t give us a more sophisticated and effective approach to the problem, if we decide it’s safe to think about it a bit, before we jump into action.)

Envy is a form of visioning (thinking about what we want) that is triggered by seeing someone who has something that we’d like to have. It has a bad name, because it’s associated with resentment and feelings of disenfranchisement. But it’s really about wishing we had something someone else has, and if not for the associated negative emotions, could just as well be a motivator for us to work on some personal objective.

Vengeful feelings are about balancing a situation in which we feel harmed, ripped off, offended, etc. We experience a kind of theft, and we want if not repayment, at least a rebalancing that shares the experience of loss with the other party. We don’t want to feel like victims and losers. And for good reason. We don’t want to start a pattern of feeling used to this (viewing ourselves a long-term victims). And there may be external factors — like the way other people view us or the relative resources that we’ve lost and the other person has gained — that may affect our status, future opportunities or ability to bounce back. The impulse is part of the anger spectrum related to our deep drive to survive. (Acting on vengeful feelings, like other manifestations of anger, is often better postponed until we figure out what is really in our own best interest.)

Whatever we may have been taught — and often our training has caused us to block these feelings — a full recovery from these relationships involves us getting to know these feelings better, learning what they mean in our lives, and how to use them appropriately.

The fact the sociopaths feel and act on these feelings on a regular basis puts us in close contact with the feelings, and also provides us with an object lesson in how not being familiar with and able to master these feelings plays out in our lives, when we meet someone who can use them.

I’m not suggesting that we become permanently angry, envious and vengeful people. Fortunately — unlike sociopaths — we have a much broader emotional spectrum than that. That makes it a bit more complicated to think — at higher level — about how we will ultimately respond. But it also enables us to find solutions that allow us to continue to exist in society, rather than as outlaws. But feeling these feelings and developing mastery of them as part of our emotional spectrum and available responses makes us more human, not less. And more functional in the end.

I hope this makes sense.

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 9:20pm

confused2,
It is amazing how much perception our children have of the whole situation. I think their emotional attachement with the S is at a different level than us, the partner. After my separation (still not divorced – more on this later) I asked forgivenes to my children for breaking up the family. My daugther said: “Mum you have not broken up the family. Dad broke himself. We didn’t have a family before, now we are a family. We just do not understand why it took so long for you to break up with him. I feel that I lift a heavy weight from my shoulders”:

Confused, this was nearly 10 years ago and I just discoved this site now. The road to recovery is a long one, but we will recover. The Ss will never recover..Their lives will be a hell. They have to keep running, lying, deceiving others as a mean of survival…How pathetic is that.. No matter how S they are they have their moments of reflexion… and the inner guilt will corrode their existence..
Yes, they tried to destroy our existence because that is the only purpose of their lifes to validate themselves, since they know they have nothing good inside.

Yes, and we miss those love and tender moments…but they were not real..they were part of a game…to hook us…and to make us fragile emotionally…so they could manipulate us more and more…Hey look at the bright side. those moments were real to us…they were just fake to them we lived a true loving moments…and how good is that…they, on the other hand, will never know the meaning of a true feeling. at the end they have been cheated in life..

Look at this way…drug is some thing that make addict people feel good. They know the drugs are not good..that slowly will kill them. but they still want the drug. What happens after they try to break the addiction? It is hard. This is what we are going through. We are breaking the addiction to a drug that was killing us. but yet we felt good when we were taking them..

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 9:31pm

Glad to hear from you and welcome back Kathleen Hawk

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 9:36pm

Witsend,

Awww…thank you for such wonderful praise. It does feel good to me that whatever I’ve written on LF has been a benefit in some way to you awesome folks. That’s the primary reason I still visit LF: to share with kindred spirits.

I also read as many of the posts as I can. I’m not a humming bird multi tasker like Kathleen and Oxy. My brain can only process so much new information before it seems to seek to shut itself off…haha.

Then I hit that zombie stage where I mostly utter mono-syllable words and I start thinking of ice cream. Yummy! Why ice cream? No idea. I guess it’s the comfort food that heals zombism. At least that’s my story and I’m stickin to it!

**huggs to Witsend**

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 9:43pm

I haven’t talked to my son about S yet. He knows he’s out of my life although I have told him that once in the past and allowed S back into our lives. I have talked to his teacher and she said my son was doing okay in school, I did notice on his report card that a couple of A’s had dropped to C’s. When I asked my son about it he said he was distracted about things happening at home, meaning my problems with S. We have three months off this summer before school starts again to “get it together”. S was only in our lives for 5 months, I say “only” because right now it seems longer. Someone posted earlier that they could spot a predator by the look in their eyes. I believe I saw that look in the eyes of my S, at the time I thought he was assessing me for a date. But now I believe he was assessing me for how he could use me. I look back and see alot of things differently now. I have come to the conclusion that the way I can tell S was lying to me, his lips moved. It sounds funny but I’m not laughing.

James, your last couple of posts brought tears to my eyes. It cuts too deep when your children are involved. The shame I feel when my son cried and begged me to get S out of our lives and I took S back one more time. I hope when my son grows up and realizes what this all means he won’t be angry with me.

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 9:48pm

Sorry I didn’t want to make you sad but yes I understand. Having children with these people really makes it so much harder to deal with at times..

Oh, What you said about the look, here is a link on YouTube about that:

The Reptilian Stare

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVPbnbTQxSc

“In the book Violent Attachments, women and men have noted the particular stare of the psychopath – it is an intense, relentless gaze that seems to preclude his destruction of his victim or target. Women, in particular, have reported this stare, which is related to the “predatorial” (reptilian) gaze; it is as if the psychopath is directing all of his intensity toward you through his eyes, a sensation that one woman reported as a feeling of “being eaten.” They tend to invade peoples’ space either by their sudden intrusions or intimidating look-overs (which some women confuse for sexuality.)”

link: http://www.cassiopaea.com/cass.....hopath.htm

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 10:03pm

Our children are very resilient and in fact sometimes are able to deal with this better then us depending on the age and the developmental (emotionally/maturity) stage of the child. I sure your child will someday thank you for ousting his sorry butt out.

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 @ 10:28pm

First of all, thanks to Oxy, for your great advice to me, its getting easier by the day. I now know NC is the only thing that will work for me with my “girls”, and as I dont have contact with my ex, or with my younger daughter[her decision} that only leaves Deb. I havent seen her since 10th Dec. last year, but have been targeted as source of large sums of cash since jan. this year. Its better if I dont speak to her on the phone, Im scared I get seduced by her lies, tears,or sob stories.{Oxy, you are so right about them hitting themselves with a hammer, and then expecting us to say,”Oh poor baby!}Re the reptilian stare, Debs husband,{they are not divorced yet after 3 years apart.} told me she is the most emotionally cold person he has ever met in his life. Someyears ago, about 6 i think, he said,”Maia, its nor about sex, is the fact she never, ever puts her arm round me, or calls me darling, or gives me a loving hug.” Nothing. I sent him a photo of her from facebook.{She removed me after I sent her that letter!} In the photo, she has very dark hair, maybe dyed, a red dress, very red lipstick, glossy, smooth skin, very attractive. But the stare! And the fixed phoney smile, showing her perfectly re-capped teeth! the smile doesnt reach her eyes. Its more of a smirk, really. She looks so posed, so phoney in all her recent pics of facebook. The last one I saw, shed written about herself,”Still gorgeous at 40!” Well ,hello, she is 45 on 6th July.Kevin said,”She looks like shes made of Wax, scarey!”I dont thinkshe will ever find such a nice guy as her ex husband. he took Holly, now 14, to Uk on a family reunion thing,back in 2005.he told me his Mum said to him,”Youre not happy, are you son?” “No, Mum Im miserable , just trying to hold it together for the kids.
Mary, the youngest, is 8 now,apparently Deb had an abortion the year before she conceived Mary, and was planning to leave kevin in the year 2000. She couldnt face another abortion, so she made him have a vasectomy. They stuck it out for another 5 years., separating in2006.Loveto all of you great guys!!geminigirlXX

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 12:11am

Thanks so much for your last past about Anger, Envy and Vengence. Your definitions are so insightful and I like the correlation between the then (before the S) and now – the aftermath. I think I have to go back to the before to realise that I was implementing my responses in an ‘efficient’ way, which is possibly what made me vulnerable to the S in the first place and certainly kept me there way beyond the first time I came up against his ‘cruel and crucifying’ comments – this was just the start – had I had the insight and knowledge then, I would have ended it before the real abuse and conning got going.

It has given me food for thought and, as you so rightly say, this self-knowlege has to be assimilated into everything else in my belief system in a way that makes it ‘useful’ to me rather than destructive.

Perhaps a big part of ‘After the S’ is learning to trust ourselves again and this includes learning to use the new ‘tools’ at our disposal.

Thanks you and may ‘your’ god bless you.

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 4:11am

correction: 2nd & 3rd line was meant to read:

“I think I have to go back to before to realise that I WASN’T implementing my responses……….

Note to self: must proof read posts before posting! (Another thing to work on! – ooh, all this learning!)

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 4:14am

Brihlancy, James & Confused

Just read your posts and those lightbulbs went off AGAIN.

Each one of you described in words my exact thoughts and I have even uttered these words out loud at times.

Bril – the drug analogy – that’s just what it was like – being addicted – all the turmoil of coming of it……. you wouldn’t expect a drug addict to ‘heal’ overnight and have no withdrawal, guilt issues etc – same for us with S/N/Ps. We need to be more gentle with ‘ourselves’.

Confused – re the lip thing: The S actually used to say to me about men ‘you know they are lying cos their lips are moving’ – so many clues he gave me – but the ‘men’ he was referring to was really ‘HIM’ (maybe it comforted him to think that he was just a normal guy and that all men behave the way he does). The other one ‘I’m WYSIWYG – pronounced ‘Wissywig’ – he was very proud of this. ‘WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET!” – more clues as to his true self. Trouble was that I wasn’t ’seeing’ it. Re your comments about your child – well, as I said before to you – you hadn’t quite worked it all out and you made what seemed like a ‘mistake- that you are now ‘kicking’ yourself for – well, I did this many more times than you and have been beating myself with a stick repeatedly for over a year – it’s not worth it hon. If your baby could see it and forgive it and is, clearly, relieved that this B****** is out of your life – time to stop beating yourself up. Don’t forget you were still wanting to believe his lies – now you know your own ‘truth’ – I think you’ve come an awfully long way in a short time. Well done you!

Thanks to you all – I ALWAYS get something that makes me stronger and more resolved from your contributions.

James – the Reptilian Stare and the sudden intrusions – this made my blood run cold – I thought I’d just dramatised this in my mind. Also on this note, I really believed that someone couldn’t look you straight in the eye and lie – well I believe they can – the S (I know now from my later discoveries about his activites and all the ‘conning’ with money) did all the time. Maybe there was some subtle shift in body language but I didn’t see it. I will certainly be aware of this in the future, should I ever be crazy enough to enter the ‘dating’/relationship arena again.

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 4:53am

sstiles54 says:

James,
Even tho the pics of the reptilian stare made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, I think it serves as a good indicator of when to turn & run! Don’t look back, just run! The s I was married to had this same dead look in his eyes, I just didn’t know how to recognize it back then. After reading that so many of us have seen the stare, the only description I could come up with, was what the old drunken ship captain in the movie “Jaws” said…”their eyes are lifeless, like a doll’s eyes…”

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 5:38am

sstiles 54

When the S was drunk it turned into a ‘leer’ – urgh! Makes me shudder to think about it…… never want to see that look again – you’re right – turn and run!

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 5:47am

”their eyes are lifeless, like a doll’s eyes…”

LOL, I was thinking that when I was reading the thread on sharks. Whenever I think of that movie I start humming:

“Show me the way to go home
I tried and I want to go bed
I had a little drink about a hour ago
and it went straight to my head”

Then what happens next in the movie?
The shark comes knocking/head butting the ship
looking for it’s prey..

I often wonder how many of us are thinking this (I want to get some rest) when we get that knock on the door or that unexpected late night phone call from our ex’s who comes an knocking on side of our ship? Looking for it’s prey!!!

Great movie!

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 6:01am

You’re right! Always the late night phone call – actually, it was often quite needy – “Hi baby, just thought I’d call to tell you I loved you before I went bye-byes” – and yeh! more like to illicit the attention you crave because I’m the ’supply’ at the moment. Funny that… when I later found out what he was up to elsewhere – during those times – there were no late night phone calls!

No wonder I ended up so drained and exhausted. But don’t they ever run out of energy? What drains us normal mortals seems to ‘feed’ these beasts………. well thank the lord that he ain’t knocking on the side of my ship anymore!

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 6:13am

Escapee

Yes, and another example of the shark and the sociopath.

Sharks can’t stop filtering water through their gills and if they do they will drown. That’s why sharks don’t really sleep. Their brains are able to turn off activity on one half of the brain’s hemisphere (left) while the other (right) half is still active and awake.

Sociopath also seem to be always on the go looking for opportunity and supply (victims) and have problems relaxing and taking it like a Sunday Morning. There is always some drama or needs they have to display or to be met by someone and anyone will do just fine. Well, that’s how I relate to it.

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 6:56am

Just another thought. Been dipping in and out this morning, while simultaneously doing the gardening …….

I have terrible patches of moss and clover on my lawn and because I have a cat am very reluctant to use any chemical to get rid of it. Everyday, I go out, even if only for a few minutes, on my way out to work or coming back, and I pull out the clover. I try to work it back to the root – it’s stubborn, but little by little, it’s receding, I’m weakening it from the root. It’s like an analogy for what I am trying to do in this healing process. A few people talked about weeding the garden on this blog last week and I didn’t really ‘cotton’ on to exactly what they were saying – now I do!

I’m hoping that my weeding of the garden is a metaphor for the healing process – it makes me feel happy in knowing that if I keep at it, one day it will be gone.

Thanks all.

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 7:19am

I am still beating myself about getting involved and staying involved with the S. I KNEW this person was lying to me and yet I stayed with him because I thought he was better than nothing!! How wrong I was. I remember right before I broke up with him the final time, thinking I can have anyone lie to me, I didn’t need him for that. It’s only after I got away from him and started thinking for myself and reading the posts here that I saw the way he manipulated me. I also still think about him… a lot, and that bothers me too. I guess I need more time.

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 9:04am

slimone says:

confused2,

I think all of us here understand the guilt/shame that comes with being and ’staying’ involved with an abuser/path. And many, many of us go through the compulsive thinking/wishing/hoping/hating thinking.

I don’t know if you have read it, but Betrayal Bond is SO great at explaining and validating the experience of being Trauma Bonded in these ‘relationships’. Trauma bonds follow some very predicatable patterns of behavior/coping. Please get it if you haven’t already. It helped me, still does.

No need to beat yourself up. Feel the feelings, they are real. But try reading the book….it will help you make sense of the feelings.

Take good care

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 10:50am

sabrina says:

Confused2, Please dont beat hourself up honey, these subhumans can fool anyone- I’ve personally seen intelligent, well meaning Pastors, therapists, councelors etc completely duped. I know this stll dosent feel like it “clears’ you from the scam of the P. I felt the same way, still have to fight the “stinkin’ thinkin’” But ALWAYS REMEMBER- go back and look it up- Trauma BOnds and the definitions of “Abusers”.

Our bodies are designed with “coping” mechanisms, Im sure others could give much better details about this, but as survivors, our mind found ways to seemingly cope with the situation rather than get out. Its like when someone has been raped- just be glad that in whatever you had to do, go through, to get out alive is commendable. We must try to control our thoughts and replace them with positive affirmations. Oxy said in prev post, that we take on the shame of our abusers. This helped me alot to understand how we internalized our situations. As far as thinking about him- always remember – HE IS THE LIE- FROM hello to goodbye- mirroring YOUR personalized idea of prince charming is what they excel in.
Just as with my x, with his previous wife he was a drug addict and boozer, (mirroring her addictions)shortly after “burning down” his life with her- He met me, then he was” a church going family man, bent on “healthy” living,clean eating, and exercise (mirroring my existing life). I “KNOW” that his so called life goals are just whatever he ends up victimizing next. Given the KNOWLEDGE of this- you (and the rest of us) are only reminiscing about a “DREAM” turned NIGHTMARE!!!! FIght to loose the illusion!
– I must go to work now but please take care and Peace to you!xoxo

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 10:57am

SLimone- sorry we posted over each other- sounds like we are the SAME page!!!! WOw .lol

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 10:58am

On the same page meant to say!!!

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 10:59am

Confused2- until you get the books, you can google trauma bonds, etc. and get alot of good info!

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 11:06am

Hecates path, I’m responding to your question here, because I don’t want to derail Donna’s thread on the sharks, when it’s just beginning.

It’s been a little more than five years since that person was physically out of my life.

There’s a time line in the recovery work, but the edges are soft. In the beginning, I invested from a year and a half to two years in single-minded focus on working through it. I didn’t (couldn’t) work, because I was too destabilized — physically ill and suicidal at the start. I basically created my own sanitarium and committed myself. I was fortunate enough to have a small inheritance to support me, and no one else who was dependent on me (like children).

I had a limited support system of friends who could tolerate being around me and one or two who could actually contribute something meaningful. I spent one of those years in intensive work with a therapist, because it raised incest-related issues that were too overwhelming to address alone. But otherwise, my recovery was self-directed.

So what I’m sharing now is the benefit of that, as well as the ongoing work in the years afterward, when I was able to start working again and get more involved with my adult son and other relationships that were not strictly in support of my healing. (Though everything now is really part of this great evolutionary adventure.)

The personal work doesn’t end, but the nature of it changes a lot over time. I got perspective on what happened to me, and more understanding of my life in the context of the larger patterns of culture and other people’s lives. As it became more of a learning experience and less of a destabilizing blow, the climate of my emotional system changed. And continues to change.

I believe in personal healing. And I believe that we are meant to live in peace with ourselves, feelings of belonging in this world, and emotional freedom to act as we think right. I’ve always believed in this, although it took my encounter with the sociopath to help me figure out how to do that.

I was lucky to have the time, money, and personal freedom and physical safety to focus so intently on this work. I know that not everyone is so lucky. I’m hoping that, by writing about it, I can help other people be more confident and directed in their own recovery processes.

That’s a long answer to your simple question But it’s what you’re seeing in my writing. All that said, if I could succeed in saying exactly the right thing in every instance, it wouldn’t change the fact that the learning process involves undoing past beliefs. It’s tough work, because we fight it. It takes time.

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 11:26am

Matt says:

This is a great article. I met our friend, Kathy, yesterday, and told her that it was timely for me, based on two experiences I had in the last couple of days.

Bachelor # 1: I met this guy and went out on a dinner date with him the other night. Nice-looking guy, interesting, gainfully-employed, paid his share of a dinner check. In short, everything S wasn’t. Anyhow, we spoke for over 4 hours.

And while it was only a first date, I still had my S meter operating. Funny thing was, he was definitely coming across as truthful and genuine. Dinner lasted over 4 hours. The conversation flowed. No red flags popping. He called the other night and we spoke for over an hour. Same thing. We’re having dinner tomorrow night. I am taking it slow, and watching for the red flags, but so far so good.

Bachelor # 2: A friend called me up and told me he had gone out with some guy. Not right for him, but he thought we might click. Then he starts telling me about he guy and I reazlize it is S’s-ex (what are the odds in a city of 10 million?). The ex was as duplicitious and manipulative as S. My friend goes back to S’s-ex and tells him it isn’t going to happen for the obvious reasons.

The ex goes crazy on him, telling my friend that S cheated on him repeatedly. That S cheated on ME repeatedly (thank you for the confirmation). That I had become friendly with the ex’s attorney, etc, etc.

Now what any of this had to do with me is beyond me. My friend was astonished. All he could say was “Damn. I knew S had treated you badly, but I wouldn’t believe how crazy he could make the people around him as well.”

Bachelor #1 — Trust. Bachelor #2 — Untrustworthy. EAsy call, huh?

Matt:

“Not right for him, but he thought we might click.” What the….????

That’s why I never let my friends play matchmaker on me.

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 11:50am

Jim in Indiana USA says:

confused2…knew mine 26 years, married 25. Now 3+ years out. Like Kathy, I was fortunate for the past two years to have financial resources. Thought a lot, traveled, walked beaches, walked trails, exercised, ate better…spent time with my daughters.

My “lightbulb” didn’t switch on for 18 months…

Red Flags are more easily seen in the rear view mirror.

Be patient with yourself. No Contact if possible. Minimize contact if not (teen daughter shared in small Midwest town, in my case).

Matt….good to see you…compared to me, your entry back into the romantic world is at blinding speed LOL!

And Kathy…thanks…TRUST is everything.

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 11:54am

Matt, it was wonderful to meet you. For all of you who wonder about him, he’s even better company in person (though the early cocktail hour at the lovely Warwick Hotel lounge didn’t hurt either of us).

If this meeting was any indication of the fun we could share if we could ever figure out how to meet our LoveFraud friends, it’s definitely something we should think about. I can’t remember laughing so hard with someone who really “got it” for a long time, if ever.

I drove home fantasizing about creating the “Up from Under” travel club. Can you imagine the cruise?

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 12:27pm

Just wanted to add a little bit more commentary regarding your brilliant essay.

You said (paraphrased) there are a gazillion things that happen daily that we can totally trust, like the sun rising in the morning, the consistency of the four seasons, etc.

I can also trust that my bratty, beloved felines will annoy the crap out of me every morning if I don’t pop out of bed when they expect it. Consistency, like clockwork with those 2 furry imps. But cats are uncomfortable with change and I respect that about them.

The subject of either forming or renewing our sense of trust can begin with this healing, supportive, loving forum on LF.

Where else can we go to receive such intelligent, compassionate, unbiased, nonjudgmental advice and encouragement?

It starts here, where we all have our own unique voices/experiences to share and we ALL matter. To ourselves and to each other. I’m not concerned with the very few who feel the need to play devil’s advocate. Those very few who are dissatisfied with comments of others, calling them “yes” folks.

It is irrelevant to me if former victims of predators express their deepest desires about wishing harm on those creatures. They are only venting, sharing their anger and pain not actually contemplating acting on revenge fantasies. Wanting justice to be done is so normal for good and decent people to ponder.

So, I read the comments (discussed a few fantasies myself once upon a time) and accept the ideas, thoughts of others for what they are: just thoughts. Just venting out the misery suffered while loving a predator.

By not disagreeing, by not disturbing the flow of other’s important thoughts I am subltly contributing to their reawakening trust. The peeps become comfortable, feel safe speaking up on LF, sharing the deepest, darkest moments they have endured over the years which then leads to a tentative trust being formed.

They know they can rely on us to NOT disrupt their thought processes because it is so important to be able to open up and share. Helps with building trust and healing. To me, this bravory, this courage reveals to me a most stellar character. Truly it does.

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 12:30pm

Wait. I take that back, what I said about being unbiased.

I am biased. I LOVE you people. I don’t love sociopaths. Uh…not in this life time. No sirree bobby boy!

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 12:40pm

An earlier post hit home for me this morning. The addiction anology by Brihlancy. I was addicted to this man and I knew it and even told him so at one point. I gave away all my thoughts, feelings and especially power to this S. I saw red flags, I knew he was lying to me (more so now than before) and yet I couldn’t give him up. When I called him and broke up with him the final time, I was angry, now the anger has disappeared and now I feel disappointed. I’m no longer looking for explainations or apologies, there won’t be any. Not once when we were together did he ever say he was sorry, the word just is not in his vocabulary. I realized that just today. I know I’m going through the process and I realize just how important NC is. As long as I stay NC I have the power, and sometimes that thought is all I have to hold on to.

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 1:15pm

JaneSmith, we are on the same page.

The “better” we get, the more tolerant, aware, supportive, empathetic we become, because other people’s states don’t put us at risk. We’re more self-referenced for our reality.

I remember clearly when my feelings were dominated by all the strong negative reactions of trauma processing. And I still return to them sometimes. In my mind, they are good things — as you say. Part of the path of total recovery.

You wrote something in your earlier post about “I don’t wish to focus on any particular thought, idea, insight as I’m viewing it as a complete process not as an individual concept.” That’s a really high-level abstract concept that I think indicates how much processing you’ve done and how much emotional freedom you award yourself now. You’re making some fundamental choices about managing your feelings and thoughts.

I don’t mean to be talking like an analyst here, and I apologize if it sounds like that. I’m just observing you and observing me, and seeing how similar we are in our processes. Most of what you write “feels like me.”

In your statement, I recognized my own awareness — that popped up at some point — that the “big process” of recovery was made up of a lot of little processes. All of them important, but all of them ultimately adding up to something “larger than the sum.” Sometimes we go back over and over to some piece of it that we thought we were finished with, but that turns out to have another layer of pain, learning and wisdom in it. We go “oh no, not that again,” but come through it and discover that we’ve blown through a doorway we didn’t even know was there. It changes everything — except the fact that we’re not finished yet.

One of my Buddhist CDs talks about when people resist meditation because they’re afraid they’ll be bored. And then they discover that when they actually start paying attention to what’s going on in their minds, it is the most interesting thing they’ve ever discovered. A three-ring circus in a gorgeous oasis resort in set in a thriller movie starring us.

Another Buddhist (I think) concept is that all these levels of consciousness exist simultaneously in us. Actually I think that’s more related to the Hindu idea of chakras — the seven centers of energy in our bodies. Each of them has a different character, different types of challenges that we deal with. And they’re all alive and operating in our lives. So we’re active on the first chakra — basic survival needs — at the same time we’re active on the seventh chakra where we’re totally identified with God or the all-connecting love-energy that powers the universe. It’s just that our conscious mind is attending to wherever we’ve got some challenges or blockages.

It cracked me up when you referred to me as a hummingbird. I view myself more like a lumbering elephant carrying a full load of baggage with a little elephant jockey perched between its ears, carrying the list of “to-do” things and trying to make the whole magilla keep moving.

And I love you people too. I sometimes forget to say that. Driving down to New York a couple of days ago, I kept thinking how lucky I am to be here, learning, sharing, growing.

I have to work and I can’t keep up right now. But this thread is amazing.

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 1:18pm

Joy says:

Just to let you all know that I have been MIA due to renewed heart problems. They have wireless internet here in the hospital so I will have time to catch up on all the posts. Trying to keep the faith, and my spirits up but it is so hard to do. Instead of my rate being too high, now it is too low, and I fainted at work. Here at least til Saturday. I would appreciate your thoughts and prayers. So far it seems that the only thing wrong is stress. Yep, cause knowing and living in a world with a sociopath as your love source for so long is a totally blissful and relaxing way to spend your life:)! Still have my sarcasm and my sense of humor! TOWANDA!

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 1:52pm

Joy:

Good luck. Isn’t it amazing that when we finally get those non-human vehicles of discord and all the stress they cause out of our lives, then our health goes?

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 1:57pm

ANewLily says:

Dear precious Joy, My heart is with you truly! I’ve been there, done that as you describe even your current condition — but you are fortunate to have wireless internet connection thee, I didn’t.

My diagnosis was prolonged stress, too, and other health problems have followed, even though I have tried so diligently to take care of my health after getting OUT!

The love and support of LoveFraud will be our conduit for further learning and recovery. I praise God for this site and the people who post here, including YOU!

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 2:06pm

Joy…thoughts and prayers…you’ve got them.

Feel better…even out the heart rate…I’ll wake up this weekend and look for you in the top of the tree….

Jim

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 2:45pm

libelle says:

Dear Joy, I just lit a candle for you. All the best! My beloved grandfather told me once: you have to do some steps back to make bigger jumps! (Recouler pour mieux sauter) I will firmly trust that your heart and the cardiologists will make it! Towanda!!

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 2:56pm

I am very confused and unhappy. After finding this website over a year ago I really felt that I had found some answers to the perplexing problems I was having with people I thought were N/S/P’s. Now I understand that for me to call someone a N/S/P, they should have a professional diagnosis, of which I am not qualified to do myself. This has left me wondering if in my case NC was/is a mistake. When I learned about N/S/P’s I felt some relief from hating myself after realizing I was a target, and that N/S/P’s have no feelings, but maybe the people I knew are just jerks, and I let myself be taken advantage of, in which case it would be good to stay away from them anyway. I feel like a fool for all the posts in which I wrote that I had been in a relationship with a N/S/P. I have been crying and crying at my stupidity and from feeling like I am back to square one. Should I just call them toxic (i.e. not good for ME) ?? I usually don’t like to offer advice when I post because I am not very far down the road on this journey, I try to just share what has happened to me and to respond to others because we seem to be feeling the same pain. Is that ok to do? Because maybe if I didn’t know a N/S/P I shouldn’t be posting ?? I find myself not even trusting myself, I am trying to learn/mature from my experiences, but maybe I didn’t even have the experiences I thought I did.

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 3:31pm

Shabbychic,
Hon, KEEP POSTING!!!! The TRUTH of the matter is that many s/p/n will never be diagnosed professionaly. Why, because if they don’t break the law and a judge orders it, how many do you see running to the professionals and asking for help pr saying diagnose me? The real problem with personality disorders is that the s/p/n doesn’t believe that anything is wrong with them. THEY believe thay everything is wrong with everyone else.

N/C is NEVER a mistake when a person is toxic to you regardless of the diagnosis. If you can relate to other posters on this site with what you went through and are CURRENTLY going through then do not let anyone say anything to make you withdraw from being here!!!!

A SUPPORT system is what we all need to get through whatever portion of our journey weare trying to get through.

YOU KNOW what you experienced. Don’t let ANYONE try and “cloud your judgement”. Not on this site and certainly not the toxic person in your life. That is how a toxic person tries to leave you in the state of….OMG…what did just happen here?

I would bet on the fact that many more posters here than NOT haven’t had a professional diagnosis in hand, with the person in question that has caused them to come here.

The diagnosis isn’t as important as the damage done by these people. Toxic is TOXIC. You may call it whatever you feel comfortable with.

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 3:56pm

shabbychic:

Here’s my take on it. None of us will ever be called as an expert witness in court where we will have to prove we have the bona fides to make a medically accurate diagnoses. That said, all of us are perfectly qualified, with respect to our own lives and those people we allow into it to look at Robert Hare’s checklist and say “yes, this person exhibits behavior number 1 significantly. Yes, this person exhibits behavior numbe 2 significantly. etc”

We will never get one of these creatures to willingly go to an expert for a diagnosis of sociopathy. So, we all have to sit there and make our own determination about what the person is. That’s what brought us all to this site — a search for answers.

Personally, I know the toxic toad I was involved with is a S. My shrink, while he can’t make a firm diagnosis without the patient present, said the toxic toad exhibited severe indicia of sociopathy.

Why should you feel like a fool? He made YOU feel like a fool during the course of the relationship. Just because we are not trained experts in the PCL means we have to thrown common sense out the window. Once you figured out he is an S or an N or a P, you began to make progress because now you knew that you weren’t a fool and you weren’t the problem.

So, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. He is dangerous. He is toxic for you. Trying to “absolve” him of what he is on a technicality is literally inviting this problem back into your life because you are now making allowances for his unacceptable behavior.

Bottom line? He fucked with your decision-making and your sense of reality long enough. Why question what you know? You are never going to have to go into a court of law and say what your diagnosis is. So trust your diagnosis and don’t give him one more ounce of your attention.

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 4:05pm

ErinBrockovich says:

Shabby:
Just remember…..you came here searching…..for what? You obviously questioned SOMETHING and were looking for the ‘whys’…..not that you will ever find the why’s…..you may have found clarity.
This is something most of us have been involved with…..self doubt on ALL levels.
We have not lived your life, BUT…..your here, youv’e stayed…..something here has kept you coming back…..HMMMMMM, could it be identifying with some of the stories you read, some of the advice?
It is clear, as you state in your post, your having a hard time trusting even yourself…..I think this is where you head may be questioning the decisions to identify the S/P/N’s. It doesn’t matter what they are, Toxic, bad, jerks, S, P, wicked, nasty, horrid……the list goes on…… if your not in a healthy relationship, do something about it. AND you are!
Have more faith in your judgement…..go with the direction you soul is taking you. You’ll be wiser and stronger for it!
DON”T EVER DOUBT YOURSELF!!!!!!
Remember…..if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck……
It might be swimming in YOUR pond!

Oh yeah, and please….your a valued member of LF…..if you have something to say…..SAY IT! and without hesitation.
We don’t all have to agree, or take the advice given…..it’s just a way to share what our thoughts and journeys have been….what worked, what didn’t work. Strength in numbers kinda effect!
XXOO Stay STRONG!

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 4:26pm

JOY:
OHHHHHHHHH…..
My heart goes out to you! (NO pun intended)
Have someone bring you your own sheets, and several pillows off your bed….a cozy pair of sweats (as they only need access to your chest area) A tank top (so you don’t have to suffer in those wretched hospital gowns), you favorite drinking glass some nice smelling lotion, and sit back and try to relax!
Use this time to recoup and renegotiate read some magazines and take a damn break girl……obviously your in need of one!.
I hope to god everthing works out in the health dept for you.
I know…..when we getemgone and geterdone……and we are ’safe’….that’s when our body speaks to us!
Your in my thoughts.
XXOO

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 4:33pm

shabbychic,

If I’m at all responsible for this setback, please remember that I talk about my own working techniques for healing. Take what’s useful from what I write, what supports and inspires you, but don’t make me an authority in your life. You are the authority.

Sometimes, I think that a central theme of this whole recovery process is recovering our authority over our lives. Therapists talk about trauma recovery as “taking our lives back.” And that means deciding for ourselves what is best for us, how we look at things, what we believe, and what we want now.

When we come here, our trust in ourselves is compromised. We have been manipulated and exploited. We’re not sure of what to believe. Or whether our instincts are good. And we’re incredibly vulnerable.

It’s one reason why the mutual validation here is so important. We need to know that we’re okay, no matter when we are in the process of detoxing, healing and getting back on our feet.

On LoveFraud, as in the rest of the world, we run into people who express their opinions or describe their own experiences as though they are “true” for everyone. It’s a common form of disrespect among people who work hard at figuring things out, and then get over-enthusiastic about announcing their conclusions — forgetting that we all have our own needs and our own realities.

For someone who is not quite certain or strong enough yet to say “that might work for you, but not for me,” listening to all these strong voices can be a little overwhelming. It’s okay if what they say matches what you need to hear right now, but if they make you feel insecure, or make you question your own feelings, or make you feel bad in anyway…

Well, I think that they fit into the category of what’s not good for you right now. (And this is where my technique of calling things “not good for me” gets handy. I don’t have to judge my friends here at LoveFraud to decide that what someone is saying isn’t helpful to me right now. The truth is, they might be absolutely right for someone else, but not for me right now.)

So I want to validate your feelings.

I understand your frustrations. You have every right to get upset if you’re trying to search for the best advice among conflicting advice or opinions. Especially if some people are agreeing about things that don’t seem right for you.

LoveFraud can provide really good support for wherever you are. But there are people working on a lot of different parts of healing. And that means you’re likely to hear people talking about things that are really not very helpful at all. Articles like my recent ones on forgiving and trust reflect my five years of hard work on recovery. And my absolute determination to get completely over it, and turn this disaster into a triumph. The way I talk and think about things is not necessarily going to be useful or comfortable someone in the early stages of sorting out what happened to them and what to think about it.

So, if anything I — or anyone else — says isn’t helpful to you or doesn’t support your recovery right now, you have every right to decide “this woman is out of her mind” and stick those ideas on your internal shelf marked “Things I might think about later or maybe never.” And that goes for anything or anyone that makes you feel feel insecure, not smart enough, mistaken or in any way not supported and understood where you are right now. That’s what you need and that’s what you deserve. Now and forever.

If you’re here, you’re on the recovery path. You’ve made a commitment to yourself. That’s all that matters. Where you are on that path is where you are, and it’s absolutely right.

A lot of us worry about doing the right thing, especially early on. In fact, our sociopaths often hook us by our concern about whether we’re good or smart or competent enough. Later, as we get better, we start worrying more about what’s good for us than whether we’re being good. And that’s what I hear in your letter.

Part of being here is learning to discriminate between what works for you and what doesn’t. And part of being here is also getting firm about that. About what you are working on now, and what you need.

And all of this is in your post. If you’ll forgive me, you don’t sound like you’re back to square one to me. It sounds like you’re finding your voice, or maybe a new range in your voice.

I hope that voice finds more to say.

PS — I absolute believe that my ex fits the diagnostic criteria for sociopath. This is my diagnosis, and frankly if any professional wanted to argue with me about it, including his own shrink (if he had one), I’d trust my own diagnosis. Because I’ve lived through it.

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 5:55pm

Joy!

Oh, sweety, my thoughts and prayers are for you! Please take it easy, ok? We’ll be waiting to hear on your progress!

**Giant huggles for Joy!!**

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 5:57pm

Thank you, doll, for your post to me. Means quite a lot to me, actually. I’ll elaborate later if that’s ok….

And I don’t think the lovely ShabbyChic was even considering you to be the cause for her current sadness and confusion. I bet she found this thread and the proceeding comments to be the place to express herself. Because your threads are always…busy.

ShabbyChic, darling, this is how I see it. I could give a flying flippidy dippidy what a person’s psychologically diagnosis would be if they even considered visiting a trained and learned therapist. Not relevant.

What IS relevant to me is how a person treats me and absolutely how they treat others as well. If that person is cruel, selfish, egocentric, cold, calculating, manipulative then that person is pure toxic. Even if she/he exhibits one of these traits…I’m gone. History.

You are a wonderful, adorable, kind, loving and generous woman. I see this from your writing. You are consistent in these most virtuous traits. I like you, sweety, and I care about you.

Go with your gut. Always. If you feel any confusion and/or sadness when engaging, interracting with a person then you shouldn’t second guess your intuition. Listen to her. She is the bestest, most wisest, most protective best friend you will ever have. I so DO know this.

We will be here for you when you need to share. That statement you can trust. Implicitly.

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 6:14pm

Kathy, as always such good and timely stuff. Trust is the one area I’m struggling with. I actually said to a friend, and I might have posted here that my new motto is “Always honest, Never trusting” My friend replied, “never trusting isn’t a good virtue.” My response was for me right now it is as it means that I’m being self protective. I guess I don’t mean never trusting anyone as I do have people in my life who I trust completely because over the course of my life circumstances they have earned it. I’m thinking that with new people or old ones who display new behaviors I’m just very guarded. So I want to share my last few weeks because maybe some of you can relate to where I’m at laugh with me or offer wisdom. I have been traveling out of state every other weekend to visit my dearest friends in the area where I was born and raised. Boat guy and I have renewed a very good friendship once some boundaries were in place. We used to date all during high school and so he is like an old shoe. He is in an unhappy marriage that he isn’t ready to leave due to a child. Stated he was not looking for an affair, but for me that is what it was feeling like. We had our kids with us, but the wife doesn’t know. And he is calling, emailing, texting every day I was developing an emotional attachment in addition to a very physical attraction so I put the brakes on and told him we needed to dial it down to a less constant communication. So far so good he understands where I’m at and has honored my request. Next guy I meet is way too young for me as in 20 yrs younger but we have mutual friends and are both very lonely for the physical no emotional connection. So for the first time in 6 yrs since the ex with his whole story of impotency. I have sex. Never been the girl to do the booty call wasn’t sure I even could. But it had been so long since I had been touched my a guy that it was just on from the first touch. And what did I learn from this? That the best part of sex was lacking as in there was no feeling or emotion beyond the mechanics of it all. Sort of empty in the end. Nice to be wanted for the moment but still felt the lack of something that for me I now know is essential. So the very next day, I go to see my best friend since I was 14. His marriage is my ideal vision of what a marriage should be, such a good husband and father. He takes me to meet his step dad since it was Father’s Day. His step dad was married to my friend’s mom for 22 yrs, and she died of cancer a few years back. He was 25 yrs younger than his wife and only 8 yrs older than me and my friend. And this guy was so funny, intelligent, respectful, genuine. He asked me out and later my friend told me that he has not dated anyone since his wife died. My friend was shocked and I was caught off guard, but my friend was pleased. The new guy spent a whole day in thinking over our five hour meeting and then went to my friend and said tell me who she really is. Is she who I saw yesterday? My friend described me as in my wants, needs, personality, dead on better than I know or admit to knowing myself. And this new guys response is that for the first time since his wife died he is ready to stop grieving and to start living again. That was a wow moment for me as I really liked this guy. Wasn’t thinking romance just was talking to him on the porch all day about every topic under the sun, and laughing so much. Such a good day. My thoughT was the universe is mocking me or has a sense of humor. Because once I realized what I truly wanted which is a good friend that I can open up with and grow with and just enjoy life with and stopped denying this part of me something unexpected happened. And now here I am in a hospital which should scare this guy completely away after watching his wife die and his response is that if I want him here to hold my hand just say the word and he will come from 4.5 hours away. I think I’ll be fine. I told him not my idea of good time for him or me, but it was a sweet thought. One my ex would never have had as the ambulance would bring me here while he stayed in bed and slept and seldom came the fifteen minutes from home to visit when I was ill. So I guess, my question my thought is why does the thought of a good guy with an excellent history scare me so much and why did I think that a random roll in the hay was a better option for me? And Oxy I can hear you now. I will take it so slow the snails will be passing me by, but when is it okay to move on? How do we know? And how do we open to the possibility of a future with someone else and leave our hearts open while still being guarded?

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 6:47pm

Hey all, Don’t mean to hog the thread tonight but after hours of reading and posting I just saw your comments and wanted to comment back. And really I’m in need of diversion, and I love you all.
Matt, So true. I have many stressors including the toxic mold house which is still heading to court so not just the ex but he sure played his part with the whole court thing. Thanks for your support. And Kathy got to meet you. I say book a cruise line and let’s all vaca together:)! I would sure buy my ticket. All aboard!
New Lily, thanks so much for your thoughts. This site is a gift to all who need it.
Jim, your comment made me smile. If your still napping down there, I’m still a perched up above:)! My last heart rate was 78 and that is so much better than yesterdays 53-60 range. Thank God!
Libelle, Aw, French and a candle. I can appreciate both. Thanks.
EribnB, Hotel Hospital. Got some good books, a laptop with internet, and room service. Not 5 star accommodations, but they will due for some R&R. And some awesome Lovefraud friends to enlighten, inspire, and share with. Not bad at all:)!
JaneSmith, Giant Hugs right back at ya.
ShabbyChic, You got an open invitation here. Garbage stinks no matter what you call it. I have been enlightened and felt a kinship with you from the start. You stay right here with us. Don’t doubt yourself. I was so there, too. Right up until he filed false charges and put his hand on a Bible and lied. Such a devout Catholic my ass! But until then there was a nagging doubt that made excuses of maybe he really isn’t this maybe I’m wrong. So what? He is trash and I got burned for loving. It hurts and this place helps. That’s all that matters.
Witsend, Amen to what you posted to Shabbychic. Well said.

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 7:18pm

Thank you for your comments and support! I just got home from work (yeah, I finally found a job) and I just skimmed over the posts, I have to type something up for work now that I have to take with me tomorrow. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 10:01pm

Your post about meeting the new guy rang so true with me. I decided a week or so ago I had to jump start some area of my life and decided that at least I could get the dating life moving again. So, I met this guy and went out to dinner this past Sunday. Perfect evening. I asked him out the other night. He called up the next night and we spoke for an hour and a half. Very nice We went out to dinner tonight. Honest adult conversation. Another perfect evening.

All I keep thinking is this guy is good looking, smart, genuinely nice and polite and my sociopath-meter hasn’t buzzed once — and Lord knows I’m on the lookout for redflags. I forgot what an honest to goodness relationship where two people respect each other is like.

Oh, yes. And when I walked him to the subway stop he stammered something, then regrouped and said “that didn’t come out too well. What I wanted to say is I’d like to see you again.” I’m taking it slow. But, I have to admit it is sooooooooo nice not to feel like I’m walking around on eggshells and wondering what the hell the other person is thinking. Yup, a real, adult relationship. I think we’ve both earned it after our Ss.

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 10:39pm

kate09 says:

I have been reading postings on this site for about a month now. This Healing post has started to help me understand. I am so glad this is here because it helps me know that I am not alone. Sorry this is so long but as you know dealing with a sociopath is never quick and easy. I have been in a relationship with a sociopath for almost 17 years now. I met him when I was 16 years old. I have always known that he was not all together there but I was raised in a controlling environment and so it was second nature to become his victim. He was mentally, emotionally, verbally and then became very physically abusive in our marriage and when I left he became irate. He physically attacked me and so I had him arrested. We were separated for about 9 months. He moved across the country and did not see our children for 7 months. Then stupidly instead of letting the divorce go through I became very scared and decided to reconcile with him. I became pregnant with our 3rd child. I have always thought of him as having narcissism. I think he has always been a sociopath but was never able to completely act on it until we separated. Now after being back with him and seeing how he has been able to live like a sociopath he is worse than ever. Recently on his last visit (our youngest is 4 months old) I found out that he was cheating on me during my pregnancy and after our youngest was born. I was in the hospital for a week in preterm labor and he never came to visit me. He was not there when our son was born either. He did not come to see him for 2 months. He lives across the country. He said it was a money issue. I know now that it was because he was having an affair the whole time and spending money on flying this woman to see him. What scares me the most is that I looked him right in the eyes and asked him if he was cheating on me and he lied to me over and over again with no remorse what so ever. Now he is telling me to “get over it and move on” and “you are not allowed to talk about the affair”. He shows hardly no emotion about what he did. I asked him “why do you hate me”? He said “I don’t hate you”. I was thinking only someone who hated me would do all the things that he has done. I think he feels nothing at all but feelings for himself. He said that the affair meant nothing and that she was just sex. That she was a drug addict and unstable person. I knew he was lying. He told me not to talk to the women he was having an affair with. She called me and I did talk to her. She told me that they were very serious with each other for almost 4 months. That he told her they would be getting an apartment together. The whole time he was telling me that we were going to live 2gether as a family again soon. He told her and his roommate that he only had 2 children.. Never told them about the new baby. They all thought he was divorced. He told them lies about his family, his life growing up and the lies just went on and on. I spoke to his roommate and he was irate at the lies that my husband had told him. He was living this absolute FAKE life. Nothing was real or truthful at all. He sends me money to help with the children and acts like it is breaking him but he lives in a pent house suit in a very expensive city. We live in a rundown apartment. It makes me sick that he is okay with his kids living so differently from how he lives. His roommate said that my husband had major credit card debut. The women he had the affair with said that he would take her for $400.00 dollar dinners. She thought he had tons of money. I also learned that when our youngest was just days old that my husband went on a week’s vacation to Australia. Also he was cheating on the person that he was cheating on me with. I also feel sick because he is the only person I have ever been intimate sexually with and he has unprotected sex with all these women.

I feel so ashamed and embarrassed that I have let myself fall back into this trap again. I want so much more for my kids. Our oldest son has severe disabilities and deserves a better father. I wonder if he will ever feel remorse for what he has done to our children. The sad thing is I have been in this relationship for so long that I am so afraid that I will never have a “normal” relationship with someone. I know that I am co-dependent. I hate that about myself. I have this husband who lives in a fantasy world. He is busy raising a glass to toast a drink at the local bar near him and I am trying to raise three children. He is becoming an alcoholic drinking every weekend and during the week. He is a successful businessman but so immature when it comes to relationships. His father I know also fits the description of a sociopath. That really scares me. I just want to heal from this and be able to trust someone again. I am afraid I will never be able to trust another person. I am a loving, caring and compassionate person but this has made me bitter. I am so sick of being a victim to all this. Thanks for listening if anyone read this. Just needed to tell my story.

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 10:52pm

Joy,
So sorry to hear your in the hospital. I hope you will be feeling better soon.
You asked that thought provoking question that we all want the answer to! How do we know when we are ready?? I certainly don’t have the answer for that and I don’t think anyone else can actually “know” for sure either. My past “pattern” in the relationship department has been with alcoholics. Not the same as being with an S/P/N, but not healthy either. A codependant relationship for sure.

I think the best way to approach a new relationship especially if your desire is a long term relationship, is “baby steps”. When things move to fast that is usually a red flag. Friends first, I think is what I would be looking for. I hate to say it but I think as women we react “emotionaly” and once sex is involved we don’t think straight…We think with our heart instead of our intellect. Lol. Sex seems to add that emotional aspect to the “blooming” relationship and when it happens to soon, before the trust is established, then it seems kind of like putting the cart before the horse. It’s like watching the end of the movie before watching how the movie starts.

I Have finally realized I can’t get emotionally invested in a relationship to quickly and still be able to rationalize if that person is “good” for me. First I need to see if that person might be good for me ( and also if I would be good for them) and then SLOWLY get emotionally involved. Does that make any sense?

OMG I can’t believe I am even saying anything here…. If you knew how long it has been since I have been in a relationship you would be LYAO. I guess the only thing I can say is that I have given it ALOT of thought and have had alot of time to think about it. Thats my two cents for what its worth….

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 10:54pm

Oh Joy, it’s good to hear from you! I totally remember when I had a lot of stress-related physical symptoms, if that’s what it was. But mold? Aspergillis? I’ll check with my sister, the doctor-hating, I-can-fix-myself, supplement genius, and find out what finally ended her massive, craziness-producing sensitivities. It might be worth a shot.

Your letter of adventures was so much fun to read. The boat guy — aren’t you smart. I had a similar thing happen with a married old boyfriend, and it was “whoa!” I don’t do married guys, even if he did remember as an incredibly sexy person, and I can’t even imagine anyone thinking about me that way these days. I don’t need that fix that bad.

And the young guy — the same age spread as my ex-S. I’ve read a lot about these relationships. Apparently they’re great for women who just are in it for the endorphins. But that’s not me, and apparently not you either. Sex is too good to waste it on people who don’t generate enough oxytocin to really open up.

And the widower. Gosh, if you have more life than you can handle, could you just pack it in a box and send it to upstate New York UPS. I am totally envious, but loving it all vicariously.

So why are you scared? Are you really asking?

My opinion is that you’re scared of yourself. Afraid you’re going to start futuring on this thing and ruin it. Instead of letting it evolve naturally. That’s why I’d be scared, if it were me.

So what would I do about this? I’d have a really stern talk with myself about living one day at a time. It doesn’t matter what he thinks or what he says, as much as how it feels for you, minute by minute. You are nowhere near trusting him, no matter how good he seems. You can enjoy the hell out of him on a right now basis. Take care of yourself the same way, gently back-pedaling if it seems to be veering out of your comfort zone.

Chances are he’s a nice guy. He’s got some credentials in your life. But you need to learn so many things before you make any commitments, even in your private little heart. It sounds like you’ve already found a friend. As I wrote in an earlier post, think carefully before you risk a great friendship on a love affair. It can come out great, but do some homework first. See how he feels about the fact that you had a life before you met him.

And he’s a widower. He says he’s ready to come back to life. That’s really cool. But give him room, even if he doesn’t want it. to find his land legs. This is a new world. He’s starting all over again, and he’s got to find his way. The fact that he’s coming out of the grieving cave doesn’t mean that he knows who he is alone or courting a new woman. You don’t want him to make mistakes either.

I dated a widower a few years ago, when I was in therapy. An absolutely wonderful man, but he was trying to distract himself from his grief. He was there, there, there, pressing for more and more dates, and then he evaporated. Fortunately I was pretty busy with my own stuff — merely flattered by the attention, but also recognizing that he was not dealing with the biggest thing in his life. So it didn’t rattle me. But it’s something to think about with widowers.

The thing that is really true for both of you is that you’re both starting over in a way. Coming out of something, feeling your way along. The easiest thing in the world is to fly into something new. The hardest thing is to feel your way along when you want to fly into something new. But if you can be gentle and kind and patient with each other, and find a way to care more that each of you is okay than how it comes out, you’ll come to the right conclusion.

Or so I think.

Love –

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 10:59pm

kate09, welcome to LoveFraud. I’m sorry you qualify to belong here, but I’m glad you found us.

You’re going to get lots of help and support here. People who can be a lot more specific about your situation than me. I’m just the “welcome wagon.”

But it might help you to go back into the archives and read some of the articles that catch your eye. There is no question your dealing with a very bad man and that you’re an abused wife. And that you need help.

I’m sorry your life is so hard. But you’re here now, and hopefully you find some support here in making it better.

Keep posting, please.

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 11:07pm

Joy- Sorry to hear your in the hospital! Take care, take advantage of the room service and the not- so- fine dining. Keep us informed on how you are. We all pray for a fast recovery for you!!

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 11:19pm

KATE09, thank you for telling MY story.
“Now he is telling me to “get over it and move on” and “you are not allowed to talk about the affair”. He shows hardly no emotion about what he did. I asked him “why do you hate me”? He said “I don’t hate you”.
I think that he did not lie to you, he doesn’t hate you. I have learned that they do not hate. Now, rage is a different story. And that rage is never ever directed at themselves.
Just so you know, I tried very hard at first to deny my experiences, then guilt and shame moved in. I tried to get him into counseling for the sake of the kids, and I tried to convince him that he is not a terrible person “they made him out to be”. Then, my own anger and yes- rage stepped in, and I was not very careful with the words I used. Wish I didn’t. How dared I think of him as a piece of &^#&%&? Now, he’s paying me back for it, now it’s the war of the Roses. Had I been to this site earlier, I would have saved myself much grief by running away without looking back and by not attempting to right the wrongs. Count your losses and move on, would have helped… But, then – one must be in position to hear it and feel it. People here are wonderful and the advise they give is priceless, because it comes from innermost knowledge. So, welcome to the group. I ache with you.

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 11:22pm

Dear Shabby, thank you so much, I can so relate to what you wrote. I felt recently also like the biggest fool and making a HUGE mistake as someone told me here in another blog in CAPITAL LETTERS what I should NOT do (going NC with my parents on personal matters), and that I am NOT QUALIFIED to judge FOR MYSELF that somebody was/is a N/S/P.

Last weekend I cried again in a long time concerning these matters. I felt so judged and put back and invalidated speaking for myself.

But then I realized that MY FEELINGS are pure subjective and personal of ME and THAT THESE can be judged just by ME, and nobody else can FEEL MY FEELINGS, and MY feelings tell me VERY STRONGLY to withdraw from certain situations and people, and I already have experienced the detrimental effects of breaking NC.

I now tend to think that my soul has been nummbed with long and intense training (as the feet get training with going bare feet in summer, first they hurt, but then they get thick skin so gravel won’t hurt). Now I am “peeling” my soul and start feeling again, and these feelings are new and have to be put into place and perspective. I have to be very careful what the soul is saying to me, and when it hurts it is a strong sign to have a second look at them.

I decided to proceed with the work as I feel better now, as I know I can’t go back, and I also know that I will have draw backs as the feet occasionally will hurt despite all my care.

But it is very comforting having here a place to vent and “try out” new thoughts and “test” feelings in a safe place.

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 11:33pm

I told you I was not intending on offending you. Sorry you took my last week’s post so hard and close to heart. I have too noticed that I react very quickly and that was perhaps the reason I wrote what I did. Something you said triggered me and resonated with me, perhaps. I am glad you can talk about it and am sorry to have caused you pain.
My Caps get locked often, I just got a new PC / pay no attention to LETTER size. Thanks and thank you for your directness.

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 11:38pm

Witsend and all, I need to just vent a moment as I have had a really upsetting day. (witsend- please let us know how your work went at the shows, I am anxious to hear)

I got a disturbing call this morning from the tanning salon I have been going to for years (I dont “tan” anymore- but do the spray tan so that I dont get called “casper or “powder” so often)- but the call was b/c my x came in there and started a membership!!!!! THe thing is- There is an existing protection order in place and he KNOWS I go there. He dosent even live in the same town, and passes 3 salons or so that he could easily go to, instead of my place where he knows I am at.

I feel he is only doing this to let me know he’s still around. When the call happened, for some reason it was a MAJOR trigger for me- I STARTED SHAKING AND my voice quivered so bad – the entire rest of the day, my voice was somewhat hoarse from the upset (?cant understand that one).

I explained to the manager my situation that I am TERRIFIED of him as months of stalking, abuse,etc etc and asked could she let him know that the salon is aware of the order and that HE can be arrested if he is found to be there when I am- in hopes that he would move on.
She called the corporate office to see if she got the ok as she wanted to help me, but they said she wasnt allowed to discuss that with him. I understand that. I told her that I would be forced to cancel my membership if he was going to be there due to my situation.
THe manager was very understanding, said that If I wanted to call ahead every time to make sure he had already been in that day OR I could even tan AFTER hours if I wanted to. SHe was more than accommading to keep my business.
ALthough I think it so unfair that I may have to stop going there -changing will cost me alot of money to go to another place /much longer distance, etc..The POINT is not the tanning place, I have options and wont hesitate to leave – my reaction was so OVER THE TOP. I physically felt sick all day and shaky still!

ANY IDEAS on what to do about the case of nerves , I have to be in court with him in a month. I gotta get a grip! (I am on a anti-depr. already) any advice?? xoxo

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 11:42pm

Sabrina, that’s exactly what happens to me. In fact, it can be brought on by the mere memories, not only sharing something with someone about him. Before my court date I took so much Valerian root, I felt the aftertaste, but I think it helped calmed my nerves. you may want to try something stronger with your doctors’ prescription. There are plenty of anti-anxiety medications that you don’t have to take daily, but may take PRN – on as needed basis. Hope this helps.

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 11:47pm

Stargazer says:

Matt,
It’s great news to hear that you are starting to date again. You have really progressed so much throughout the months, and I hope to hear how this new guy turns out. I have started to feel real loneliness the last several weeks, which is a sign that I would like to start meeting men, too. I am also dreaming that I am dating, too. Often my dreams precede the waking reality. I wake up alone and say to myself, “WTF”? LOL I am not as “out there” meeting people as you are. I am pretty much a home body. I have no idea really how to go out and meet desirable men at 48 years old. I am only meeting them in my dreams right now.

Shabbychic, I read your post. Don’t second-guess yourself, dear. Look at how he treated you. It doesn’t really matter what you call him. For many many months, I went back and forth about whether my ex was really a sociopath or not. I came to the conclusion of “who cares?”. I didn’t like the way he treated me and will never give him the chance to do it again. End of story. All you have to know is how you want to be treated, and you will attract people who will treat you that way. I would rather be alone forever than compromise and let someone treat me badly again. You will get past this little blip in recovery.

Thursday, 25 June 2009 @ 11:50pm

Katya- Oh yea! GREAT IDEA ,I dont have any rx meds for anxiety anymore, but I have valerian root here! I forgot all about it! did you take it daily or only when you felt stressed? did you ever find out what causes such a dramatic response? ptsd? I am still in shock when my body reacts from all this in such negative ways. I want/need to believe I am not this totally screwed up from this psycho! THANKS so much for the good advice.

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 12:00am

I took it before going, (needless to say, I was a wrack) but I took higher dose, double for sure. whatever you wish to try to calm yourself, don’t experiment before the court. Try it few days before and see the effects. So, that you are calm and composed at the court and are not dealing with any unsuspected side effects. (good luck to us all)

In my case, I have been diagnosed with PTSD. My colleague in the field thought I have Acute Stress Disorder – which is diagnosed DURING the stressful event, while the person is still in danger. Not sure if I meet the criteria for that, but certainly do for PTSD (who would have thought).

I just want to share that my P was the most attentive loving man (or so I thought). He treated me like I wanted to be treated. He was kind and emotionally available. That is, when I was around. I soon found myself supporting him, while he was sleeping around, drinking, abusing and lying about EVERYTHING. So, till I learn the red flags, I am not feeling safe with anyone, particularly the “nice and attentive ones”

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 12:11am

Sabrina,

I think you’ll probably get some better practical advice from other people, but here is a thought about why you got the shakes. You were one step away from homicidal rage.

Not that you’re actually going to kill him, but he is invading your private space and you’re having a major boundary-violation reaction. And you are absolutely right to have it. This man is behaving like a monster. Aggressive. Intentionally provoking you. Deliberately trying to destabilize you. He doesn’t ever have to come back to that tanning salon again, and he’s managed to “mark” something in your life.

Do you have reason to be mad? I think so. I think you feel sick and shaky because your stress hormones just went through the roof.

Matt may have some advice here, but my gut reaction is that you should inform your local law enforcement people, whover is responsible for enforcing that order of protection. They may tell you they can’t do anything about it unless he actually breaches the order, but just tell them that you want them to know he’s making aggressive moves to interfere with a ten-year old relationship with a service provider. You are no longer safe to frequent this salon.

I wrote earlier about healthy vengeful feelings If you feel vengeful right now, you have every reason for that too. He is deliberately trying to steal something from you.

It would be just lovely if your friendly service provider could figure out a way to give him a really bad tan. Something that makes him looks like a politician with too much pancake make-up. Something that you could both laugh about later, after he storms out with his orange face. It’s fun to think about, even if it never happens.

But maybe something more practical might be a visit from a friendly policeman to her establishment to warn her that a potentially embarrassing drama might ensue if he arrives while you are there. That it won’t be her fault, but it might disrupt her business. And she should be aware that the order of the protection exists, and that it appears he is trying to use her establishment to harass you.

Perhaps a police visit or a letter from your lawyer might give her more ammunition to take to her parent company’s attorneys. They actually do have reason to politely refuse his application for membership under these circumstances. There is no legal requirement that a company has to serve a would-be customer, unless the refusal of service is associated with a pattern of bias against a certain group.

This is my understanding of the law as it pertains to retail establishments. (I used to run a book store in Florida.) The owner or manager of a shop is entitled to make these decisions, as well as to require unwelcome people to leave.

Don’t give up on this one without a fight. I believe you can win.

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 12:13am

Kate06- My heart goes out to you and your 3 children. Im so sorry to hear what you are going through.Your story particulary is sad due to the children that you are raising alone. I raised children alone at a young age, but no disabilites as you have, and 3 at once is quite a job I am sure. Please post often, as sometimes this is the only sane, safe environment to tell our true feelings b/c all of us have been through such similar circumstances. Thank God your children have you! Be good to yourself, you deserve it.

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 12:20am

KATE09…
WOW…thanks for sharing as I know its hard at times…your story is the same as mine…a bit different…but the same theme….he cheated on me when I was pregnant and living together was not divorced from his wife….I found that out after being 7 months pregnant….then..he left…telling me he was going on a fishing trip..which he actually was going to find a house for hime and his wife as he was telling her they were getting back together…back and forth…drama and drama….went through horrible PTSD on top of depression after having my son…..I was stressed through my pregannacy..my delivery…the first 3 yrs of his life has been hell…cuz if he wasnt taking me back to court for trying NOT to pay support….I took him back….YES I DID….after the first month I knew it was a mistake….and he kicked him to the curb after 3 months of hell….I have now taken respomnsibilty for me and what is wronfg with me for putting my kidsw thru that…everything about him is a lie…the cheating ..everything..it was all an illusin…I created a child with whom I adored….but he was not human….its hard to fathom at times…..

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 12:22am

ps…don’t give up..stay strong…I admire your stregnth with the kids…!!!

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 12:24am

Kathy- awesome advice- I can take this alittle further as you pointed out! I’ve never been one to back down, and the rage you are describing is on the money! I feel like you are a mind reader! I thought it was more fear based (initially), then I actually had some serious “hating” on him moments that wouldnt quit!!
I laughed SO HARD at the pancake faced, bad tan set up you talked about.HILARIOUS!!!!Im still laughing!!! Exactly what I needed to hear.
I will figure out a game plan on the best way to accomplish my goals in this war of the pale faces!
I think it would serve a big ole helpin of revenge IF his little tricks didnt work and his sorry white a$$ got kicked out of the salon ! Thank you so much. Never heard of homicidal rage before, very interesting. LOVE to you, SaMANIAC (lol)

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 12:32am

Kathleen: No! You are not at all responsible for what I am feeling! I love your writing, it has helped me a great deal, more than I can express!! I thank God for the wonderful articles that are written by you and Donna and Liane and Steve and Ox Drover and, and, and… everyone!

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 12:36am

Hey Kathy- anytime you wanna come down South for a visit, I’d love to hang out. Sweet tea and fried green tomatoes are on me!

blueskies: I haven’t forgotten about you.

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 12:48am

See ShabbyChic’s post up there? Told ya! She loves you, respects and admires you just like I do! Amen!

SC, super glad you are back with your friends. Whenever I read a post from a person whos’ feelings were hurt either on LF or in Meatspace, I swear…I panic a little.

I think that I may never read their lovely, wise thoughts ever again, and yeah, it makes me real sad. I don’t like it when people hurt. I want to hug them and protect them from future pain. Just hug it all away. Isn’t that silly?

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 12:54am

kate09

Welcome

Thanks so much for sharing. We all know how hard it come be to open up with strangers and tell one’s story of betrayal emotional pain all that comes with living with someone we thought we knew only to discover so many lies and untruths.

I can only wonder why so many new members tell us how they been reading for a few weeks or months. It hard but soon they find within themselves the courage and strength to open up and share.

I believe if they can do that insomuch as sharing their story here at LF that they themselves had this same courage and strength to free themselves from their abuser. That these same people will in the end be able to heal and grow out of this despair which they themselves had no part of.

Take heart for when one see the problem then acknowledge it, these same people will then go on to solve it and find happiness for both their children and themselves.

Welcome and Thanks again.

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 2:42am

Matt, Thanks for your thoughts. I’m so happy that you found a good beginning. Keep us posted on the progress. Even though I’m only 7 months post divorce. I haven’t had a relationship for about 10 yrs. What I had was an illusion that met none of my emotional needs whatsoever. So I do feel that it is way past time to start living my life again. I have always chosen great friends, and they have been with me from childhood til now. I think, make that I know, that I push good men away in order to have relationships with lesser choices. I think I do this to avoid pain. As in I know this guy is a loser and so when it ends and it will end it will hurt like hell but not kill me. Knowing that it hurts to lose a loser, I think that I figure it would be more than I could handle to lose a great man. Fear of abandonment as I believe they will always leave me, maybe? probably.
Kate 09. Welcome. I related to so much of what you said. My ex was my first love at age 14, and we were reunited 20 years later. Now I know that both relationships were a fraud and an illusion. I think it hurts so much more to think that he has shattered my memories than the actual devastation he has currently caused. We raised children together but share no bio ones. He has completely ignored my two kids that he raised for 10 years and cut me off from his daughter who thinks of me as Mom. Stay strong. I have faith in your ability to over come this and to be an amazing Mom without him.
Witsend, Thanks for your thoughts. Of course, the question that I posed has no definite answer. It was meant to just see how others felt about their own recovery and experiences. There was a time that I would never have been comfortable sharing my funny moments in finding myself again. I did so in hopes that others would relate a little. The young guy that I slept with I never had no real feelings for. He is okay just young and self centered. We never intended for it to be anything more than what it was. No emotion there. Also surprisingly no guilt, and when when some of my family and friends get a little judgmental, I tell them it was something I don’t regret. I was lonely as was he, and I needed to know that I could be wanted again in a physical way because of the number the ex did on my head. And to be honest, there was a part of me that knows that the ex desires young, hot things, and I thought I can get one and you can’t. haha! Sad but true. It was a much needed ego boost for me. What I did not expect was that the experience would trigger in me a desire for something real. Not with the young guy but with a great man. And then Bam met one unexpectedly. With the new guy. He has great credentials as he is my best friend’s step dad for 22 yrs. I know that we will be great friends, and I have simply been asked to be open to the possibility of something more in time. No rush. Gonna enjoy the journey.
Kathy, LMAO! Such a busy life indeed. I decided to go where I want to go and do what I want to do with the people that I want to do it with. Each time my car comes up the hill and the city is below me surrounded by the mountains, my heart sings. The sight is so beautiful, and I know that I’m coming home to friends who love me. So worth the cost of gas, the miles on the road, and the weariness of travel:)! I sorta addressed some of what your were saying in my comments to Witsend. My thoughts are that the new guy and I and are very much in the same place at present just ready to see what life holds for us. Hard to rush a potential relationship with someone who lives 4.5 hours away so that too is a good thing.
Sabrina, Thank you for your well wishes and the shared laugh of orange tans. So funny. So glad we can laugh about it. And yes, I know that shaky feeling well. I think it is our defense system kicking in like in the movies where on the base the alarms start going off as they prepare for a potential attack. All systems stand by, Incoming! Incoming! Makes sense to me that way in any case. Maybe it is both fear based and fight based. They don’t call it fight or flight for nothing:)! Go pale girl! Go! Laughing with you not at you. Hugs.

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 7:37am

“I push good men away to have relationships with lesser choices.”

I do the same thing, Joy, and I have been struggling with it for years. I don’t know why I do it, and I have always known that I do it.
That is one of my biggest regrets. I passed on a lot of great guys, to stay with bad boys who were abusive. And I had a GREAT father, so I don’t know where that comes from. But, my Dad was called away a lot due to his work, so maybe I have abandonment issues, too????

I don’t even want a bad boy. I think what I wanted was a bad boy gone good. I wanted to believe that everyone is capable of change. The sociopath boyfriend showed me that NOT everyone changes. I think (or at least hope) that I have outgrown that phase of my life, and I am no longer as naive as I once was. To think that I could change or fix someone is totally ludacris to me now. Real change comes from within. It’s HIS responsibity to change, if that’s what he wants to do.

I pray that I have learned enough on my journey that my next relationship will be REAL.

All I know is that if I could recover one thing from my dysfunctional relationship, it would be TIME. I regret all of the years I wasted on someone who was not even worth it.

Anyway, Joy, blessings to you and prayers for a speedy recovery!

ShabbyChic: I don’t know the inner workings of a clock, but I can DEFINITELY tell time. Do you know what I mean? When someone falls into EVERY criteria on Robert Hare’s checklist for psychopathy, they are more than “just a jerk”. Please don’t doubt yourself.

Joy: To answer your BIG question above, about how do we know when it is OK to move on? I think that is something only you can answer. There is no universal answer for that.
How do we open our hearts and still be guarded? You cannot do that. When you open your heart, you let your guard down, and you become vulnerable again. That’s why Love is so scary. But without LOVE, you have nothing, in my opinion.
Personally, I would rather open my heart up and be hurt again. That is a chance I am willing to take. But, I’m sure that not everyone shares my view. You do what’s best for you, Joy.

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 9:52am

Joy- Thanks for your support! I love that we can laugh about it. I will keep all of that in mind if I ever “freak” like that again! I realize that I need to stop giving him the power to affect me in this way. Logically, the past is the past, I have no real threats with him now. I dont feel that my life is in danger like I once did so its time to get things into perspective.
ALL of you here have been so helpful!!!! Have a wonderful day AND stay away from orange tans!! lol

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 10:13am

Actually, I think I am throwing around the label of “Bad Boy” inappropriately, and I am linking it to sociopathy. Which is SO WRONG!

It is not the fact that my boyfriend was a “bad boy” that made him a sociopath. It was more that he was wearing this mask, and when that mask slipped, it got REALLY UGLY.
He was also carrying all of the traits on Hare’s checklist.

In fact, most bad boys are just the OPPOSITE of sociopath. What you see is what you get with them. They are EXACTLY as they appear to be!

My God, I have slandered bad boys!! 1000 apologies to the bad boys of the world!

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 12:13pm

Sabrina

I can identify with the ’shaking’ things. I still shake at the thought of running into the S. I did so last September after 5 months of NC and again in January – he is doing his usual with a woman/women at a shop local to my area.

I still feel nauseous (it can last for days) at the thought of him. I think it is our fight or flight response (Kathy said ‘rage’ but I don’t think it’s that for me). It’s as though my body is reacting in a way that something life threatening is going to happen – a massive rush of adrenaline – I try to calm myself and control my thoughts and emotions to change the chemical balance – it seems to work but takes time.

Sorry you’ve had such a disconcerting experiencel.

Shabbychic

The label doesn’t matter. Remember: the whole reason we allowed ourselves to get involved with these creeps is because we ignored out intuition and gut instincts in the first place – so no more self-doubt eh? Otherwise I might just have to borrow Oxy’s skillet. Keep the faith girl and keep posting for strength.

Kate09

Welcome – you are in the right place – I have only been posting for a short time and this site has helped me on so many levels – can’t explain how but it JUST DOES. There’s always something that someone has said that strikes a cord – even if their experience is somewhat different to yours – the pain’s the same.

Blueskies

Come back to us!

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 12:14pm

Labels are so interesting. Here are my labels, depending on which stage I happen to be working at the time.

1. Denial — “really great guy that I just haven’t figured out yet”

2. Bargaining — “a potentially great guy who just needs the right kind of attention”

3. Anger — “slimy, two-faced, s**thead, who’d better stay out of my life unless he wants to pay back what he owes me in ways he won’t like”

4. Letting go — “bad, bad, hopelessly bad, totally out-of-my-league bad, nothing-I-can-do-about-it bad, rotten person who made me feel awful”

5. Considering my history — “the guy I used to get over my father”

6. Forgiving — “Who?”

7. Trust — “Need not apply”

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 12:31pm

Rosa, I know that desire to help others reach their highest potential. That is why I was so blind. Outwardly, he went from being a drug dealing, drug user, ex con. To a well respected, hard working, family man. Only he wasn’t really in the family. He lived 5 houses down from me during most of it. On the inside, he was still cold, seldom laughed, often bored, abusive in little childish ways, biting, hair pulling, stuff like that or just full blast AC when there was snow on the ground. Weird stuff and not paying bills. He would buy food or spend money on trips but never pay a monthly bill. My Dad is a great man and I could not imagine having a better relationship with him than I do now, but when I was younger on two occasions he was gone for a long time. Once he left the USA for a stay in Australia where he worked to train for an expedition to Antarctica. My Dad became a bit of a legend from that trip in our part of the world, and he was highly praised by both governments for his part in it. It makes me proud now to be his daughter but back then I just knew dad was gone, I couldn’t see or talk to him, my grandpa died while he was away and he couldn’t come back, and to top it all off, I was being molested by family members. So I think it is save to say there were issues with abandonment. Once he was back he was a great Dad again. Then at 14, at the same time I first met and fell in love with my ex, he left to be with another woman who hated me and claimed she was too emotionally weak to deal with me, but really she was just wicked. When she died Dad came back and he has been here since. I think the appeal of the ex the second time was to literally roll back time. Maybe thinking I could regain some of my childhood again. Not sure really. I had just always loved my memory of him and wanted that love again. Seeing the same truth of him now as a woman not a girl, I wonder what the hell was I thinking. He had to break up with me to marry a 15 yr old he got caught with to avoid statutory rape charges. I thought that was noble and tragic. Now see it as sick and twisted. But he had, and still has a way, of making every issue the other person’s fault. So Maybe instead of lowering my walls, I just need a guy who climbs well. LOL! I’m just trying to be open minded to a possibility and nothing more for now.
Sabrina, I’m glad what I said gave you a new view of it. And yes laughter at them and with each other is always delightful. One good thing about being laid up here is that it gives me time to think and catch up on what is new with all of you. Life is so hectic, I fall behind and miss stuff when I don’t have time for logging in, and it is all such good stuff all the time here. And I may be pink this summer, as I’m a pale Irish girl who never tans, but Orange I think I can avoid. The question is can your ex? ROTFLMAO!

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 12:38pm

Rosa, I’m totally sure you hurt their little feelings and that they would not have slept tonight with out your apology:)! But so true. What you see is what you get with them. But some can be sociopaths and some just misguided and immature on many levels. Some just rebellious by nature but really harmless. And some good guys on the outward side are wolves in sheep’s clothing. Can’t always judge a book by its cover, but we often do.

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 12:43pm

Kathy, that was profound and yet still had me laughing and yep head nodding. How do you do you it? Just a gift that you have learned to use I guess. Lucky for us all that you are here to enlighten and entertain. And that post just made the bulletin board as soon as I get outta here and hooked up to a printer:)!
Escapee, I have enjoyed and connected with your posts. How does it help? Not sure it just does. That is so true. Funny how so many of us lurk on the fringe, reading and learning, long before posting and then something inspires us to take a deep breath and throw it all out there. Will they except me? we wonder. And then out pours the love, support, and understanding every time. And I miss Blueskies, too. And where is Learned? Missing her, too.

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 12:54pm

holywatersalt says:

Hello-

I have cobbled together a survey based on replies I have received here and elsewhere on “what to ask.”

All who participate will be in a drawing to win “The Gift of Fear.”

I am doing this for myself and others who have suffered from narcissistic abuse.

The survey is completely anonymous.

http://www.eSurveysPro.com/Sur.....a0961d3e54

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 1:16pm

Rosa / Joy /Kathy

One of my previous posts described the S saying (very early days) – ‘I’m WYSISYG – ‘WISSYWIG’ – he’d say – he was very arrogant and very proud of this and used it to be provacative. It means ‘Wha You See Is What You Get’ – BUT that wasn’t the truth – it was what he was ‘letting me see’ in the beginning that hooked me in and that was this great, fun guy, generous, romantic etc etc. At this point, I wasn’t seeing all the stuff that he was later to unleash on me – a little bit at a time and WHOOSH!

Spot on with the process where the healing is concerned and labels for each stage. I think I have just reached stage 4 and, interesting, stage 5 does fit with my history, to a degree – but I thought I’d done all the forgiving of my alcoholic father a long time ago – but this is a very thought provoking one for me – perhaps I do need to go back and do some more ’scraping off the mud’ in the old daddy department – this time a spade might be a more appropriate tool than a fish slice!

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 1:20pm

Escapee, I did see that post and thought WYSIWYG for right now. Because it sure was not what I got once I said I do. Night of our wedding, he says everything changes now, and it did. Like he now owned me, and I would not easily be rid of him. He now was entitled to half of everything, and I guess he figured I’d keep him rather than risk it. In the end, He wanted nothing. And for that I feel so blessed. I think he thought that he was being smart and not getting into debts he didn’t want, but dummy walked away from a huge money lawsuit where he would be due compensation had he owned the Mold House. Now since he signed a quit claim deed, he gets nothing. HAHA! “WHOOSH” boy that sure sums it up. I’ll be digging and scraping with ya, I’m thinking, I’ll ask Oxy if I can borrow a chit shovel:)!

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 1:48pm

Joy

Well done girl! God, that must feel good…..

I got ripped for loads of ££££ – will be digging myself out of the financial mire for the rest of my life (so much for retiring to that country cottage!).

Still at least I am rid of that piece of filth and, I thank a god I don’t even believe in for giving me the strength to do that!

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 1:58pm

Joy: Hope you are feeling better… and that you are not too bored!! Thanks for the nice, supportive comments to me! Everyone has made me feel much better, if not, I hope you’re not in a private room… I might check in next to you!

Thinking about trust… I was watching The Real Housewives of New Jersey (stupid show) but one of them said “Before I like somebody, I DON’T LIKE THEM” LOL, isn’t that the truth!

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 2:37pm

Escapee,

At some point in my healing, I realized that at a psychological level my ex was an avatar for me, whose main purpose was to trigger latent issues that I needed to look at. Along the same line, at some point, I began to see his face as a kind thin kabuki mask over my father’s. (One of my friends called my ex “kabuki face.”) I remember telling him at the end of our relationship, that it was too bad my father was dead, because he owed him a commission for making it all possible.

This, of course, is really personal therapy stuff. But I also came to believe that this relationship was the ultimate attempt to reproduce my father — they were temperamentally very much alike — and make it come out better. And it was the final lesson, for me, that it wasn’t going to come out better, no matter what I did. Because I was dealing with someone who was incapable of giving me what I need. Or what anyone needs — like respect, acknowledgement, validation as a human being. Everything in his life was about him. People were nothing but extensions of his needs and props for his schemes. And, as long as I kept playing with people like this, I was nothing but that, too.

The subtle message in all these relationships is that we must care about them more than we care about ourselves. For me, the big learning — at a simple level — was that if I didn’t care about me, no one else was going to. The first person who was abusing me was me. Everyone else was just jumping on the bandwagon.

I like what you said about the space. A lot of my recovery was played out in what I called “inner landscape” stuff. It’s why I needed to take some time off from life. I felt like I was inside my head with a pickaxe and shovel, trying to discover what was underneath what I was feeling on the surface. Knocking padlocks off big doors that were hidden behind the pretty furniture. or jumping around trying to catch the messages from my subconscious that were floating around just out my reach.

One of my favorite visuals from this whole period was when I was a point of light inside a beautiful eggshell made of something like translucent silk and seeing the outside world like a movie, playing on a screen in all directions. It was somewhere in my boundary work, when I realized that outside was outside, and I was inside. And no matter what happened to me, outside was still outside. And the me that was inside was the eternal me who was there to learn.

I wish I could paint.

By the way, at the risk of being intrusive, have you considered consciously turning that adrenaline surge into anger? Maybe asking yourself if there is anything you resent about this situation would do the trick. Not to make yourself chronically angry, but just to channel that adrenaline into power, rather than fear. I do this sometimes, if I feel like anxiety is eating too much of my energy. Anger, even if I only use it for writing a poem, seems for me to burn itself out more cleanly. And it’s more likely, again for me, to generate some creative strategy to deal with the situation.

I have to really, really discipline myself about anger, because I work in a service industry. I have to do it in my spare time. And if it’s triggered in a work-related situation, I have to defer action until I can think about it. But anger has really taught me a lot about my personal power, what I’m capable of, and it laid the groundwork for some of the more positive thinking that you see in my writing.

I don’t know where are with this. And as you’re British, I’m not sure how the cultural issues play on the topic. From my memory of British friends, they are very good at both high concepts and sarcasm, but they also tend to endure things without complaining as a matter of character. My view of historical anger work isn’t like those anger therapies where you act out. It’s more like getting very clear that something was done to you that you didn’t choose, and linking the damage to the external cause. The goal is to place the anger precisely where it belongs.

People like you and me with difficult backgrounds may have to do several rounds with this in our lives, because our understanding of damage evolves. Or clarifies. I really didn’t get it until this round that I’d been carrying around a feeling of hopelessness about my ability to accomplish anything. That distrust of myself that the sociopath exploited was very old despair. And it originated from an early time when there was nothing I could to protect myself or change what was going on in my family.

When I revisited some of these early scenes it was salutary to say things like “You people are crazy” and “I need better parents” and “You are making it impossible for me to grow up” and simply “Grow up!” But the best part was just getting to “Oh, that’s why I feel this way!” and pinning one more medal of the order of unconscionable parental behavior on my father’s chest. I knew I’d get around to understanding and forgiving later, but right now I wasn’t in the mood. First, we all had to get clear (even though he was already dead) that there was damage, and I was dumping it right back in his lap.

So there’s thunder and lightening outside. And my son just came in to remind me to unplug my computer. I hope it’s sunnier when you are.

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 2:48pm

I meant “spade” not “space.”

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 2:49pm

Thanks for this. ‘the attempt to reproduce my father & make it come out better’ mmmm…. that’s very interesting to me and I will take time to re-read this very thoughtful post carefully.

Also the aspect of these relationships where you must care about them more than yourself – I hadn’t realised that until very recently and yes, it made me angry – with myself.

I have done the screaming at walls, punching cushions – trying to vent it all on inaminate objects where it can’t cause pain or hurt to another (god knows I wasn’t going to allow it to be turned either directly or indirectly on those around me who do truly respect and care about me – as often happens in the fall out in dysfunctional families, as you will know (mine included) -my poor exhausted mother often took her anger out on us as kids – not violence or abuse but ’snapping and endless martyrdom – I have always strived to avoid repeating this pattern with my own children. Then I tried to kid myself it was all gone – but I think I internalise it and yes, I think it is common over here that people ‘endure things as a matter of character’. What with all these British ’stiff upper lips’ it’s wonder collagen and botox ever took off!

I think maybe I need to concentrate on a more focussed way on this aspect of myself and history. I truly wish I could afford to take time off from life but there’s the paradox – they strip you emotionally but also financially, making this an impossibilty in the reality of all the fiscal ruin!

I at least now believe in the possibility that one day this will all be behind me and that’s thanks, in great part, to everyone’s generosity in sharing their stories here. Thanks again Kathy and to all who contribute.

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 3:17pm

Please tell me that you are compiling your healing journey essays into a full length novel?

I would rather curl up in my bed with your book in my hands, reading at my leisure. Because, to put it bluntly, I can’t sit like a normal person (prefer lounging) and my butt gets numb after a while in front of this here computer.

Gotta rub it vigorously to get the blood moving again…ow..

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 5:21pm

Escapee, I told my friend the other day that happiness is the best revenge. I’m so determined to do what I have to do to make myself happy. Someone wants to join me on the JOY RIDE that is fine, but nobody is going to stop my forward motion to happiness at least not for long as they will find themselves stranded on the side of the road while I continue on my way. Red flag waves me over for a stop as I kick their butt out of my car. And every victory puts a smile on my face as it is mine alone, and he is no longer there for the bounty of my good fortune or hard work.
ShabbyChic, I am feeling better the heart has been at a nice normal 80 rate all day with no medicine just me working on me. All my heart studies are coming back so far looking good. Heart enzymes, cholesterol, and arteries in my neck as clear as can be. Will have results of my heart ultrasound tomorrow before they do the stress test. Like I can’t get an “A” in that subject:)! LOL! But seriously, if the heart is structurally sound and the stress test reveals no problems, I will be out of here tomorrow. Doctor has me out for another week vacation of rest and self discovery. But I should be home and then back to work a week from Monday. Want my private room here at the Hotel Hospital? I’ll save it for you! LOL! Food isn’t too bad and they have internet:)!
Here’s to stiff upper lips and vigorous butt rubbing both of which have me laughing out loud.

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 6:20pm

Joy,

Good news on the heart test, aye? SUPER!

I bet it’s that evil stress doing a number on your blood pressure. Sweety, I suffered (bad) for over 20 years from generalized anxiety. It got so severe I became an agoraphobic, afraid to even step outside my own door. Hated feeling like that.

I’ve wrote extensively on LF about it, so I could share with people that GA can be cured without medication if you seek to find the answers and to be determined to heal yourself. I don’t wish to rehash my experience again. Don’t want to bore with the same ol’ same.

Thing is, I consider myself a huge success story in ridding myself of anxiety, panic attacks, and residual depression.

Of course, I didn’t do it ALL by myself. I gotta give credit where credit is due: “THANK YA, JESUS! You showed me what a life of true joy is like and I am forever grateful and your devoted daughter! I love you!”

**huggles for Joy (our lovely friend on LF and the emotion)**

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 7:16pm

Kathleen, I so agree with what you say about anger. Its taken me a very long time, over 30 years! to process all the anger at the truly dreadful things my daughter did to me. I was angry with myself first, for allowing her to abuse me, beat me up, wreck my home and studio, con me out of huge sums of cash, etc. I thought if I ever let this anger surface, it will literally kill me, and I wont be able to function,also, since my oldest Grandchild was born 14 years ago, Ive had to bury all the anger really deep, and “pretend “every thing was OK, just to get to see Holly. And then do the same thing when the other two kids arrived. I allowed Deb to trample all over me, and to “gaslight” me, before I even knew what that meant!
Its a strange thing, Ive lost half a stone in weight, without even trying to, within the last month that Ive found Lovefraud, and started to get real insights as to what was REALLY going on.I finally allowed the rage at her,and to my ex husband, and other abusive daughter to surface. The anger has been cathartic for me. It hasnt destroyed me at all.
Its finally given me the strength and power to put long overdue boundaries in place. As Oxy said,”The price your daughters are charging you, {letting their kids be pawns,} is WAY too high.” She is so right. NO MORE. If I dont see the kids again,well,so be it. Im sure, however, that my lovely son inlaw, who has the kids week about, will bring them over to see us when he can.You know what? I feel cleaner, lighter,-literally!, happier, less fearful,more confident in every way!!. NCis definitely working for me.I dont miss Deb,I dont like her, I dont trust her, I dont feel sorry for her any more, she is he own worst enemy. From now on, I will NOT be casting my pearls before swine, but plan to spend my love and time on people who truly love and appreciate me, and give something back! Not money, but a bit of time, and appreciation.I cant thank you great guys enough, for literally peeling scales off my eyes! Knowledge is power! Im also learning to forgive myself for letting myself be used and conned.”When ou know better, you do better” as Dr Phil says.
Hugs to all you great special people, I love all of you!geminigirl.

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 7:33pm

I also meant to say, I think that fat is just another protective layer, like a roman shield, it serves to protect you in a Psychological sense.Also “eating” my problems,”swallowing down” rage,all this made me fat. Ive gone from 15 and a half stones, to 15 stones in one month. {sorry, Im no good with Kilos! 14 pounds in a stone, so Ive lost 7 pound without even trying!!LOL!

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 7:36pm

Dear new friends, Thank you for your postings on this thread. I’ve spent most of the day reading, meditating on some of the issues, learning — and hopefully growing stronger. (BUT, at the expense of a severely numbed “sit upon” that I have just endured to do what I wanted to do – read!) I’m not British but I do know about “stiff upper lips” and enduring.

I’ve read so much that my responses now will be rather disjointed, I think. First, I copied and now paste, “My beloved grandfather told me once: you have to do some steps back to make bigger jumps! (Recouler pour mieux sauter)” from Libelle. I can’t tell you how grateful that I am for that “truism” today as I near almost 3 months of being housebound. (I even could translate the French! My memory isn’t as bad as I thought. Hurrah!)

Several posters mentioned PTSD reactions and how uncomfortable they are. I do not tolerate medications well so I was told about “Rescue Remedy” (OTC) and found it worked for me. It is a liquid in a small bottle (that one can carry in purse or pocket) and ‘works” with just 4 drops on or under the tongue. Can also put 4 drops in a glass of water. Box says, “Helps to restore a sense of calm and control.”

Shabbychick and others — I, too, had difficulty “labeling” my physically abusive EX as any of the Cluster B disorders. However, before my own research but hearing 3 separate expert counselors describe him exactly the same, a Narcissist, just after several interviews with me and my telling my story, I began to believe. It truly wasn’t until another one (a pastor with counseling credentials and experience) called him “evil” that I really began to trust my own instincts again. All this over a period of about 3 years. I still reel a bit as I remember my first CPA, after looking over the financial chaos to help me with my taxes said with vigor, “This person is not even qualified to be called a “man.”

I had been “out” and the long horrendous divorce and settlement (which was even worse than being battered physically) before I found out there were online abuse support groups. This is the best one I’ve found.

I truly admire each one of you and your separate strengths. We ARE survivors and soon to be THRIVERS! Hurrah.

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 8:01pm

It seems I always need to add a P.S LOL

The third counselor was the first to call him a psychopath. I was under the impression he could be called that because of his physical abuse. Is that correct or not?

Anyway, I have spent about 4 years reading and researching everything I can about these disorders. One of the first books I found (that fit my situation) was “Not to People Like Us: Hidden abuse in upscale marriages,” by Susan Weitzman, Ph.D. What a relief it was to my psyche to learn that it wasn’t ME, but HIM.

The other more recent book that helped me solidify the reasons why I was targetted (and trapped) was “Women Who Love Psychopaths” by Dr. Liane Leedom. My wounded self-esteem was almost miraculously resotred after reading that book.

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 8:14pm

Hey Joy:

The last thing I need is a diagnosed Bad Boy on here attacking me. I have already been “addressed” once on this site. That was ENOUGH!
My reaction was unexpected trauma out of nowhere.
Sort of like Sabrina’s reaction when she found out her X wants to go tanning with her.
Same restaurant, different booth.

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 9:06pm

henry says:

Anewlily _ I smile when I see your name here. One of my dogs name is Lilly and another is Posey..my heart feels sad and happy for you at the same time..thank you for sharing your story – I was with my X cluster B /sociopath.., for 3 years..I can not imagine how you survived – well yes I can that is why your words of wisdom, courage and survival are such an inspiration to me..

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 10:42pm

A NEW LILY..

the rescue remedy??? can u yake it during the day or does it make u tired???

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 11:04pm

Rosa, I’m so sorry to remind you of that painful situation on here. It’s easy to forget because so much love and support is here for us. I was trying to tease you with humor having momentarily forgotten what you went through. That happened during one of my absences from here, and I recall now seeing you post after the fact about it. My sarcasm is always meant to be funny as we laugh together at the absurdity of them. I would never have said that if I had remembered why you would be reluctant to provoke them if they are lurking about still. My sincere apology as adore your posts and the support you offer us here with your presence.
Newlily, is that remedy also used for pet anxiety? I think it rings a bell for me. Do you know what the active ingredient in it is? I have been without my anxiety meds since Sunday. At first because I just had no time to get it refilled, but luckily I was not on it or it might have lower my rate even more so. They are offering it here to me in the hospital, but I have been refusing because I feel pretty relaxed and don’t want to risk it lowering my rate until I’m certain it has become totally stable. I second Henry’s comment. You are wise, courageous, and an inspiration.
Geminigirl, Congrats on an unexpected bonus. You lightened your load in more ways than one:)!

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 11:17pm

Accept my words of gratitude for your words of encouragement. I am often afraid to post because of not trusting myself to express myself so as not be misunderstood. I know I’m a different generation from others here I do fear to be misunderstood but I’m working on it.

I am delighted that your dog and I share a name! Please give her a special cuddle for me. Lily, of course, isn’t my real name. It comes from my beloved Daddy’s pet name for me, “Lilybud.” I dare not use my very unique real name is known in my home state because I ran for public office and was very active in the communities we lived in — within the constraints of my EXNPS’ control and only with his “permission,” that is.

I haven’t posted on the topic of this thread yet because of my fear of being misunderstood and because I have no trouble trusting others (never have) but REAL TROUBLE trusting my own instincts. I think I’m finally beginning to understand where it comes from — HEY, I SMILED as I typed that. I know where it comes from — the EX (I call him an “empty suit..”) He tried to convince me I was a “nothing.” Could it be that he was jealous of me? He had no reason to be, for sure. We can’t understand their minds, though, can we? I keep trying not to even wonder or analyze any more but triggers do make me forget not to do that.

Rosa, I think you are right. Our experiences, although different, are the “same,” i.e., same restaurant, different booth.

Joy, I’m glad to hear your heart rate is stabilizing. Keep up the good work!! But, please be careful to take it easy when you get home tomorrow — for even a couple of weeks. (Thus says Grandma Lily from the experience of not following her own advice.)

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 11:26pm

Jane, didn’t mean to leave you out. I think we are on the same page as I’m trying to let go and let God, and work on the cause of the anxiety as the ultimate cure instead of medicine which I really hate to take unless absolutely necessary. My blood pressure is always good. I only suffer from the crazy rates of the beats. But I believe as does my doctor that it is all stress related. I have been working pretty hard with my attorney on the Mold House lawsuit, and I think after just finishing my case with the ex that it is maybe overwhelming me a bit. It is a good anxiety as once again, I’m pursuing justice against those that wronged me, but anxiety none the less. Plus I need to slow down a bit. As Kathy said I have been living it up! Between excitement of my friends signing a major recording contract and being front and center stage at their last show, traveling every other weekend out of state, and the rush of new emotion as I heal and ponder moving on to something new, it has all been crazy. It is Friday night, and I hope Matt is on another great date!

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 11:31pm

Grandma Lily, I plan to sit on my butt and watch all my TV shows which were recorded while here and do nothing until Friday when my son will drive me and his sis out of state to visit my friends, hang by their pool, cook out, and watch the fireworks, the moon, and the stars. Nothing strenuous just good times with good people. And if I’m feeling really good, I might go out to slow dance only with my new friend:)! No jumping up and down headbanging to the metal music like I have been doing at my friends shows. I promise.

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 11:37pm

end the pain, Rescue Remedy does not make me tired, just calmer. I’ve taken it as needed any time of day. Some days I don’t even need it. I do imagine everyone’s body is different, though. Some medications I can’t take at all. It is a combination of 5 natural flower essences and is advertsed (by the Bach company that makes it) as “the world’s best known stress relief remedy.”

Oh,not good for pregnant or nursing mothers, though, without physician’s advice.

I don’t think it is very expensive but I’ve had my one bottle quite awhile and can’t remember the price. It lasts a long time. No expiration date.

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 11:42pm

Thank you so much to everyone for welcoming me. It feels so good to be able to talk with others who understand. Some days are so much harder than others. I feel so much guilt right now for my children. Especially my youngest because my sociopath husband did not want him. I was so alone through my pregnancy. The doctor would ask where the father was and I would feel so embarrassed. Then I would see husbands with their wives at the office and I would just cry. I kept thinking if I am just nice enough to him, if I just do what he wants then I can make him happy. SO I put up with it and what did I get in return but him cheating on me, lying to me and to our kids. My oldest son has autism. My daughter is 5 and already been through hell with what has gone on. I feel like I am making my kids live this unstable life and I hate this. Why are these men so hard to leave? I know he treats me bad. I know he is a sick person. I know my kids deserve better so why can I not walk away? Anytime I try to talk to him about my feelings he gets irate with me and says “you are starting to act bitchy”. I wish I could just tell him exactly how I feel which is … You are a piece of crap, alcoholic, lying, evil, sick in the head , selfish, douche bag.. Sorry if that offends anyone but those words as immature as they may sound are what describe him, but I do not want to stoop to his level. I understand that he has a clear conscious about hurting me but how does he live with what he does to our children. One of the whole purposes that we were supposed to be living back together was for our oldest son. The school system where he lives is so much better for our son. I told him how bad he was struggling and I need help with him. He still will not put that first in his life. He would rather see our son struggle then live is sociopath life. All his friends that he has now are single and no kids. I don’t know how he keeps his stories straight between his friends. I used to think that I could tell when he was lying but I can’t now. Why do these types of people get married and have children? Why? They don’t want to help anyone but themselves so why drag children into it. He acted like he wanted a family and then when we had the children he makes it seem like I had them alone.. I don’t want to be with him but I am afraid to move on. That is what I don’t understand about myself. He has told me that I will never find anyone that will want me with 3 kids. I have lost 100 pounds in the past 2 years. He tries to make my self esteem low by making comments about women he dated while we were separated.. He tries to make me feel self conscious about how I look. I know that I do have low self image of myself. I also have issues with rejection from the abuse I went through as a child. Sorry to go on here .. I just have no one to talk with about this. So this is a great place to vent.. Thanks for listening…

Friday, 26 June 2009 @ 11:44pm

Kate, Is there anyone you can find locally? a therapist, counselor, someone who knows about abuse, and what challenges you face?
Autism alone, I know, is a hard thing to deal with and you have such young children. My heart goes out to you. Kate, the people here taught me about NO CONTACT. I wish I’d known sooner. There is no hope for the half – humans. So, we must protect selves and children and count our losses. The S is out to win and control at whatever cost. he does not want or believe in responsibility, but will tell you anything you wish to hear. I think they are the best psychologists of all. Please, don’t be so hard on yourself. Protect yourself for the sake of those kids. I know, mine cries every time I feel even sniffles, because he says he wants me to live and love them longer, otherwise, they are orphans. And believe that when the time is right, you will find that right one. But, for now, you would not want to I am sure, because it isn’t your priority and you are only starting to regain your strength.
I teach my children that they need no one to take care of them, or to share with them. If they are lucky and they choose to make a family, they must do so as an independent human being choosing to share their off work hours with another independent human beings. This idea of wholeness resonates with me so strong recently because my S made me depend on him for emotional support and I resent having fallen for the “you are my other half / soulmate trick”. Anyway, thank you for sharing Things will look up soon, I am certain.

Saturday, 27 June 2009 @ 12:52am

Here is a perfect place for venting shouting cussing even. Here is a place to share pain and regrets. Whenever we can’t find that physical person to do so with here at LF is just that place. I too know of my shame and guilt for not protecting them more from our abuser and hidden deeper still is the shame I bear whenever I took her side and not that of my own children. May God forgive me for that….

Saturday, 27 June 2009 @ 3:43am

Darling Kate. How my heart hurts for you. I wasn’t married to the S and my kids were teenagers when I met him – well rounded and happy – I don’t think there was any lasting damage to them (except I saw ‘hate’ in my darling son’s eyes for the first time ever at the mention of the S’s name).

Your situation is so very difficult with all the responsibility of such small children and one with very special needs. Kathy Hawk wrote ‘I was lucky enough to be able to take a year off from life to concentrate on the healing’ (or words to that effect) – well you don’t have that luxury and nor did I – so you have to try to get strong to rid yourself of this half-human and all his destablising cruelty almost from within the situation. The first thought I had was ‘this girl needs PRACTICAL HELP’. In the sorting out/healing, we have to START somewhere, whether it’s the emotional, spiritual or physical and until you can get some PHYSICAL help, I don’t see how you’ll get the strength to accomplish the healing of ‘you’. I agree with Katya about finding a good counsellor to help you. Perhaps if you are able to address what is your foremost fear about cutting him out? Is it that, financially, you won’t be able to cope? If so, maybe see what your position would be without him (if you haven’t already). Take ALL the help you can get. As for the children – it doesn’t sound like he’s of much use where they are concerned and whilst they are growing up seeing their mother increasingly depleted, their perspectives on life and what’s normal will be affected. (I can tell you have an awareness of this from your final comments about your own childhood).

Sorry if I’m sounding bossy or ’stating the obvious’ but you say ‘I don’t want him but I am afraid to move on’. Maybe try to identify your biggest fear about that and address THAT one first (remember: baby steps, one at a time, and then the next and the next ….). His nasty words – all designed to undermine you ‘who would want you with three kids’ – well, even if you can’t come back at him with anything (and it’probably best not to – they always twist everything to gain the higher ground), try to make his words irrelevant ‘like, someone wanting me isn’t the highest priorty on my list at the moment, I’ll deal with that one later’ – does any of this help you? He’s controlling you with these undermining comments and keeping you stuck in the situation and feeling powerless. Take back your power – it’s YOURS – not his to play with. You’re in charge of you NOT him or anyone else. You don’t have to think about things that he is manipulating you with if you don’t want do and what he says isn’t in anyway ‘law’ – Steve Becker talks in his broadcast about the ‘pathological confidence’ of an Narcissist – this is well worth listening to and you can go to the link – see left hand side of the home back for the link to this.

As Gemini Girl said in her post above ‘When you know better, you do better’ – what wise words – so very true and when you actually start believing that and living it, it gives you tremendous strength.

As for ‘why’ – I read a post a few days ago from a contributor and she told a story about the Scorpion and the Frog which really resonated and helped me to put the ‘Whys?’ into some kind of perspective. The story basically went that the Scorpion asked the frog to take him across the river because he couldn’t swim but the frog said ‘no, you’ll sting me and kill me’ the scorpion assured the frog he wouldn’t, smiling and charming her – anyway the frog finally agreed and when they got to the other side the scorpion raised his tail and Bang! STUNG HER – while she was lying dying on the bank, the frog asked ‘why? ‘ the scorpion said ‘because it’s what I do….’ – It’s that simple – it’s what THEY DO. We’ll never understand it and the healing really begins when you thing ‘Don’t even want to try to understand it’ – make him and all his cruelty IRRELEVANT – YOUR TRUTH NOT HIS LIES.

Kathy also wrote a very thought provoking post to me (see above Friday, 26th June) about how she came to view the relationship with the S as an attempt to recreate the relationship with her father, only make it come about better. She was talking about latent issues and how they possibly affect how we ‘choose’ a partner in later life. She also dealt with the fact that ‘we have to care about them more than ourselves’ – I don’t know if this is pertinent to you at this stage but it is full of very very thought provoking points in terms of answering some of the questions about yourself. It may help you.

Sorry this post to you is so long winded. Keep posting here for strength as much as you need. There are so many kind and genuine people on this site and James, to name but one, has been through the whole mire of getting the S out of his life and always has very compassionate insights to offer on this.

All love

Saturday, 27 June 2009 @ 4:33am

Katya

Right on about the ’soulmate’ trick. I was wholly independent before I met the creep and over 4 years he isolated me from all my friends, work colleagues etc. The constant sniping about other people, the crucifying criticism. Should have known from the start when I was so very uncomfortable about how he talked about his son, who was 20 at the time – he’d refer to him and say “is it too late for an abortion?” – he thought this was very smart and funny. It made me squirm – red flag – you know the very BIG BRIGHT RED RED KIND that you totally ignore. Never again! He tried to start the same crap about my beautiful boy (who was a similar age at the time) – his ‘thing’ seemed to be the total ‘alienation’ of all other males in his sphere – but he was very careful to show the ‘great guy’ face to colleagues and anyone who he thought might be ‘useful’ to his career – or anyone he could ‘use, con etc’. He intimidated two of his neighbours (a new place he’d moved to) – one lady who was on her own with a young son (aged 9) – complaining about the kid – who’d done nothing except play out near his front gate – she just upped sticks and moved. The other one, a guy, he fell out with, provoked and kept going back to antagonise him. Picked a fight with a drunk on a train (that was a pretty easy target for him) while with a work colleague – showing off – punched the guy in the face and managed to get away with it and told the story like he was the hero of the hour. Told me that he and his wife once had an au pair who ’snuck off in the dead of night’ – no wonder – got knows what kind of intimidation/bullying she’d been subjected to. Had not a kind word to say about his ex wife – found out later that he’s introverted her and constantly criticised her/bullied her. What a jerk! The list of incidents is endless – the paranoia – the gun under the bed, the OCD, the fits of temper about a crumb left on a work surface etc etc.

Turned out that he really meant SOULESS MATE. What a vacuum he must live in – glad the B****** is gone from my life – now just need to keep going to get him out of my head.

Saturday, 27 June 2009 @ 5:39am

lostingrief says:

hi my LF friends. i need some advice. feeling pretty bad today.

i have had NO contact with my ex-s/p/n for almost a year now. i also cut off contact with EVERYONE i have known through him, including his family (which i was VERY close with).
yesterday, i was walking and his nephew pulled over in a car and yelled my name. i didn’t recognize him immediately. he had a big smile on his face. ‘it’s me, tony! i cut my hair! i have NEVER not greeted tony without a big hug and kiss. i have known him since he was 4 years old; he’s now a 6′ tall and 28 yr old. i was horrified that it was him. i went into shock. it is the first time i have been confronted with any of the spath-hole’s crew.
i looked a HOT mess … 30 lbs fatter, hair frizzed from the weather, wearing rags. i was astonished he even recognized me!
anyway, when i realized it was him, i saw someone sitting in the passenger seat … a guy … also smiling. i don’t know who it was, but i was so freaked out by seeing him, and NOT wanting to communicate, that i just waved and walked away.
i feel terrible! tony and i loved each other very much. he always understood my deep love for his uncle and for his grandmother — my ex’s mom — who was my best friend until she died three years ago. he was like a nephew to me, too.
he simply drove away. i am so sad that i disregarded him that way. he didn’t deserve it, and i’m sure he didn’t expect it, but i felt that i had to. i’m sure he knows all about the circumstances of why his uncle and i broke up (his new baby (#4) with his new girlfriend).
i know he will tell my ex that i was rude and that i looked like crap. i’m hoping that he’s astute enough to realize why i couldn’t go talk with him.
did i do the right thing? and if so … why do i feel so awful!?
thanks, and blessings to all.

Saturday, 27 June 2009 @ 7:56am

Escapee,
Thank you for your validation. Mine did exact same thing. The bastard criticized and invalidated all people in my life who I thought were a support. All of us have many deficits and shortcomings. But, he made them stand out brighter than a rainbow. Yet, I was “too good for any of these people” and it would be he, the savior to show me the road. THE harshest was his criticism about those who ever cheated. Laughable. He tried to sleep with my best friend and she did not tell me out of fear that I won’t believe her. She’s right: I wouldn’t have, he’d turn it around and present it to me in a whole different light. Speak of Power: if he got his way, he’d have nailed her to do whatever he’d want just not to compromise the chance of being discovered…. And then, My dearest slept with two women who live ON THE SAME STREET, and did not know each other. All that while pretending that he’d been at work and never bringing the money into the family. I should not say never, they are like human trainers. They give these tiny reinforcements and leave you waiting and hoping for more. I am proud to have had flowers in my home on a weekly basis. He was such a romantic. What a guy!!

Kate09, these people are beyond help and beyond repair. They do not care about a soul, even when they attempt to become religious and show their faith (Been there, apparently, graveyard was the only place of comfort for my ex loved one) What helped me is to turn the tables and to see him as a thing. It felt weird at first, but I am continuing to train myself to accept him as I would a rock on the road. I still have feelings of love and betrayal and tremendous hurt, but when I come to this site and read posts like yours, and realize that these beings have no soul, I realize too that my feelings don’t have a basis for they were for someone else, someone he’d pretended but never knew how to be. Hey, just had an idea: do you like George Clooney? I do. So, liking the S is like loving the actor. We don’t know much about him, never met him (at least, I did not) and fantasize about him, giving him attributes he surely does not possess. Mine was such a great actor, I think that he would have won Oscars for sure had he been responsible enough to stick with one thing in his long and entirely useless hurtful life. And the other day I felt very sorry for his Mother. I am a mother too and I so hope my baby won’t be a monster. That is another reason I fight for him so hard. You will make it ok Kate09, as long as you know that no one else will do it for you. And that’s ok because we are the responsible adults with three kids and a bucket full of pain.

Saturday, 27 June 2009 @ 10:17am

lostingrief,

What we see in the outside world is a reflection of what is going on inside of us. Or rather what it means. How we interpret it.

On the most objective level, you see this guy you know in a car. You have some history with him. He says hello in a voice that sounds like he’s glad to see you. These are the “big” facts, though there are a few other details. He looks a different from the last time you saw him.. Maybe there is someone else in the car. The whole thing is very brief, and so there isn’t a lot more information than that.

Everything else, all the rest of this story is about what is going on in your own head. How it shapes your view of him. How you project it all into his head, to imagine how he sees you. The meaning you give the encounter at the time it happens, and later.

One of the difficulties of being upset — as in us having a lot of unresolved emotions bouncing around in our heads — is that the more upset we are, the more difficult it become to separate objective reality from our projected interpretations. And especially, that we start assuming that the outside world has any specific awareness of what is going on inside of us. Or that they are even interested, unless they have some reason to be (which almost always is about something that they need or want from us).

Am I making this too mechanical? It is a kind of mechanical perspective on things. And one is not particularly empathetic to the realities of highly energized emotional states.

But let’s make it more empathetic. You are not finished working through the pain related to a relationship that links you, in memory, to Tony. You encounter him and it brings up all the feelings of unfinished disconnection. The interaction is like a mini version of what you would feel if you ran into your ex. Not quite the same, but similar. The challenges you face are similar. You don’t know the right thing to say or do, not only in dealing with him but in protecting yourself. The shame you feel — which is a really complicated shame about being somewhat out of control while you are in mid-transition — is part of this reaction. The confusion about what to do and how to maintain some external semblance of being “together” gets layered onto the confusion you feel about him personally. You have good memories of him, but he’s still connected with that painful experience that you’re still trying to sort out.

So you make a quick decision to stop it. Stop the confusion, the challenges to your unfinished process, and you escape this situation. You do this for yourself.

But all the other things that are going on inside of you — all these mid-transition feelings — continue to be projected on the encounter. Because it is related, genuinely related, to what you’re processing. It’s a trigger to remember the pain, the confusion, the shame, the difficulty of finding a way to appear “together” to outside people, as well as the hard work of processing through this important experience. If when you encountered him, you were taking a momentary vacation from all this healing work, it all floods back.

This is arguably a PSTD experience. But not a classic one. You’re not being reminded of the traumatic experience, as much as you’re being reminded of the fact that you’re still mid-stream in processing it. It’s not over. And processing can be painful. Here you are back in that pain.

And so, you look at the encounter and you’re projecting all that on the experience. You worry that you can hurt Tony. You worry that he is confused. You worry that this experience triggers his insecurities. In the very complex business of projecting, you imagine there is an exchange of information about this pain. A kind of psychic handshake, so that he drives away knowing that he’s okay, and all the emotional stuff you were projecting didn’t have anything to do with him.

Was there a psychic handshake? Maybe. Maybe if he is a empathetic person who had reason to care about you, some information may have been passed between you two. Maybe you shared the information that you are not okay right now.

Or maybe not. Maybe he just saw someone he used to know who didn’t have time to stop and catch up, who had other things on her mind today. Who had time for a friendly wave before she hurried away. Who acknowledged their shared history in the friendly wave. And that there is always another day.

You just don’t know. What is more important about this encounter is what it showed you about you. If this were a dream and not a real encounter, what would you think the dream was about? Maybe that certain aspects of your history — ones that are probably benign but still too close to that big disaster — are still to hot to handle in a friendly, confident way. Maybe that you are not ready to deal with people you previously felt close to, because you can’t deliver the good news yet that you are finished getting over this thing.

And maybe, more importantly, that you are feeling shame about not being over it yet, or not being perfect, or still feeling like a loser (or something like that). Maybe this is a message from you to you that you need to work on that shame. To decide whether you have a right to your feelings, all these difficult feelings of recovery, and the disorderly, imperfect nature of your life right now. Because it makes perfect sense for where you are in all this. There’s nothing wrong with you, except that you’re going through a healing process.

You don’t have to worry about Tony. He has his own life. You are just a memory to him, an idea of a previous nice relationship, that can be reactivated anytime you want it to be. Whatever happened for him in that encounter will get processed in his reality, whatever it is. And you don’t know what that is. Really. Seeing you may trigger something in his life. Or it may just be forgotten as the next interesting thing happens to him. You don’t know and it doesn’t matter until or unless something loops back around to affect you again. And until then, it doesn’t matter.

Unless you want to reach out to him, look up his phone number or drop him a note, saying that it was nice to see him, but you couldn’t talk. And opening the way for a little more contact. But all that depends on your readiness.

In the meantime, you did the right thing for yourself. The only person you are responsible for is you. And you need to take care of yourself as someone who is mid-stream in healing. In some cultures, people who are grieving get to wear special clothes, so everyone else understands that they are in a special state. Other cultures recognize that people have to go through a kind of temporary craziness to deal with certain big losses. It would be nice if we had that, so you wouldn’t have to worry about how you look.

When I was healing, I worked very hard to hide it, dressing as conservatively as I could, trying to use make-up to cover the fact that I was crying or not sleeping well, struggling to mask the fact that I’d lost a lot of hair. But as I got better, I realized that other people aren’t really paying attention. The things that seemed so telling about the way I looked were things that other people look like when they’re perfectly normal. Unless I was walking around reeking of body stink, brandishing a knife, or having arguments with the air, I could handle my casual social contacts without anyone thinking twice. Even people who knew me from before. They might ask if I was feeling okay. I’d answer, “Just tired” or “Still getting over that thing” and that was enough.

So what I’m saying in all of this, lostingrief, is maybe it’s time for you to be thinking about taking it easy on yourself. You’re in the middle of something big. Take that seriously. Take your own needs seriously. But don’t look for reasons to beat yourself up. Figuring out why you got involved with this person and what you have to learn from it all is enough for any one person to deal with. The rest of the world isn’t doing anything more important than that, and it’s not part of your big challenge to worry about whether they understand or don’t. You’re going to come out of this absolutely shining, and then you can explain when they ask you why you look so good.

Saturday, 27 June 2009 @ 10:49am

Kate09,

I’m with Escapee. Reading your two posts, I had to think long and hard about how to sort out and prioritize the issues in your life.

But the first one, the most important one, is what you’re going through emotionally. That may not seem right to you, since you’re dealing with so many practical issues and trying to keep so many balls in the air. But if you think about, everything you face would be easier to manage, and easier to think through, if you were not in so much emotional pain.

The simplest fastest solution for this is to find a support system for abused women. You may not want to name yourself in that way, but these support systems are designed for women who have been emotionally involved with men who are unable to maintain healthy relationships and who take out their incompetence on their partners. The effects on their partners are serious.

Right now, a lot of your writing describes your internal battle with accepting who he is. That’s something that all of us struggle with. We can’t resolve the contradictions between how they sometimes appeared to be able or willing to meet our needs, but they mostly act differently. As though they don’t care, or as thought they are actively trying to hurt us. It is a big day for every one of us when we realize that they are not what we need them to be. It’s heartbreaking in a way, but our hearts have already been broken for a long time, and this is just admitting that it’s not going to change. And in that knowledge there is freedom. We are alone, but the rest of our lives belong to us.

As far as your practical challenges go — and there is no question that they are substantial — facing the fact that you’re on your own also enables you to think more clearly. You do need help. You need every bit of help you can find.

You sound like a wonderful mother — responsible, caring, very able to seek out resources and the best possible circumstances for your children. You have a hard history that is affecting your expectations for yourself, and you need some support in that area. But you’re having no trouble at all in being strong and holding onto your hopes for your children. And that’s good. That’s a strength you can leverage to improve your whole life.

The big challenge in your life right now, as I see it, is to let go of your hopes related to his behavior. He is not going to change. He may come back and mess with you a little more, for his own reasons. But he’s not going to change at a character level.

And if you still question that, here’s what will let you know he’s really ready to be different. He will come back talking about his shame at how he has treated you and how hard it has been for you. He will show he is sincere by making efforts to earn his way back into your life with real and meaningful actions to make it up to you and the children. And these will be real sacrifices he makes, not flashy gestures to try to talk you into thinking he’s a good guy.

I have no doubt that one of the hardest things about giving up on him is that he looks like your best chance to make a better life for your kids. If not him, then what? Without him, you’re future looks harder in ways that you can’t even bear to think about. And that’s why you need help with your feelings. You are stronger than you know. The world has a lot more resources than this deadbeat that you will discover when you stop focusing on him. But you’ve got to get over that hump, that fearful feeling that he’s your best chance.

The truth is that he’s your worst chance. And you already know that. Even if he decided to share resources with you, what would you have? A selfish, lying, greedy emotional child who would tax your time and emotional system much more deeply than your children, because at least they love you. At least, with your children, you get the satisfaction of seeing your love and caring do some good. He would be like a fourth child, but one who would embitter and age you.

You can do better, and you will do better. You are a good person who deserves more. He was a bad choice, a mistake you made while you were trying to do the right thing. Everyone here on LoveFraud made the same mistake.

Stay with us, and keep talking. Getting over these relationships take a little work, but you can do it. And you have three good reasons to do, not counting yourself. I don’t know if you would trust me right now, if I told you that you are going to come out of this smarter and stronger than you’ve ever been in your life. But you can do this.

Along with everyone else here, I’m sending you encouragement and welcome. You came to the right place. Things are going to get better.

Saturday, 27 June 2009 @ 11:26am

Is it possible that all these Sp men and women are clones of the devil. Every story sounds so similar. The same loving person slowly becomes this monster. They are all about the con and appearances of normality. I think that is why they like to get married and have kids. Normal people do that stuff so they do, too. Only once they have it all not being normal they don’t know what to do with it. The degraded us that is so textbook. They all do it. It is about control and winning. How far they can push and what we will put up with. Just a game to them. It really isn’t personal. It is what they do. They can delete us and insert the next us and it is all the same. They know us no more than we know them. But we thought we did. They don’t care enough about us to even be bothered with what we think, feel, or who we really are.
Kate09, Having once worked for the county dept of social services, I suspect that there are lots of services that you and your children would qualify for. Apply for everything that is out there that can assist you. Put pride aside, these services exist to be used by those who need them. My oldest son is 19 and has Asperger’s Syndrome a form of high functioning autism. I feel for that situation as I have had a small taste of it, too. I sense that you are strong. You made it here and you’re sticking around for help and support. Weak people don’t do that. They would hide and deny. My thoughts and prayers are with you.

Saturday, 27 June 2009 @ 11:51am

Kathy,

My deepest heartsgratitude for your original article, and your responses to others. Your response to lostingrief was a shot of pure empathy and recognition into my heart and mind.

lostingrief, Go easy on yourself. Let it be OK to follow your own lead. It is not a simple thing trusting ourselves, after having put our own best interests behind those of others.

It is an interesting process coming back to trusting ourselves. As a result of ignoring ALL OF ME, while I was in relationship with an abuser, I lost my faith in me. I am two-years out and I am still building a trusting relationship with me.

Take care of yourself lostingrief.

Saturday, 27 June 2009 @ 12:27pm

Have checked back in briefly tonight and am unsurprised to see all the posts directed to you from the amazing people on this site.

I hope you will gleen something from all this and that it will in some way help you. I would urge you to take Joy’s advice and look into what financial and practical help is available to you.

Try to be good to yourself where possible.

Saturday, 27 June 2009 @ 1:58pm

kathy and kate,
thank you so much for taking the time to write. i feel better, although it made me realize just how self-loathing i am right now; must be a new phase in the healing process. lately, i’m very anxious, sleepless and feeling pretty damn ugly. but your note woke me up to how my ego has taken over!
more work to do.
a year in and sometimes i feel i’ll never get over this. other times, i feel SO over it. strangely, i feel i was doing better five months ago. is this common?

Saturday, 27 June 2009 @ 3:20pm

Hey LIG I would of done the same thing you did. If you had talked to Tony the conversation would of more than likely turned too the Xspathhole and then you would of felt even worse, especially if tony had said all good things about uncle poothead. Or you may have revealed to Tony you are still dealing wth the past , then you would of wondered if that info got back to spath..You did the right thing – no contact to him and all people who associate with him..

Saturday, 27 June 2009 @ 3:58pm

I’m running out the door, but just saw your note.

I think we process in waves. And there are period of relative calm, maybe when some piece of progess is working its way down through our emotional system, and then we’re ready to work on another piece. So we experience that as big upheaval.

There is a lot to process in the aftermath of these relationships. One year is often where we begin to break through from just dealing with the fact that they were terrible people to the deeper stuff about ourselves.

Please don’t think I suggested that your ego has taken over. It’s more like your anti-ego is taking over, and saying hurtful things to you.

I’m trying to get a piece finished on loving ourselves to post tomorrow. Maybe it will be useful for you right now.

Saturday, 27 June 2009 @ 4:38pm

Done says:

Vision,
Thanks for telling the story of the frog and the scorpion. I’d heard that story when I was a kid and forgotten it. It certainly has more of an impact after being involved with a SP.

Saturday, 27 June 2009 @ 6:11pm

The moment I get any court related papers I go into the typical Stress response. I can’t breath due to anxiety and my mouth gets mighty dry. Apparently, I have been denying MEANINGFUL visitation. Does anyone in this site know what Meaningful visitation means if I said he can see the child while with me or a family member and he refused each time in many months (don’t want to give TMI).

Saturday, 27 June 2009 @ 7:25pm

To All,

Once you reach the understanding that you are living and dealing with a S you have to outsmart them. It took me 5 years to realise who I was living with . I prepared myself for it and waited for the right moment to act. You have to understand that their own purpose is to break you down, is to distroy you. Try to understand how their mind work.

I was married for 23 years. Had everything jointly and two children and many years of all sorts of abuses. When the affairs started, (but offcourse he alwyas denied it and saying I was the one). After he sensed that I believed in him the abuses started again. Anyway after his two trips overseas with the excuse of visiting family (actually they were lovers from internet) my eyes open up. And I played stupid. On the third time the excuse was an adventure trip to a very risk place. I actually encouraged him. but always showing my concern if anything happened to him How devasted me and the children would be. He asked to selll our seconf house to fund his trip. Oh! I showed a lot of concern and disappointment in doing that but still encouraging him to do it. After all, it was something very important to him and we all would like to see him happy. After we agree in selling the house I asked him to sign a Power of Attorney (no limits attached to it) in case some accident happen to him and I was left behing with the kids I could sell our family house (the big one) without problems. I also asked that we did a separation of assets due the high risk adventure he was going to. He agreed and I did not mentioned the children nor child maitenance, after all he was going to come back because it was a trip only to an risk adventure, and I was exercising caution in his eyes.

WOW he was trilled that I gave everything and asked nothing but showed him I was really really concerned with his safety and a rapid retun home. He trully believe in that.

Well he lleft our house and went strait into the arms of another lover from internet. and from there he was telling me about all the adventure of his trip as it was true. And I pretended to believe and was also talking to his S family overthere, who all wanted his money and were hiding from me the thruth of his trip.

Any way the more I begged him to come back soon the longer he stayed (see in his mind he was hurting me) and he was sure he could come back any any time. But in this process he would not contacted the children nor assist financiallyto hurt me even more. After one year when he noticed that my contacts were no longer frequent he went into dispair. When he finally asked me to come back I said I was no longer his wife and the kids no longer his kids. Ah! but he forgot that his bank statement was still come to our place and I could see how he spent the last cent of all the money he took with him,..and that is why I knew he was with the other woman, and his family the grandmother and unties of my children hiding it from us, because they aalso believed in his lies, that he was a well off men in here where we lived.
When his money finished he beggged to come back quickly (but there no body knew he had run out of his money).
The end of the storie is: with his Power of Attorney I transferred the title of the house into my name only, withdraw all his superannuation funds , and all this with the seal of the Family court. I showe the family Court his bank statement and the luck of support and concerned to his own children, I proved to them all the lies and the abandonment of his children without maintencae.

WOW did’n t he learnt a lesson. He could not even call me back to complain about those things after all he gave me the power and he signed the documents. The only thing was his family didn’t know those details because he wasl also lying to them. But I knew all the game that they all were playing. The children saw everthing and boy they got angry with them all and now we do not have them in our backs compalining and he is at the other side of the word without anything and without us and with everybody in his circle knowing him, what he did and how miserable he ended up.

And the best thing no one of them never call us back because I have always been nice to them all I even gave a house to my husband to see them (but that house was only 25% of all our assets.

No Court, No litigation, No fightsd, No relatives in my back, full support of children and a red face from them all who was trying to distroy us. You have to be always ONE STEP ahead of them. Understand how her mind works and the purpose in thei lives. Once you do this you will be over them quickly because you will have the sensation that you have not been cheated by them You were clever and alwyas good to them..

Saturday, 27 June 2009 @ 9:23pm

LostinGrief- I agree w/ Henry about you doing the right thing re: the “drive by” with your x- S relative, TOny. IF you had spoken to him, most likely you’d have felt like it was a hit and run- quick but deadly. You probally would of beat yourself up on what you did or didnt say and tortured yourself of what was said to your x about it.

IM NOT NEARLY AS SMART AS YOU-
When I unexpectedly ran into a woman from my previous church (the S still goes there on occasion ONLY to gain sympathy from his ADORING fans-)

I paniced and tried to say to her that I missed going to the church, however I was unable to attend due to the Restraining order my x had AGAINST ME!!
OMGosh! WHAT A DITZ! “I” have the restraining order against “HIM”. I tried to correct myself, but still didnt come out plainly so I “stressed” later if she ever understand what idiotic comments came out of my mouth!!! LOL-
FUNNY NOW- THEN, not so much.

Thanks everyone for supporting me in the TAN O DRAMA with the S!!! I feel that you guys are all behind me with Sir tans alot! xoxo.

Saturday, 27 June 2009 @ 9:34pm

Brilhancy,
I needed your inspirational story. I wish I could do the same. I am a very direct and blunt person and I can’t outsmart even a mouse (tried, failed). My Mother tells me to stop beating myself up over trusting this fraud and signing the child as his on the affidavit of Paternity. At that time I was the one asking for it, because since he brought nothing home, at least I could collect Social Security if he retired early. What a creep. My ex husband was trying to patch things up with me at the time, but I divorced him out of sheer obligation now to my S who lived with me and oh, was so incredible while talking to five women and having sex with at least five of us (and asking many more). I am watching myself crumble as he tries to assert his power over me. Some say, give up, but I can’t: I will not be able to hand over my child to this monster. One question I have and please, please, someone, help me: his family and ex wife know the abuse, and are fearful of him and won’t testify. I can’t prove much without that testimony. I need the history they shared with me (over the state lines) to be presented to the court. I should change my name to Wittsend, but someone has that already…

Saturday, 27 June 2009 @ 9:55pm

Sabrina: You are cracking me up! Maybe if the X uses the proper tanning accelerator (with bronzers), he won’t have to make as many trips to the salon. Then your chances of running into him would be greatly reduced.
Just a suggestion.

P.S. Ask the manager to put new bulbs in the beds. Then maybe he will burn his ass on the first session, never to return again.

Saturday, 27 June 2009 @ 10:06pm

Rosa- I think I should send a little divorce present to him- tanning bronzer with napalm! Then he will do what he always has done BEST – BLOW UP! Fur Reeeel! lol

Saturday, 27 June 2009 @ 10:21pm

PS. he was never anything but “smoke N Mirrors” anyways!

Saturday, 27 June 2009 @ 10:22pm

Im sorry- just one more I promise- a going away gift of tanning lotion mixed with AGENT ORANGE- more bang for the buck .

Saturday, 27 June 2009 @ 10:24pm

Katya- I wish Matt were on here to help you with that ques. on how to deal with hostile witnesses (I think its called- those unwillng to testify) I know they can be subpoened, however do you think they would lie in court to protect him?

Saturday, 27 June 2009 @ 10:30pm

Thank you for responding to my post, Sabrina. I am so lost now, that I don’t know whom to trust and who would lie. His daughter and ex – wife told me terrible things. But, the daughter also said, that my child’s SOUL CHOSE this life for a reason. What kind of screwed up attitude is this? Is she a P?
I wish I knew if they’d lie. I am spending thousands of dollars, knowing the man is a flight risk. And half the time being thrown back into the darkness and knowing I must get more proof, I must be well prepared.
But, if they give false information, I won’t know what to do: it’ll be their word against mine.

Saturday, 27 June 2009 @ 10:40pm

Sabrina:

“He was never anything but ’smoke N mirrors’, anyway.”

Mine too. Again, same restaurant, different booth.

P.S. Mine did not smoke, but he LOVED mirrors, if you know what I mean (flaming Narcissist).

Saturday, 27 June 2009 @ 11:00pm

Katya- I am sorry for the distress that you are in. Sounds like you need really good legal advice. my only experience was with my case- not really like yours, but I had the pastor of our church subpoened due to my x S confessing to him the abuse that I endured. I didnt know if the judge would exempt the pastor as a witness due to confidentiality laws. It was a risk. However, the S was afraid of being outed so he confessed and was convicted. I also had confessions of abuse on tape via phone calls. Please be strong, Im sorry I dont have any helpful suggestions to you. Maybe others will in the a.m. as its Saturday night, and Matt -unlike myself with ZERO, nada social life is out on the town with a new beau I do believe. We can all live vicariously thru him and Joy (who also has a man I think!!! ) GO guys! best wishes all…

Saturday, 27 June 2009 @ 11:26pm

Rosa- My x, used to do this hideous thing of punching me while I was asleep! He pretended that he did it while he was asleep- but I remember thinking as it happened Very often- this ba$tard IS SO ” NOT” ASLEEP! Another thing, he would pull the pillow out from under my head as I was sleeping!! I would wake up furious, and he would laugh and say why u mad, you werent using it. WATA FREAK!

Saturday, 27 June 2009 @ 11:33pm

OMG!!! You poor thing!! They really get off on interrupting our sleep, don’t they? It is easier to manipulate someone who is tired and sleep deprived. I read it right here on this site, I think.

Mine was a Bobby Brown/Whitney Houston kind of deal. One night at about 1:30 a.m. he shows up at my duplex, and starts firing a shotgun outside of my door. I don’t know if you have ever heard a shot gun fired before, but it sounds like a bomb or something. Not to mention, it is illegal to do things like that inside the city. He preferred cave-man tactics like that over picking up a phone and calling me.
But, yeah, late-night terrorism was one of his favorites.

P.S. And I would look out the window, and I could see him driving off in his car, or his friend’s car. Like I am not going to recognize his car???? What the…???

Saturday, 27 June 2009 @ 11:58pm

OMG
They are so much alike even in THIS?!*#&$^#(*W
Mine would wake up at night and go to the basement and get drunk. One night I woke up and his face was hovering right above me. The difference was: I experienced real terror, because I felt somehow that he had an urge to strangle me in my sleep with a pillow. I recall it so vividly, like it was yesterday. yet, when this happened, I asked him: Honey, are you all right? why aren’t you sleeping?
IMAGINE

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 12:02am

Katya!

That is sooooo “Sleeping With the Enemy”!!

CREEPY!!!!

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 12:14am

Thank you, Rosa. I have not been able to sleep without him either. This is why I can’t give up my fight for my son’s future. The man is just really really sick. Thank you for understanding.

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 12:25am

Katya:

I totally understand.

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 12:29am

Tilly says:

I am spilling the beans in different blogs. I know its only my decision but I am not sure. I need a joke Rosa! xo

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 12:41am

This is Cool Creepy: before discovering my dearest and Right after I signed my living will over to him (ain’t it special?!) I am having the following dreams with no reason whatsoever: I dream that I am levitating into a round “fire / orange whole” against my will. Second – I see California fires (actually two days before) and I return home (as a man, figure out why would I feel like I was a man?) and collect my family to flee because the fires are coming this way… I collect them outside of my home and run back for my personal diaries. I woke up thinking what an Ass, I left my family and ran back for my past… two days later – the fires, Four days later – I find out the TIP of the Iceberg. You’d think I listened to the Voice (God? Angel? Subconscious?) NO such a thing. I kick him out and then I actually worry about him and want him to seek treatment and finally get so P/O d that I begin sending him these YOU NO GOOD SOB e-mails. So, My dream has come true: should have left the diaries in the house that was about to burn and think more of my family. Any dream experiences you want to share?

What do you think Matt?

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 12:47am

have to decide by tomorrow night

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 12:50am

Rosa- man, your X was an nut job too! Firing a Shot gun in the city!!! thats funny about “he preferred cave man tactics.”
I had sort of buried those memories about being punched at night while sleeping, just came back into focus this week, and I am really stunned/sad/mad etc. about it. THe shame of the abused, I heard about this week on LF and its hard for me to say that I EVEN got “hit” in the neck by him not many months after cervical disc surgery! This was “accidental” he claimed- but told me oh it didnt hurt!! He called me “grandma” b/c I was unable to crawl across the bed when my neck was at its worse before surgery. HE REFUSED to simply sleep on the other side , making it easier for me to get in and out of bed!!!
Im really struggling this week with OMG how do I really
heal from all of this!
Katya- he probally was thinking about hurting you! Wondering where to hide the body, maybe??? I for one never have missed sleeping with that maniac- he would bring huge plates of food and put it by my head while I was sleeping and noisily knaw on a side of beef at 2am! He had CRAZY eating and sleeping patterns.

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 12:58am

Mine had one incredible thing about him: his body temperature is naturally hot. So, when he touched me I went right to sleep. I don’t take your comment as a joke: I believe that’s what he was doing. Many people here saw the “face behind the mask”. That was one of the times I got a real “thrill” of seeing my loved one with no mask. That sort’a stays with you, doesn’t it? I had another dream (read my previous posts) about him coming out from behind some pillar, and he was coming for my kid. He looked so scary, I don’t know what happened next. Guessing and hoping it’s only PTSD acting up. I have had foretelling dreams before, and I refuse to believe it’s one of them. Thanks for talking to me tonight. Would help if you tell me how to figure out helping the lady and not getting myself involved in too much. I am just not strong enough now (surely, temporarily)

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 1:04am

Tilly:

What are you trying to decide?

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 1:38am

Katya- I think you asked about any dreams we have had. THis is interesting to me.
Shortly after marrying the S, I woke up in middle of night semi hysterical b/c I dreamt that he had stabbed me in the neck with a car key, then his mistress was there saying he had cheated on me, and all the while he was laughing (in the dream).

After waking my X, as upset as I was, the S was more annoyed with me waking him and not very loving or concerned that I had such an upsetting violent dream.

Some 3 to 4 months later, he ended up strangling my neck (more than one occasion) and I found out he had been cheating on me with several women, using my car to go and meet up with them. I still almost get chills thinking about how the dream was so real to life. Was it a premonition? I had absolutely no reason to suspect either of the scenerios of violence or infidelity at the time- we were newly weds- GRRR!

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 1:47am

Wow, Sabrina, that’s pretty deep. I think it was a premonition, I am a believer. Wish we could interpret our dreams better. We should have a topic of discussion on this. I think it’s very telling. When I met S, I had a lot of things happen to me. They all said: RUN
but I did not read them properly, when I questioned and shared (like you did at night) he’d turn a perfectly horrible omen around to present it as a great sign
I once dreamed that his ex wife was putting a protective spell on him. I thought it was against me. I found out it was for her and him healing. YEAP, did not work

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 1:55am

Sabrina:
Yes….I believe we process through our dreams…..pay attention to them….
They are like S’s ……not always ‘WHAT’ they seem.

And yeah….my S was always annoyed if I woke him up…..I would creep around like a nut……
The times I had the flu and threw up in 30 years….he would get so pissed and yell out…..can’t you be quieter…..???
Not one time did he come in and ask if I needed something, or hold my hair or bring me a washcloth…..
OMG….I remember one time he came in to the bathroom and snappily asked Uh, how long ya going to be……farted and said could I hurry up that he had to go to the bathroom.
I was always such an inconvenience to him….
OMG….I re read this and it’s CRAZY that I stayed with this person and for almost 30 years????? HOLY CRAPIOLI!!!!

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 1:59am

That is horrifying! No man has ever put his hands on me like that. I don’t know if I was lucky or got out in time or what, but I am thankful for that.

I have had several scary encounters with strangers (men I did NOT know) following me, etc. There are so many freaks out there with poor impulse control, you have to be on guard at all times. If it is not someone you are involved with, it could be a stranger.

Speaking of dreams, I am off to dreamland right now.

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 2:18am

There are a helluva lot of sharks out there.

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 2:35am

About Dreams,

As I was learning about S and the crisis that I was in I had three dreams that I will never forget
The first one was him surrounded by women and they were all loughing at me and him in the middle enjoying the fun.

The second was him with a woman half of his age and three kids and he was also loughing at me.

The third one I found myself in the midlle of a desert and all those wild dogs chasing me and I was grabbed by the throat by a big black dog and as I was gasping for air with his big teeth in my throat I wake up shivering and sweat all over.

By that time I had no idea he was having a romantic affair with two or three in the internet and many intrnational calls. I trully believe those dreams were signs sent to me.

Most importantly, my mother who had passed away a few years early was constantly coming up in my dreams. I had never ever dreamt about her before. I only stopped dreaming about her after I broke up with him and after I started feeling stronger. In the last time I dreamt about her she was smiling and she said she was going them and would not come back. I have never dreamt about her since then.

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 6:26am

I think our dreams are important and do tell us things. Maybe more in an subconscious way but still information. When we dream we enter into REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep which I am told is the deepest part of our resting and we only dream (if I right?) during REM. So if we do dream during REM and it’s the deepest part of sleep, we therefore are in the deepest core of our subconscious part of our memory/information and it come to us without us having any control over it. So maybe then it’s a effort for our brains to process information/memory that we don’t and can’t process on the conscious level. There is a lot of research being done on sleep, patterns and how important it is for us sleep and why we dream.

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 6:45am

More interesting Facts

My ex S was having affairs internationally. I think he knew better if it was close to me I would find out and that it would be the end of him. He used to find all sort of excuses to travel overseas using family and friends reunion. And all the fabrications were so convincing. At this time he was not being abusive towards me at home any more because I got really tough with him, hHis escape was to hurt me having affairs and neglrting the family.

In one of his visits overseas. I called one of the most frequent number I found in the telephone bill (he used to hide them from me but I got a reading from the telephone company) asking to talk to him and identifying myself as he wife calling from oversea. The oldest daugther answered the phone and said. It is your wife from….. Guess what he was with the girls mother in the bedroom. She though he was divorced. But until then I had no idea of what was happening. After many excuses I became very suspicious.

So I broke his password in the internet and managed to contact that same family but with a mistaken identity. I was a man even more rich then what he was saying he was (I knew his stories).

The lady slowly started flerting with me online. At the same time he was from inside her house using the same computer sending me loving messages. I let both going on becuase at that point I was not sure I was only acting based on suspicions. He came back home after two months saying how bad everything was in that particular country and that he was so glad to be backk home. I said nothing but started asking many questions and showing a lot of interest on the things he was saying. But I also was continuing with the flertation with his lady (without her knowing who I really was I was pretending to be a man)….My ex S and I went away for ane weekend and on the way back, because I was so friendly with him he finally confessed that there were a women involved.

And I with my cold bloody, but boiling inside, said how interesting confession because I would never suspect anything. He started saying how nice she ws and all those things they have done together and promised me that he would not contact her agian. But he felt sorry for her because she loved him so much.

After I asking him if he was very sure about that he said he had no doubts. On our arrival at home I asked him to come close to our computer and I showed him how much love she had for him. because she was full on engaged with me. He went yellow. blue purple and all colours you can imagine.

Then I told him. You are not going to tell her what is going on You are going on with your romance with her and me also. Lets see who she is going to dump first. Full on she startted replying to my emails but not his. I said your full now I will tell her the whole thruth and both of decide what you want to do with your lifes because I do not sleep with you anymore.

He cried and cried and cried and she asked me thousands of apologies.. and so on. I gave him one more chance as always because we are stupid and also we think about the children.

For two year I was leaving in heaven He was an angel but a demon will always be a demon. The third time was what happened in my strategy described in my response just before I described the dreams.

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 6:51am

Brilhancy, at least you prepared and thought things out. I kicked him out immediately (he convinced me that the first woman he was with was a product of my imagination, but got caught with another the very next day and was out of steam). You just showed your humanity by taking him in. I am not sorry for keeping this creature and feeding him for three – four years. I learned a lot about self and I have a son who is my joy and my older kids’ pride.
About the dreams: I was capable of dreaming up names. you call this psychic abilities: I can’t control it but once in a while, I would have a dream that tells me What, Where, How. Once my ex husband cheated on me, I woke up and matter of factly said: SO & So says hello (from the dream). He still does not have a clue how I learned of her name. Frankly, I don’t either, because it was a one niter with a prostitute in another country, but being NOT an S, my ex- husband immediately told me the truth, apologized, and I don’t think he’s ever done it again, until much later, when we decided to live separately under the same roof. In any event, REM or not, I have learned that my dreams tell me a lot. Sometimes I don’t know how to listen or challenge them and always learn a “hard lesson”. When I kicked him out, and could not locate his whereabouts, while he was begging to return, I dreamed the house and the woman he was with. these all have been confirmed. In another dream, I had taken “her spirit” out to lunch and told her all my fears. Her spirit refused to listen (Much like did I in the beginning). I do now believe they are the spawn of evil because they are so much alike and we are foretold of our tragedies in dreams or via intuition, but generally the Ps are so great at hiding the truth and convincing us of the opposite. (it is not my intention to offend any religion or spiritual belief you may have and / or to generalize if you find that you cannot relate to my personal experiences) AND – OXY – as always, thank you for your wisdom.

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 10:25am

I spoke to my X’s X (dan) last nite. After giving LostinGrief advice not to talk to anyone that knew her X….BOINK – All I can say is “what a chaotic drama filled life my X has lived’. I dont live the way my X and his X lived, they are a whole other breed of queer..bars, drinking, fighting, back stabbing bitch fighting animals. I am glad I am me. I did say too much too Dan, it will prolly get back to my X..but I didnt say anything but the truth. My X is a sad case, he will end up dying a tragic death. He doesnt have a clue what a good man I amand what a chance he had at a good life with me. I think talking with Dan was good for me – it reafirmed how lucky I am that my X is on with his life – poor kid…

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 11:45am

Henry…count your blessings. You’re a good man. We’re now older and hopefully somewhat wiser. We can’t help ‘em. Gaining any further knowledge about them (and how it affected us) is best savored from a distance and “it’s in the past” perspective, if at all. Enjoy the new knowledge you have!

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 11:59am

Thankyou Jim..

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 12:43pm

okay..feeling very LOW today not sure why….my lil one spoke to his S father on the phone…I was fine..it was superficial…nothing major…I was fine yesterday…but not today….really down….missing that illusion….uuugh!!!

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 1:42pm

Henry- I thank God that you are the beautiful person that you are and that demonic drama queen is gone from your life. He dosent deserve you. As you realize, “…bars,drinking, fighting, back stabbing bitch fighting animals. – NOT YOU. He is gone b/c he didnt deserve YOU. You are better than that. Your life is destined for much greater things and leaving a legacy of destruction is NOT why we are here on this planet. Besides, ” MY preminition” and “IN my dreams” a hot, young thing is out there for us- AND the Pretty inside matches the Pretty outside!
!;)

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 1:56pm

Hi, everyone. If you’re ready for more, the next article on “Reclaiming Self-Love” is posted.

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 1:58pm

Dear Henry,

I did not give you permission to BOINK yourself with my skillet, my love! When you need a BOINK I will give you one. LOL

Glad it actually helped you see (again) what a LOSSER your X is and what a loser his X is…It is beside the point that they are gay, they are PSYCHOPATHS FIRST, and “gay” secondly. Personally, I think that kind of “queer” gives gays a bad name, sort of like 99% of the attorneys give the other 1% a bad name! LOL

You are a CARING PERSON FIRST, and gay secondly, that is the difference between you and THEM! Count your lucky stars, henry, that you don’t “need” that kind of drama to prove you are alive….

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 2:28pm

Sabrina Thank you. I have ben digesting and processing my conversation with X’s X. It is mind boggling at the deciet sociopaths are capable of. I do hope that my X find’s some peace and stability in his life, I dont wish him any thing bad, he seems to find enough of that on his own. I wont go into detail but apparently my X is cheating and lieing with his new victim as well. In the past it really bothered me that he mite be happy and in love with new victim, guess they are just not capable of that……Sabrina I am looking for HOT and MATURE, dont want to do the hot ‘young’ thing again……….

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 2:30pm

Oxy – Hey there are you burning up there? Been over 100 herethe past week until that cold front came in last nite, now its down to 98 brrr….

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 2:38pm

Hi everyone,
So today is the day I’ve been dreading since NC–my ex’s 40th birthday. I had been thinking about how to celebrate this with him for years…so I anticipated it being a bad day today. I was afraid maybe I’d be so upset that I’d want to call him or send a card or something. Glad to report, that I have no such feelings today, it hasn’t been all that bad at all, and I have yet to cry today!

Even better…I have been trying to win an iphone on twitter, by entering this silly contest every day. So I get out of the shower and sit down at my computer, getting ready to read LF and not be moping around about the S, and I WON AN IPHONE! I’m sooo shocked and excited! It is like a birthday present to me on my S’s bday. There could not have been a better distraction for me today. I’m glad I’m NC bc otherwise I know that my stupid S would be like, you won an iphone for my bday-thanks! And worse I would have probably given it to him. But now that I’m NC, I’m free and get to keep my prize!

I can’t lie, I did have a little urge to send him an email/text or something and let him know that I won (he would be soo irrationally jealous and not happy for me). But, I resisted any tiny urge, and am thankful that my urge is coming from the want to rub this in his face on the day he is officially OLD (no offense to those 40+ out there—he’s old bc he’s worried about it and bc he is a total loser with nothing to show for his age) instead of the urge coming from me missing him like I thought it was going to be today. So…YAY!

Henry,
Glad talking to the ex’s x was validating. I’ve had the same experience (feeling better after talking to the x x)

My ex’s ex got out before too much damage was done (she was smart) and she has been a better friend to me than he ever was (which says a lot since we’re not really friends..more like “facebook friends” who chat every year or so. She once described him to me as “a wounded bird that you want to help, but keeps crapping on your head.” How accurate that was! She has a degree in psychology, and sometimes I want to tell her my new theory on him, but she still speaks to him so I don’t want it to get back to him bc I’m sure he’d get a huge kick out of it.

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 6:33pm

Done,
Sounds like you Are Done Congratulations!!

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 6:50pm

Thanks KATYA,

I HOPE I’m done hurting for good! That’s probably too much to wish for but at least the bad days have been fewer and farther between.

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 7:12pm

Thanks 2 all of you 4 reading my post.. You all have great insight as well as knowledge..

Kathy & Esacpe, you so many things that r so true. First yes I am a mess emotionaly.. I did see a domestic violence counselor after he had attacked me.. Really why he was arrested is that he said he wanted 2 kill me and violently attacked me and had me fearing 4 my life all night long.. Of course due 2 the fact that he had no record and we lived in an upper class community. He was on probation 4 a year. Did he learn from that.. No.. He 2 this day blamed me 4 “destroying hid life” & ” I need 2 regain HIS trust.”

I feel like I am taken advantage of everyday. He lives far away from us and us always texting me about how much fun he had last night on the town or I’m going 2 do this 2night or that. Living single. There r days when the kids and I go no place.. Stuck in this little apartment with the kids. It us so hard with my son 2 do much at all. Which leads me to finding physical help with my son. I have looked n2 placing my son here in a school for children with special needs. The bad side is that he will have 2 live there away from me.. It brakes my heart but they can teach him things that I have been unable 2 teach him. He is 9 and not potty trained, died not dress himself, runs off & fears nothing. I have 2 do everything 4 him.. His verbal communication is V low.. He us starting 2 hit his sister now and has rage fits in the car if I change my pattern of doing anything.. He needs help. When I spoke to the S about the he said “why r u wanting 2 pawn him off? Don’t u care about him? He needs his mother.. U r just giving up on him. This us when you need 2 suck it up and just deal with it.” I was so pissed off! Here be moves so far away knowing that r son can not fly. He did it so he wld not have 2 c him and take care if him. He gas never gone 2 any meetings or therapies.. Never even read a damn book on autism.. When I talk 2 him about autism it’s like talking 2 a wall.. I have friends that r more interested then he is.. I hate that about him! So I am left making this awful choice on my own.. Having him putting his 2 cents in.

I thing the connection I have with the S is one of abuse. He grew up in a v abusive home.. His father is a sociopath. I have only met his father once during r 16 year relationship and when I met him he beat my husband up.. I should have ran but I though I cld help him.. He said he was scared I wld leave him and was crying.. He made me feel needed and. Loved and I liked that. I was so rejected by my mother growing up.. He was smart and had a plan 4 his life.. Goals.. I thoght if he wants me then I must be worth something.. I think that’s y I can’t walk away now is the feeling of rejection.

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 8:42pm

Sorry about all the spelling errors..My computer is acting up. Kathy something else u said that was so true is the time and effort it takes 2 love the S is so draining. It takes away from my kids. I know my children r a lot of work but they love me and make me happy..

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 9:06pm

kate09, I understand alittle about autism. THe x N/p I was married to has a 9 yr old autistic son.He stayed with us practically every single weekend and lots during summers. I was told that he is considered to be on the higher functioning spectrum-
potty trained at around 6 yrs old, reads, fair communication skills, goes to regular school but in a special class.

However, it was most difficult to tend to his needs even on just a weekend basis. It was like having little baby but in a larger body . He became bored easy-he didnt watch tv, play games or entertain himself very well as the other children. Always had to worry about him running off when going anywhere, and could become violent- kicking the seats wildly in the car, hitting the other kids very hard with no warning, and changes in plans were not tolerated well by him.

He did get somewhat easier with age but required strong discipline- he would not mind at all if he knew that you were not prepared to be tough with him. The key with him was to not allow him to get away with bad behavior but staying on schedule was paramount to his demeanor.
Unlike some autistic children, he was very lovable and loved to cuddle up and be hugged , his back rubbed and such.
I think his school that he attended was very important to his development and his confidence. I saw lots of improvements from the school.
Dont let your manipulative all-about-him x S influence your decision on what to do about your childs school and care. You know whats best for him, whatever that is.

He is unwilling to do the work or assist you at all in this huge responsibility, so his opinions are crap. His ONLY interest is to cause you misery. I hope you find peace in whatever decision you make with your children. Prayers are with you.

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 10:19pm

P.S. just tell that SOB (excuse my choice of words) to pay you the child support and YOU will tell him when he’s allowed to speak!
Thats what the mother of my x n/p’s autistic son does. He has never been allowed to make any comments or suggestions regarding the childs care. I never understood why until later.
She’s NEVER let up on him- never gave him an inch and it worked!!! the s acted like her little beeeawch when it came to seeing his children. He walked the line with her or she made it so difficult to get the children and he paid dearly. He only wanted to get them to show her he could play daddy, Plus he had me to be the babysitter and my house to be the baby “FARM” to raise both his children… grrr! Be strong! treat him like the subhuman that he is. Your kids are much better off is he is far away. xoxo

Sunday, 28 June 2009 @ 10:41pm

Regarding the unwanted texts and phone calls. I called my phone provider and had my S’s phone number blocked. He cannot call or text me. I also blocked his number from out going also, so if I had a weak moment I couldn’t call him either. Just a suggestion, it has worked for me.

Monday, 29 June 2009 @ 9:29am

done: this october will be my ex-spath-hole’s 40th birthday, too. i’m really proud of you for moving through it with so much courage and conviction! most bad days are gone. they raise their head once in a while … perhaps to remind us that they still lurk. i’m gonna have a ‘good riddance, sociopath’ party, perhaps! invite all my friends who had to listen to my misery over that turd!
towanda!!!!!

Monday, 29 June 2009 @ 11:07am

endthepain: losing the ‘illusion’ is really difficult. it’s so real, tangible, and everyone else believes in it, too. they’re very good at what they do!
stay strong. remember. they are a lie. period.

Monday, 29 June 2009 @ 11:11am

henry:
so … giving me advice you don’t follow, eh?
thanks for chipping in … you too, sabrina.
i now know i did the right thing. it feels right. i’m not responsible for any of them, and they can all think what they want. if they have any questions about my behavior, let them go ask that prick they all revere.
my door bell rang last night. could hear a few guys talking. probably my ex’s nephew, or his friend, or him … or any variation thereof. didn’t even have an inclination to look out to see who it was. could care less.
i was the queen, and they all know it! i’m sure, after a year of not one peep out of me, they’re all kinda curious.
thanks, everyone, for making me feel so much better.
NO CONTACT ROCKS!
TOWANDA!!!!!

Monday, 29 June 2009 @ 11:21am

Brilhancy:

Speaking from a legal perspective on how you struck back at the S – Well done, my friend, well done.

What you pulled off is an illustration of what our friend, ErinBrokovich, says — you have to act like a snake — let them pass a few times and then strike!

Monday, 29 June 2009 @ 11:33am

blueskies says:

‘i now know i did the right thing. it feels right. i’m not responsible for any of them, and they can all think what they want. if they have any questions about my behavior, let them go ask that prick they all revere.’

OMG! What a lift coming back here and reading this gave me!!! My first belly laugh in weeks I think! xx I’m never disappearing under the porch again.

back to my reading, I have a lot to catch up on.

Monday, 29 June 2009 @ 11:35am

lyj Joy says:

Hi everyone. Using a slightly new user name that is sort of an inside joke. My friend is a texting freak and lyj is his way of saying he loves me. Friends only don’t get excited people:)! My son reset my computer, and I was no longer automatically logged in to blog. When I followed the automated messages I was stuck in a vicious cycle of never getting my password. So desperate times, desperate measures. Out of hospital since Saturday afternoon. Still very, very tired. My heart issue is not life threatening unless I faint and hit my head on a hard surface. Maybe that will knock some sense into me. LOL! Trying to keep my sense of humor. The problem is an inappropriate sinus response to stress, illness, changes in position. At first, for all you medical folks, it was inappropriate sinus tachycardia as my rate was always too high. This hospitalization was for a rate so low it made me faint so now it is unpredictable as to if it will beat too fast or slow. No medicine to treat it and no surgical procedure as technically my heart is the picture of perfect health. So resting for a week out of work and of course I will travel at weeks end because I’m crazy, and it’s what I do. No danger while driving as I maintain the same position.
Sabrina, Your tanarama jokes were killing me. So funny. I do think that I might possibly have unexpectedly found a really great guy. Not when I was looking of course. He has been so sweet during my illness, but nothing that feels like love bombing. My Sp radar like Matt said is NOT even twitching a bit. Just a very genuine person with a brilliant mind who makes me laugh. Both been hurt and both very cautious and wanting to be friends first but open minded on both our parts to something more. Nice!
Brilhancy, Only got one word for you, BRILLIANT! TOWANDA! I know that was two. LOL!
Done, A present for you on his B-day? And we doubt the providence of God. The universe has a sense of humor and there is our proof. So happy for you on the win and your progress in healing:)!
Henry, you got your Boink taken back. Imagine that. It’s validating but unfortunate to know that we aren’t the only ones they screw over. You are most definitely caring first before all else.
LIG, you had such a great response from Kathy that all I can say is YOU take care of YOU first. The rest will fall into place.
Matt, How’s it going? People are living vicariously through us now so we must spill the beans. Date night? How was it? DISH. LOL! Moving on…What a nice feeling:)!
Blueskies, There you are. We were wondering where you went off to. Welcome back! FYI, The view from the porch is usually better than the one from under it:)!

Monday, 29 June 2009 @ 3:17pm

can you do that???? If the s is not paying the support he is ordered to pay and is not doing/showing any concerns for the child….can you tell him ….when you pay….you can talk???? Can you keep the child from not seeing the S…until he pays the support??

Monday, 29 June 2009 @ 3:51pm

Endthepain, You can always do as you choose if there is no court order, but if he ever took you to court any proof that you deprived him of contact would be seen as bad on your part unless you had a therapist or someone who could objectively say that he is a bad or dangerous influence on your child. You could if there is no custody order or visitation provision bribe him off your child. If you can afford to do so, you could bargain with get out of support by surrendering your parental rights. My children’s father not the sp came very close at one point to taking that offer from me. He was just greedy and focused on chasing women not really a sp type but maybe some traits. I’m sure at some point Matt will log on and give you more specific legal advice. I’m just offering my personal experience in my case. Good Luck!

Monday, 29 June 2009 @ 6:08pm

lostingrief,
I love your idea for a party for the friends who had to listen to you bitch about the S! LOL I owe at least a couple good friends one of those.

kate09,
I am touched by your story. IMHO he has no right to make you feel guilty if you want to put your son in a special school. If he gave a damn he would be there helping you. Until that happens (which will be never if he’s an S) he should have no say. As for the feeling of rejection, I know all about it. It’s awful. The only thing that has helped me with that is to realize that it was not personal. They treat everyone badly, they can’t reject you bc they never really loved you to begin with…they are INCAPABLE of love. Someone in an earlier post used the analogy “you wouldn’t take it personally if a dog bit you” and that for some reason helped me to deal with the rejection. You are a strong person, don’t let the fear of rejection keep you from walking away. I try to think of my S’s rejecting me as a gift from God, so that I would not waste the rest of my life with him.

Monday, 29 June 2009 @ 6:11pm

Brilhancy:
GIRL……gogetem!!!! I LOVE IT!!!! SSSSSSSSSSSS……sliiittthhhherrrr……….STRIKE!

Joy:
I’m glad your back out with the ‘real’ world….let that be a lesson to you……try to compartmentalize the stress. If your not going to die over the latest event they pull…..do what we have to do to take care of business and don’t let it affect you in this way! Remember….WE ARE IN CONTROL!

END: I would never suggest holding the child ‘ransom’ for child support. A court will never look kindly upon that.
Children have a right to have a relationship with both parents…..support is between two adults.

Confused2: Great advice! Block em out!

Done: Enjoy the good times…..and expect the not so great ones. S’s just rarely go away….
I’m glad your on an up note! Use this time for strengthening your spirit and health.

Kate09….Damn….Please do not listen to his words as you are trained to ‘hear them’. They are a projection of the guilt he feels. Placing it on you. YOU know what is best for your children, you do not have to qualify that to anyone….ANYONE! You hear me!?!?
He trained you to be put down and take his guilt on, you do not have to do this anymore.
PUT HIM ASIDE…..take care of you and your kids. DO NOT LIVE IN THE PAST!
I too live in an affluant area, and I found the courts do not punish these creeps as the law was intended. there just isn’t room in the jails or system for them…..until they kill us. Keep your determination to document everything and report any and all violations to the authorities. (I assume you have a protective order)This will aid in keeping you protected and showing him that you mean business and he can’t step on you or abuse you near or far, directly or through others. I also applied for and was granted a harasment and stalking order on top of the extended order of protection against domestic violence. This was on the advice of the DA when they didn’t have enough evidence to prosecute a violation they arrested my S for. When he started making threats to others to relay them to us….I went into the courts with all my previous documentation and police reports and was granted a temporary order against harasment and stalking which I applied for an extension at that time. Granted 30 days later.
We must follow through on our reports and orders. Otherwise the courts do not take it seriously. Even though it seems no one cares with each violation, keep reporting it…..it’s the S’s way of testing our boundries. YOU set your own boundries. If you have an order of No contact TPO….save his texts and file a police report each time he contacts you. Eventually, they will add up and someone will take note and do something. His mask will slip and he will be taught a lesson by the law.
You need peace to raise your children. You do not need to be baraged by his texts, taunting you. Again….pay no attention to what he says…..he is NOT HAPPY……they are not capable of happiness! Just report it. Continue your NC!!! Keep your strength up, get your sleep and do not EVER DOUBT YOURSELF!!!! Work on your self esteem….it has been crushed, and this is how he enters your psychie….DO NOT LET HIM IN….Value yourself. Your a wonderful mother, a beautiful woman and a valued member of society. You need to know this, you are a human being with valid feelings. Gain control, stop asking ‘why’….it doesn’t matter…..IT IS….WHAT IT IS!
Gain your inner power and take it to your healing place. It’s tough…..it sucks, it is not easy….BUT, you can use your life experience to strengthen your being. LOVE YOURSELF…….
Knowledge is power, exploit any good feeling you have at any moment to gain control of your own life.
You will come out of this a much more aware and knowledable person and take what you learned to others. YOU CAN DO THIS! Believe in yourself!
Stay strong, and keep the communication up with your LF friends.
XXOO

Monday, 29 June 2009 @ 6:25pm

ERIN….

I wasnt going to hold my son RANSOM….I am just soooooooo frustrated and to be honest with you SCARED….at times I am ok..nbut it comes in waves….The S father will be moving back to CA.(again) where I live this weekend…IT SCARES ME!!
It isnt like he he is ringing the phone off the hook..or banging down my door to see his son….however I know that will change in a few days..when he will be all about putting on a show…like…DADDYS HERE!!!
the brief 4 months I let him back into my life..was damaging to my son..to say the least….he was jealous of my relationship with my son as it took away from him….he was constantly critisizing and disciplining him….9 times out of 10 I would come home from work and he was in a time out…he liked to show him off…but didnt care for him….played with him..wresatled for a few minutes here and there….an d thren he was gone…
when he comes baxk he stays with his mom..where he puts on this loving father show and its BS…so Im SCARED and want to protect my son from all of the horror stories I have read about on here….so I was really looking for answers…help…support…as I seem to be falling part as each day passes and it gets closer to his big return!!

Tuesday, 30 June 2009 @ 12:59am

Hi, all you wonderful friends out there! Ive just recently found a great, supportive website, from someone caled Anna Valerious. her blog is called “Narcisists Suck”, and her best blog I think is her one called “No Contact”. She is a brilliant writer, she seems courageous, fearless, intelligent, together,
she has already helped me no end. I recommend her. have any of you read her blogs?She is an adult child of 2 Narc. parents.I hope all of you had a good weekend! My life, NC from my adult daughter, Deb, just keeps getting better. I know better than to contact her again, and be pulled back into her sticky web. My ‘adopted” Iranian adult kids were here for lunch sunday, bringing food, and a home made cake, as I had to get a Bcc carcinoma removed from side of my nose yesterday.Roya rang today to see how I was. They are so sweet and loving to David and me. Its like Ive died and gone to heaven, I finally know what it is to have a loving son and daughter! The contrast between them and my daughters is amazing.I am a lucky woman.They hug and kiss us, and call usmama and Daddy, they are as desperate for a loving family as we are.They obviously come from a loving family in Iran, but know they will prob not see their parents fo many years. We love them as our own. Towanda!{what does it mean?!} Much love, from your happy sister, geminigirl

Tuesday, 30 June 2009 @ 2:50am

geminigirl,

I loved your note. And it made me think about how sometimes we just need to get some outside permission to take care of ourselves.

Five years ago, at the end of my relationship with my ex, I was in constant emotional pain, financial trouble and dealing with an endless parade minor illness. My hair was falling out. I couldn’t speak to people without crying, and I couldn’t bear to look anyone in the eye, because I felt like they could see into me and tell what a loser I was. My ex was dating and sleeping with someone else in the cottage in my backyard where he lived (while still wanting to have sex with me, though I refused). He was costing me more than $2500 a month, which was driving me into debt. He was bringing his dog over for me to babysit when he left for more than a few hours. Because he was working a few hours a day for me, he had access to my house and was using the time to be “caring,” funny and seductive, which made me feel like I was being torn apart by wild horses. And I was STILL thinking that I was responsible for him and couldn’t get rid of him without being a bad person.

We had a mutual friend, this wonderful Buddhist guy I often talk about, who had watched our relationship with some bemusement. When I tried to tell him what was going on with me, his first reaction was that he “hoped you can continue to support the writing aspirations of our friend, because he doesn’t have many people he can depend on.” But when I kept coming back to him, trying to get him to understand what it was like for me, he finally said the magic words — “Well, it it’s that bad for you, you have to take care of yourself.”

Now I look back at this and think — well, duh. But then I was absolutely enmeshed in my ex’s life, convinced that I was his only chance, brainwashed by him to think that if I was a trustworthy and good person, I’d continue to support him. And I needed that permission.

It came from the right person at the right time, and I proceeded to throw him out. I turned off his phone and internet. Told him that I wanted him gone, and if he didn’t leave it was only going to get worse. Ignored his various dramatic performances for guilt-tripping me, making me feel sorry for him, seducing me back into bed or — God help me — convincing me that he really did care about me. And I had him out of here in a week. I’ve never spoken to him again. (Except in the occasional e-mail which always ends “Do not respond. I’m writing for my own purposes. I do not want to hear from you.”)

Maybe one of us ought to write an article on LoveFraud about giving ourselves permission to throw people out of our lives.

Tuesday, 30 June 2009 @ 10:36am

Iwonder says:

I want to post a little about post traumatic ex-sociopathic disorder. Last year I found out my “fiance” had set up a second home with another woman in town and I kicked him out…but not before he raked me over the financial coals until I was thousands of dollars in debt. To top it off I had put his name on the deed to my condo because he asked me too. I figured why not because we were “engaged.” I also put a car loan in my name and he was driving the skanky other woman around in the car I was paying for. Well, I was sick for awhile and some of you recall how I got him to sign the deed back over. I swore if I ever saw him again, etc. etc.
You know how you just want to run into that person and look them in the eye and just tell them how you feel without holding back and letting the cursewords fly??
I saw the ass in the grocery store last night..with the other woman. I didn’t see him until my cart almost ran into them. They froze and looked at me like deer in headlights. I froze…was speechless…all this time I was waiting for this opportunity and POOF! I froze and just kept going.
Did you ever wish you could re-wind and re-do a scene over? Why couldn’t I just give it to him, to her? She had to know he was living with me and engaged etc. I hate the both of them.
UGH!

Tuesday, 30 June 2009 @ 2:53pm

By the way, I am dating a normal guy since last January but I feel so angry since I saw the ex last night. I know, I know…let it go. People say, “he’ll get his some day.” But these guys (or gals) never “get theirs.” They just find another sucker.

Tuesday, 30 June 2009 @ 2:56pm

Iwonder:

Long time no hear.

I know. Don’t you wish we could have “do-overs”?

I know there are many on this site who will disagree with me, but personally, I don’t believe in “letting it go.” I beliee if it is in your power to go after these pricks, you do so. When I first posted I remember you telling me to go after S for the money he owed me or I would kick myself forever. You were right. I did go after him through the IRS. And more recently I have been siccing his creditors on him. I think that until you tell him off, you aren’t going to feel vindicated.

Two ways to approach your situation. First, say it’s not your style to create a scene in a supermarket, so that’s why you didn’t tell him off. Second, now that you know that he and skanketta (female skank) shop at the same market, that you’ll be primed and ready the next time.

Glad to hear you’ve met a new guy. I just started dating a new guy. He is soooooo normal. He is genuinely nice and polite. He is thoughtful. He is gainfully employed, financially sound and responsible. He is interesting. Oh, yes, and he is actually interested in me and what I have to say and what my feelings are.

I keep scanning him with my “psycho-meter”. No red flags popping so far. The other day I started to feel this funny feeling in my guy and I thought “It’s only date 4. Am I already walking on eggshells?” Then I realized “no, that is just that feeling you get when you really like somebody and you’re looking forward to seeing them.” What a 180 from the 15 months of hell with S.

Tuesday, 30 June 2009 @ 3:31pm

Hey Matt,

I’ll never re-coup all the monetary losses but at least I got the car and the condo back in my name. I totally agree to try to re-coup money that was taken. At the time I was a total wreck and it was difficult to separate my emotional state from my logical state. I think what gave me a somewhat upper hand is that the sociopath did not expect 1. that I would find out he had another woman 2. that I would find out her address and name and 3. that I would actually chase him down and haul his ass to court if need be to get my place and car back.

You see, these sociopaths play the game well. They are so slick and smooth. The plan probably was to leave me when my money ran out and just move over to the other woman’s home …he was going to split without a trace.

I had contacted the ex wife (the one he was with before me)..same M.O. He split on her and she had no clue where he went when he came to live with me. He owed her a divorce and owed me my things back so we banded together and beat him. I told her where he could be found to file the papers.

All this went down so fast he had no time to tap dance around the ex-wife, me and the girlfriend he was living with.

I encourage anyone who can to go after what money or personal items that was taken.

Tuesday, 30 June 2009 @ 5:10pm

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After the sociopath: How do we heal? Part 11 – Trust

308 Comments to “After the sociopath: How do we heal? Part 11 – Trust”

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