103 Comments to “After the sociopath is gone: Your best life yet!”

1. OxDrover says:

   Louise, you are definitely WOW! Thank you for another inspiring article! I’m so grateful that I have had the opportunity to read your articles! They always inspire me to be the best that I can be!

   Thank you again! What a wonderful way to spend this day of THANKSGIVING, being grateful for all you have experienced, all that you are! (((hugs)))) and God bless!

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   Friday, 27 November 2009 @ 12:09am

2. M.L. Gallagher says:

   Hello OxDrover!

   Happy Thanksgiving to you! I am grateful for your light on my path too. When I read your words I feel your illumination brightening up my day — I feel connected.

   Thank you for sharing your light so generously. When we stand together, we light up the world with love, hope and joy!

   Hugs

   Louise

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   Friday, 27 November 2009 @ 8:09am

3. OxDrover says:

   My dream for some months now has been to have a LoveFraud gathering where we can all have a huge group hug and some uplifting programs.

   I see the difficulties in such a gathering though, as so many victims are financially tapped out by their experiences and it would be next to impossible for them to attend for that reason alone, with the travel and other expenses. So for the time being I know that our “gatherings” and sharings are limited to cyberspace, but though it may not be ideal in “cyberspace” at least there is more connection than the usual “cyberspace” group. There is connection of souls here, of gentuine caring, genuine sharing, and a fertile soil for growth.

   As Jesus pointed out in His parable of the “sower,” the “seed” (knowledge) for growth is sown, and some of it falls on poor soil and never sprouts, or is “eaten by the birds,” or spouts up quickly, but soon dies for lack of nourishment, but some of it does GROW and flourish and produce a bountiful harvest of goodness which in its own turn, spreads more seed for more growth.

   I see LoveFraud and the people here as “gardeners” cultivating that seed and the harvest of love, growth, and ultimately peace and joy is blooming here. I am so grateful that Donna has supplied such a wonderful place for the seeds of peace to be sown, for the individuals who find their way to this place can grown, and in turn contribute to more seeds being sewn in other places. Thank you for your unending contributions to the nourishment of the crops producing peace and joy, and by your wonderful living example for us all. (((hugs)))) and God bless you!

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   Friday, 27 November 2009 @ 1:01pm

4. Stargazer says:

   M.L.:
   I hope some day I can say that growing up in an abusive family is the greatest thing that ever happened to me. All I feel right now is a lot of anger. And I’m grateful to at least feel the anger for a change. I still don’t understand what meaning this could have in a middle-aged person’s life–to realize you cannot fully thrive because you are still in survival mode. But one thing I know is that when I feel better, I will live my life and not look back. I may write a book about my experiences.

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   Friday, 27 November 2009 @ 1:35pm

5. amber says:

   Louise,
   Your words always speak to me. Today, I’m am grateful that he is gone, but I am still so hurt and angry for what he did to me. Last night was a rough night for me. My sister and her fiance are in town and he is a muscian, and they went out last night after dinner for the show he was performing. I just felt so left out, because I knew my ex was going to be there, because he’s also a muscian. I knew I couldn’t go because it was a given that my ex was going to be there, and it just sucks that he gets to continue living the life that we once enjoyed together, and I sat at home. Being alone on Thanksgiving, it’s hard not to feel sorry for yourself or be upset. My world has done a 180 since we’ve not been together, so I’m still in this transititon phase and it SUCKS!! For the last 4 years, it had been our tradition to have dinner on Thanksgiving and then go out and celebrate with our friends, and this is one more thing that he’s taken away from me. I know I shouldn’t worry about what he’s doing, or who he’s with now, but it’s hard because I feel like he’s moved on so easily and I’m still trying to pick up the pieces. So I’m am thankful that I have a great family and friends, but I’m still so sad. And in a few days, Dec. 1st, is the anniversary of the abortion he made me get, so I wouldn’t ruin HIS life because how would he explain that to his wife and kids?? Just one more scar that he’s left me with that I have to deal with for the rest of my life. So this time of year isn’t so easy for me. Right now I just feel numb. But your words inspire me. I want to be in that place where I can look at this and find positive in it, but right now, this week, I’m really struggling.

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   Friday, 27 November 2009 @ 2:10pm

6. Jessica says:

   I came to this site in hope that I might find an answer to what I am going through. I see that many people have faced similar scenarios in their lives and I would like to share my story and see what people think.

   Well, I have known this guy for about six years now. I met him at school when I was just beginning college. He was asking about marriage but in the beginning I said to him that I wanted to wait to get married because I thought it was important to finish up school first. I thought that at least if anything happens in the future (divorce etc.) I could at least have something to fall back on and earn a living. I thought that he was fine with this. He never came empty handed. When we went out together he would pay for our meals and he always had a small gift (i.e. flowers, chocolate ) I am a very religious girl and I do not know how I let this happen to me but I will have to admit because I do not want to leave any details out of this story I am a very religious girl believing that you should wait until marriage before becoming involved sexually. I do not know it just felt natural and I allowed myself to become involved that way with him. Not all the way however.

   Well, anyhow, about a year into the relationship I started asking when he would come to meet my parents. I was ready to get this in the open. And, he said to me “you cannot do everything.
   you will not be able to manage all of the bills.” So, I said “I understand but I will be becoming a nurse and whatever you make we can put two and two together and I think we could make it.” He responded, “you have never had a real job before, you do not know what it is like out there. you cannot manage on your salary alone.” So, I said ok.

   This is when he brought in the fact that he had run into financial problems. And, at this time I really had no money to help him. But, he said to me look if you cannot help me it is ok…I just will have to move back to my country and see what I can do. And, I said if you go back then I will never be able to see you again. He said well what else can I do. So, I took out a small loan to help him. Being in love with him I helped him out. I did not want to lose him.

   As more time is going on…I am near now to finish school. He mentions that there is a business opportunity that he sees he stands a chance at. So, I said go for it if you believe its a possibility. Well, he asks me to help to pay for the security deposit on an apartment. The apartment was to be close to a mall where the business was to be set up. And too, I helped him with what he said would be for the application fees of setting up the business. Anyhow, he told me “thank you so much for your patience with me….all your help…I am sending all the documents the business is asking for etc etc.” As time goes by I said so how is the business going. And he said to me…”It was more work than I thought it would be so I could not go through with it. Living four hours away the setting up of it was too much.”

   So, anyhow I said ok. Things happen. We continue to spend time together. And then, he said to me look regardless of what happened I am willing to move down here by you and work two or three jobs if I have to to make this work. He said I would listen to you if you have any suggestions. I said what about school…the medical field is a good field to get into because you are guaranteed to always have a job. And he said, yeah but that would be like starting all over. I do not have the sciences for it. So, I said well what do you want to do.

   He said he had become aware of another business opportunity that he really wanted to pursue. And, when he gets it set up he would be able to go to school at the same time by doing online classes. So, I said go for it. I really helped him a llllooot getting this business started because he showed me the documents involved and because he sounded like he knew a lot about business. He told me about how he used to work for a restaurant and he was in charge of running it etc. He would correct other employees telling them how things should be done the right way. So, I ended up investing a lot into getting him started.

   As time is going by he said to me he wanted to get back into school. So, I invested in a semester of school for him. When I would ask about how school was going he told me “school sucks” So, I said “well, how is it going are you at least passing” He said, its just difficult being by himself and having to work and the travel back and forth from where he lives and here.” He said to me after the term ended that he just could not continue with that right now.

   He asked me if I remembered about the business he was trying to set up. I said,”yeah ofcourse.” He said well, I am still trying to work on that. And, he asked me for more assistance. So, I helped him some more.

   Well, then comes August of this year. I went out with him. We ate together. Then we went walking in the mall. And, I wasnt seeing him mentioning anything about where we were headed as a couple or when he would come to meet my parents. So, I said,” soo whats your plans” Because for months I had been asking him the same thing and he would say to me “dont worry i have plans ; ). He responded at the mall” do not worry you have surprises coming soon.” So, in my mind I said finally ! Well, we are walking in the mall and hes walking over to things and saying “doesnt that look like a nice family gift.” And, I said, “I wouldnt tell you what to bring over when you come.” I felt awkward to ask anyone for a gift.

   Well, that day ended. And, I thought ok soon somethings going to happen. He is coming soon to propose.

   Well, then I went a period of 3 months exactly without hearing from him at all. And, during that time i was worried sick thinking omg what if hes sick or something happened to him. I called him maybe ten times a day. I even asked his friends online if theyve heard from him. And, the first time i asked they said all they know is that he loves me. To which I said, “how do you know that” And they said he used to talk about you a lot.” Apparently these were his roommates from the beginning of the relationship but he had moved out. They were the only people i knew that knew him.

   Well…..finally I get a call from him. He apologized for not being able to get in contact saying its because he was going through family issues. He brought his mom all the way here to meet my family. And, in the flight she got sick ending up in the hospital. So, I said oh no, “can i come down and see her” Then I thought you know what maybe i shouldnt because if I get into an accident on the way there or lost or whatever. So, I said, when shes stable why dont you come down. Its been a while since I have seen you.

   Well, when he comes down…I felt like it had been forever. I was so happy to see him and at the same time so anxious to know what our plans were. So, I said sooo when you going to come meet my parents they have been begging me to invite you over. And, his face went blank. He said,” you always bring this up. we have gone over this a million times. i do not even feel like eating right now. i want to go home.” So, I said forget i mentioned it…let us go inside and get something to eat.

   While we are eating I said to him “hows your mom” He said she was doing better. And then I said well how does she feel about us. He said well…shes a little skeptical becuase you are of a different race than me. So, that stuck me through the heart. And I said…so how do you feel though. And, he said his feelings had not changed so I felt a little better. I even mentioned you know if you asked me to marry you tomorrow I would put my masters aside bc thats not important to me as getting married and starting my life. And he responded ,”well thats not how it was when you wanted to do your bachelors.” Well, it was time to go. And, he said if i could stay longer and I said no i have to get back home buuuuut if you would like to come home wiht me my parents would be excited to meet you and you could stay whole evenign with us and then go home.

   He said , “are you serious ?!” I said, yes. He said “well, i would love to but this is not the right time. i am not even dressed.”

   So I said ok. And he then asked me to see me the following day. I said I couldnt buut I could see him the day after that. So, he stayed here in a hotel until i could see him. And, I did.

   Well, on that day upon arriving to see him he looked verrrry down and he was looking at his phone. I approached him and said whats wrong ? He said his mom was calling him on the phone asking him where he had been. And because she was sick he felt bad for not going back and making sure shes ok rather than overnighting. So, I said “oh, but do you have to go back right away” He said, no.

   Then he said,” you know …the only way i see out of this is to move permanently by you interact wiht family more so that they know me for who i am and then ask for your hand. I am too far away and because they knew already of some of the money that you had lent me i already look bad. So, I said that would be great. I could see you more often. He said , “well would you be willing to help me. I said , “how much he would need.” He told me a large sum. So , I said wow in my mind. And, I said, well you know i work hard for my money. I definitely could not give that to you at one time. Little by little maybe. He said to me think about it.

   Well, anyhow….we spend day together. I just could think to ask about things. And, he said i was making my time with him depressing. All I am doing is worrying now when he comes to see me. As the day was ending he was like…is it in ur personality to be a worrier..is it ur subconscious coming out..are you being coached to ask all of these questions

   Anyhow, parents got involved and asked me to put him on phone the following day after seeing him. They talked to him nicely and said…you know our daughter loves you very much talks about you all the time…when would you be interested in coming to meet us. And, he said he was going through a lot right now and did not know when. So, then they asked for a rough time frame. Anyhow, he said he is not sure exactly.

   I felt bad i put him on the spot. He said to me “you deceived me you tricked me. now i do not even know who is calling me, . on and on i couldnt get to talk to him..finally he said call.

   So, I said I am very sorry they just wanted to talk to you to invite you over nothing more. And he said next time i lie to him that i should not even think to talk to him anymore. Well, then he said you know if i considered helping him. He thought that that was our plan. I said, I will see what I can do. I began to help him.

   He said to me, “if you cannot get it to me all in cash if i had anything valuable then anything woudl help.” “those things can always be replaced. Well, I gave him some of my jewelry. (when i had seen him before those three months he had looked really happy really good and this time he looked like really depressed and stressed) After I gave that then I thought back you know this is really too much from me.

   My parents actually got involved and said you know what you should not give him any more help. They didnt know of the recent money he asked for. And i said you know what “I cannot help you anymore. If my parents knew about this this would really make you look bad in front of their eyes” he responded, ” you never listen to what i tell you..you always do what your parents say. you are an adult you do not have to do what they tell you to do.”

   All in the middle of this another guy had shown interest. Which I told him about to make it be known to him its all more a reason that he needs to come and meet them. I said I do not have any interests in this other guy. He is the only one i have loved and will only love. And he responded..”i know what youre going to do you will end up marrying that other guy just bc your parents told you to. ” “they do not respect your choice you have made. and the reason they put me on the phone was to judge me within just five minutes that I was no good for you so that you would marry the other guy”

   I said this is not true i love you and only you. He said, “its not about that. at this point we both understand that. its about getting there.”

   well, then after all of this i am on the phone one day wiht a friend and i get a text “how are you” i couldnt respond right away. in the middle of the call i got about twelve texts, “100, 90,…..etc. like a countdown.” and after the call i said, “i’m ok” even though i was feeling very down. and he said,”is that all i get after worrying about you you respond after an hour and i said i answered you as soon as i could i was on the phone.

   the next day he said, “how are you in a text.” and i said im doing alright how are you and he said feeling he was alright. i called him because i wanted to actually talk to him not just text. And we talked normal. well, i was at work and i said you know i gotta go. And, when i am back to work he called me about six times. and i couldnt answer. so, when i got chance to call back, 15 minutes later he wouldnt answer. and i said in a text, i am trying to call you back. and he said, oh excuse, me you did the same thing. so, i said, i’m sorry i had to get back to work.
   tried to call him anytime throughout work that i could but he wouldnt answer.

   well, anyhow my parents left him a message only saying that he took a lot of advantage on me and if he was man enough he would call back and apologize nothing more and he texted me back saying, “that they left him so many insults..and that the accusations are unfair and offensive.”

   And so i responded feeling bad…i said they just never got to know you….and he said then its not fair to judge someone without knowing them first. “he just feels very hurt from the messages and is feeling sad. And said to me..look if other guys would have even gone as far as trying to take advantage of you and i do not know bc i havent been with enough guys to know…but he never did bc he respected himself always when he didnt..that he said showed me that he deeply cared for me…and pointed out the fact that for the longest time i didnt even want to get too close to him in public and he felt like i was embarassed to be around him..but i explained to him i was never embarassed of him its just bc i didnt want anyone to scandal my name since i was not yet engaged to him or married

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   Friday, 27 November 2009 @ 3:05pm

7. OxDrover says:

   Dear Jessica,

   This man is a con man, he is using you. I think you posted her once before this story, and it is so similar to so many of us, they tell us they love you, but it is all a lie, just for sex or money or both. I am sorry that this man tricked you, but in the end, it can be a good thing, because you can learn from this and protect yourself from liars in the future.

   I suggest that you stay here and read and learn. because the more we know the more power we have to protect ourselves.

   God bless you, read and learn. Knowledge is power, and you can take back your power of your heart from this man.

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   Friday, 27 November 2009 @ 4:21pm

8. Cat says:

   What a wonderful article! It puts into words all that can be, and is, ours. Thank you so much for this. We are ENTITLED to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is our right. Anyone who has spent any time with a P/N/A knows the first belief they steal from us is that very one. The minute I started seeing through the haze of his lies and illusions, I came to understand that he was just a game and that was all he knew how to play. He neither cared nor even understood the depths of life and the happiness that comes with just being ourselves, who and what we are at this very moment.
   amber, the reason they are able to pick up the pieces, at least in what I’ve observed, is because it’s this very depth of emotion that they lack. All of those people will see his reality at some point and even if they don’t, you at least have your freedom back to FEEL like you do without anyone criticizing it. I can certainly relate to what you feel. Yesterday, my Path was actually at dinner because a large part of my family has been played by him. I handled this by staying in another room (there were over 30 people there) and sitting with those I know and trust. I only went so my 10 yrs. old son could be with family on a holiday. I had dreaded this day, but I did learn something. I could hear his voice and his BS and it didn’t affect me as it once had. I had a chance to practice indifference, so all in all, it turned out to be an OK experience for me. It’s NOT fair that they get away with this,but I DO believe their days will come and even it I don’t see it, I know it will happen. My wish is that I’m so far beyond this, I won’t care a but, WE ultimately win; our freedom, our serenity and peace of mind, our right to just be.
   I still deal with those “times” that Louise so wonderfully described, but today is SO much better. Freedom begins within ones’ own heart, soul and mind.
   Hope everyone had a great holiday!
   Hugs, Cat

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   Friday, 27 November 2009 @ 4:36pm

9. Cat says:

   Dear Jessica,
   I read your story before and Ox is right. This person is just another con artist. Just look at how he twisted the story about your parents disliking him, yet he set it up for that very thing to happen so that he could look like the victim. This is one of the things they do best; wreak havoc, mess with others’ heads and hearts and then turn it all around. I can’t tell you how much LF has helped me in such a short amount of time. I read and read on here and it’s such a gift to know I’m not alone. I know this site was started because someone was so horribly used by one of these A/P/N’s but I thank her as well for turning tragedy into a healing tool for all of us.
   Bless you, Cat

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   Friday, 27 November 2009 @ 4:41pm

10. Jessica says:

    Thank you very much for your advise Cat and OxDrover. Your words are comforting to me especially since this story happened so recently. It was a blessing that I came across this site where I could actually get to talk to people who endured the same things in their life. I kept turning over and over in my head as I read first on here the characteristics of the conartist and thought omg ok all of these sound true…but then I began to think….oh no I couldnt have met someone like this ! Bc most recently this guy has said to me…why dont you tell your parents that you want to wait another six months more to get married which would give them time to calm down and him to approach them in a better mood..and hes been texting me happy holidays and hope you have a nice thanksgiving like all is well again

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    Friday, 27 November 2009 @ 6:08pm

11. style1 says:

    Jessica,
    Don’t ever give a man money. Let him earn his own, get it from his family or something else.. As soon as you gave him money, you went down in his mind. You are on the right path.. earn your own living, get your education and forget about men for now.. this guy was playing you and if they won’t meet your parents.. dump them.. he didn’t want to meet them because he knew that they would see through him.
    Men take care of women… and he has too many excuses and issues…

    About the article.. I needed to read this…
    I feel alone just now.. not that I miss him.. but just like on the edge and like I don’t really fit any where…

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    Friday, 27 November 2009 @ 6:10pm

12. OxDrover says:

    Dear Style,

    Dear, I hear your pain “like I don’t really fit any where.” Style, the thing is that no one can give us happiness, and no one who tries to whittle us down to fit into a “square” hole is good for us. We have to determine where WE are and then let THEM fit in or GET OUT. We make our own shape, our own happienss ALL BY OURSELVES, THEN and only THEN .do we look for a man that FITS IN TO US.

    I think too many times we (people who have in the past been abused/used) try to make ourselves in the “image of” what the other people (person) wants us to be, not what we ARE.

    No matter what we do to try to make ourselves fit in with THEM, we never will, we have to be uniquely OURSELVES, then find a mate, not look for a mate and then try to fit in with THEM.

    YOU are WORTH more than 100 of him put together, and 1000 of the guy with the “leukemia” who then turns around and says YOU ARE NOT YOUNG ENOUGH TO DESERVE HIM! ROTFLMAO Heis NOT worth the goo under your little finger nail. And for someone to say something like that and blame YOU when he is as unappealing as dog crap, has his “nerve” for sure. He was simply BLAME PLACING! UGH! what a creep.

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    Friday, 27 November 2009 @ 8:03pm

13. Rosa says:

    In 2008, women earned approximately 77 cents for every dollar a man earned. I got this statistic at http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0193820.html

    Ladies, please be careful about who you give your hard-earned money to.

    Personally, I would have a hard time giving money to a man who is already earning 23% more on the dollar than I am, according to current statistics. Especially in this economy!!

    If someone is cold, buy them a coat.
    If someone is hungry, then buy them food.
    But, I would never give someone cash.
    You just never know what they are really using it for, unfortunately.

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    Friday, 27 November 2009 @ 8:32pm

14. Spirit40 says:

    E mail rcvd earlier ….

    Thank you for sending my clothes to M’s, as far as the bike and the
    rest of my stuff please keep it with yours and i will try to get them
    as soon as i get out. please tell D, i said i love him, and i am
    sorry and happy holidays……

    uugggghhhhhhh I am so angry at that email I could SCREAM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Please keep it with yours …. I am not putting my stuff in storage… I have to sell or give away my things and I am expected to hold his stuff with mine like its going to storage its not going to fit in a studio jerk o–…… how can you email someone if your in “program” too bad there are no programs for people like you…… one’s where like the eskimos… when no one is looking they push you off the cliffs… too bad I did not know about the eskimos sooner when we were in new mexico it would have been the perfect place to just push you off the cliff….. no one would have ever found you… oh gosh now I sound just like one of them……..

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    Friday, 27 November 2009 @ 8:45pm

15. justabouthealed says:

    I found this slide show helpful. It is about trauma, its effects and what is needed to overcome trauma.
    http://www.slideshare.net/jsch.....-addiction
    Louise, thanks for the article. For the first time in a long time, I’m taking a break from working and have a couple of things I’m REALLY looking forward to this weekend!

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    Friday, 27 November 2009 @ 9:01pm

16. Spirit40 says:

    How can others say they warned about the S, when the only thing they tell you is a vague comment such as … he will only be a part time presence in your life…. how does that turn into , we warned you to stay away from him???? that dose seem rather vague like …..or you knew the risks involved?
    They are very good actors… I guess if we fall for it and take the risks??? it must have been my fault… not anymore I know now who he is and who he will continue to be….

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    Saturday, 28 November 2009 @ 8:33am

17. Cat says:

    Spirit, I heard the same and oh, how it changed in the end! They are GREAT actors. My shock is that his own mother was the one who told me this. She wouldn’t give him a dime if his life depended on it. MY family bails his butt of jail, though. Go figure. I think that it becomes stronger from those who warned us because they had time to watch them pull their stuff on us, thereby convincing others they really are that bad.
    Oh the emails….they know just what to write and it can really stick with us. It’s not your job to take care of his stuff. It’s his.
    Hugs!
    Cat

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    Saturday, 28 November 2009 @ 1:03pm

18. OxDrover says:

    “he will only be a PART TIME PRESENCE IN YOUR LIFE” (quote) spirit

    To me that says a GREAT DEAL about someone. It says they will NOT commit to an exclusive relationship with you or probably anyone else. so if you were looking for a committed relationship I would think you would see this as a pretty strong warning—-that said though, I have been warned much more strongly than that and STILL did not listen. I was told HE IS DISHONEST, HE WILL STAB YOU IN THE BACK and I did not listen and got into a business relationship with this person and guess what HE STOLE FROM US, HE STABBED US IN THE BACK, HE LIED AND HE CHEATED.

    Most of the time by the time we are warned either openly or more “politely” we are so HOOKED we don’t believe anything.

    It would be nice if we could pass the blame to our friends for not warning us, but unfortunately, it is SELDOM that a warning works. I know I would not listen so am not “throwing rocks” at you for not seeing the warning for what it was, I think, an attempt to warn you. That’s part of the psychopath’s talent is s/he can get us to ignore warnings.

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    Saturday, 28 November 2009 @ 1:25pm

19. Spirit40 says:

    Cat, OxY….

    Yeah that “warning” from his family… who also wont admit he is a P, S, N… No he is an “alcoholic”…. I met this guy I was 17.. I came from an emotionally charged back ground… and got hooked… 10 years later, he sealed the deal I was pregnant. Of Course he demeaned , devalued and discarded me when I was pregnant, I was after all FAT now… oh and he came back when he needed more rescuing, my child was old enough then to admire his narc father…. etc etc. I am thinking of writing my own book because It is a true account of years of this abuse, which I never realized obviously a couple years back I learned the Narc term and that fit then I heard borderline and that fit , then I recalled his youth fire setting , animal abuse and then that fit anti social… well as I have said before each of us must find our own way in our own time at our own pace so I learned the lesson here and now. Now I am going to look forward to a bright future assuming that my wishes are going to be fufilled this time with wonderful people , my degree , and love in there somewhere…someone who truly deserves me… he wrote me a note once, I was young, ( I kept them all since we were 17 and then he went to jail kept those too) he said why do you love me so much when I have never done anything to deserve it … hind sight red flag but already “in love” with the potential……….

    anyhow… I feel that his family is a source of this It is my beleive that you can also learn the behaviors from those around you… and that one or both of his parents are Narcisstic… just based on the way he treats me and they treat him and me… and my child, I am the one discarded they just want the fresh meat( my child) watch out mama bear has got some nasty claws……..

    (Report abusive comment)

    Saturday, 28 November 2009 @ 1:41pm

20. OxDrover says:

    Spirit,

    I stored some stuff in an old buidling here on the edge of my farm for some people who are “users” and they had 24/7 access to their stuff. In march, part of the roof blew off and I notified them to get their stuff as it was getting rained on. they said “just put a piece of plastic over it” Well in April, I told them that I wanted it OUT by June 1 as I wanted to salvage some of the lumber etc out of the building and then doze it down, burn it and clean up the site. The last thing I heard from them in April was “WE WILL GET OUR STUFF OUT OF YOUR WAY BY JUNE 1.”

    Well, it is the end of november and I HAVEN’T HEARD A WORD SINCE THEN. So, since this was abandoned stuff I took what I wanted of it and sold some of the rest, left the trash there.

    I really didn’t expect to ever hear from these people again, I had started setting some boundaries for them about a year ago and had stopped contacting them after April.

    So last night I get an e mail from the guy telling me that they hadn’t contacted me about the stuff in the old building because:

    1) he had lost my phone number (but obviously he had my e mail address and could have contacted me during this 6 month period by that, my phone number is the same and only one digit different from my son’s phone number, and he knows that, so I sincerely doubt that is the reason he didnt’ contact me.
    2) my son D had not returned any of his phone calls since January 15 this year. (well, yes, that is correct, because even though they had borrowed and not repaid money from my son a couple of years ago to buy a car, he had called D on January 15 WANTING MONEY and D had said NO!)
    3) He says that he is “in a chair” (wheel chair) all the time now” This is a pity play as an excuse for why he made no effort to get his stuff moved for 6 months after assuring me he would, as I had arranged a man, trailer and truck (at his expense of course) to move the stuff for him and he had not taken advantage of that, because I think, as USUAL with him, he wanted my son to volunteer my truck trailer and his own labor to move this STUFF AGAIN! My son has moved pretty much this same pile of garbage that they have hoarded for years multiple times, lost count of how many times.
    4) even though the guy had a key to the place and 24/7 access, he wants to arrange to meet me to “get his stuff”—WHY? The storage building is not behind a locked gate and they have made entry off and on since they put their stuff there without notifying us in any way. So why now to get access through US? Obviously there is some ulterior motive, I just don’t know what it is. And, don’t really care.

    My son is out of state right now, but when he returns we will decide if we want to answer this e mail at all, and if we do, what we will say. My thought now is to ignore the e mail.

    In the past they have ignored boundaries about coming here to my farm when i am not home, I caught the wife once time and boy was she embarassed and pithed off for sure. She was so tight jawed that it is a wonder she didn’t crack her teeth out of socket. Oh, wellllll…..that’s what happens when you try to be sneaky. she is also one to “pilfer” and to take things that belong to others…sometimes things of no real value, but she is OCD about hoarding stuff that would disgrace most land fills.

    Both of them have self created financial problems from VERY poor spending habits and have worked themselves into a corner, and yet they have this feeling of entitlement that others are responsible for “helping” them because they are “poor.”

    Not my problem, because their financial poverty is very self created by their sense of entitlement to others taking care of their needs. I’ve done my turn, my son has done his turn, and we are no longer available to meet their needs, or to feel sorry for their predictiment.

    I suggest that whatever items of his that HE has decided to make YOU responsible for that you either put out for the trash man, or SELL and pocket the money. So what are you, the “Spirit Storrage FREE company?”

    (Report abusive comment)

    Saturday, 28 November 2009 @ 1:44pm

21. OxDrover says:

    Dear Spirit, we posted over each other.

    Yea, lots of times peopple “excuse” the P behavior with “he’s an alcoholic/druggie/he had a hard childhood” etc. but the bottom line is THERE IS NO EXCUSE.

    Genetics have been proven to play some part in it, as well as environment too, so there is both at work here, he “inherited’ the tendency for P and then had it reinforced by his poor up bringing BY a couple of Ps (one at least) in a dysfunctional home. So he got the double whammy.

    All you can do from here on is to try to make your child’s life better and hope that the genetics are not too strong. It hurts like hell to lose one of them into that life style. I know, I lost one to his genetics which over powered the nurturing I tried to give him. My P-son is a monster, however, i do have one biological son who is a great guy, and an adopted son who is also a wonderful man. I think that God replaced the son I lost with one I love dearly and am proud to have in my life! So I am doubly blessed, though at times I felt like Job in the Bible, that I had lost everything.

    Now I am recovering my joy! I’m glad you have such spirit so hang in there, do what you know is right and don’t let them give you a ration of crap or attack your baby! You go mama bear!

    (Report abusive comment)

    Saturday, 28 November 2009 @ 1:56pm

22. Spirit40 says:

    In his case he was adopted but I still think he learned it by being in dysfunctional home with maybe one Narc/P/ etc…plus yes with the genetic factor and no emotional bond/attachment at birth to anyone. The genetics as far as my child..I am comfortable saying that he is a mamas boy and alot like me a heart, moral reasoning… stands up for me when I am being taken advantage of … of course all kids lie but I can tell and he admits it and we talk about it the fear and dont ever be afraid to tell mom the truth about anything…

    I think maybe that is the only part where I have been blessed in all this, and looking back I wanted no part of him or his dys func family but boy the plowed on through…. thinking maybe from the P that i was the “unstable” one not him…. yeah I did not come from the happiest of homes but yelling in my house was because we are loud hot tempered italians… no excuse but I am the only educated one in my family …it was my parents who told me find a man to take care of you, I was more independent but still naive and in love or so I thought , I always got sucked back in especially since he was “grooming me” oh we can have kids someday live on a little island…. was this my price charming or bull s—- frog …… .. oh they just want my son to have a brighter christmas… well I can provide that its pretty darn bright and sunny here in FLA ….

    He used to tell me the lioness goes out to provide for the family that is his way of rationalizing taking advantage of me, he wanted to be waited on hand and foot….. oh and that he never has to pay rent ever and he is proud of this… oh and his wonderful genetics….

    anyway I am glad to be rid of him , I may just change phone # or block his emails etc and yeah he owes me way to much, I can pawn his stuff, I never pawned anything in my life until I met him…..

    Thank you oxy I always get such wonderful feedback and support from you!!! I send you hugs =)

    I am going to work on my paper today and for the next 2 days its due on thursday!!! woo hoo

    (Report abusive comment)

    Saturday, 28 November 2009 @ 2:21pm

23. Spirit40 says:

    Oh I wont even get started on the “dog” poor dog… sometimes I think he needs doggy prozac… he is old…. but not mine mind you. HIS, MINE…not really mine but I will definately take care of him…he also is much less stressed …now we can all just “breath” !

    Oxy.. you gave them a time limit, its past and gone.. just shows us we can not be so NICE…. sometimes… we end up with the short end of the stick…

    oh well , my bf, is going through the same thing, I told her do not feel guilty selling it he left it , and you were paying all the bills?

    are they really that entitled? come on… they do not care one bit about the stuff and he dosent care one ounce for his precious “dog” just another possession…..

    (Report abusive comment)

    Saturday, 28 November 2009 @ 2:33pm

24. Spirit40 says:

    Cat , Thanks for the post…=) I know its his way of keeping contact… his stuff! hold it with mine… LOL mine has to be sold so I can afford a place much smaller because he lived off me and I can not afford a two bedroom any longer we have to live like college students for a while my pre teen and I but I will be much happier with less anyway… its just stuff…. less to clean up ! my bright side!

    (Report abusive comment)

    Saturday, 28 November 2009 @ 2:37pm

25. one_step_at_a_time says:

    okay, I’ve changed my nic from lostandfearful to one step at a time. more upbeat. and i have to remember to log in right away cause i keep losing my place.

    @skylar – I just saw your post to me, on a page I can’t find now
    You ended it with ‘don’t worry’. TY for this. Cause I am crazy into worry.

    There are serious problems beyond the spath. I still let her hijack my mind a part of each day. Today, as I was packing some stuff, it hit me as: ‘wow, someone did this to me ON PURPOSE.’

    i am still in the process of deconstructing the lies of the spath – getting all the sock puppets, the mean fuckers and the sweet one i loved into one drawer. then i am going to light them on fire. no, just kidding, maybe I’ll kick them all behind the dryer where we know they will be LOST FOREVER.

    there is a level of fright that rises when she has my head space. it’s pretty wild. I guess it will take a while to undo all this shit. and the fright informs all the other difficulty…making me less effective. I am a BIG problem solver. I am in a situation now though, where the problems feel TOO BIG to solve. part of this is that I have MCS and I am cognitively impaired by the chemicals in my environment.

    there is one person behind all of this and that person is not someone I knew. I have seen her responses to others outing her. quite vitriolic, lots of gas-lighting and hardcore manipulation. when she thought i might out her one of her sock puppets got quite graphic. but you know i know where she is – and THESE people don’t exist. she’s not going to come after me. Have closed down my email and cell.

    I still miss ‘him’. And as I try to deconstruct him, I realize that I can’t ‘kill’ him in my mind as he is part of me – he is the part of me that she mirrored back to me.

    I do believe that she showed me what i really want in life. And I have very very little of it. I believed in the magic of it being possible with him. There were things missing and info not right, but i was willing to wait till we met (which was supposed to be early on, but… yadah yaddah yaddah…) to really be able to know who I was dealing with. Of course it never came to that and he died, and then the others died…blah blah blah….

    sorry, ranted off on a side road there. I believe in magic. I WANT to believe in magic. made me a target. BUT one of the hardest things is that ‘he’ showed me what i really want- some things i had NO clear idea of, and I am left with the feeling that I WILL NEVER HAVE THOSE THINGS. EVER. It is very painful. And not because i was told that – although the sock puppets do go there. it’s that I have never been able to make these things happen, and i have let them sit below my emotional radar to some extent – not wanting what I ‘couldn’t’ have. But now they are up and I am aware and all the more overwhelmed with the pain of ‘never have’

    I gave up for a while. I couldn’t deal with everything that was happening in my life. I just stopped trying. I feel so beaten down by life. Now, I am trying to rise up again. The situation is VERY scarey. And i am quite isolated.

    And I keep getting this horrid feeling – that she is lurking here.

    This is a crisis. There may be more down spiral to endure. I have no idea how i will get out of this desperate situation. one step at a time.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Saturday, 28 November 2009 @ 3:03pm

26. Stayingsane says:

    M.L. Gallaher

    you say you are a woman who:

    ‘turns up, pays attention, speaks her truth and stays unattached to the outcome.

    Sounds like the perfect recipe for healing. I’m trying just to turn up, have problems with paying attention and I’m so attached to the outcome it repels anything that would like to come in…

    I’m paying back a loan to the bank, and will be for the next few years….and the P spent the money I’m still paying back…how is that fair? and who said this life is fair? yaaargh I guess I’m just going through some bitter feelings at the moment…but I aspire to rising out of this, I swear I have to get out of this mire and into my life again

    (Report abusive comment)

    Saturday, 28 November 2009 @ 3:09pm

27. one_step_at_a_time says:

    @stayingsane
    ‘Sounds like the perfect recipe for healing. I’m trying just to turn up, have problems with paying attention and I’m so attached to the outcome it repels anything that would like to come in…’

    I SO HEAR YOU! takes me 7 hours ever day just to sew my games face on. Aspire. Keep aspiring.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Saturday, 28 November 2009 @ 3:49pm

28. Spirit40 says:

    Spirit: A email from p’s family
    I can certainly understand how difficult things are and have been for you with the P but am shocked that you would think that I would share your address with the P .

    Please remember that it has been my wife and I have been saying for many years that you need to stay away from him if and untill he makes the decision and committment to get his sorry life together…

    Our only interest in contacting you was to see if we could make the Holidays a little brighter for ( my son)

    P’s Father

    (Report abusive comment)

    Saturday, 28 November 2009 @ 5:54pm

29. OxDrover says:

    Dear spirit,

    How are you going to handle the e mail? What does “a little brighter” mean? Money or have the child over to their house.

    Did they share the address with him?

    Are they NC with “sonny boy”? Are they enabling him? giving him money? etc.

    I tend to “beware of Greeks bearing gifts” and not to accept “gifts” unless I trust the person who is offering them is not trying to use a “gift” to BUY control or to enhance their own image. Only gifts that don’t have strings attached.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Saturday, 28 November 2009 @ 6:51pm

30. style1 says:

    I had a big ah ha… I keep having it over and over… and I don’t get why… that man that told me that he had Cancer.. I should’ve said good luck to you and Goodbye… instead, I was being kind and considerate… then he slam dunks me…

    The reality check was when this freak asked me if I had HIV or any STD’s.. I mean good grief WHY did I continue talking to this man? WHY? Because I was being nice! Why was I being so nice? WHY? I was thinking this isn’t sounding good.. I don’t want to meet a man that is recovering from Cancer.. then this inquiring about my health .. when he is the ill one. I am healthy.. WHY did I continue talking with this man? Am I a people pleaser? Am I too nice for my own good? What is it???? Then I get my feeling tweaked when this person has the audacity to say that I am a bit old for what ‘he’ is looking for… YIKES! I stayed too long a the fair.. I am always giving them the benefit of the doubt and being kind and understanding and they zap me… now, this was nothing in the scheme of things.. but it shows how my being nice, ends up getting me slammed! Is this personality trait what gets me in these deals where I am taken advantage of? So do you need to be cold and not nice? Of what? Just self honest.. When he told me that he was recovering from Cancer.. and sent me photos where he was weak and about 20 pounds lighter.. not the vigorous man that I first thought that he was.. I felt sorry for him.. that is it! It played on my womanly emotions of carrying.. I thought he has been through alot …poor guy.. then he inquires of my health.. and I was offended but understood that he is concerned about catching something but it was all too soon, inappropriate and presumtous on his part that we would even have sex.. It makes me sick to my stomach that I set myself up for an insult .. about my age..when I bet if I met this man I wouldn’t even like him, be attracted or anything else… I have men 10 to 15 years my juniour flirt with me.. and I let this nasty man slam dunk me!
    So girls and guys this has got to stop!

    (Report abusive comment)

    Saturday, 28 November 2009 @ 6:52pm

31. Stargazer says:

    Style1,
    I once had a brief affair with a man who was a former teacher of mine. I believed that it would be a soulmate type of thing. However, right away on the phone he asked me if I used condoms. In another conversation, he asked if I was still getting periods (I am close to the age of menopause). All of this was because he had sex on his mind obviously. I miraculously overlooked that (!!!!) and proceeded anyway. Then I wondered why I got hurt afterward when he disappeared for several months. I think when we are starry-eyed and having a fantasy about someone, our minds can fill in the gaps. We overlook those little “flaws and weaknesses” (I mean aren’t ALL men obsessed with sex anyway?…..).

    I totally understand how you could miss the signals. It’s still difficult to fathom some people’s predatory nature, even when the red flags are waving in my face, cause I’m just not made that way.

    I think the fact that he even brought up “age” says a lot to do about his motives and maturity level. Good thing you didn’t bet on that pony.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Saturday, 28 November 2009 @ 7:10pm

32. Spirit40 says:

    Hey OxDrover… No he the P dosent contact anyone in his family unless he is really bad or really doing well…. but I know these people …t they were abusive to the P when he was growing up… of course they would not hurt my child…so I am told but do not want to take any chance… we drove across country and could not even stay at their house…but my son spent last TG with them and the P boy I wish I would have gone…. the only horror story my son has was that she told him to brush his hair… he looked like a lion… my child has curly brown banana curl hair … no need for brushes comb when wet is the way we do it anyhow… I am not responding to this email… I have already done x mas shopping… and I would rather stand in line at the share food program than accept as you say greeks bearing gifts….. its to enhance the image of them being superior to my inferior… thats how I take it…. this is the man who when I was 17 told his P … she has no chest……

    Both are not role models for my child….. YUK ! yeah I hold onto those memories to mean it says alot about the kind of person you are…. shallow….. I did not give my address and I am not contacting them… anymore… no reason to they have never been warm and kind or loving towards me… just errryyyyyyyy….

    (Report abusive comment)

    Saturday, 28 November 2009 @ 7:12pm

33. OxDrover says:

    Dear spirit,

    Yea, the “one up-man-ship” of giving you things, you poor dear…we DO SO want grandson to have a “brighter” Christmas (than you can give him, poor baby)

    Where is the PUKE emoticon when you need it? LOL

    My egg donor used to ask me (before the D&D) “do you need money?” I would always tell her “NO, I am doing fine” and I would have said the same thing if I had been in the share food program line as well. I used to say I would live in a tent and eat out of the dumpster behind McDonald’s before I would have taken a dime from her.

    I think it actually made her mad that I would not be “bought” by her “generosity”—but it always came with strings. She even told her attorney how “generous” she had been to me.

    Except for when she gave me a check because she was too infirm to shop and this was not some huge check either) I never took a dime from her except the $100 she gave me for BDs and Xmas. I learned with my X-in-laws (Ps) that taking “gifts” from people can be a LOSING PROPOSITION…I am and always have been fiercly independent financially and never owed a soul a dime that I didn’t pay back…live within my means. the only money I ever borrowed from her was to pay my son’s private school tuition, and I paid that back WITH INTEREST even though she told me I didn’t have to. maybe that’s prideful on my part, but at least no one can say they bought and paid for me.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Saturday, 28 November 2009 @ 9:05pm

34. Spirit40 says:

    OxDrover:

    yeah they used to make comments when he was a baby oh he’s got the same outfit on , yeah because I washed it and he wore it again I thought it was adorable… how many friken outfits does a baby need ??? oh and what size is he now we havent seen him in a year they have only seen him about 5 times in 12 years…. hardly a relationship with strangers….

    I like you , like to depend on myself except when the P was living off me .. would have been nice to have him support me through school since he drank on my couch for 3 years on and off…. and for the past 23 years I was the back burner chick since he saddled me with his seed… ( my boy) whom I love and dont mean that in a bad way….. they can save for his college but my parents didnt put me through college , loans and grants I will be paying off …. first they asked what we needed then when I said I didnt feel comfortable giving my address he said only interested in a brighter christmas for my son… they devalue and discard me all the time….ugghghhghg…

    (Report abusive comment)

    Saturday, 28 November 2009 @ 10:29pm

35. justabouthealed says:

    Style1: What I decided was what I had called being “nice” was really being dishonest about what I was feeling. And I had to ask myself, was I really being nice, or afraid of them not liking my honest reaction or even rejecting me for it? Now I try to “mean what I say, but not say it meanly.” (That I think is an alnon saying I got from a friend.)And the truth is, if someone stomps off because you let them know that what they just said offended you, you are probably better off without them. They just lost interest because you are not a victim!

    As far as “feeling on edge” that nails what I felt as sort of a last stage. I don’t know if that is withdrawal from certain brain chemicals, or a fear that it is not really over, or a longing to get back at them but knowing you can’t. Whatever it is, I felt it. Coming to lf is how I have dealt with it. Maybe it is partly a reaction to the end of the drama that was them. I dunno. But I’m mostly past that “on edge” feeling. I think it is part of PTSD.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Saturday, 28 November 2009 @ 11:07pm

36. OxDrover says:

    Dear JAH,

    I think you hit the nail on the head GF! always “being nice” is not always HONEST, and we really do need to be honest, but at the same time, we can use TACT and not be “hateful” just because we are also honest. Setting boundaries is HONEST, “being nice” and letting people disrespect you is not HONEST because we RESENT them doing that, just like Style said she resented her X not paying his share of the expenses that she expected he should pay. When we resent someone because they are NOT doing what we expect them to, or because they are doingsomething we don’t like, we are not being honest to say, “I have a problem with xy or z”

    “John, I have a problem with you not having a job.” Or “I have a problem with you dropping your dirty socks for someone else to pick up.” Whatever it is that WE have a problem wioth someone else’s behavior that effects US is honest to say it, but also be firm and enforce our boundaries. Sometimes if we DO enforce those boundaries though, the RELATIONSHIP WILL END if they do not respect them. And, when we set a boundary we MUST BE PREPARED FOR THAT RELATIONSHIP TO END.

    We can set a boundary, enforce that boundary and discuss it with someone, if they refuse to discuss it…well, you know where that leads.

    Before I went NC with my egg donor, I tried to discuss what had gone on, and she REFUSED to discuss things and said instead “let’s just pretend none of this happened and start over.” THAT WAS HER BOUNDARY, we “will not discuss this” but MY boundary was “without discussing this, we have no further relationship.” NC

    She is unable/unwilling to respect my boundary, and I cannot and will not “pretend none of this happened.”

    Unfortunately too many times my “boundaries” were not solid, and many times UNspoken, so the other party could always deny that they “knew.” So now, I speak clearly and openly and try to be TACTFUL about how I phrase them. But I am honest as well. It feels a lot better.

    The only “person” I can’t get to respect my boundaries is teh darned CAT!@ She thinks she owns the place and that I am her servant! the dog is her toy and playmate. UGH! I can train anything except a darn CAT!!!@#$

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 12:57am

37. OxDrover says:

    Dear Spirit,

    I had a college scholarship when I was 16 but blew it off to trapse around the world, then when I went back as an adult, I worked, rised my kids, got a bit of scholarship and grant money (not much) and loans which I paid back, and lived on the edge of poverty but felt proud of myself. My egg donor never offered me a cent (and I would have died before I would have asked except I did BORROW some money for her for school tuition for my ADHD kid for a small private school for a couple of years) I paid her back with INTEREST calculated to the cent at the MAXIMUM legal rate for my state.

    Yea, they always try to make their INVASIONS appear to be “gestures of good will”—LOL

    I agree with you about the clothes. Heck my kids didn’t know STORES SOLD CLOTHES until they got in Jr. High, they thought you bought them in some one’s front yard! But they were the best dressed kids in school! My sons are still sharp dressers when they go out and most of their clothes are bought at the Goodwill.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 1:12am

38. Spirit40 says:

    Morning Oxy… As they say one womans trash is another’s treasure!
    nothing wrong with hand me downs and good will and thrift stores, specially if ya find them in the snooty area of town woo hoo then , its like hitting the jack pot… my friend and I actually just went a couple weeks ago… although I did not want or need anything just to look… I could have bought a shirt for 4.50….. instead of retail 20-30?

    yeah….. we are good people not like the parasitic lifestyle these P’s lead lieing , cheating, sofa surfing…. sc–m bags…. I just found out the email I got from the P , well he is not in a “program” its an outpatient program OMG watch out world…. he is still on the loose… I tell everyone I can. And I cut the cell phone ..checked the bill … that is how I found out…..anyone remember “secret squirrel” LOL well thats me…I just hate being lied to and its funny when I cut the phone bill the cell people called me back to make “sure” I wanted to do this … I was like yeah it belongs to my psycho bf and I am sure since he dosent pay the bill. how dare they? he probably called them LOL oh well I guess his new BF has to pay the bill now or his sister….better them than me… but to lie and say you love your child, happy holidays blah blah …. he better not come near me…I got 911 programed on my cell phone…..

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 5:08am

39. Spirit40 says:

    Email response not sent to P’s family:

    First of all you have no idea of the difficulties, difficulties is a mild term, let me find some words to describe what the P has caused in my life… he had been devious, humiliating, embarrassingg, harassing, manipulative, violent, rageful, a bully, exploitative…. he is not only  an alcoholic that is just a mask for his personality disorder.

    Yes I do remember a few times you said somethings about The P being a part time presence in our lives etc etc , I do not recall you telling me to stay away from him.. in those actual words ever.

    Sociopaths/Narcissists/ Anti socials  do not think there is anything wrong with them so  as far as getting his sorry life together , I am not surprised you have so little compassion for a son whom you choose to adopt. I see where he gets some or most of the characteristics from being emotionally/physically abused as a child.  Along with not being able to bond at birth with anyone. Along with the genetic factor and there you have the monster /confused immature creature that he is. Pathetic he is but not with out his background.

    I have lived with the P on and off for 23 years and know him more intimately (not on his part) and can make this claim I lived with the evidence. As I said alcoholism is a mask a way to cope with his disorder.

    The way he was abusive, targeting me, taking advantage of me, his immaturity , irresponsibility ,etc  towards us is inexcusable. I want nothing to do with him. But he has succeeded in sucking his child in, what little boy dosent want his father. He is pathetic, I was not trying to play house with him. I am growing and mature  and his growth is stunted.

    Thanks for the gesture… I think….my son doesn’t need material things to bring a brighter holiday, I am quite capable of providing what he needs.  As I always have . If you still think somehow your presents will win him over you can send a gift card via amazon.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 7:17am

40. catherine says:

    I sent my ex-husband an email last week to thank him for walking out on me eight years ago. His actions that day changed me in ways I could not have imagined at the time. I see my relationship with him as something that was meant to be to help me become who I am today.

    I was married four weeks ago to a wonderful man. It took alot of work to get to this point in my life but it was all worth it. My advice to those trying to recover today – embrace the pain and allow it to change you. Always remember that today you are where you are meant to be.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 9:52am

41. style1 says:

    I agree that sometimes being nice is to not offend and have someone leave …

    but I usually try and do see both sides.. as in this man that told me that he had cancer after we had been talking for quite a while…

    I thought people get ill, I could get ill.. would I want to be rejected just because I am ill… so I felt compassion and continued .. then when he started asking if I had HIV or STDs.. I began to feel strange … like there is something off in this.. and I was questioning in my mind and feeling insulted.. while also understanding that if someone has been ill that they would be cautious.. but is was too soon and abrupt the way he inquired about my health.. and nothing about me indicates that anything is wrong with me and nothing is… it played out and cost me nothing to let it play out until he told me that he was interested in someone younger… that was the slap.. Iwas being considerate about his issues.. then he slammed dunked me when I am younger than he is and look much younger am healthy.. so he revealed to me that he is a jerk..

    With the last man I was engaged to.. he had tons of things in his life that I didn’t enjoy when we first met.. a very sick mother.. that I did like and cared for .. and he was living in an almost empty large rental house.. that I helped him get out of.. now this was in the first three months of our meeting.. too much too soon… and the day that he moved in with me, he reveals that he is being evicted.. three months past dues in rent.. while he is wining and dining me and leaving his ill mother alone in the house .. except we would go over and get her grocerys on Sat. afternoon… And he was living practically at my house.. I stated several times, shouldn’t you be with your mother instead of here.. ? And he said no she is fine.. then she goes to a hospital. He closes down the house, and the day that he moves in, I find that he is 8 thousand behind in rent.. When I found that out… I literally felt like I was going to throw up. I felt used.. he was after me so hard for a place to live is what I felt. We had a huge arguement and he spent a lot of effort showing me that he loved me.. then I realized that part of the way that he was living was his mother’s SS.. then she dies like two weeks later.. and I am the one that tells him and I am the one that sees her more than he does..

    So no, I was kind.. too kind and understanding… then the relationship went on from there..

    Once, I called his mother and she thought I was his daugher and she blurted out. “Your good for nothing father doesn’t come to see me.” I should’ve heard clearly what his own mother said about him. But instead, I chalked it up to old age.. as he did try.. and his life was exhausting, traveling all the time in his business..and he did not cheat on me.. he talked to me too much on the phone and every night.. he was in a bad place and I understood and helped.. being a kind person.. but the deal is that none of it was good for me or my life.. it offered little but giving and burdens.. and I felt tired and used and these were not my burdens.. but again.. I don’t regret helping his mother..
    but as the relationship played out and I met his emotionally wacked out daughter all I could see is family diffifulties with children that are not mine.. But this man worked and gave his money to his kids and did do what he could for me.. but I never felt right about it all after I realized that he was being evicted.. I told him several times that he should’ve moved not a smaller place and gotten out of that overhead… and his last wife had died only three months before we met.. and he married her too fast and told me the marriage was over in the first few months.. but he couldn’t afford a divorce .. then she dies of an overdose.. it is all too bizarre…
    so no, I am too nice, understanding, caring, and try to see both sides.. I have been through rough times .. so I try to see things from another’s viewpoint.. and it gets me into bad things for me…

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 10:43am

42. OxDrover says:

    Dear Spirit,

    I can almost “see” your “out-laws” in teh letter you DIDN’T send (BTW I wrote lots of those). The pretenses that they were trying to protect you, although I do admit their “VERY TACTFUL “he will not be a full time presense in your life” is not exactly a RUN GIRL! and I imagine their knowing him and not saying that is like saying “Jack the Ripper” might tear your dress on a date.

    I agree with you that these people are SHALLOW at best, and the pretense of “loving” a grandson that they don’t have a relationship with, and never really wanted a relationship with, but want to tell their bridge partners about the poor little deprived boy, the offspring opf that pioor kid they adopted and dis so mcuh for who turned out to be such a disappointment, oh, my goodhess how their charity and good will has been abused–my goodness, what VICTIMS they are, but oh, they did try so hard” MAKE ME WEEP FOR THEM, NOT!!!

    Maybe that is a judgmental picture I am forming in my mind by my seeing them like the N-Minister I lately dealt with in his pious stories of doing for the offspring of his own P adopted kid who sounds so like your X. the “he won’t be a full time presence in your life” is the kind of high-flung “warning” he would have given to a woman involved with his P-son I am sure.

    In any case, that was the picture of what your letter evoked in my mind.

    Personally, I am glad that your son has YOU and hopefully you can inflluence him and EDUCATE him CAREFULLY before the “terrible teens hit” and you suddenly become “retarded” and though all kids want a daddy, he can see what his daddy really IS.

    It’s kind of like “criticising” a kid’s new crush, they think the other one is “perfect” so you can’t openly criticize it pretty much has to be done by making the kid open his eyes to the BEHAVIOR of the other person, to see the irresponsibility, to see that the hopes they hold out don’t come to reality. If you openly criticize I think that the kid becomes very defensive of them and has to “protect” the person from “YOUR MEAN SPIRIT.” LOL My egg donor is protecting my P son from my mean spirited desire that he remain in prisopn forever because she KNOWS that with all her love she can SAVE him.

    Where is the PUKE emoticon when you need it!? LOL

    Good going,Spirt, STAND TALL! Your little “lion cub” has a wonderful mother and personally I think that “can’t comb it unless it is wet” hair is really cute!@ (((hugs))))

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 11:00am

43. style1 says:

    My fault is not sticking to what I want.. I don’t want a man with younger children, financial problems and that owes lots of child support and thisis what he was. His life was in a mess and mine isn’t.. and I let him infiltrate my life with his charm his words, his promises and his handsome facade.. I bought it but not totally…I am too kind and understanding when I should be taking care of me. He did things for me and fit the image but it was not real. What I had made him look good.. ans friends wondered why he was living with me..He just upsurped my life…. he wanted me, my energy, my life.. my peace and he went after it.. and I felt a large amount of internal conflict while being oh so kind. In the first few months, he was being pushy.. telling me how I should feel and I told him to get out.. to leave.. that I didn’t like what he was doing.. I saw it .. but he always talked me down..

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 11:01am

44. Spirit40 says:

    WOO HOO…. Yes Oxy! you have them pegged as well… I have said it so eloquently… its all just for show… they messed up two of their own kids…. not going to mess with mine…..shallow can be learned and its even worse when you try to hide and cover it up with degree’s etc… us peasants are nice and normal the ones with the fancy upbringings can be narc/p’s/as’s just like anyone else…..

    I just need to hunker down and go NC completely… change #’s emails addy etc…. why oh why did I not go with my own instincts when I did notice the behaviors… why did I always go back ? lack of self esteem/confidence ? in my own instincts well its better to be a late bloomer! I did not want to see it denial I guess.. hope faith … never fall in love with someones potential especially if they never grow up!!!

    LOL Thanks for the support…. as always ! hugs!!!!! =) we need to create that PUKE ICON SOON!!!!!

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 11:16am

45. OxDrover says:

    Dear Style,

    I think what you were feeling was more PITY than compassion, and his FOG (Fear, Obligation and Guilt) hooked you in to the “caretaker” mode where you started assuming HIS RESPONSIBILITIES of caring for his mother.

    YOU saw his mother was neglected and said something about it, but HE brushed this off with “reassurance” she was “Okay” and you bought that lie because he was “love bombing” you….then when the TRUTH came out (maybe even after he had moved into your house) you didn’t ACT on the knowledge of the truth immediately.

    I’ve been there, Style, I’ve let people (not romantic relationships, but “friends”) L,ITERALLY MOVE IN ON ME, and felt too much PITY for the (self-caused) situations they were in financially to “throw them out on the street with no where to go”—they COUNT on this PITY keeping us guilted into providing for them what they should be providing for themselves if they didn’t have a dupe (us) to provide it for them,but we do RESENT doing it because in our HEARTS we KNOW that they are not our responsibility….so on it goes, round and round until we live in resentment doing for them, or we finally get a gut full, throw a fit and throw them out.

    That is called ENABLING, and it always causes resentment on the part of the enabler because of its UNFAIRNESS but jeven the enabled person resents us because we are doing for them, and it is “never just how the want it” no matter what we do.

    I have now found that I have learned to set boundaries, and one of the first ones I set was telling these “friends” that they had to LEAVE HERE, “IT JUST ISN’T WORKING” (in those very words) They never even asked “WHY, what have we done?” They knew it was coming sooner or later.

    Setting that first boundary and STICKING TO IT was so difficult for me. I cried cause I didn’t “want to hurt their feelings”—CRAP! Why would I care about hurting their feelings, they had STOMPED on mine, moved into my space and taken over, treating me like the interlolper in my own space. Living here like Lords with me the poor relative that they allowed to stay on their charity!

    The experience of setting and maintaining that boundary though, made me realize the feelings that HIGHLIGHT when you are in one of those relationships, assuming responsibility for someone else’s needs, and putting your own needs subservient to them. When I get that feeling now, I STOP and say to myself–WHOSE RESPONSIBILITY IS THIS? then if it is not mine, I put the responsibility for it back on them.

    I set the boundary and enforce it. If they run over the boundary, I don’t need them in my life. And NO GUILT goes along with it either. No tears, no feeling nI could have done more, or should have done more for them. Compassion, but NO PITY. I’m learning to have compassion for people, but UNlearning “pity” which is NOT the same as compassion.

    I expect others to care for their own responsibilities and not depend on me for what they can and should provide for themselves. I expect adults to not have to have me remind them to do the basics of adult life. I wouldn’t put up with that kind of behavior from my adult sons, so why would I feel guilty about confronting the same behavior from a “friend” (who isn’t a friend)?

    Using these events and relationships as a CLASSROOM to teach ourselves what we need to alter in our way of thinking to help keep us safe from some of the mistakes we made in judgment and action in the past (having too much pity for one) and not putting the responsibility for their lives back where it belongs in THEIR HANDs etc. In the future we can make better, wiser choices and not let our emotions and caregiving tendencies get us deeply embroiled with peoople who are actually users and frankly mooches.

    When someone is asking or demanding that you do something for them, and you feel resentment at the prospect of doing this. STOP and listen to your GUT! It is trying to tell you something.

    Hang in there and keep on reading and learning! It starts out about THEM but becomes about US, and that is when we really make significant progress in healing.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 11:22am

46. Cat says:

    Good morning everyone!
    catherine; wonderful words to remember! let the pain roll over you, embrace it, welcome it. I have done this because I find that on the other side is ME and I like me more and more each day. I am so happy for you! Thank you for sharing.
    osaat-There IS magic. For me, it was magic just to have my eyes opened to what my ex Path was really all about. I use the serenity prayer a lot;
    God grant me the serenity
    To accept the things I cannot change;
    Courage to change the things I can;
    And wisdom to know the difference.
    Boy, do I ever understand your frustration though. I have been there many times.
    Spirit, you are more than welcome. You help a lot of others on here simply by sharing. I had plenty of messages from his family. Six months after we met, we flew (I paid for the tickets) to meet his family. His nickname was “Nixon” Hello! Wake up! I CHOSE not to listen. I somehow thought I was the one he wouldn’t hurt. Somehow he wouldn’t lie, cheat or steal. I really believed his BS that he had finally grown up. All these years later of course I know that’s an insane thought. I wouldn’t trust him to go to the bathroom alone(not like I would go with him). In all of this he blew my dreams all to hell and back and today I have new dreams that I trust in and know will happen with a lot of work and faith.
    When I was pregnant with our son, I had a bad fall. I called him (he was in school at the time) and told him I had to go to the hospital. He showed up 4 HOURS LATER. He had finished his class and stopped to get something to eat. To this day, that one eats at me a little. I would have jumped in the car and been there in 20 minutes. Guess who was embarrassed by his behavior? Not him! Me. I think when it comes to red flags, they can almost make us color blind if we allow it. Today, I’m not color blind.
    Ox, I laughed so hard my butt fell off and I had to go find it when I read about your cat. I chose the name “Cat” for LF because cats have an uncanny ability to know what is coming, like storms, etc… They also see things we don’t and are aware of much more than I was for a very long time. You made my day with this one.
    What IS it with people and cell phones and emails? I received a text from my sister the other day that said.”Now do I have to be ready to get —– out of jail again or are you 2 back to being a couple?” I did respond and told her, “Neither. We are NOT nor will we ever be a couple and if he goes to jail, it’s your choice to bail him out.” This is the only contact I’ve had with her as she has been sold a bill of goods by my ex Path and I understand how he could do that to her, yet I can’t have her in my life right now. She’s as toxic as he is. I am ready to change my cell phone, home phone and business phone as well. Whatever it takes.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 11:26am

47. Cat says:

    Ox, I have never heard of the FOG and it’s meaning, but I really like that! Makes sense to me. Pity is a weapon my ex path uses on a regular basis. It’s a tool they use. He’s used it with me and others and since we are always the NICE ones, the ones who try to please the world, mine got away with a lot. He’s still using it with family members, but that’s out of my hands as I’ve written about in the post above.
    style, your words tell MY story. I made my ex P. look very, very good. He dressed better than he ever had, lived in houses nicer than he had ever had and drove a great car, mine. I call them spiritual vampires. They take our energy, time, money, our soul if we let them. They drain us dry and then when they’ve taken it all, they look elsewhere. I told him, to his face at one point, that I saw this and understood it. He HATED that. It was truth, his truth and he didn’t like being found out. He wasn’t sorry by any means that he had done all of this. He was sorry someone had pegged him. I got that too.
    Ox, I love what you said about enabling. It is so true! He really did end up resenting me because I did all the giving and also pegged him. Enabling is part of co-dependency and I am working on that every day. I’ve come to see my part in it. I read as much as I can and I know this is something that will take a VERY long time.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 11:43am

48. style1 says:

    Oxy,
    Yes.. it was pity, not really obligation and not really guilt..
    and I think the pity that I felt blocked attraction to him.. as I saw him as needy in too many areas..
    but as all of us get older.. we have things in our lives.. I am fortunatein that my Dad is self-sufficent .. but helping with his mother wasn’t that bad.. but it was like it never ended.. with the mother molested daughter,, the child with cancer.. the ex’s kid with mental issues.. on going.. people in his life thrusted into mine where I had none of this in my life..
    I feel confused at just now.. as he wasn’t as bad as most.. and I am feeling lonely.. like maybe, I expect too much…

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 11:49am

49. style1 says:

    And get this my friends come to me for advice because I am so ‘together’… many are in bad marriages or not so good ones and just stay because they are afraid to be alone.. I have been alone for years.. and get out of things that don’t work.. I have been hurt but have never settled.. and I watch women settle and settle…but they have okay lives… I look like I have it all.. and I think that is what attracts these men… A pschologist once told me that I attract playboys but it doesn’t work becasue I am too intelligent.. so I am screwed.. this last man ’seemed’ to get a side of me.. but I felt used…and like something was off.. it was too contrived and I didn’t feel loved on a deep level..
    I just don’t get what this is all about any more…

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 12:00pm

50. Spirit40 says:

    As the song goes I would rather be alone ! than UNHAPPY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    FREEDOM FEELS SOOOOOO GOOD dosent it!!!!!!

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 12:45pm

51. witsend says:

    Style1,
    If I remember your story correctly I believe that you had said that from the very begining you said something wasn’t right, something was “off”.

    Our gut feelings, really is the only “compass” that we have when we first meet someone. Our gut feelings, our intuition, whatever we might choose to call it… If that compass is pointing North (direction we want to go) but the direction we seem to be heading is slightly off course…..Our “compass” warns us (red flags) but sometimes we tend to ignore those early warnings.

    I believe we need to always TRUST our inner compass. When we ignore our own “voice” inside ourselves telling us to STOP, change course, go back in the RIGHT direction…..This usually means we are headed for trouble.

    Learn to embrace your inner compass. You had it all along. Like most of us you didn’t heed its warning. Don’t beat yourself up over this. It is something we all have done sometime in our lives….Especially when it comes to matters of the heart.

    Now that you know, what you “know” you can do so much better.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 12:49pm

52. amber says:

    Wit,
    “I believe we need to always TRUST our inner compass. When we ignore our own “voice” inside ourselves telling us to STOP, change course, go back in the RIGHT direction…..This usually means we are headed for trouble.”

    SO TRUE! I often think about how I ignored that little voice or the feeling in my gutt. And I am often thankful that that little voice didn’t give up on me. By the end of the relationship that little voice was SCREAMING at me!! It was almost like I had developed some sixth sense. And everytime some thought came into my head, or I questioned anything…after a little investigating, I was right appoximately 95% of the time. I honestly thought I was psychic!! LOL!! No, I wasn’t psychic, but that little voice that has been there the whole time, telling me that things were wrong, I decided to start listening to it more!!

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 1:11pm

53. style1 says:

    I agree about the compass.. but you know, if I listen to my compass..I will never have been with any man in my life.. I had doubts about them all…. everyone.. and they were all flawed.. terribly so.. not bad guys all but their flaws are what messed us up.. not what I did or didn’t do.. or their past decisions.. so at this time in my life.. I don’t meet anyone that doesn’t reek of something…

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 1:23pm

54. style1 says:

    and in all the years that I have dated after my last divorce.. this last man even though flawed had many good attributes…had he not had all the kids and responsiblities.. it might’ve worked .. because he wouldn’t have been so strapped.. but of course, woulda shoulda prada….
    Who knows.. it is cloudy and depressing here todayand my mood fits the weather…

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 1:31pm

55. witsend says:

    Amber,
    It is kind of interesting that in our human make up we really do “have what it takes” to make better choices in our lives.
    We just don’t always KNOW this about ourselves. It really is like a sixth sense that we are blessed with, that little voice inside of us.
    I think if I look back on my own poor choices that I have made in my life it was my emotions that directly conflicted with my “inner voice”. And I chose to follow my emotions rather than my gut feeling.

    Perhaps this is why animals use their 6th sense and always heed to it when they sense danger or fear, and act upon that immediately w/o question. Animals do not have the emotional response.
    I guess as Oxy so often points out we can learn ALOT from animals.

    I had a dog once that didn’t like men. He was always uncomfortable when any man entered our house. Didn’t matter if they were close friends that had been there many times or not. I took it to mean (eventually after I had the dog for a long time) that he had been abused by a man, before I got him. And he didn’t trust men. (including my husband)

    Once, my boss came to our house around the holidays. He had never been to our house before. My dog immediately took to this man. This man was an older gentleman and one of the kindest, moral, men I have ever known. AND the only man my dog ever really “took to” like that.

    My dog evidentaly was a GREAT judge of character! If my dog was alive today, knowing what I know now…..I would trust this dogs judgement to find me a mate…LOL. Heck he could find us all a mate….

    Truthfully, I think we all “have” that same sense that the dog had. We just haven’t embraced it and “used” it as we should. It is there within us all. AND it doesn’t need fine tuning….It is RIGHT ON

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 1:58pm

56. witsend says:

    style1,
    That is part of it though…..As we reflect back on our past experiences (relationships) they do REALLY tell us something about ourselves….We need to LISTEN to what we see in our past. Or we will keep repeating.

    I don’t know how old you are…..But when we are very young and start out the “dating pool” is very full…..Lots and lots of “availale” choices.

    That old saying that “all the good ones are taken”….Has an ounce of truth to it. There are still some “good” ones OUT there as time progresses. But less, (math is INVOLVED to an extent) as there are ALSO alot of other womens “rejects” in the dating pool as the pool gets smaller. Add the rejects, plus the men that are married but “looking” for something on the side…..Well the reality is that it pays to be careful.

    If your gut feeling in the past has always heeded you warning then maybe you are attracting the type of person you don’t really want in your life.

    I know in my own experience I have done just that. I attract EXACTLY what I don’t want. Alcoholic tendancy…..This has repeated itself in my life over and over again. Until I closely examine myself, and how this happens, I am pretty sure it will happen again.
    The only person I can change is me. If I involve myself in a relationship and ignore my compass early on than there is something very important that I didn’t learn from my past experience.
    And I think that is what we are all here trying to figure out.
    We are all “works” in progress…..

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 2:20pm

57. Easy says:

    And the Spaths have that heightend awareness of the emotional ( weakness ) in others because they are completely absent of it in their own Hearts! They have learned the words but there is no meanning in them for them!

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 2:20pm

58. style1 says:

    Yep.. when I started out I brought to me exactly what I didn’t want.. alcholics and got past that.. then I had a stepdaughter whose mother busted the h out of everything and I vowed no more of this mess.. but now, men have all these ex wifes and even old men have younger kids.. it is sickening.. I like kids but dealing with the exs and all is like hell… and I vowed that I will never do it again… then I dated an older man with two younger sons and we had great fun.. he was the issue..but his ex and I and the kids still are friendly.. she thanked me for being so good to her kids… and the oldest boy thanked me for always doing the right thing.. can’t get much better than that.. then I had a fun affair with a younger man that had never been married and it was fun romantic, very sexual and over.. then I met this last man.. that I have been writing about with ALLLLL the issues with kids and everything else.. And I had prayed to God for a spiritual man.. and this man was and moral.. extremely spiritual and it freaked me out… we had sex like once in a year.. it was the strangest relationship that I have had in that area.. he was handsome and physically fit and I wasn’t attracted to him in that way.. and he always had some issue.. and one of the things that I want is a close sexual connection but it has to be emotional also… so I don’t know anymore…why would he stay in a relationship with no sex.. I was miserable…I want to scream why is it all so complicated.. I am off to get a Starbucks…

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 2:41pm

59. one_step_at_a_time says:

    Prior to being on the site i met my spath on, I was involved with ttwo groups over many years: one predominantly made up of people I already knew in hardcopy and didn’t often have a chance to see. The other, and the first, were a caring group of people who had all suffered a certain type of loss. I went on to meet most of those people, and am still in touch with one or two many years later.

    I went on to FB about two years ago when I was out of the country and wanted to keep in touch with some friends who were sharing photos. I just logged in to see what was new, and I couldn’t find the profile of one of my best friends on my page. Ity freked me the f**K out. About 2 weeks ago, someone else had disappeared from my FB page. I think I was ‘unfriended’. And the only reason I can see why is that I posted a few things about the very dire situation I am in, and had posted a couple of things about my spath when ‘he died’.

    My friends in the city i live in are struggling majorly with there own health and financial situaiotns. I know they are tired to death wit this rollercoaster ride i have been on. The friend i thought might have unfriended me today (and he did not) came to my place th eother night and saw how i was really living – windows wide open, fans blowing, little heater on in the room i am using. I am completely sick with the mix of off gassing construction materials and the cig smoke, pot and air freshener now coming from the new downstairs neighbor’s apt. I had rallied mightily to move into this new place to get away from smokers at my last place – after exhausting every legal avenue open to me. Had no idea that the materials would fell me, nor that the new landlord had no intention in keeping his promise for the building to remain smoke free.

    I do not have enough money to pay my rent this coming month or my very late very expensive utiility bill. I always rent out a room, and I haven’t been able to for two months. I have tipped over the edge. I am really frightened. I have always been a responsible person and played by the rules. I injured myself a few years ago, and had to give up my business, heal and find a new liviehood. I am in a small city (family who are ill are here and I stayed to help. (And no, they are not helping me now -one is not cognitively aware enough, the other, has their own N tendancies) There is little work here. I have had several contracts, followed by stretches of looking. I have debt. I have never had debt. I am just about maxed out. I have a contract that expires in feb.

    …..and the shit left by all of this and the spath – i feel so at risk in almost every way – made me think/fear one of the people i am closest to , would just drop me. well, I am well and trul fucked with obviously. I am in kind of a fear/paralysis loop. I work form ‘home’, but i cna’t BE at ‘home.’ And this lying sack of shit, the spath, had offered to help when the inheritance came in. okay, on this one point (i don’t really blame myself for having been targeted) i WAS stooopid. anger and fear, andger and fear, twined together.

    I am so lucky i don’t have a car. Cause it is less than 24 hours to drive to my spaths home. my situation – i have been trying for months to keep it together, find resources, find help – then ‘he died’ and resurected and there was amix up in some papaerwork for my pay and i din’t get paid for a month – and i fucking tipped over the edge and i can’t get back up the incline.
    and there would be no better diversion distraction than going after her sorry ass.

    my job is pretty highpowered and i am underdealines and have to deal with great numbers of ‘competeing forces’ within the org every day. and i am just falling apart. i keep sewing my game face on everyday…and when i finally do get focussed i calm – but then i remember the spath shit and my housing and financial situation and i just lose it all over again.

    i am sitting at a local college typing this. i cannot just break down. i spend so much time trying to contain all of this, it takes an enourmous amount of energy. one of the reasons i haven’t outed the spath on the website where we met and she continues, is that there were threats around work and that is just despicable. the ONLY place she could hamstring me. and she knows how desparate i am. Would she do something? don’t know. I am trying to check out the story of one of her other dupees and am having a really hard time verifying HER sory cause the folks I have called repeatedly haven’t called me back. (there is a newspaper article linkking the spath and the dupee and the duppee has gone after the spath legally) And i am having no luck with the endless round of voice messages at various courts trying to verify the court case. WHT is thei important? Cause i need to find out what the spath did to her when she outed her. and i want to help the other dupee in any way – being able to verify that the spath is still active might help her fraud case. I have thjings from the spath that tie the two stories together – no contest that it is one and the same. I need to move forward on this so badly. BUT I WILL NOT TURST THAT THE NEWSPAPER ARTICLE, ETC. ARE REAL until verified by a second source. CAUSE I WANT TO BE CAUTIOUS THIS TIME. Cause what if it all a BIG scam? I know i am a paranoid. sigh…but that doesn’t mean that this would be beyond her.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 2:48pm

60. one_step_at_a_time says:

    i deeply wanted to be rescued. i have always been deeply independent. i have tried and tired and life has been very trying in the last few years. i am tired out. ‘he’ was going to rescue me.

    i finally let myself want that. and i was dealing with a spath. f**ker.

    it would be foolish to write how i would like to respond to the falsity of that promise.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 2:57pm

61. one_step_at_a_time says:

    matt wrote in another thread about the spath abusing/dishonoring his beliefs. (something close to that) when i read it, it was like a little pierce to the bubble of pain – I guess i must hold my beliefs very close – cause it bothered me most that what she has done has dishonored the beauty and the possibility and the nobility of questing for those things. i KNOW its not personal. it wouldn’t matter what my beliefs were; they were just fodder for the b*s*.
    but that’s where i understand what she did, as ‘what she did to me.’

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 3:09pm

62. amber says:

    Wit,
    So true about the animals. My puppy would pee everywhere whenever he walked in the door. I have other male friends that she adores and didn’t cause her to react this way. I would observe her around men, and she made it very clear who she liked and disliked. And cleary something about my ex made her so scared that she pissed herself. Intersting.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 3:17pm

63. one_step_at_a_time says:

    i realize that i now hear myself through the of calculation – my motives were not sick, hers were. Its like she has flipped in to me in some way… like the kind and loving things and genuinely motivated things i did (and thought ‘he’ was doing), I am now seeing as manipulative in me. F**ked with my sense of reality and self trust by mirroring my hopes and desires and way of relating to people – but done as a ’skin’. ahhh, now i understand why (skylar’s?) the post about having her spath mirror her clothing choices so creeped me out. it’s just a mimic – a skin – instead of being a ‘real’ person. okay, i thin kthis is the chilling thing that people who have never dealt with react to about spaths.

    whew.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 3:35pm

64. OxDrover says:

    Dear One step,

    When we are most vulnerable, most in need of real caring, that is when they pounce.

    They can pick out someone with a “wound” even a tiny one that makes them vulnerable, like a lion can pick out the ONE weak animal in a herd of 1,000, that slight advantage gives them a better chance of nailing us, just as it does with the lion.

    so if we are weary and tired and struggling with anyting that is the time they will KICK US WHEN WE ARE DOWN, all in the guise of ‘rescuing” us…SICK!

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 4:01pm

65. one_step_at_a_time says:

    @OxDrover
    (btw: how did yo come up with your name? I know what a drover is – not something one runs into in NA in the 21st C. very often.)

    uh-huh, not more things are flooding back: the VERY first offer was around specific bodywork skills ‘he’ had developed, that would greatly benefit me, and how ‘he’ had been i service (don’t ask) to one person for so ong and now that he was dead blah blah blah, he could use his skills to help many. F**ker! I AM very service oriented. F**ker! (there is satifaction in banging that out on the keys).

    ‘he was gonna heal me, help me, flirt with me and we would live as one big family……………and Then, and THEN, the dreaded {fill in the name of 5 potentially life threatening diseases here} started to take ‘his’ energy (I HAVE TO remember the italics around ‘him’, cause ‘he’ still feels real to me. I had a relationship with a spath and a reflection of myself!

    must say, I found me pretty attractive.

    I met her 2 months after my N ex of a year or so left my house after she raised her fist to me. So, I was in a VERY weakened state. may I say, yet again and definitely NOT for the last time: F**ker!!!!!!!

    thanx.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 4:13pm

66. Stayingsane says:

    one step

    Yes the mimickry thing is creepy. The P used to mimmick my love of animals. He would send me pictures of animals, talk about wild life and pretend to like my cats. His sister told me she knew he was “copying me” because he was never like that normally. He couldn’t care less about animals. This was one of the factors that broke us up. He was fishing all the baby fish out of a local lake…he would put live crab (bait) in the freezer, he would break crabs alive and stick em on the end of a hook, he treated his 3 dogs really badly, never taking them for walks (they were in a kind of cage in his garden, a big space but they were demented) I can safely say today I would have nothing to do with this creep. He is BAD NEWS. I wish I could post it loud and clear and maybe I will, but make no mistake he is a cruel sadistic low life con man and PRETENDS TO BE REALLY NICE!!!

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 4:49pm

67. one_step_at_a_time says:

    stayingsane

    the woman, who is my spath has been doing this with serial dupees for decades…so I am thinking what she FIRST brings to the table when she is ‘the sympathetic one’ is made up of copied lives of the other people she has f**ked with.

    there is a ’stealing’ in this. taking what she wants for her own devious use, without any idea that the meaning it has to the dupees is important to them. somehow this sounds like rape to me: to take surreptitiously without regard of the person taken from, for use in deceiving and reeling in another person.

    sigh. another reason i need to talk to her other dupee who is public. i need to know what was brought to me from her – cause the nice of the spath, the sympathetic of the spath actually belongs to her dupees. So, yes she has stolen from me and will use the richness i gave to ‘him’ to hurt another.

    i will consider some very public outing of my spath when the time comes. i was thinking oprah. it’s a very long and complex story – right in her backyard.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 5:04pm

68. one_step_at_a_time says:

    i am working on a cv and as I write in a focused and fairly relaxed way my mind will offer up some insight. here’s the latest: as I continue to VERY importantly reference ‘him’ in italics as SHE is what real, I recognize the difference in emotion solicited when i write him, ‘him’ and her.

    SHE is a rather overweight woman, and he was touted as very slight – unhealthily so – and sitting here exploring how this difference in the pronouns and bodies fit together for me, I ’saw’ an image in my mind of him trapped/being inside of her. I harbour this idea yet.

    he does not. exist within her. they have a few things in common that i am aware of but HE is a composite of others. HE doesn’t exist within her. HE is not alive. Only within me and those that came before.

    this is going to tak a while.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 5:31pm

69. geminigirl says:

    Dear Spirit 40.The only other womans trash that wont turn out to be a treasure, is if she passes on her spath to us!
    That particular trash will always be trash,–take it to the tip and dump it, I say!Love and {{{HUGS}}} to all! Gem.XXX

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 8:13pm

70. geminigirl says:

    One step, I think they,{the spaths} are attracted to the “Light” in us, -the genuine love, empathy, warmth, etc.They dont have it, have never had it, will never have it, but they want it. They are attracted to it like a Moth to a candle flame.They steal our light,bask in it for a while, enjoy its glow, but they can never manufacture their own light.
    They rob us of our light for a while, leaving us drained and empty. BUT we CAN, when we recover from them, create our own light AGAIN, when we have healed from their evil body/mind/spirit rape.Thats something they can NEVER do. They are really sad creatures, but, hey, dont feel sorry for them, feel sorrier for US, we need to RUN Run Run from them!
    As Oxy has said, its lie trying to make friends with a snake or a scorpion, its not going to grow fur and love you back, like a puppy! The bite, they sting, this is what they do! NC Nc NC -its working for me!!{{HUGS!!}} Gem.XX

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 8:23pm

71. one_step_at_a_time says:

    gemini girl, i read the typo as ‘a lie trying to make friends with a snake or a scorpion’. And i TOTALLY dig that!

    in her totality she ‘WAS a lie making friends with a venomous snake / spider’: dangerous and false.

    Awesome!

    and the original with ‘like’ is really good – the contrast of soft and cuddly vs. dangerous very well done.

    okay, gotta get back to work. have a good night.
    one step

    (Report abusive comment)

    Sunday, 29 November 2009 @ 8:42pm

72. geminigirl says:

    Dearest One step, your right, it wasa typo, but I decided to leave it! Like you said, THEY are a lie. Im still coming to terms with the fact that both of my adult daughters are Spaths. One is 43, the other is 45. As Oxy says, her son, the one in jail for murder, is now DEAD to her. She has 2 normal sons, thank God! I am only just now, at 70, starting to come out of the FOG,{fear, obligation and guilt} that Ive been in for 30 years with my daughters.As Oxy said again,”The truth will set you free, but first it will pith you off!!” So true.
    God has given me a brand new family. I have my lovely 2nd husband, and I met this fantastic young couple from Iran a year ago, on my flight home to Australia from Dubai. Roya is 24,Abbas, her husband, is 25. They have kind of adopted us as family and we have adopted them! They are so sweet and appreciative of all we do for them, and in one year, I can honestly say that Ive had more love and affection, hugs and kisses, fun, and laughter in ONE YEAR than Ive ever had from my 2 Narc opaths in 30 years! I finally realise what Ive been missing. I am happy, I love my 2 new “kids”, I am so grateful for them in my life!! I havent seen my younge daughter in 17 years,nor seen her 3 kids ONCE in all that time{her choice.]. My older daughter, I havent seen since 8th Dec.,08. Even that wasa con. She conned A$200- from me so she could rent a car to come with the 3 kids to pick up their Xmas presents. I since found out you can hire a car from A$50- a day! She also conned A$700- from me to pay her rent for 2 weeks. I havent seen her since I wrote to her in June this year, saying”The Mum bank is now closed, permanently”,and setting a boundary, only one apology for all the rotten lies, fraud, con tricks, etc she has pulled on me for the last 25 to 30 years. So far, silence. i have to now come to terms with the fact she may NEVER ever apologise,and so I may never see her again.
    Its still hard, she is still my daughter, and it still makes me sick to my stomach how both my girls have turned out.
    They are not sweet loving little girls any more, they are horrible people.Sad, but true.{{HUGS!!} gem.XX

    (Report abusive comment)

    Monday, 30 November 2009 @ 5:05am

73. one_step_at_a_time says:

    My gramma (in her 90’s) has adopted some new kids from another country, also. It’s been really good for them all.

    didn’t know the expansion of the acronym for FOG. Thank-you.

    I am starting to see lots of my relationships in the posts here. My dad. sigh.

    And flashbacks to my last gf, the first in 18 years. I beleive she is an N.

    I am sorry, it must be very painful to lose your daughters. My mom is alive, but cognitively absent due to illness, and it is very hard to lose her.

    I am in this dire financial situation. health impaired and threatened…and my dad doesn’t care., on so many levels he doesn’t care.

    best,
    one step.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Monday, 30 November 2009 @ 2:34pm

74. one_step_at_a_time says:

    oops, forgot to write @ geminigirl at the top of my last post!

    (Report abusive comment)

    Monday, 30 November 2009 @ 2:35pm

75. Sarasims says:

    I don’t understand myself. I can talk the talk but not walk the walk. I so badly want to be over all of this with the SP. It’s been another start at NC. Almost 1 1/2 weeks. But seriously, it’s been on and off like this for almost a year now. Why can’t I pick myself up and move on? The last time we spoke, I told him off, and here I am wanting to apologize. After I got my last word, now I feel badly. How ridiculous is that?

    I guess bc there’s so many things screwed up about my life. I’ve been so focused on the SP that what most of you don’t know is that I essentially walked away from a wonderful husband of 17 years, giving up on our family, our kids and everything to be with this no good loser. In the beginning, he promised me a rose garden, but he taught me over time that he would give no more to me than he wanted. I had a husband who gave me everything. Anything I could possibly think of – he gave. And asked so little in return. And bc things weren’t just perfect btw us, I let the SP in and have nothing but mass confusion in my mind and heart to show for it. He knew just how to pick up the pieces where my husband fell short. He made me think HE was the knight in shining armour.

    What does this say of me? That I’m selfish, greedy, self-centered? He (my husband) wants to make it work, but I’m so hung up over my failure with the SP that I can’t seem to normally exist. I can’t make love to my husband and feel fulfilled. Or feel like I’m there for him emotionally the way he needs me to be. Simple tasks with my children are so difficult to get through. And any little familiarity of a memory shared with the SP turns out to be an all day depression session for me.

    This entire healing process has been so difficult. It feels like no matter what I do….I will always be empty and cold inside. Nothing seems to phase me, nothing makes me happy or content and I’m so afraid this will never end.

    Was this whole SP thing a mid life crisis (Im 39)? Do I want him so badly bc he DOESN’T want me? Not the way I want him! Or I guess he can’t want me that way bc he doesn’t know how. Is it a case of – bc I can’t have it I want it even more?

    My favorite time of year has always been Christmas and I don’t even feel motivated to exist. Has ANYONE ever been in a situation like this? If you have, pls share with me and tell me how you handled it. I’m so at a loss!

    (Report abusive comment)

    Monday, 30 November 2009 @ 4:15pm

76. luv716 says:

    Sara, I feel your pain I’m so sorry your going through this hurt. You have to be strong and move on girl, life is so short. I hurting so bad also but you can lean on my shoulder if you need too. A sure fire way to help you stay strong is think of all the S has done to you. It’s so hard to forgive the son of bi**ch because you know in your heart you dont deserve to be treating the way he’s treating you, Ask your self what did I do to this dude to make he treat me like this I bet you will say nothing. We gotta stop blaming ourselves for this fu*k up individuals, we have too.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Monday, 30 November 2009 @ 4:56pm

77. witsend says:

    Sarasims,
    I know that I have said this before but it is worth repeating.

    You have to start somewhere and the very best place to start is to start treating this as an addiction. You are obsessing over an addiction. And that is exactly what we do when we are addicted to something…..Obsess.

    We go over and over it in our minds and it never stops unless we take some difficult steps.
    The first step is actually admitting that you are powerless over ______ (fill in the blank) And that your life has become unmanageable.

    I know your not at an AA meeting Sara, but an addiction is an addiction. And I SWEAR to you if you can treat him as if he were a drug, you will at some point be free of this powerless feeling. Right now he has that power over you.

    One of the things that you want to look at is how you are trying to approach this as if your dealing with a “logical” person…… Your not thinking of him as being “bad” for you. (such as a drug) He isn’t NORMAL so your saying anything to him, even telling him off does not warrant an apology. You owe him nothing. The only person you owe anything to right now is yourself. And you deserve a S/P/N free existance.

    If you can find it within yourself to accept the fact that he is a S/P/N or TOXIC to you (your drug) then you can honestly realize that N/C is the only way to free yourself from his “hold” on you. You can NOT recover and continue to “use” your drug of choice.

    If you even entertain the idea to long in your head that you owe him an apology or you need to get closure or anything at all such as this….You are treading in dangerous territory.

    AA calls it “stinkin thinkin”. The reason you don’t want to entertain these thoughts is that they can lead you somewhere you don’t want to go.

    An addict will justify in his head(“stinkin thinkin”) many reasons why he can use again without getting hooked. And none of it has any LOGIC behind it. However in his mind is seems “logical” to him.

    That is what addiction does. It actually robbs us of being able to think clearly, and to use logic. It distorts our abilitys. It tempts us and taunts us and really distorts our thinking.
    Addiction has that much power.

    If you could remember all the BAD stuff he did to you. The abusive behavior. The ugly dark side of him……It would be easy to stay away. However your mind is addicted to the “illusion” he created. NOT what he really is.
    That is the same thing a drug addict is addicted to. The illusion of the drug…..Not the reality of the drug.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Monday, 30 November 2009 @ 5:49pm

78. OxDrover says:

    Dear Onestep,

    How did I pick my name? Simple, I AM An OX DROVER—I trained oxen (any breed of cattle trained to work, it is a type of JOB Description not a specific breed) and pulled a wagon with them for living history demonstrations. Oxen are actually quite common in the NE part of the country (US) and actually are still the primary draft animals in 3rd world countries. There are still oxen working today in the US—mine didn’t do much actual work, though I did do some log pulling with them and pulled the wagon. They actually have advantages over a tractor for some things, as you can start and stop them from down on the ground, they work to VOICE command so you can follow along behind the sled or wagon and start and stop them as you lean down to pick up a rock or load something on the sled or wagon.

    I no longer have oxen, but have mammoth (horse sized donkeys) now named Fat and Hairy. I miss the slow and patient oxen but the danger of being sued by some nut case who walked up under them was too high, and in Arkansas there is a law that says if you are too stupid to know a mule, horse or donkey can hurt you, you are NOT ALLOWED to even file a suit. It is called the “equine exemption” but there is not one for working cattle. It is a shame.

    Sara, You hjave been give some good advice, and believe it or not this is not about a “choice between your P and your husband” you know you do NOT have to choose either one.

    In fact, it sounds to me like maybe you need to be assessed for possible antidepression medication and also some COUNSELING and maybe couples counseling IN ADDITION to private counseling.

    I hear your pain and to live in that kind of pain, well, it juist HURTS but it doesn’t have to be forever.

    Get some help in Real Life—even if you can’t save your marriage, SAVE YOURSELF. (((hugs )))) and God bless.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Monday, 30 November 2009 @ 8:11pm

79. one_step_at_a_time says:

    Ox Drover’
    Awesome; learning to drive horses is on my bucket list. I grew up with horses and dairy cattle…and i wouldn’t have even tried to yoke a holstein! I do however have a shy appreciation for wild cattle.

    one step

    (Report abusive comment)

    Monday, 30 November 2009 @ 8:20pm

80. Sarasims says:

    Witsend, I can promise you that your words do not fall on deaf ears. And for your repetitive nature….I am truly grateful. I fully agree with you and know it is an addiction. I have know since the “beginning” of the end. When I disconnected the phone we shared it was the hardest thing ever. I kept it for so long hoping he would still text. Just “seeing” a text or email was an automatic “high”. “Oh – he IS thinking about me.” I would constantly be left analyzing what each text meant bc he was always changing directions…..the way he acted. It was his gradual “wiening” of the attention he showed me. Enough to keep me hanging but not enough to be bothered. I WAS obsessed. Me…so strong and smart. Such an altogether woman. Had so much going for me. Then, turned to puddy in his hands. It was and is an addiction. Each different aspect in its own right. The phone, the time we spent together, shared secrets, everything. I couldn’t get in a car without longing to text him or hear from him on our drive home. It hurt so badly.

    I see the different things he does now. I hear what he says (when he actually speaks to me) about other people. The other woman that he left me to be with…..he talks about her like she’s crazy and everything is her fault……just bc he’s done with her. I know everytime he comes back he’s just “passing through” with no intention to love or even try. And I’m sure he speaks the same way about me to others. He has no respect for me or anyone else for that matter. One of his “women” even tried to pick a fight with me one time. He was there and wouldn’t even step up to my defense. And this is when we were together and he “supposedly loved me”. He is a coward but wants everyone around him to think he is all that!

    The picture has become all too clear. And relating to the article above I CAN go 1/2 days, sometimes even whole days without even thinking about him. But it’s the EMPTY and COLD feeling that won’t leave me. The feeling that makes me feel hate toward everything around me. The bad mood that I feel like I’m ALWAYS in. The feeling like I’m never content. Like nothing is ever good enough. He has brought all this out in me. I was NEVER this person before. And I don’t understand if it’s bc I’m trying to hold onto “HIM”….the freaking SP!!! Is this normal? I get it….I get it very well…..but I can’t seem to let it saturate into my brain. I just get so ANGRY with myself bc I feel like I’m this broken record-stuck in the same spot OVER and OVER again! And boy….I’d like to yank it off the player and break it over my knee!!!

    I know I need to save myself but I don’t know how. But I’m pretty sure that a step in the right direction would be NOT ever apologizing!! And I haven’t yet. I’ll give myself that….before I would just fire off an email without even giving it a second thought. But I haven’t done that yet.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Monday, 30 November 2009 @ 8:24pm

81. witsend says:

    Dear Sara,
    Sara your intellectual side “knows” but your heart hasn’t caught up just yet. And everytime you let yourself
    “go there” listening to his messages, having any kind of contact at all…It’s like you are starting at square one again.

    That empty and angy feeling you are having is actually like having withdrawal symtoms. Its like cravings.
    And HE DID bring all of this out in you. But it will and it can get better.

    You are at the early stages again…..If you give yourself a little more time with N/C and you are still feeling really bad about yourself then it might help if you went to your doctor to see if you need an antidepressent.
    This might help take the “edge” off and once you take the edge off and get a real grip on this YOU CAN DO IT
    Don’t doubt yourself…..Don’t GIVE him that.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Monday, 30 November 2009 @ 8:56pm

82. almost_free says:

    Louise,

    Thank you for such a wonderful article! I am going to send this to a few close friends who are going through difficult times and having trouble moving on. Being free from the sociopath is the best thing that ever happened to me. I survived abuse, and I’ve come out the other side just fine.

    I am now free and grateful for this second chance at my life.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Tuesday, 1 December 2009 @ 2:57pm

83. teacher123 says:

    Sarasims,
    Best wishes to you as you get yourself together. We have all been where you are at, but I say go for your family. Some of your story about this guy is very troubling. When you say that some of his other women (how many are there?), tried to pick fights with you and he didn’t even stand up for you. It is not a leap to say that you could be killed and he would not care. It sounds much like Clara Harris who ran over her husband in Houston, TX. She, the wife of many years fought with her husbands mistress, and he stood up for the other woman. How devastating, and almost justified homicide. I am not trying to judge you in any way as i am a sinner if you will. But this guy is not all that, not for you anyway, you are way better than him. I almost lost my family over a similar female species even though i fell short of sleeping with her, I was wrong. My family is a source of nonstop love and joy, and they are truly awesome. I almost forgot that.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Wednesday, 2 December 2009 @ 1:16am

84. OxDrover says:

    Dear Teacher,

    I just wanted to tell you that I have read several of your posts, and your compassion and understanding for other bloggers is very very nice. Your advice is also very good. Thank you for being here! The male “point of view” is helpful here and I wish there were more men like you here, several of the men who used to be here for a long time have moved on and no longer post her, just Henry and Matt and maybe 1 or 2 more, but anyway, glad ALL you guys are here!

    (Report abusive comment)

    Wednesday, 2 December 2009 @ 11:54am

85. Sarasims says:

    Dear Teacher, yes it is very nice to have the male perspective as Oxy says. And for that, I appreciate you sharing.

    I am such a trusting sole….bubbly, full of energy, compassion towards life and the people that are so special to me….or so I used to be – that it isn’t surprising to me to find myself in this position at all. Although I’ve never know a SP or been this closely entwined with one. Now when I meet people that seem so intune with me….I think in the back of my mind, is this real or just an act? It breaks my heart to think that people can give so much of themselves and then this happen.

    I am with my family and doing my best to overcome. This is where I want to be but I feel so bad about my relationship with my husband. At the time this relationship began, we had everything in life we had hoped for. Our goal of a new home, three great children, good jobs, a bright future for all of us on the horizon. EXCEPT that my husband seemed to have forgotten I existed and did not appreciate anything I did for him or our family. And the SP did a great job of convincing me of that further…..and convincing me of how much he did appreciate me (for a while anyway). I can completely understand what you mean by joy and love but I am having such a hard time reconnecting with my husband. I believe bc I was convinced of what a horrible person he was by the SP and everytime we fight….I see those sides of him that were the reason I ventured in the first place. It’s all SO very confusing and painful.

    The SP is the worst form of a human I could ever imagine coming into my life. But I’ve had my day in court with him (so to speak)…when I told him off but good. It felt so incredible. But of course, now I find myself feeling awful bc that is not the type of person I want to be. I do realize I should be thankful for that opportunity bc it is what I wanted for so long…..and just let it be. You’re right, he could care less if I was dead or alive. He’s had so many woman that it’s unbelievable!! When we were together he tried to convince me that he was a changed man and that now that he had found me he had been reborn and given a new chance at life and love. That was until the next woman came along! I keep analyzing it in my mind….even though he’s married, he claims to be detached. He’s just a warm body for the kids to call dad. Then he found another woman to give him money and he wanted me around to give him sex. God only knows how many others there were. He even told me in the beginning that he had slept with over 100 women!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And he was so ashamed of it. Yeah right! And he has children with other women that he fathered while married. Is it just the craziest thing you ever heard. In my normal mind, a man like this would have scared me out of my wits. But he wouldn’t tell me all at once. He told me the layers had to be peeled away a little at a time. That’s bc he wanted to hook me first. I see that now!

    I’m just rambling but it’s still all so unbelievable.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Wednesday, 2 December 2009 @ 2:59pm

86. teacher123 says:

    Sarasims,
    Not unbelievable at all. My experience was very similar- without sex. This girl who I worked with very closely became a good friend ( so I thought), but she almost from day one pumped me up verbally. She also would show/flash her breasts almost daily to me which were very hard to look away from. This went on for nearly 2 years, and when I broke down and told her how I felt she went full force into humiliating me and even had another “friend” of ours accuse me of harassment. I would never have done that had I not been convinced in my mind that she really did care for me. But I was totally blind to the fact that she was also playing many other men, students, and other women on our staff as well. I guess it took me awhile to recover because it seemed like a car crash. After she mocked me and ignored me to my face- we would talk and plan together and our classrooms were next to each other- it hurt me. I cried in front of her. There were many other things she did also to hook me before I made the mistake of telling her that I cared for her. She would call me in the middle of our classes and ask for advice on things and sigh like she wished I was with her. She would grab me by the hand and walk me around the school like I was her boyfriend (she was married as well). She used to ask me personally every week to go out for a drink on Fridays (which I did many times with other teachers too). After she moved she never overtly tried to contact me, but she made it known through our other “friend” that she was going to come to a teacher meeting she knew I would be at. It was so obvious it was for my benefit, but I avoided her altogether. She was even pregnant at the time. I almost lost my career, and my family over this person. It was hard realizing that she did not care one bit, and that she did all of this just for fun? It is hard to imagine that people do things like this, but then I almost hurt my wife in an unimaginable way too.
    OxDrover,
    Thank you for the kind words, but I try to empathize/sympathize with people as I am borrowing a line from someone, “after all they are my species”.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Wednesday, 2 December 2009 @ 4:55pm

87. Sarasims says:

    Teacher, I guess you DO know all too well. I keep thinking in my mind that people will think I’m CRAZY when I outline exactly all of the chaos in this man’s life and the way he seems to thrive for more and more. But people here really do get it bc we all know one – unfortunately. Looking back I see exactly how he got me so sucked. He’s such trash…..someone I would have never given a second look at when I was looking for a husband to spend my life with. He intrigued me and hooked me from the beginning with his false sense of charm! A charm that quickly faded into the ugly mask that it is. I should understand now why one of his favorite symbols was the one used in theater with the 2 faces one happy/one sad sort of evil faces. I’m sure they have a name but I don’t know what it is.

    There was a time that I don’t think I could have ever forgiven my husband if the situation were reversed. But he has extended the hand and is willing to work on things. All this time I’ve been obsessing over the SP and my husband has been “obsessing” over me…it feels like an endless cycle. One with no winners. And the SP walks off like the king of the world – having conquered another.

    BTW…I know how horrible you felt when she involved your friend and completely humiliated you. The SP did the same thing to me in the end. When he decided he was done with me, he had the OW (woman #3, not the failed wife), call me and tell me he no longer wanted me. That he was now with her and I need to get some self respect and quite stalking him. He needed her is what she told me. After going to a therapist that very day and crashing full force into a brick wall, I picked myself up LOST but with no choice but to move on. Well, he’s been back at my door several times since then..but only for a few days at a time…to get what he wants and then leave me in tears again. he keeps telling me that he realizes what a mistake it was to leave me…but then quickly changes his tune. I don’t know if youve read my other posts but he tells me now “the sex is great but there can’t be any strings and the craziness you cause is not worth it”. How demeaning – huh?

    How can my husband forgive me when I can’t forgive myself and can’t even pick myself up to move forward?

    (Report abusive comment)

    Wednesday, 2 December 2009 @ 6:56pm

88. OxDrover says:

    Dear Sara,

    “How can my husband forgive me when I can’t forgive myself…?”

    The answer to that Sara, is that your husband LOVES YOU, and when you start to LOVE YOURSELF, you will forgive you too.

    I wrote an article on forgiving ourselves, search (here on LF) for Ox Drover and then find the article on forgiving ourselves that I wrote. (((Hugs))))

    (Report abusive comment)

    Wednesday, 2 December 2009 @ 7:45pm

89. OxDrover says:

    ps Sara,

    “The sex is great…but…” Sex for normal people is a BONDING RITUAL BETWEEN TWO PEOPLE WHO CARE FOR EACH OTHER–with the psychopath it is masturbation with a live “blow up doll”—and generally it doens’t matter what the gender or age of the “blow up doll” it is just all about them and them controlling things.

    He just wants a whore he doesn’t have to pay for—because that is what a whore does, she sells sex with NO STRINGS and she gets paid for it. He just doesn’t want to pay cash, he wants you to donate it to him.

    Sara, this man is just looking to get laid, not to make love. Tell him to “take matters in hand and do it himself” and BTW to GO TO HELL on his way!

    (Report abusive comment)

    Wednesday, 2 December 2009 @ 7:49pm

90. teacher123 says:

    Sarasims,
    You can and will survive this. You withstood this joker’s shots at you (funny how in the Bible Jesus equates lying with murder when referring to Satan). Be thankful for the things you still have that he didn’t take from you- that is what helps me. These people are dangerous- in more ways than one. If he did these things to his wife/other women/you- who is not getting crapped on by him? The girl I talked about made me want to feel badly for her husband whom I know she mistreated as on the day of her 1st anniversary he was calling her for her to leave early from school so they could go out of town to be together. She totally blew him off several times, so she could “play” around with my head and others at school. That was more fun for her, and it made her appear superior to her husband which I am sure she felt she was.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Thursday, 3 December 2009 @ 12:56am

91. Spirit40 says:

    Oxy, in reponse to your post to Sara,
    its so creepy… the fact that there is no emotional connection at all….just an OBJECT….how sad not be able to make any real bond ….sometimes it takes a while to figure that one out….

    (Report abusive comment)

    Thursday, 3 December 2009 @ 7:15am

92. OxDrover says:

    Teacher, sara and Spirit,

    Yes, it is “sad” that there are people who “play” others for their own gratification, and in different ways, some of them “get off” on playing others, some “get off” on the feeling of superiority, and some “get off” on the sex and/or control, or lthe humiliation….like Teacher’s “pr%$K tease” and like the others. They don’t they can’t “connect” except by control and/or exploitation. But I do NOT feel sad for them, because in spite of the genetic propensity and maybe some environmental kick in that direction, THEY HAVE CHOICES just like we do, and they KNOW RIGHT FROM WRONG, they just don’t care.

    So in the end, they choose to do this, knowing full well what they are doing, enjoying the glee they feel lfrom a successful accomplishment for them of “winning” in the games they play.

    Sure, I know they are hollow, shallow and pathetic excuses for a human being (at best) and realize I was DUPED, HORN SWAGGLED, BETRAYED, TRICKED, CONTROLED but I choose not to let this RUIN the rest of MY LIFE.

    I can ALSO CHOOSE—and I CHOOSE TO DISCONNECT FROM THEM. Without me being connected to them, witout my pain, THEY LOSE, I WIN.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Thursday, 3 December 2009 @ 8:41am

93. Spirit40 says:

    Oxy, your right I agree its not SAD but sick and twisted… why is it only about the mind games, the fact they like to “win”….if they know right from wrong then why not choose right? when I was doing my research , they call it arrested moral development.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Thursday, 3 December 2009 @ 9:36pm

94. OxDrover says:

    One of the first terms used to “name” what we call “psychopathy” was “moral insanity” and personally I think it fits the best of all, they are MORALLY INSANE, they have NO connection to morality or respect for right, good, just, or fair. If that is not moral insanity I don’t know what is.

    Just as an “insane” person is out of touch with reality and cannot know the difference between what is and what they imagine or see or hear (that no one else can see or hear) the morally insane are out of touch with morality and cannot see that right, fair or just is anything but a loosing proposition, they want what they want right now, and don’t care who it hurts, or at worst, they ENJOY HURTING others.

    At best they don’t care if you or anyone else suffers, and yes that must be an empty life. No matter what they get that they think will “make them happy” it never seems to do so for long.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Thursday, 3 December 2009 @ 9:48pm

95. henry says:

    But they are so convincing at being hurt, at being sorry..Oh those tear’s and the pity….I will never forget it.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Friday, 4 December 2009 @ 12:08am

96. amber says:

    Oxy…in reading your above posts….

    “But I do NOT feel sad for them, because in spite of the genetic propensity and maybe some environmental kick in that direction, THEY HAVE CHOICES just like we do, and they KNOW RIGHT FROM WRONG, they just don’t care.”

    “So in the end, they choose to do this, knowing full well what they are doing, enjoying the glee they feel lfrom a successful accomplishment for them of “winning” in the games they play.
    Just as an “insane” person is out of touch with reality and cannot know the difference between what is and what they imagine or see or hear (that no one else can see or hear) the morally insane are out of touch with morality and cannot see that right, fair or just is anything but a loosing proposition, they want what they want right now, and don’t care who it hurts, or at worst, they ENJOY HURTING others.”

    AMEN!!! AMEN!!! AMEN!!!! It’s like you steal the thoughts right out of my head. Thank you for sharing what I can’t seem to write as intelligently as you do. I too believe moral insanity is the best definition. When I first started doing research and found these terms were interchangable, it was like a light bulb went off. Morally corrupt/insane. PERIOD. Sums it up in a nuttshell.

    I would tell my ex OVER AND OVER. You KNOW the difference between right and wrong. You have free will to make those CHOICES. And choosing to do WRONG again and again, just for your own satisfaction, proves that you have no soul or conscious.
    Thank you for summing up exactly my thoughts and feelings. Such a relief that others think the same way I do. Such a sense of comfort for me.

    One of the first terms used to “name” what we call “psychopathy” was “moral insanity” and personally I think it fits the best of all, they are MORALLY INSANE, they have NO connection to morality or respect for right, good, just, or fair. If that is not moral insanity I don’t know what is.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Friday, 4 December 2009 @ 12:11am

97. amber says:

    Opps…the last paragraph was yours Ox and I meant to have it was supposed to be at the top with the rest of it…anyway..thanks again for writing exactly how I feel.

    (Report abusive comment)

    Friday, 4 December 2009 @ 12:13am

98. Spirit40 says:

    Cat, I agree with your statement “I call them spiritual vampires. They take our energy, time, money, our soul if we let them. They drain us dry and then when they’ve taken it all, they look elsewhere. I told him, to his face at one point, that I saw this and understood it. He HATED that. It was truth, his truth and he didn’t like being found out. He wasn’t sorry by any means that he had done all of this. He was sorry someone had pegged him. I got that too.

    Its scary one day on our way to therapy…. I told him I was going to bring up my concerns, he yelled at me at the top of his lungs… the whole ride there and while in there…. I cried I couldnt get a word in …he was “found out”. He became extremely jealous of my going to school(college) he always wanted me to ask for his “help” with my homework and even if I brought home an A or a B … (living with his BS mind you) I did not “deserve it” cause he is gifted and I am stoopid…. yes I told him I am stoopid for ever loving someone like “you”.
    I dont remember who posted it but they do see the “light” in us and try desperately to steal it for themselves, totally empty though…they try but can’t so they move on and idealize someone else, Oh he has so many “friends” and I supposedly only have one…. I would rather have my 3 or 4 best friends I have known since kindergarten and a couple from my early twenties then a bunch of friends that I con or a (narc supply),do not put up with the bs for long…….

    (Report abusive comment)

    Friday, 4 December 2009 @ 6:43am

99. OxDrover says:

    Dear Amber, thank you, and you are NOT the only one who feels or thinks this way—that is why we are here because others DO understand our experience.

    Spirit, yep, they do NOT like being found out. In the movie, I psychopath” Sam Vaknin got all upset when the interviewer started to expose his FAKE PhD. Even though he had earlier on film admitted that his PhD was faked and that he had not had to go through a REAL PhD program, and laughed, onn the film he still was MAD at being exposed as a FAKE “dr.” LOL

    They don’t make any sense do they?! LOL

    (Report abusive comment)

    Friday, 4 December 2009 @ 12:11pm

100. Cat says:

     Spirit,
     I’ve been calling my ex that for some time now. I should have looked for teeth marks on my neck, except I think I would find more on my heart, in my mind, my psyche, anywhere he struck. I told mine the same and he hated it as well. What you did in the car was bust him and he didn’t like it. I know mine wasn’t sorry for what he had done; he was just sorry he had been busted.
     You are amazing. That you could go to college and get those kinds of grade with him around is incredible. Whenever I did something, no matter what it was, mine did it better and I was stupid, or so he thought. (Go give birth, buddy.) It’s just another con game. I didn’t know I had nice neighbors until he left. I’m finding out I really can live without a man in the house to do a lot of things. I’m learning to do them myself. I’m not stupid either. Life is a lot better than it was.
     I say thank you for this site every day. Whatever I say here, others will understand.

     (Report abusive comment)

     Saturday, 5 December 2009 @ 11:01am

101. Spirit40 says:

     Cat, thank you! for your support…funny mine was 93 in his precentile for being “gifted” I would not call what he has a gift but a curse, yeah he is always smarter than me,did it better too LOL I started to be come curios when my sons friends came over and he was just “hanging out with them” let the kid have fun with his friends , he acted like a big kid ? mind you my son is like WTF ?? is he doing embarrassing me … what nothing wrong with that…. If your so smart than why dont you use your mind and work at a job…that pays you so you dont live off other people. Oh and the mine did it better always.. everything he had perfected…oh he could “show me how to do the dishes” but could he do them when after all his was just sitting around drinking on my couch…Cat… I feel ya what ever I write here others will understand…hopefully cause right now I am exhausted …all my hard work paid off got an A on my dev psych paper….woo hoo zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

     (Report abusive comment)

     Sunday, 6 December 2009 @ 4:16am

102. libelle says:

     Dear Spirit, I would question the 93th percentile. Who did test him anyway?

     My father had a IQ-self-test-book and he repeated the test until he obtained the “Genious-score”! He had to outsmart a client who told him that he obtained a “very clever”-score in one test. LOL. X was also a professor in maths but also good enough to show me how to do the dishes HIS way! Soignez les détails!

     We still have the odd book, and I can send it to you if you need to “prove” that you are “supersmart” as well! (I think frankly you ARE and you do not need such a test as you live up to it). (((Hugs)))!

     (Report abusive comment)

     Sunday, 6 December 2009 @ 4:53am

103. Cat says:

     Yay!!! Spirit! Good for you! libelle is right, you are super smart. It’s a step you took towards self-empowerment as well. And he’s not going to like that. Too bad, so sad. Keep doing what you’re doing. You really ARE amazing!
     I would question that “93″ deal as well. He might be in the 93rd percentile for control and manipulation, but that’s about it. That will get you where? Nowhere, that where, in the end.
     It’s amazing, isn’t it, how they can’t find a job, can’t get off the couch, can’t do an “F”ing thing! Yet they know it all and sit there and critique you while their butt is super glued to the couch. I’m wondering how one learns so much by laying on the couch all the time. My ex is a kid too. He acts like one, but frankly, I think the kids are smarter. Can’t blame your son for his feelings. I would be the same.
     Congrats and hugs!

     (Report abusive comment)

     Sunday, 6 December 2009 @ 12:04pm

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