It’s easy to fall asleep at the wheel on the road of life. To lose consciousness under the seeming weight of sorrows, trials and tribulations pounding you into the dirt. To forget to open your eyes to the wonders passing by. Everyday living has a numbing effect on reality. However, if you’re in relationship with someone who resembles the label of a sociopath, psychopath, narcissistic personality disordered or any other disorderly letter of the alphabet, it’s even easier to forget who you are and where you’re going. Staying awake drifts from your mind as you are drained by the numbing effect of his abuse. The deeper your drift, the further waking up races from possibility.
When we’re in an abusive relationship, we’ll do a lot to avoid waking up, including sleep walking our way through each passing day. But, sleep walking can be deadly. One day can lead to one year which can roll into a decade. Decades pass and you wind up living life on the edge of consciousness, one eye on the door waiting to see what comes in. The other eye is searching for an exit sign, hoping for an opening where it’s the right time, right day, right place to step away, step free, get going away from his abuse. If you are in a relationship where your reasons for staying revolve around slamming doors, fear rising and freedom vanishing, it’s time to wake up and ask yourself, What am I doing?
Yes, it’s hard to leave. Yes, there are 101 reasons why you can’t do it. But, whether you do it today, or do it in a year, the children who keep you there, the financial stress that holds you back, the fear that keeps you shaking, will still be there. Excuses endure. An abuser endures too.
An abuser will do everything he can to make you believe it’s all your fault. He’ll do whatever it takes to convince you that you cannot leave him. Don’t believe him. He’s lying. It’s imperative you face the truth. Prince charming has turned into the prince of darkness. It isn’t some ‘other guy’ hitting you. It’s him. The man you fell in love with. The one who promised to love you ’til death do us part.’ He just forgot to mention, he took the ‘death part’ really seriously. Remember, you didn’t create the monster raging in front of your eyes. And you are powerless to stop him being who he is. Your power lives in stopping his abuse in your life by stepping away from the source of your pain. His abuse.
To end abuse, you must wake-up to its reality
Waking up from abuse isn’t easy. But then, sleep-walking through life is no way to live free of abuse.
Being in an abusive relationship isn’t easy, either, nor is leaving. This isn’t about what’s easy. It’s about what is right. For you. For your children. For your future. It would be nice to keep believing that he has all your answers. It’s just not true. Nobody, regardless of what the abuser says, has your answers. You do. Nobody has the right to tell you where to go, when to go, where to sit, what to wear, what to say. Nobody has the right to tell you who you are. Abusers assume the right and we assume they’re right under the weight of their abuse.
Facing the truth that we have the power to change the abuse in our life, but not the abuser, can be terrifying. It puts us at the centre of our existence, and after having lived so long on the periphery of our lives, it’s frightening to wake-up and claim centre stage. Yet, it’s imperative that we wake up to the truth. It could be a decision between life and death.
Wake-up and make a difference in your life
There is a way to wake-up from the nightmare of abuse and live the life of your dreams. Here are some steps you can take to make a difference in your own life and let go of the difference abuse is making in keeping you stuck in the living nightmare of someone else’s crazy-making antics.
Step 1 No More Lies
Stop and really listen to yourself. Are you afraid? Are you repeating all the bad things he says about you again and again in your head? Are you frightened of speaking up, speaking out, standing up for yourself? If you answered yes, then it’s time to quit lying to yourself and everyone else. What he’s doing is wrong. It isn’t normal. Quit trying to justify his bad behaviour. Quit making you the reason he hits you. You’re not. Quit being the victim of his abuse. When the voices of self-doubt rise up, remind yourself, those are his words speaking, not my truth. Find your own truth. Let go of his lies.
Recently I was working with a woman who had finally left an abusive marriage after 16 years. A single mother of four children, two of them with serious health issues, she struggled with the responsibility of accepting, in staying for those 16 years, she had made choices that affected her life and her children’s lives. But I was a victim, she said.
I’m with Gavin de Becker (The Gift of Fear). The first time someone hits me, I’m a victim. The second time, I’ve made a choice to be there. With that first hit he gave me a clear indication of all that he was capable of. In staying, I chose to ignore the warning. I chose to make a decision based on escalating anger, behaviours that I knew were out of whack with ”˜normal’. Behaviours that scared me. I stayed because I was too afraid to leave.
The woman and I talked about her fears of being accountable in having chosen to stay.
“But that means I asked for it,” she said.
“No.” I replied. “It means you made a choice to believe the unbelievable after he hit you once. You chose to believe, he’d never do it again, thus making it acceptable he’d done it once. At no time, however, does it mean you deserved it. No one deserves abuse. No one deserves to be hit or screamed at or called names. That behaviour is not about who we are, it’s about who they are and what we’re willing to accept. You never deserved to be hit, and you never asked for it. You chose to stay. When we accept responsibility for our choices, we empower ourselves to make different choices.”
That is the gift and power of no more lies. We quit denying our role in staying and applaud ourselves by having the courage to leave.
Step 2 Let go of someday thinking and never say never
Let go of someday thinking and never say never. There is no such time as someday and never never happens. Listen to what you’re saying. Do you think in someday terms? Do you say to yourself, “Someday I’m just going to get up, pick up the kids and walk out of here. I don’t care if I have a penny to my name, if I don’t have a job. I don’t care what the neighbours think or what he says, someday I’m not going to take this anymore.”
A woman I worked with decided one day that she had had enough. Eleven years into the relationship she woke up one morning and realized, he was never going to change. He liked things just the way they were. She packed up her twins, ran to a shelter and has never looked back.
Three years later she says, “I didn’t have any money when I was with him and I didn’t have any money when I left. Nothing was different the day I packed up except I let go of thinking about someday and did it now. My life is way better than it ever was with him. I still don’t have much money, but I’m not being abused. And without his angry outbursts and unpredictable behaviour, I am able to make plans, go back to school, get a job, take care of my twins. I have way more energy and I know I’m going to be okay. I didn’t know that when I was with him.”
He isn’t going to change. He doesn’t have to. And all the wishful thinking in the world will not make it happen someday.
Give it up. Let it go. Shake it out and quit planning on someday. Start planning on the date when you get free. Set a date. A timeline. A target. Plan. If you fear for your life in leaving, don’t tell him anything about your plans. Just do it. There is no such time as someday and never never happens.
Step 3: Find help
We suffer abuse alone — except for our children of course. They’re part of it too but we try not to think of that very often when we’re rationalizing staying for their sake. Mostly, however, we suffer abuse alone, especially in our heads.
We repeat again and again what he said, what he did, what we didn’t do. We talk about if only I had”¦ We think about, one day, maybe. And then we suffer silently in our heads.
To leave, you need help. Get it. Don’t make excuses. Don’t say, but he’ll find out. He’ll know I’m up to something. Be as secretive and cautious as you must, but get help.
After I was released from the living hell I endured for 4 years 9 months with the abusive man who went to jail and is no longer in my life, I realized, he knew I wouldn’t lie to him. He knew I couldn’t lie to him. I believed he was omnipotent. I believed he knew everything I did and said.
He made sure to paint the picture in such a way, I believed he did. Sometimes, he’d phone and ask, “Is there something you need to tell me?”
“I love you,” I’d quickly reply.
“I’m serious. Is there something you need to tell me?”
I’d rack my brain. “No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” my voice more hesitant.
“You know I hate liars. You know I need to trust you completely.”
I’d pause and look back over my day frantically searching for a transgression. Oh no! I’d had lunch with a male friend from work. How did he know? Quietly, I’d tell him the truth. And then I’d apologize. I’d hang up and wonder, how did he know?
He didn’t. He was just really good at making me feel guilty for doing nothing wrong.
I needed help. I never looked for it. Every time I thought about leaving, of contacting someone for help, I’d remind myself of all the lies he’d told me. My phones were tapped. Men were listening in. Watching me. Tailing me. Taking pictures of me unawares. I’d remember the times he phoned and told me he liked the dress I was wearing that day. How did he know? I hadn’t told him and hadn’t seen him. He didn’t have to see me. He didn’t have to know the actual dress. As long as he kept me guessing, I’d never wake up to the realization he’d never actually described the dress I was wearing, just said he’d liked it.
I never went for help. Never reached out. Never asked. I almost died. And through it all, I never gave up my magical thinking that one day, someone, somewhere would make it all stop. Make it all go away. Make him love me again. Make him be Prince Charming again. Make me okay. Maybe even, make him forgive me for having caused so much trouble in his life.
It never happened. I knew what was happening to me was wrong, but I could never face the truth. In running from the truth, I ran into his lies and believed I was the cause of his bad behaviour. I was just the recipient. I was never responsible for his lies. Just my own when I quit believing the truth of what was happening to me, and bought into the lies he told me. His bad behaviour could never stop as long as I stayed with him.
Ask for help. Get informed. Google ”˜how to leave an abusive relationship’. There’s lots of ideas and help online. Make sure you look up what to do to erase your Internet footprints. Make sure you keep yourself safe. And DO IT. You have to take the steps to get free. No one else can do it for you.
Leaving him isn’t easy. Healing takes time, but healing cannot begin until you get free. Whether you do it today, tomorrow or five years down the road, healing will always take time, but it can’t begin until that moment in time when you close the door behind you and leave him and his abuse in the past.
Do it and start healing.
NO!
Don’t bother……it won’t be ‘heard’ as you intend it, and it will only cause you pain with her potential ‘reaction’.
It tends to be only a ‘seed’ planted, of which is not germinated or nutured.
We all understand this feeling and urge, but it’s time you could be spending on YOU and YOUR healing.
It opens up a ‘can of worms’, that tends to bring with it lot’s of other maggots that eat at you……..
The reality is…….we all thought…..we were the ‘one’…..he will love me ‘better’, more yadayada…..and ‘our’ relationshiop is ‘different’ than yours was…….
Your intentions are good….your heart is golden……but spend it on someone who will be sure to listen…….
YOU!
I have really been in that compulsive edgy jumpy place where I wanted to ACT on my instincts….I hadn’t even listened to my instincts when the red flags waved, I brushed them off and resolved to be ‘positive’ and give my “love” the benefit of the doubt…then when the flood gates opened with all the evidence of his lies, and the betrayal…it’s like my instincts went ballistic and I had the detective like antennae out, I was following him on line and feeling like setting him up..I had the exact same dilemma as you…the reason I ended up not doing anything was this:
The P might benefit from me going after him. He might enjoy the importance I was elevating him to in his twisted head…it certainly would make him smile and get his blood running…
The women he abused since me are many…they all seemed to twig it quicker than I ever did!! there is a peculiar lesson to be learned with these monsters and maybe sometimes it’s not for us to intervene IF it means turning on his rage and getting hurt or even killed…Even if you save several women…he will continue to get more. That is what they do and there is always a woman who wants a loving man and THAT is what he poses as… so it’s out of your control.
If you have back up..I mean LOADS of support from family and a strong network of help then you could perhaps do something like expose him for what he is, and try and warn his girlfriend…but YOU must come first at the end of the day, and that means SAFE
The P wanted me to see his “next girlfriend” and wanted to post me an e-mail…he had this sick twisted urge to torture me apparently..and it was another message…saying I dont care about you or any woman..I get them when and where I want…I use them and then find another…smirk smirk….this is ABUSE
No Contact is the most powerful way to break the abusive cycle that tends to want to ACT out in revenge, exposure, wanting to name and shame etc and because these people are more dead than alive they suck up the energy generated and thrive…
The best revenge is to stem the flow of energy flowing out to this situation, and re claim it for yourself….yep it means feeling helpless over the P…and surrendering to a power greater than yourself…tears and Grief will follow…and that’s a sign you are back on track….this is just one opinion out of many…so keep reading and sensing what the right action is FOR YOU!!
keep talking…love and light x
I think the lessons we gain from overcoming that ‘edgy’ ‘jumpy’ place where we have an overwhelming urge to act ‘out’ towards the spath (in an unhealty manner) is absolutley invaluable! For me it taught patience. Something I lacked prior.
Patience is one of the assets I have called on in many many situations I wanted to go ballistic on the spath……patience taught me…..i know better- it won’t serve me in the end.
It’s a real hard lesson….and I have a gf who has learned it too……during her toxic divorce…..and I see me in her in trying times…..and it also reminds me of how we ‘got here’…..gaining patience.
I learned that I NEVER act on my knee jerk or instant emotion and most nothing requires immediate reactions……….I always think, wait, ponder and 99.9% of the time…..NOT acting is the best resource…..and this take patience to go through the process of thinking, waiting and pondering…..it buys you time…..and you change your path…..
The more we don’t act or respond…..and have patience, the more distance we create between us and the spath……
Spaths expect us to react…..and they know just how to respond to their expectations of us, when we fall into that trap…..so…..’shake it up’…..and don’t react……it’s throws em off balance and creates a distance we NEED from them…..
NC is key! This requires patience and self control!
What an awesome article!!!!!!! Every step is so perfectly explained, and each step is non-negotiable.
One of the hardest things for me to accept was that I had to take ownership of my choices – my choice in the ex spath partner, my choice to remain when the obvious was glaring me in the eye, and the choice to “excuse” or rationalize the abuser’s behaviors. THAT was the ugliest part of getting out and getting onto my healing path.
SO many people, including family members, would say, “But, what about the children?” This, up until the point that I began formulating my exit strategy, was the one thing that I clung to: maybe, he’ll change for the children’s sakes, this time. No, no, and NO. An abuser does not change. An abuser typically does not acknowledge the damage that they inflict. And, I have to wonder if abusers aren’t all a type of sociopath, themselves.
NO CONTACT is the only way for me to remain on the healing path. It is an emotional impulse for me to want to “out” the sociopath or “get even.” Yeah, I want everyone to know what these people have done, but to react to that impulse would only bring me down to THEIR level – rumor, badmouthing, mudslinging, etc. What this boils down to is that I am not responsible for educating the world. The people who are currently involved with the spaths that I knew will have to find out on their own. Ranting and raving about what they’ve done to me will only make me look like a complete lunatic. I’ve had enough of them – I just need to walk away, flip them the proverbial bird, and get on with my life.
EB, you explained it very clearly, and it IS a knee-jerk impulse. We have been harmed by these people, and indulging in that impulse would only reiterate why I chose a spath for a friend, business partner, or spouse: I did not exercise self-control in tending to my boundaries. I was flattered by their attention, romantic or otherwise, and did not look further into their motives or their modus operandii.
Thank you so much for this excellent article! Brightest blessings!
I looked at this article, which was written about the time, or a little before I found LF—and I can picture myself sitting there at the lake in my RV, reading and reading and weeping as I read. Mourning the loss of my home and my illusions…
Louise this is THE best description I have seen of what deBecker was trying to say and didn’t say nearly as well as you…..we are responsible for OUR choices to stay after the abuse starts.
It’s odd, or funny, I’m not sure which, but one of the ways I have found to tell a PSEUDO-victim from a real victim is that a psychopath masking as a VICTIM will never NEVER NEVER take responsibility for the choice to stay with the abuser.
Of course in a co-abuser relationship, like gasoline and fire, they set one another off into fearful heats that can consume everything around them. The “loser” of course pretends to be a victim of a psychopath and puts on the “victim mask” but for some reason they will never (at least I have never seen one do so) ADMIT that their OWN CHOICES to stay around AFTER the abuse became apparent were theirs. (there ARE cases where the abuse was NOT apparent to one party, where the psychopath was successfully SNEAKING behind the victim’s back, and those victims had no way of knowing what was going on.)
The PSEUDO-victims though will say “Oh, there was NO WAY I could have known he would beat me again” or “I had kids and couldn’t leave” or some other excuse, but never owning their own choice to stay and stay and stay…or better yet, detailing the nasty things they did to get back at him, “which he of course richly deserved, and anyway, anyone would have gotten back at him with justification”….and so on. WHAT TRIPE! (read tongue in cheek here folks!)
EB, you are SOOOOO RIGHT! Everytime I have acted out of impulse it was the WRONG thing to do!
Thanks for all the support and affirmations about staying in the No Contact zone. This time I am proud of myself for not wanting to contact him and it’s been nearly two months. In the past I would usually cave after a while. He has not attempted to contact me, either, because he was caught in some embarrassing lies which peeled back the facade and showed his true character – or lack thereof. As with many spaths, he hides when exposed.
The strong urge to contact his current girlfriend has passed after thinking about it all week and realizing that it won’t benefit ME in any way. The other posters here are right that the women he is involved with have to find out for themselves. It is very natural to wonder at times if the other woman is getting the relationship I never had with him, but his history shows that could not be the case. I know enough about their relationship to know she will never be able to trust him. And being with someone you don’t trust is a torturous existence. Now I have to close the door on the wondering and release my concerns to the universe!!
Blessings to you all on the long road to recovery and reclaiming your own voice.
Dear Mo152,
Congratulations on the NC—the longer you are NC the easier it will get and I think you are right about the other woman, he will be exactly with her just as much a creep as he was with you, and the next and the next. It is impossible for them to have an honest relationship, actually an honest ANYTHING.
Keep on reading and learning though, as much as we can learn about them (and the red flags) and also ourselves, the safer we will be in the future!
Mo152—I find that if and when the urge comes up to either contact him or try to dig a little deeper into HIS life, I treat it like I do a purchase I might want to make. Leave the store, go home, think about it, get involved in something else, time passes and the realization hits me that I never really needed it, it was just an impulse thing. I am better off without it and the money will be better spent elsewhere.
I can’t and won’t say that I never want to contact him, but the days of NC are like the days of sobriety. One day of relapse and you start back at Day One.
One step forward and no steps back.
I do often wonder how the No Contact thing affects the sociopath? Do they have a short moment of rage and frustration? I have not seen anything on line which talks about this. I suspect they don’t care and just move on to their next scam.
Frank Lee, I’m sure it irks them to no end. Especially since they are in need to control everyone and everything.
Therefore, they did NOT initiate nor approve of the NO CONTACT rule … another did.
I can imagine they do the Tazmanian spin, spurting and gurgling as they have their temper tantrum meltdown until they convince the person that they were wrong to do such a thing to them, them, them.