Lovefraud received the following e-mail from a reader; we’ll call her Lisa. In one short paragraph, Lisa conveyed the betrayal, rage, pain and hopelessness that we’ve all felt:
If a stranger broke into my house and stole all my valuables and then burned the rest. If I was left homeless and broke. I would be angry. I would be damaged. But I would recover. The person who did this slept in my bed and held me tight and told me he loved me every day. He told me that we were moving overseas and that everything should go. Stop paying the mortgage. Sell your furniture for cheap. Burn the rest. I did it. He disappeared with my jewelry and cash. I feel that I cannot recover. I am devastated. I am bitter. I am obsessed with my hatred and can’t smile or laugh. I need a psychiatrist. I dream of stabbing him. I am a loving and forgiving person that can’t find grace. I try to forgive and recognize my own fault. I fail. I need help with this.
Had an unknown criminal ransacked Lisa’s home, she would be justifiably outraged, and perhaps afraid for her safety. But the man who plotted and schemed to crush her was a man that she trusted, a lover who talked about their exciting future together in a faraway land.
It was cruelty beyond belief. It was the shattering of trust.
A few months back I wrote about a book called Legal Abuse Syndrome. The author, Karin Huffer, writes, “the most profound loss is loss of trust.”
That is what makes these experiences so painful. We trusted someone with our hopes, our dreams, our love. That person probably spoke eloquently about trust to us, in words full of shining promise. And it was all a lie.
Now we don’t know whom we can trust. And we’re pretty sure that we cannot trust ourselves.
So how do we recover?
8 steps for recovery
Huffer provides an outline for recovery in her book. Although the steps are geared to helping people recover from the outrages of the legal system, which has a tendency to make our bad situations even worse, I think the steps are useful for anyone recovering from the betrayal of a sociopath.
1. Debriefing. That means telling someone what happened, and that person listening without judgment. This is what we try to do at Lovefraud. We all listen to your stories, and we know what you’re talking about, because we’ve all been there.
2. Grieving. Grief is usually associated with the death of a loved one. But as Huffer points out, it is legitimate to grieve the loss of possessions, or our lifestyle, or our place in the community. Sometimes well-meaning friends or relatives say, “Oh, it’s only money.” This isn’t true. As Huffer writes, “Possessions are the outward manifestations of our inner identity.” We didn’t just lose things. We lost part of ourselves.
3. Obsession. Lisa is obsessed with her hatred of the guy who violated her. Her feelings are certainly justified. The problem with obsession, however, is that it wears you out, and interferes with your ability to regain control in your life. Huffer suggests coping with obsession by compartmentalizing it—only allowing yourself to dwell in it for specific periods of time. “Schedule your way out of it,” she says.
4. Blaming. This means putting blame where it belongs: on the perpetrator. We often feel guilty for allowing the situation to occur in our lives. But we have nothing to be guilty about. We were normal, caring, loving individuals who were deceived. The guilt, anger and rage needs to directed towards the person who deceived us.
5. Deshaming. Before our encounter with the predator, we had certain beliefs, such as “there’s good in everyone,” or “if someone asks me to marry him, he must really love me.” Unfortunately, the dreadful experience has taught us that some beliefs are false and need to be changed. When we do this, we also change our attitude, from “I was a fool” to “I’ve been wronged.”
6. Reframing. The first five steps of the process must be accomplished, Huffer writes, before a person can move on to reframing. At this stage, you can look at your experience, define it differently, and then articulate the wisdom you’ve gained.
7. Empowerment. At this point, you feel focused energy. You take ownership of your problems, determine how you are going to cope with them, and go into action.
8. Recovery. With recovery, you are able to move forward in your life. Sometimes recovery involves forgiveness, but Huffer says it is not necessary. It if far too early for Lisa, who wrote the e-mail quoted above, to attempt forgiveness.
The long journey
There is no expected timetable for moving through the recovery process. We all have different personal histories and face different circumstances. We’ve all had different levels of violation.
Anyone who has been targeted for destruction by a sociopath must understand that it was a profound assault, and it will take time to recover. You may slide back and forth among the stages. So be gentle on yourself, because the journey may be long. If you keep going, in the end you will find peace, built upon new depths of wisdom and understanding.
Then Rperk, you have seen his operating system! He is sorry, then he abuses that. That is just some people’s operating system. ((hugs))
Rperk. Align yourself with people who have an operating system that matches our own – its so much easier. ((hugs))
Four years ago, the ex S had a girlfriend. He told her all sorts of lies about me. She hated me despite never having met me. He encouraged her to write me nasty, vicious letters and to make horrible phone calls to me. Fighting him was bad enough, fighting two of them was sheer hell.
6 months into their relationship, after he had beaten her several times, stolen thousands of pounds from her and left her in debt, she apologised to me.
Yesterday, it started all over again. This time it’s a new girlfriend but the words and the actions are all the same. Do I contact her, send her the documentary evidence I hold against him and try to get her to leave me alone? Or do I ride it out, wait for her to find out what the last one found out?
Beverly-I am trying, trust is still a huge issue for me still. Who is the good person and who is the hurtful person?. Wish that info was stamped on a persons forehead. Haha
uksurvivor: Go to your local police department and document what is happening. The officers will guide you through the steps.
Peace.
Uksuvivor,
For me, I would block the e mails, delete them if you can’t block, not listen to nor read anything that is sent, He is just doing this to “get your goat” as we say here, a form of “revenge”—if you don’t let it get to you, then he has FAILED to hurt you. Those incoming messages can only hurt you IF YOU LET THEM, IF YOU ALLOW THEM. You KNOW who and why they are coming—make yourself blow them off.
HE is not important. You ARE important.
That first other woman callling and apologizing to you is quite nice, really. She obviously didn’t believe a word you said until he tossed her off like he did you, but then she did. This woman won’t believe anything either, but my advise is that YOU don’t need the hassle of trying to “save” every one of his victims for the rest of your life. Obviously you gave him some narcissistic injury so he is trying to return the favor. Don’t let him. Block it out of your mind and get on with YOUR good life! IMHO.
Thanks Oxy
I know that you’re right of course. The reason he’s still coming after me is because we have a son together. I have not allowed access for 3 years now. The S and I live in different countries so it’s relatively easy to keep my son away from him. But, he does know where we live, where my son goes to school and has just found out where I work. The letter was pushed under the door at my workplace. I know exactly what is happening. He is trying to intimidate me into allowing him to see my son because he knows a judge would laugh him out of court if he tried the legal route.
The school knows to deny him access to my son and they inform me every time he turns up at the school fence. I then leave work and go and fetch my son away. My partners at work are aware of the situation and are fully supportive of me. If ever he has the nerve to actually turn up during opening hours, he will be sent away in no uncertain terms! The next thing that he will do (he’s very predictable!) is send anonymous emails to my employer in an attempt to make trouble for me at work.
What really gets me is this. I am a good, kind, hard working respectable person. I had the misfortune to meet this man 12 years ago. I have lived through a complete nightmare but eventually woke up to what was happening and got out. There have been many, many women in his life who have suffered the same as me. None of them though had a child with him so when their time with him was finished, it was finished. They will probably always suffer from their relationship with him to one degree or another, but at least they will never have to see him or hear his voice again. I am trying so hard to rebuild my life after the S but I feel like I am stuck in ‘Groundhog Day’. Why have I got to live my life like this? It feels like I am being punished over and over again for some crime that I’m not aware I committed. It’s hard enough to bring a child up alone, on limited income. Harder still to do it when you’re being constantly harassed, not only by someone you know but also by a complete stranger.
I totally understand why she’s doing it and I also know that the best thing to do is to ignore it – but that’s the intellectual part of me talking. The emotional side of me wants to grab hold of her, scream in her face to leave me alone. Tell her what a fool she’s being and how much he is going to hurt her. BUT. Then he’ll be able to turn to her and say ‘you see, I told you she’s completely mad, bitter, twisted, a psycho’. And that is precisely where these S’s and P’s have us by the balls (metaphorically speaking!).
I pray every day for him to receive his comeuppance so that I can be left in peace.
Dear UK survivor,
Yea, being a single parent, especially with a P-X is definitely a large job, but I am so glad that he does not have access to your son, for that you can be SO GRATEFUL.
I also understand the emotional vs the logical sides of our natures, that means that you are HUMAN!!! I got a kind of round about message about my P-son, who had written to my X-DIL-P angry at her and angry at the entire family because no one is writing to him. Anything to stir up trouble, to vent his spleen, etc. My first impulse was to send him a letter, that was totally the emotional side of me still wanting to tell him off but good, to say, “see what YOU got yourself into now” but my logical side knows that NO CONTACT is like having him on a spit twisting, turning and writhing over a fire because he is not able to get a RESPONSE of any kind. If I give him a response, HE WINS, I don’t. NO RESPONSE is their punishment.
Your X just like my son, I think, wants to believe that he is STILL the center of your universe. My son has been out of my home for 20+ of his 37 years and yet he still imagines that he is the CENTER of my world. It never dawned on him that I have a LIFE, that I didn’t go into cold storage while he was in prison. You haven’t gone into cold storage or hibernation either, you have healed and are going on with a LIFE. YOU HAVE WON, and your X can’t really imagine that you aren’t thinking of him every minute of every day. They are SO ARROGANT they don’t even realize we CAN have lives without them. That we aren’t moaning and groaning in pain without their presence. In reality, it is the other way round, THEY are the ones that want to maintain the connection.
Hang in there suvivor, look at the contact as HIM being without NS and needing it. He is the one that can’t let go because without YOU he is nothing.
I know it is irritating to be constantly feeling threatened by him “appearing” one way or another, but at the same time, in the main though, you are FREE of him. He is most likely going through some kind of crisis in the relationship with the other woman and is using you as a way to make him appear better to her. Of course be cautious, but in the end, he has little real power to hurt you except by irritation.
You are very blessed not to have to “share” custody of your son with the P and you have the chance to teach your son about him as age appropriate so that by the time your son is a man, he will know exactly what his father is. My P-bio-father showed up when I was a teenager and I was totally off guard. Your son will not be so naive, and for that be very very grateful! (((Suvivor and Son))))
Thank you. You have a great way of making me look at what I have to be grateful for. I sometimes forget what an incredibly fortunate position I am in by not having to share custody. My heart goes out to all those that do, I cannot imagine how you cope.
And yes, I guess he must be going through a crisis. He recently got sacked from his job and was given notice to quit his rented house. Now that takes some explaining! He’ll be using me as a diversionary tactic to stop her asking too many questions.
It’s amazing what a difference talking to you makes to me. Another thing I have to be grateful for is this site.
Dear UK Suvivor,
I think all of us tend to take our blessings for granted sometimes, and especially when we have problems that seem insurmountable (like having a P around or connected to us! LOL)
And yes, they do use us to “blame” for everything that goes wrong in their lives, whether we had anything to do with it or not, it is somehow “our fault” according to them. If it rains when the want it dry, somehow it is our fault it did! LOL
I too cannot even begin to imagine how a parent must feel who has to share their child with such monsters. I have seen the devestating results that have come from that situation upon the children themselves. A P has no problem using their own child as a battering ram or a club to beat YOU over the head and have no qualms about what it does to the child.
It is difficult for me to try to keep in perspective the many things that “could have been worse” in my own situation even, and to be grateful for the blessings I DO have.
Right now I am re-reading a really good book called “Emotional Intelligence” about the things we do to try to cope with life, in a chemical, biological, and emotional view. How to best handle losses, and to heal from the wounds that are inflicted. It is so difficult to keep all these things in mind when you are stressed. NO Contact allows us to de-stress from the constinual crisis mode that they keep us in. Thinking from a crisis mode is very difficult, so keeping perspective on “what’s the worst that could happen” and then being prepared for that but in a non-crisis way of thinking is sometimes difficult for me at least.
I’ve got more of a hypervigilence than I would like to have right now–sort of waitiing for the other shoe to fall. It is improving, but I still have a ways to go. Living cautiously, but not in terror or panic.
Glad you are here UK Suvivor, and I am SOOO glad that you at least do not have to “share” custody of your prescious child with that monster, so you ARE REALLY BLESSED.