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.
Dear Henry, Kat, and Blondie,
We all have so much in common I think with our emotions, and THEY DO TOO. Or in their case, lack of emotions. I think sometimes there must be a school somewhere for Psyhcopaths that they learn how to manipulate and fake emotions, Like lying 101 or Pretending feelings 201, or Faking an apology 300.
The anger Blondie feels today and her feeling of wanting to tell him off so reminds me of how I felt with my P son, with my P-XBF, and with other Ps I have known. It just seems universal the way we respond to finding out their betrayals.
The “I just wish I could somehow understand why” that Kat spoke of, I wonder how many thousands of times I have said that, felt that.
And Henry’s and Kat’s asking “does he have a clue what he threw away?” Boy have I asked that over and over about them all.
The questions and the feelings we have almost seem universal with us, though Iknow everyone has unique feelings and is a unique person it is still like the way we eperience the P-EXPERIENCE is so similar, and I guess that is what makes LF work, because you know that I know pretty much what you are going through, and I know that you know the same. It doesn’t matter if we are old, young, male, female, straight or gay, the responses are pretty much the same…and some how just knowing that YOU GET IT, gives me strength. That I am NOT ALONE in this experience. That I am NOT CRAZY. That true EVIL DOES EXIST in some people.
The best part though, is that it helps me reinforce in myself that I AM POWERFUL, I can stop the abuse, I CAN RECOVER, I can go on.
BTW Henry, don’t be down on Jack Asses, my two darling Jack Asses, Fat and Hairy, are the sweetest things in the world, you you need to find some other term to refer to your X than “jackass.” LOL
Everytime I look at baby birds little face, I ask myself that same question. Does he have any idea what he threw away? There is absolutely no way he has any idea. Because what he threw away is so beautiful and pure. He can’t comprehend it. I don’t think you can comprehend it unless you have the ability to love. The love is the light that blinds the sociopath and sends him running to the hills, less he be burned by it. Love to the sociopath is the cross to the demon. Sunlight to the vampire. Their goal is to destroy it. There is no way they understand what they threw away. I don’t think they have the ability to understand it. If they understood, they wouldn’t do the things they do.
Dear Bird, Oooooooh Aaaahh (Im visualising the purity of baby Bird) Yes, it takes some time to get your head round why they constantly throw up in the air the good fortune in the form of relationship and what they are given in life. My ex apparently went out with some stunning women before me and there was something wrong in his mind with every one of them and he is 42 and has next to nothing. Doesnt make sense does it bird, especially when he has the opportunity to accept new life as the ultimate gift.
they are such users and losers. serioulsy what a joke! my ex said he sent out the check for the money he owes me. well guess what its saturday and the check has not come! OF COUSRE NOT BC HE LIED ON THOSE MESSAGES OF SENDING OUT THE MONEY. WHATS NEW EVERYTHING IS A LIE. they just use and use people. he knew if he didt send the money out i will get mad and angry and i will contact him, and im sure thats what he wants, but im not saying a word about what he didt do. HIS ACTIONS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.
Bird,you are so right and he doesn’t know what he threw away, he can’t even comprehend it. As Jesus advised his disciples “don’t cast your pearls before swine” just as swine cannot appreciate PEARLS, neither can the swine/psychpath appreciate love. Just as Jesus said the swine would “trample them (the pearls) into the mire” the psychopaths trample the love we offer them in to the mud and muck, and then Jesus went on to say “lest they turn and rend (tear) you” They will do everything in the world to hurt us that they can, in their anger at not getting what THEY want–and it isn’t “love”—
Yes, Blondie, that is what he is doing. Trying to get a RISE out of you, get you angry. And believe me, when you don’t respond, he will be at a loss of why his ploy didn’t work. He won’t be able to understand that HE CAN’T CONTROL YOU ANY MORE. GOOD ON YOU!!!!! Hooray!!! for Blondie! she is a queen, she is in control, she is POWERFUL. She no longer lets the P control her, she controls HIM by NO CONTACT,no reaction.
((((Bird & Baby Bird))))) and ((((Blondie))))) and always (((Bev)))) and prayers for you all!
Hi Blondie: “users and losers” – you said it.
I can relate to the horrible feeling of having wasted precious years – I was married for 13, and I regret i didn’t leave much sooner. It’s a painful, painful realization.
I’m stuck somwhere between No. 3 and No. 8 in the “steps to recovery” – I obssess, I still have so much rage, and in other moments I’m starting – starting – to recover and live again.
I have to share today’s woeful moment – I ran into a grad student of his, someone I’ve known for years and I KNEW that he had led her on when they were working together overseas but I didn’t have any real suspicions of anything worse, mostly because she is (forgive me for saying this but..) terribly unattractive.
Well anyway – she stops me today and says “I’m sorry for what happened all those years ago…I didn’t know he was married.” !!!!!!!!! I almost threw up in front of her..I didn’t say anything, just that we’re divorcing now and it really doesn’t matter anymore & I walked off stunned.
So he’s been lying & cheating for years – who knows how many more there were. One thing i’ve learned from this:
i was one of those people who posted on here & read posts thinking, well, my situation’s not that bad, or deceiving myself about his level of deception. Whoa. I was with a bad, bad man. NEVER thought I’d say that. Not in a million years.
The loss of time we can never get back…let this be impetus not to waste anymore precious time. WORK on leaving these losers behind and not getting bitter. And maybe someday even meeting someone honest, and kind.
here’s to stages 6, 7 & 8!! Stay strong, ladies. We’re together in spirit.
Dear Tmassar,
I’m sorry you had that experience meeting the grad student, and at the same time I am glad for you. Sometimes seeing THE WORST and knowing it is true, helps us to realize that we aren’t just “over dramatizing” this “bad person” that they really ARE BAD. It isn’t about them finding a more attractive partner than you, someone younger or sexier, it is ANY “conquest” that they can make. It’s all about “control” and “power” and “conquest” and “scoring” by getting control over someone else. Any port in a storm.
Seeing the RAW, UGLY, NAKED TRUTH in its entirety I think sometimes FREES us to quit feeling any pity for rational feeling about these PREDATORS, these SOULLESS VAMPIRES. They are “equal opportunity” users and abusers and losers.
I too used to feel that “my situation’s not as bad as X,Y OR Z” and that I would not ever let a man hit me and then go back to him, but you know, I LET MY SON hit me and I “took him back”–what is the difference? I was NOT “superior” to these other abused people, I was in just as deep as they were. Seeing my own arrogance in thinking I was “above” others who were abused, smarter, somehow with better boundaries, etc. made my own realization pretty painful. My X-BF-P never hit me, but he sure as heck verbally abused me, cheated and lied, used and abused me…and I’m no longer sure that even if he had hit me I wouldn’t have taken him back before I finally clicked that he was a bad man.
The stages of healing are different for me for the different Ps and the relationships with them, but I’m “progressing” in a positive direction most of the time. There are many more good days than bad ones, and on those down days I have to keep reminding myself what my OBJECTIVE IS and that is to heal, get them out of my head and my heart.
Dear tmassar, I know it must have been a painful relevalation for you to see that woman, but at the same time, the TRUTH will set us free. I’m glad that you are still strong and even on the bad days, that strength will serve you well…I try to tell myself that all those “years” I “wasted” were just part of the learning curve and in the end, will pay off with new knowledge and new strengths from those experiences. I’m working on my Ph.D in “Psychopath” from the “University of Hard Knocks” (((hugs)))
blondie…sorry about that, but i tink deep down you didnt believe it either….or maybe it will still come…who knows, but what you dDO know, is that just as upset as you are right now, imagine, by your NOT calling him and doing EXACTLY what he expects you to do…..will make him soooo frustrated……..thats how you can feel back in control…acting as if who cares, will bother him because he realizes that you have now cut his puppet strings…..good for you….we know it hurts, but never give him the satisfaction of knowing………
tmassar i know what you mean about wanting to vomit……2 days ago mared one yr and his b day is in 2 days….yuck and i found myself trying to find him online…..ewwwwwwww………remembering and reminding ourselves of just what filthy nasty creatures they are is unfortunately a necessary evil………i need to give myself a good swift kick……..any takers??? lol
hi to everyone. I am a newbie to the site and only just found it a few weeks ago. I have spent hundreds of pounds on books to try to understand what happened to me. It started with me typing emotional and verbal absue into the serach engine, through to learning about narcassists and then onto sociopaths and psychopaths. As the months have gone by, i’ve been out of the reltionship for 6 months, i think i have figured it out but then seem to go back down hill again. Ever time i find out about a new lie or another lightbulb moment happens it hurts my soul all over again. How long before this bewildering range of emotions can be controlled? I know what he is, i understand about his disorder, me married within 6 months of my leaving him yet i am still in bits. How do people get over the total shock of living with and loving a person who can sudenly turn on them and devalue them to something that they hate. The extreme of love and hate in the space of weeks was astounding. I feel such a fool for loving this man, for thinking i was that lovable to start with! I struggled for years to gain confidence in myself and to believe in myself and just as this was happening for me he came into my life and totally made me question eveything about myself adn waht i am worth…that is what i’m struggling with the most.
thanks everyone for the support. today im find myself feeling depressed and just watching tv. unsure of what to do with myself. no one to really hang out with, so kinda lonley. i feel like i lost everyone dating him, and i feel like i will never have anyone again. before i met him, i had this whole life full of friends, and a social life and i feel it will never come again. i know sitting at home wont make that life come to me, i have to put some effort and energy, to rebuild friendships. i should clean the house or do my laundry, but i dont feel like do that either. i notice i have anixity and sad about meeting people or going out and doing things. ahhh oh well back to laying on the couch!