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 NWV,
When I lived in Florida in the 80s I had to have my mother bring me baking powder and corn meal to make corn bread, I couldn’t find the “right” ingredients anywhere in the metro-dade area. Her luggage got lost on the flight down and the guy asked her what was in it, and she said 50 pounds of corn meal! LOL She did get it back! I had enough to last me til we moved back to CIVILIZATION! LOL
Now I have my own corn meal grinder and make my own whole grain corn meal for my bread! YUM! In fact, I am going to “make” some dog food today for my little dog who just doesn’t like dry dog food of any kind. I put down a horse in Mrach and saved the meat for the dogs, so will cook him some meat, put through the food processor, and then cook corn meal mush (if you look on the dog food ingredients it is mainly corn meal) and then add some packaged gravy mix and wa-la, custom made dog food that I hope is to the taste of the little spoiled rat! LOL
You know, one of the silly things I have noticed lately is that I am finding the energy (EVEN IN THIS HEAT of >100degrees) to DO THINGS—that save money, or that are “nice” for someone, or nice for me—and since it never tookk much to “amuse me” it is like I am living in paradise.
Son C called me today and talked for over an hour, just ’cause he wanted to talk to mama! WOW! When for almost 8 years he avoided me while he was married to the WITCH-P Now, Mom has gotten so smart and he loves to just chat with me about notihng in particular, just chat.
It is amazing what having the Ps (ALL OF THEM, THANK YOU JESUS!) out of our lives does for the rest of our relationships. We are not totally DE-energized by the stress, the crazymaking, and all the crap that our brains focus on instead of the GOOD things, even the simple things in our lives.
Son D got canceled off of federal jury duty today, so he is redoing my old computer for a really bright 5 yr old, the son of a friend of ours who has always “Picked” Ps as well–the boy’s father is in prison for a LONG TIME, so is out of her life, but she is so lonely she keeps on picking Ps–her picker is broken too, Henry. But the ONE thing she does do is she loves that little boy and gives him all she has to give. He is SOOOO very bright, and I think my old computer is just right for his first one. Got to wipe the hard drive off of data though, but that’s no big deal. Been intending to do this for 6 months or so but with all the emotional upheavels we just haven’t had the energy before now, but energy coming back does all kinds of good things for us and for others as well.
The total depletion of our ENERGY and our POWER which they take away from us, totally demoralizes us. PUts us flat on the emotional floor. Getting that energy back is the BEST thing I think has happened to me. It almost makes me feel “manic” because for so long I have been totally depleted, so egocentric I couldn’t focus on anything outside of myself and my own pain.
I was recently contacted by a former Love Fraud blogger who no longer posts here, she got my private e mail through a “mutual friend” (it IS A SMALL WORLD) who recognized enough of the details about me to figure out who I was. She has been e mailing me privately, which is fine. If not, I would have blocked her. But she is so STUCK in the anger and revenge-wanting stage, that all her energy is from the anger.
Anger I think is a motivator to get up off our butts and DO someting, but if we get stuck in that mode, stuck in the DETAILS of how those people “screwed, blued, and tattoo’d” us and we never let go of that ANGER—it may keep us “up” and energized, but for the LONG TERM that anger has to go for us to really start to heal.
I was so focused so long on the DETAILS of my P’s “plot” which did sound like a bad novel’s plot (and I think most of you can relate to the “bad novel” part) that it was almost unbelieveable even to me. I focused on finding out every word they had said, every move that they had made, every thought they had had, etc. so that I wasn’t really focusing on my own healing.
Sure, each of us deserves to be HEARD, to TELL OUR STORY, but if we STAY in that “stage” where we just retell it over and over and over and VENT AND VENT and VENT some more we don’t move on to getting “over” it and starting the healing of ourselves.
We may also get stuck (like Henry did –I’m picking on you again BRo! ((hugs))—in the beating ourselves up stage—and God knows that I DID THAT TOO, we don’t move on.
We may do anger, self beating, sad, self beating and anger again, and flip flop, but when we get stuck in ANY ONE stage for “ever” I think we need to reassess where we are going with this and what are we getting out of it. For me, I think the “self beating” for “being so stupid” was validation for my own low self esteem—doing the beating of myself that my mother had instilled in me as a child. Etc.
If we STAY stuck in any one “stage” I think some how we may be getting some dysfunctional “validation” for something we need to fix in ourselves. It may simply be a painful stage that we have come to accept as “normal” because we were trained that “that is life.” Like I said to Bev, it never occured to me that the way my mother treated me wasn’t “love.” Sheesh! I accepted that as “normal” when it was surely anything except “normal” or “good.”
Chime in here Takeingmeback, I bet you have some good insight into this subject! You too NWV.
wow…i used to always want some of what my mom was making for her special dogs they got the best…you just reminded me of that……….oh and ive since learned there is a cornmeal called martha white thatll do in a pinch
one of the docs i work with cant have dairy and asked me to make eggplant parm for a party sat nite…..using soy cheese……yuck it wont even melt….so i just returned from whole foods and am going to experiment with rice cheese mozzarella……wish me luck…..oh dont worry im going to make the REAL stuff, for the rest of us
yes, i vascillate back and forth between stages…..i am fighting that by just trying to stay in the present moment
I think part of my “problem” with my “picker” (not just in men cause Ii never stayed stuck with a P until after my husband died and then that was for less than a year) is that I kept gaging my responses to them (the Ps) from “what would mother have me do” point of view. Of course, since she was the ENABLER to end all enablers—this of course meant to swallow the hurt and then try to “fix” them, and “pretend that whatever they did didn’t happen.”
Heck if you can stand the pain, you can stay with ANY abuser that way! LOL Every time they bruise their “fists” beating you down, you just get right back up and make an ice pack for their POOR BRUISED KNUCKLES–the poor babies have such wounds on their hands from hitting them against your hard old jaw! WAAAHHH! Don’t you feel their pain! NOT!!!
Now that I no longer care what “mommie would do” I realize I don’t need that validation for my actions any more. It does help to focus on what is logical and right rather than living my life to meet someone else’s standards.
I measure my “standards” against society’s and God’s laws, and not against what anyone else has to say. That doesn’t mean that my mother never gave me any good advice, sometimes she did, but it was just because it didn’t happen to conflict with her “enabling” mentality. I also realize that her enabling mentality was trained into her from birth because of the family and the culture and the times and place that she lived. The fact that she accepted it totally without examining it or choosing to change it is HER responsibility though. That doesn’t make her any less TOXIC to my mental health and my life though.
I grew up in much the same environment with the same training to be an enabler and I broke out of the mold somehow, so ultimately, she also had a choice and chose NOT to. For that I am genuinely sorry, but it doesn’t mean that I can fix her, or change the way things are NOW. I’ve got to play the cards that I was dealt that are in my hand NOW, and they don’t include playing with her marked deck! I would only continue to lose my shirt!
Right now, today, I feel empowered, strong, and satisfied with the way I am progressing—tomorrow I may be back on my knees—but one thing I do know is that if I do fall down and bump my knees or my noggin, I will and I can GET BACK UP!
I’ve finally come to the point at least that there is HOPE FOR TOMORROW TO BE BETTER even if today sucks! You guys are so awesome! Someone the other day, I forget who said that even if our separate canoes are taking on water, we have grouped together to help each other bail, and that we can put our canoes together and build a “ship” to save us all, and that is so true! I’ll bring the hammer and nails!
yes the one lesson i have learned is how strong i really am…believe it or not i can survive anything, if this
i have a comment or question, which ever way you want to put it. everytime i speak to my ex about business either by email or phone, which i try not to do by phone. but he turns it into the relationship talk, or he will end his email by saying how can you get over me so fast????? what is hell is that????
Hi everyone. I’m trying to read your posts and be my old self, but I can’t. I failed miserably at NC today. I was contacted by not only my ex-cheater bf but also his new woman. I don’t really know how she figured out how to write me, but it was on a site where friends of friends of friends etc can write each other. It took me a while to figure it out but I blocked them both.
Meanwhile I continue to be uneasy, my hands are still shaking after many hours of trying to relax, my heart will not stop pounding. Help guys, I’m so miserable, and I fear what they are plotting. I guess what happened is they found my post at dontdatehimgirl and are very angry about it. It’s just like Henry’s ex ganging up with his new man to taunt Henry. They have written to me how great they are together, how much better she is than me, how I just don’t understand him blah blah.
I know I should have just blocked them but I answered some of the stuff first in an assertive way. It did NOT make me feel better, I am going over and over in my mind if I gave them any info or ammunition.
Henry you are right, the computers belong in the lake. But I have also found you peeps online, so I think I’ll keep mine for now. But all dating, meeting, networking or w/e sites are gone from my life except one, and I can see that one has to go as well.
Blondie.. I will tell you one thing, the only reason he is still talking like that is he thinks he can get something out of you still and make a fool out of you again. How can you get over him “so fast”, if only he knew how much you miss and long for the man he pretended to be. He is missing something dear, sex, maybe, a home, something. Don’t take him back, he’ll be right back to cheating on you shortly and hurt you all over again.
Dear Blondie,
Kat is right, dear, he is trying to make you “feel guilty” and put you on the defensive—I wish you WERE over him “so fast” but you are the one that is hurting, NOT HIM.
If you MUST e mail with him for business then I would “set a boundary” for EXAMPLE:
“John, I realize divorce is a difficult thing and that we hve to finalize our business. I prefer to do it by e mail not telephone, so please do not call me. I will not answer.
Secondly, I will NOT discuss our relationship in any way, form or fashion. This is all very difficult for me and I assume for you as well, so please, let’s make this as civil as possible. I will keep the e mails to business ONLY.”
Then, stick to the “boundary” you set, whatever it is. If he insists on stepping over the boundary I would warn him one time. For example:
John, I made myself clear that I will not discuss our relationship, only the business necessary to finalize the divorce. You have not respected my requests, so let me make myself perfectly clear, if you do not honor the boundaries I have set and continue to call me and try to discuss our relationshp I will be forced to let my attorney handle all communications. This is NON negotiable.
I would also be careful toword any bondaries so there is no “challenge” in there, So I left out any mentions of “this is your only warning” or something like that to “challenge” him to see if you are meaning what you say. But whatever boundary you set for him, I advise you to absolutely stick to it, do not back off an inch. This is one of those things where if you give them an inch they will take a mile. Good luck, Blondie.
thanks everyone….i have a few guy friends that i had before the ex. i dont know if im not opening myself up to people. but its like i miss male company, but i dont even want to hang out with guys alone, bc i know they are not the guys for me, and i dont want it to turn into something like that, so i just stay alone with myself.
ps…my x said he has changed, and im not giving him the chance to show me that he has changed. im not around to see that he has made changes..ha
I cant believe the (S) they leave us for someone else and then they are surprised and confused when we don’t want to have sex with them or talk to them. duh!!!
takingmeback, loved your “novel”! My ex’s world is so distorted, it continues to confuse me when I think about everything he’s done and said. I get the feeling that my ex is also afraid of me now. He hates to look at me, as he knows I know who he is. I am one of the few.
He was unfaithful the entire 13 year marriage. And now, 3 months after the divorce his newest victim is moving in with him. He needs her to tell him how wonderful he is. She worked directly for him when they met, so this power he had over her must have felt wonderful for him. Now he’s really got her as she’s moving from London for him. I can just imagine how she thinks she’s found her soulmate, the one for her. I tried to warn her – she, of course, thinks I am the crazy one. I did feel pity for her, but not anymore. She’s going to have to learn the hard way just like I did.
I saw the multiple personalities in him. He was so good, I figured all along there must be something wrong with me. But, thank God I now know he has been the disordered one all along. He couldn’t wait to tell his children about this woman moving in. In his crazy world. he thinks they care, that they will share in his excitement. All they see is someone acting “not normal”, in their words. “Why can’t he be normal?” they ask me. I tell them I don’t know.
When you are not a disordered person, when you are sane, it gets so confusing trying to make sense of what’s happened to you. How someone could devalue and discard you, how someone could try to steal your best qualities from you, mimic your behavior as they don’t know how to live on their own. It’s all so strange, as we know who we are, we have a defined sense of self. I thought everyone did.