Editor’s note: The following was posted in the Lovefraud Forum by the reader “freedomformydaughter.” This article is so poignant and insightful I wanted everyone to see it.
when your daughter is in a relationship with a psychopath*
you cannot speak sense to her
if you try she will walk out
so you go years without being able to talk deeply to her
when your daughter is in a relationship with a psychopath
she will drop her family values, her morals, her modesty, her purity
she will find her value in her use to him as a sexual object
she will forget that she is beautiful inside
she will forget that she has qualities that make her rare and unique
she will forget that she has strengths and passions and desires of her own
she will forget that she has her own life to live
when your daughter is in a relationship with a psychopath you will rarely see her
he will isolate her from anyone who can see what he is doing to her
your heart will break over and over, every special family occasion she does not come home
every celebration she is not present for, or ‘has to’ leave early from,
every change you see in her that is evidence of his exploitive mark on her
your beautiful, nurtured firstborn, systematically being destroyed for the sick amusement of a beast
him having stolen her ability to trust her own perceptions and discernment
being a slave to him and his wicked, erratic ways
it is agony as a mother to know that she is in an addiction
her body and mind and soul are addicted to his hot cold treatment of her, to the cycles of abuse he inflicts upon her
that she continues to crave him as he mistreats her, that she is bonded to something so harmful to her
and the advice to the mother is to detach. that you cannot help her. that you cannot talk to her about it as it will push her away
like a drug addict – well how would I know. I know nothing about addicts
I just know this is a beyond-frustrating, agonising and heartbreaking position to be in
not being able to do anything
and to see that MANY of the women who come to their senses
do so after 20 years
that puts nausea into my stomach just to think about
that we may not be able to do anything and have to watch our daughter live a life of abuse for 20+ years until she finally sees he is a beast
and decides she has had enough, and lets go of the hope that he will change
and that the ‘nice’ him that she keeps hoping will reemerge is just part of the abuse
a mask he puts on every now and then to reel her in again after he has been particularly awful
this is where my head is at after our 4th Christmas with our daughter in a relationship with a psychopath
(*psychopath/sociopath/narcissist/person with exploitive personality disorder, emotional and psychological abuser)
With a sociopath, the only way to “win” is not to play
now, after years of being divorced, do I understand how much I hurt my family, friends, co-workers by being with him, staying to get married, have kids, live on a farm, etc, etc., for 29 years. how many family get-togethers I stayed away from, to ‘keep the peace’, or to go and leave sooner than some others did, to ‘keep the peace’. how I refused to listen to sound, sensible advice by my elders (mostly mom, with whom I had some very BAD fights with, over him), to not be with him. how I squandered my education, to be with him, losing ALL the moral, emotional, modest values I was raised with, to be with him. to waste 30 years of youth, strength, integrity, character, for NOTHING except to be his slave, overwork,drudge..until finally I had raised 3 sons and I couldn’t do any more, I was worn out mentally, physically..I had just enough to crawl away and LEAVE. to realize that his ‘niceness’ was just another mask. I finally redeemed myself several years before I did get a divorce, to tell my mom that ‘they were right about him, and I was wrong’. It was a feeble beginning to wrong the wrongs I had done to people who truly loved me.