Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following letter from a reader whom we’ll call “Claudette19.”
I hope this letter explains to you all what I have been through and how I am still trying to recover from the impact.
Dear ex
Only by staying away from you did I begin to see your destructiveness and I had to detox from your trauma. For almost 4 years you projected all your anger from your past/present onto me. You did this by calling me a c**t b**h, throwing things at me, charging at me, hurting me, threatening to kill yourself, bullying me and breaking things. You were unpleasant, manipulative and you constantly lied to me. You told me you were the only person who knew how to love me, take care of me, you knew me better than anyone else, nobody will love me like you. For almost 4 years I wasn’t in my own head, you controlled me, loved me, belittled me and abused me.
You will never comprehend how your actions had such an impact on my health, I wanted to seriously end my life, the realisation of the betrayal and abuse you had caused devastated me. At the time I was so enmeshed in your abuse I didn’t really see it. There existed an intermittent threat of violence from you. Your abuse was insidious and ate away at my confidence and self-esteem. It has taken a lot of hard work figuring out how someone who declared to love me could treat me so cruelly when I had done nothing wrong.
You handed me your horrible life on a plate, and I took it. I have a massive heart, I am a kind and understanding person and I believed all your lies. I believed the story you told me. I believed that you were dealt a bad hand by your exes and your mother, you made out you were an unwelcome object as a child. You seemed lost and sincere and you asked me to help you get back to the person I had known in 1997. You said everyone had let you down and I was the only one who really knew you. You knew I would help you, you knew I wouldn’t give up on you because I believed the fantasy that you were this loyal, lovely misunderstood person. You played the victim remarkably well and you got the sympathy. At the time I had no idea this was history repeating itself and this was nothing more than another manipulative game you were playing.
You played it well. You’re an expert in turning things around rationalising, justifying and explaining things away. You lie so smoothly and argue so persuasively that one can doubt their own senses.
All your problems became mine and I became responsible for fixing and rescuing you. I was the only person there for you. I remember you getting mad at me, throwing books and ornaments at me, because your parents left you and went off on holiday. You were forever punishing me for what others did to you or how they made you feel. You always had an excuse for your bad behaviour, “I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at the situation,” “You don’t understand what I’ve been through,” “my mother never loved me, she said I was fat, look what my ex did to me,” etc etc etc. You used verbal abuse, anger, intimidation to establish dominance. Now, I have been made the source of all your problems, another excuse to avoid yourself and your delusions.
I still have corresponding texts and emails from you father outlining your abuse. He replied, “what do you expect after what he’s been through.” Did nobody ever stop to think that you assaulted another woman on several occasions and her son and that I did not deserve to be abused because of it? (throwing books and ornaments at me is still assault and it hurt me). I had the opportunity to read the police statements and I can now see the similarities in how you treated me, and it frightened me. I am so ashamed that I had allowed you to treat me like this and it is something I am still working on. I am ashamed that I sat in silence listening to you and your parents laugh at your ex for driving a rubbish car. You all seemed so satisfied by this and yet had no insight into the impact of your abuse. You lied to me, you forgot to tell me you had assaulted her son on many occasions. I have read your email to your parents admitting this. You also lied about your abuse towards your ex. You lied under oath and in your police interviews. Even when faced with solid evidence, you come up with more lies.
I was so disorientated with your rapidly changing behaviour/situations. It was shame, your dysfunctional behaviour and then the nice in between times that totally confused me. I spent a lot of time in my head taking the blame or making excuses. I hid all of this because I was protecting your reputation and dealing with my shame. After each episode of abuse, you would follow up with “its not my fault.” When I tried to help you, you would get angry. You were very cautious this time round, you had learnt your lesson from your ex — don’t put anything in writing etc. Careful to make out to the world and on FB you were this great guy madly in love and behind closed doors you were a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
You had absolutely no gratitude for me for almost 4 years. Forgotten all that I had endured because of you. You said I had changed since I took on my new job, I was stressed and slept in most weekends. I was killing myself in a job to keep a roof over your head while you trained. I was so exhausted that all I could do at weekends was sleep so I could continue this job. The reality of life was getting boring for you, you weren’t getting the usual emotional attention from me and I was no longer accepting your anger/abuse. And just like that, so casually you sought comfort in another woman’s arms, a tutees mother no less. Even after her husband confirmed the affair to me you still denied it and blamed me for causing a family to break up.
How deluded are you that you are so comfortable with your lies? Reckless escapism when things get tough is a coward’s way to live. To put yourself in yet another vulnerable situation for pure self-indulgence and attention and not consider the other people you are hurting just shows what a low life you are. I’ve realised now you groom vulnerable women with children, you choose your targets wisely during your assessment phase — do they have a nice house, money?
You made me feel completely worthless and you ruined me without a second thought and you cut me dead. The callous and shameless way you betrayed me. You didn’t even pause for a milli second to look back and acknowledge anything. A true self -serving narc. Nobody who loves someone would ever leave them in the emotional, financial mess you left me in, and not take responsibility for it. You had me in a vulnerable position, you controlled me and our relationship.
I was consumed by your problems, past relations and your longstanding issues with your family. For a while you had so much control over me that I thought you were my only source of light, when I needed you the most, to pull me up (like I had done for you for years), your hand was not there and instead you pushed my head deeper into the surface.
I want you to think of the woman who couldn’t eat or sleep because you had convinced her all your actions were her fault. I want you to think of the woman who hated herself so much she wanted to kill herself, who had to force herself to get up when all she wanted to do was crawl under a rock. I want you to think of the woman who you abused physically and mentally, manipulated and projected all your anger onto. I want you to think of the woman you pretended to love. I hope you never have to experience the same hell you put me through.
Claudette19
*****
Claudette19 writes: My recovery continues and I am dealing with a massive amount of shame. I couldn’t work for months, he left me homeless and I lost 24 years of my stuff.( I sold my home and moved to another area for us to start a life together and as soon as he got a job he casually left me and moved himself into a nice cottage.)
I’m trying everything — therapy, journaling, meditation, etc., but I’m still drowning from the after effects, and the more I’m away from him the more memories come to surface and I have more to deal with.
Question: How and will I ever get my life back? I’m working so hard but the pain, shame is still as strong.
Video: After they’re gone, do sociopaths or narcissists return?
Claudette19 – I am so sorry for your experience. Please understand that all of your feelings are typical for someone who has been involved with a sociopath.
His behavior is right out of the sociopath playbook — calling you names, blaming you for everything, physical violence, the pity play – trying to make you feel sorry for him, lying, blaming the ex, blaming his family — it is all classic. He was truly disordered.
You told me that you’ve been away for him for a while, and now these feelings are coming up. That’s because previously, you were in survival mode. Now that you are away from him and beginning to recover, you are psychologically capable of processing the truth of his betrayal. So what you couldn’t bear to think about before, you can bear to think about now. It’s no fun, but that’s how you recover.
Please allow yourself to feel your own pain. Feel your own emotions. Yes, it is painful, but when you allow yourself to experience them, a strange thing happens — they dissipate.
We usually don’t know how to do this, because we’d rather avoid pain than feel it. But avoidance keeps the pain alive. When you feel it, you can let it go.
Please don’t waste your energy wishing that he will understand how much he hurt you. Because he is disordered, he will never understand the harm that he caused you.
Claudette19 – know that it will take time, but it WILL get better. I too can say that my ex intentionally set out to ruin me and manipulated me into place so that his actions would have the worst impact possible. Your story sounds so familiar. I was in a relationship – he was playing a game with my life.
I’m just over 7 years out from the end of a 7 year relationship. He had maneuvered me into a situation where all aspects of my life were vulnerable and then he pulled the plug without warning. He love bombed me for one last time before turning into a monster, saying and doing the cruelest, meanest things he could do, knowing me so well, his shots hit right on target and he left me for dead, financially, emotionally, mentally.
It didn’t work, and it hasn’t worked with you either. We were severely wounded, but not dead. You’re still here, fighting, looking for help in the right places, hanging in there, working hard.
Therapy saved my sanity, my self worth, and brought me back to recognizing what is normal and what is not. Just the process of living each day free and away from that horror is healing. I understand the feeling of shame, some days it hits me hard between the eyes, even though we have nothing to feel shame for, since we did nothing wrong. Your therapist is your ally in working through these feelings.
You have your life back now! It doesn’t look like it once did, and it doesn’t feel like it once did, but you are alive, and you are healing. Like you, I have some deep wounds and they are taking a long time to heal, but I don’t think about them every day anymore. Some scars will fade, some may never fade, but they are badges of survival and knowledge. I am not as carefree, idealistic and open as I was “before”, but I think I retained the best of these qualities while now knowing how to protect myself from evil and abuse. Little by little, joy has returned. I will never be the same, but I am better. Each day it gets better.
Honestly, I’m glad he thought I was used up and there was no more juice he thought he could extract from me, because it saved my life. I’m grateful that instead of just hopping from woman to woman for a day or a week behind my back he finally found a woman he wanted to move into my place so he needed to get me out of the way. My heart broke for her when I saw the joy in her face as she looked up at him in their wedding photos just a few months after he nearly sent me to the mental hospital. I can imagine the pack of lies he’s told HER, since for over a year after that, we still had lawyers dealing with shared property and finances.
I didn’t always feel this way, the first weeks, months, I couldn’t even crawl on my belly without him. I drove myself crazy with obsessive thoughts about how could he have left me in such financial ruin, alone, etc. Then I learned about psychopaths, and so many of the questions fell away.
I’m not going to clean up this stream of consciousness, since it comes deep from my heart. Keep doing what you’re doing…you will get there.
I’ve been divorced almost 20 years (next year will be 20); believe me the feelings, memories,will continue to surface and go through your mind for a LONG time. Don’t hinder them, just let them come up and then let them go. You’ll remember more, as time/space/energies heal; its like all that was ‘frozen’ in your head, and now its thawing out. What he did/said to you, is psychopathic, as was mine. Don’t bother with his ‘understanding’; it wont happen. They don’t ‘get it’ but you do.
The ghost of your ex will haunt you for many years but it does get better. I haven’t posted for a while and when I read this post I briefly thought it had been written by my successor in the psychopath’s life, it just goes to show that their behaviours follow a certain path. I was lucky, I didn’t loose my home or savings but I did loose my job when I moved to get away from my ex.
Move on three and a half years and things have come full circle. To cut a long story short I had a long conversation with my successor, it was a deeply healing experience and as a result I’ve finally detached myself from his clutches.
His latest victim told me that she had thrown him out of her house after having an unbelievably unpleasant and terrible time with him. He is a horrible person and his behaviour beggars belief. His now ex wife’s life was destroyed, he’s has countless affairs, I was devastated after nearly 10 years with him, my successor endured violence and manipulation, alcoholism and lies. He trashed her house and she told me she was afraid of him. His children have severed contact with him due to his terrible cruelty towards their mother.
However, I’m full of admiration for my successor who is an amazing woman who found the strength to throw him out. And here’s a little snippet to bring a smile to the face of all victims: she not only kept hold of her money, her house and her job; she’s legally keeping the money he contributed to the purchase price of the house she was manipulated into aquiring for them to live in (he could only scrape together 13.8% and that was a fraudulent mortgage raised against his wife’s house). It was written into the legal papers prepared during the purchase and there’s nothing he can do to get it back! He lost control of the situation, he’ll be gutted about the money and also, but less so, about being thrown out of her house before he was ready to go!!
Well, not that life. Your life? Yes. For me the key is forgiveness with understanding mixed with boundries and acceptance with a little balance and some self-realization and self reliance thrown in and time and perhaps an ear you can trust but also it helps to get unbiased opinions just as much. The truly hard part is to see that the shame comes from the fact that aspects of this are caused by you and that is hard… for me at least, The healing comes from realizing that “fault” is perceptive and not black and white. Your ex? husband is not evil. He is a person with dna and also experiences and these things have made him, him. Same as you. To me, you should forgive him for you. I’m Not saying you shouldn’t be maintaining whatever distance needs to be kept. You should stay away from him
For your own well being. At least until you have learned some mental/speritual tools for your defence and maybe forever.its just, even at a distance, For me the hatred of that individual would just add to and perhaps be the biggest contributor to my shame. I think this is because “I was was stupid and allowed myself to be taken advantage of” or “or how could I have been so dumb for picking such a terrible person, I should have known” are things my hurt self esteem might be inclined to relay to me… First off, he has lied a lot. Probably in some ways even to himself and every single person he knows and they all believed him so how would that make you any dumber then him or everybody else for believing him? Also if people didnt believe lies nobody would lie. The direct objectives of a lie are to be believed and to deceive. It’s the realization that you were attacked by this person you trusted that shakes reality to its core and youd rather blame yourself then him because “he doesnt do that” you thought. That’s the lie you tell yourself. Or at least the one I tell me. They do do that. And did. And you may do it too but in this instance you are the victim. You are a person you didnt do anything “wrong” or at least you didnt “deserve” it and dont. You lived and had an experience and it was bad… really really bad and you didnt know, but now you do. You may not even have known anything in the world could hurt that much. I didn’t. The shitty thing is i have a feeling itll happen again somewhere else unexpected someday. To me Enlightenment may be having the super human ability (it seems at times) of acceptance of these hard experiences with as much grace and dignity and strength and understanding and hope and as many of the positive words as you can muster without closing out the negative and allowing yourself to experience it all with peace. Easier said then done, but nobody ever said it would be easy I guess. I think you are doing the right thing in talking about your issues and educating yourself on people and what they do. At least I hope that’s true because that’s what I’m doing. So far so good. Idk. Good luck I appreciated your writing. You are strong and brave. Peace