How to move on when you have children together

Rainbow after the rain – Welcome to Lovefraud – although I am sorry for the circumstances that brought you here.

You are making the correct decision, which you know intellectually, although your emotions are still being pulled. A big reason for that is because relationships with sociopaths are highly addicted, and there is a good chance that you feel trauma bonded — a strong emotional attachment to someone who is destructive to you. Trauma bonds are created by a power imbalance in your relationship, plus intermittent reinforcement — alternating good and bad treatment.

Now is a very critical time for you. You’ve left, and how you proceed right now will make a big difference in your life for years to come. Therefore, I recommend that you thoroughly educate yourself about what you are dealing with and what your options are.

The best place to start is probably our webinars on leaving and divorcing a sociopath. I’m not necessarily telling you that in order to sell webinars – although they are very inexpensive – but because the webinars are structured to provide you with actionable advice. You can see them here:

Courses for survivors: Leaving and divorcing sociopaths, narcissists, psychopaths

Lovefraud also has free information, although it’s not as concisely presented. Look for articles here:

How to leave or divorce a sociopath

There are some great tips in my book, “Dealing with a sociopath” – the e-book is only $7.99.

Dealing with a Sociopath

Other members of the Lovefraud community will probably respond to your email – feel free to ask for additional advice.

The key is to recognize that if your partner is a sociopath – and the physical abuse indicates that he probably is – he will never change. There is no rehabilitation. This is vital for you to know as you make your way forward.

I’m so sorry.

If he is physically abusive you should be able to get a restraining order against him in court. I think in your circumstances and considering his access to the kids you should go to court over this.

As to how to manage contact with him there is a method called “grey rock” that you can google. It’s based on being as minimal and boring as possible in your interactions with him. The idea is he will get bored of your interactions and will move his targeting to someone more stimulating.

HI Rainbow after the rain,
I am sorry and I feel bad for you and your children that he is in your life. I also finally divorced my ex after 25 yrs of marriage and waited until my kids were out of the house and went to college. But this did not occur without any damage at my expense ( and of course the kids) Even though I stayed for the sake of the kids to protect them I incurred damage by getting degraded, disrespected and losing my self esteem. My kids unfortunately were taught to to treat me the same way as he treated me and this is my biggest source of sadness today. I am still healing even though I have been divorced 3 1/2 yrs and learning to appreciate my self again with or without my kids. I hope for your and your kid’s sake he doesn’t want to be involved with the kids very much. But I think you did the best thing by leaving and preventing your kids from being future abusers. You need to get strong mentally and emotionally and realize that you do not deserve, as no-one does , to get hit and beaten either emotionally or physically. He wants you to believe that , don’t let him win. Good luck and stay strong!! Keep educating yourself and reading as much as you can about narcissists and sociopaths …. and remember you can’t fix them

Hi Rainbow –
So glad that you have come here to the Love Fraud forum. Because we have all had to deal with these extremely difficult relationships and situations. Though each is unique, we all share a tremendous underlying similarity. And that is that we have come to understand that we deserve to be treated with love and respect. The trauma bonding is not easy to overcome, as any addiction is not easy to get free of, but with support and education we have become a team helping and supporting one another. So, I am so glad that you are a part of our team. In response to what you posted, though you feel what you believe to be love, and it does feel that way, as other participants have mentioned, it is actually trauma bonding. It is a difficult concept to grasp, but essentially ( the way i see it ) is that after a person has been ” love bombed “, and that is in the beginning of the relationship when our partner was acting like ” prince charming”, and then they change to be mean – it causes a tremendous psychological crisis. We keep thinking that maybe we did something wrong because after all nobody is perfect, and we keep trying to be ” better ” so that our prince charming will return. But he doesn’t and we keep trying and trying to be more loving, and the whole thing is a huge trauma. Then because we have already put in all that time and energy into the relationship, we keep thinking that we don’t want to give up on it. But at some point, we need to face the reality of who they really are – which is an abusive person, and cut our losses and move on. I see that you have mainly done this and I congratulate you on your strength. The hard part is to keep to your decision – and I know you can do it. Realize that you, as a person of dignity, can establish a bottom line of what is acceptable to you. And that means that the bottom line is the end of the line – the end of the relationship. I would say that a bottom line would definitely be that if a person choked, spit with disrespect, and any other harmful physical abuses as well as name calling – that it would be a bottom line that would not be renigged no matter how the abuser tried to sweet talk his way back into the relationship. Know that physical abuse always escalates. As far as your children go, see what legal rights you have for keeping him away from them. He is not someone who would be at all positive as a father, and as a matter of fact, he would be detrimental. If he has legal rights that cannot be avoided, you do not need to be present when he visits with the children. You could get a court order to have a court appointed person monitor his visits with them, even at a location away from your home. But the main point is that you do not need to have contact with him at all. You can communicate through the court email system if you do need to coordinate dates and times etc. also, get support through Donna’s suggestions, and/or keep reading and learning all you can about sociopathic relationships. I am so very glad that you have taken the steps that you have to protect yourself and your children as you have. Keep posting as often as you like because we are here to support you.
Blessings

PS for Rainbow –
By the way, if the father of your children has legal rights to see them, and you don’t want to go through the legal system – another option for you to solve the problem so that he can see them, but not you – is to have a family member or a friend be the monitor of his visits if he comes to your house. And you could simply be in another room, and then you wouldn’t have to see or talk to him at all.
Blessings

I’ve heard from many people who have stayed in relationships with sociopaths “for the sake of the children.”

I have never heard anyone say that it was a good decision and helped the children. I have heard many people say that it was a mistake.

I’ve heard from many people who have stayed in relationships with sociopaths “for the sake of the children.”

I have never heard anyone say that it was a good decision and helped the children. I have heard many people say that it was a mistake.

I too found this site after reading that book just recently. I’m 6 months pregnant and married but recently left my sociopath husband. It was terrible being stuck in that rollercoaster of dysfunction. I’m currently in a no contact phase other than emails and I’ll say it was not pleasant when that happened. He showed up at my house calling me names and being incredibly mean. I also think I’m being tracked by him with one of those air tags. It’s insane. But besides all that I wanted to reach out and say I will be in a similar situation as you. Taking it one day at a time. I also feel guilt, love but then I remember all the terrible things this man has done. I do forgive him though not for his sake but for mine. I tell myself that this is an incredibly sick man. So It’s not a matter of if but when we do have contact again I plan on using the grey rock method and more of Donna’s resources. This site has been extremely beneficial to me as a way to see I am
Not alone and neither are you!! Many women before us have been where we are and when they stood up for themselves and broke the chains they were able to move on to much better lives. That gives me hope and the wisdom to really take the suggestions offered. I am a strong believer in my faith that God will get me through this fire. So prayer has been big for me and I’ll be praying for you and your children!!

Hope you are doing ok