by AlohaTraveler
How many of us have a list, or know someone who does, of the ideal qualities we are looking for in THE ONE? I think these lists can sometimes cause us to miss out on someone quite wonderful because we get so attached to a check list. But that’s another topic. I have a different kind of list. It could be called the list of EXACTLY what I DO NOT want in a life partner! This list has helped me to heal and come to terms with the reality of the Bad Man.
While going through my things this morning, I found a piece of binder paper with a list I had written about the Bad Man in the early stages of my healing. It was written sometime within the first year after I had left him. The list represents a free flowing string of words and phrases that describe the Bad Man.
Before I found LoveFraud, I was aware that my thoughts of the Bad Man seemed to swing back and forth between never wanting to hear from him again to hoping somehow he would learn, apologize and we would live happily ever after. I didn’t totally understand why this was so and it was perplexing, given my descriptive list.
Bad Man was not the clever sociopath that many of the readers here talk about. Don’t get me wrong. He was very smart and charismatic. But I didn’t get blind sided or robbed behind my back like many readers. He was fairly abusive and inappropriate in the first few weeks though he used all of the customary word games and mind tricks. Still, I find it a little embarrassing to admit that I put up with way too much right from the get-go. Looking back, in what context would name calling ever be okay?
Reality Checks
Bad Man wasn’t all flowers and charming words. I got flowers. I got love notes. But for the most part, the list below describes him best. I wrote this list for myself to use as a means of staying in touch with reality when I felt my heart softening again for him. When I had those moments, I went to my list to remind myself of the destructive, abusive, nightmare that he truly was. Now, I find it amusing how well I was describing a narcissist or a borderline without the understanding I have now of personality disorders.
A second paper I found contained the transcription of his last four text messages to me before I called my cell phone carrier and asked the operator to cut the line. I will never forget the tears of relief as I watched the lights go out on my cell phone. At the top of the page of verbal venom, I wrote, “Words to remember you by.” These messages were hateful, vicious, twisted, and untrue. Every six months or so, I run across these two papers. They don’t really hurt me now. Each time I read them, I see more clearly the pathology driving the Bad Man. For some reason, I save these pages. I haven’t included the text messages in this article because they are very personal attacks on me and no one would benefit from reading them. I certainly didn’t. Still, I save them because reading those hateful messages makes it totally clear that I made the right choice in leaving him and eventually going No Contact.
To Stay on Track, Be Honest with Yourself
I have a gentle suggestion for anyone that is still struggling with that feeling of wanting the pathological abuser/exploiter back. Create your own list using words that describe what happened to you like this:
Bad Man/Woman = constant liar, cheater, infantile, fraudulent, etc.
Use the words that ring most true for you. Then tuck away your list in a place where you can access it whenever you feel yourself getting off track. Or, if you are really struggling, post it on the bathroom mirror or keep it in your purse for instant reality checks! Read it over and over, as often as you need. Use the list to replace those moments of longing.
My list helped me many times in the early days. Whenever I run across the list, I read it through. It reminds me to be thankful for my life for what it is, and what it isn’t, today.
Here is my list.
Introducing… the Bad Man
Controlling
Manipulative
Hypocritical
Attacks me
Judges me
Does not see himself
Isolates me
Name calling
Spin Doctor
Secret Abuser
Advises and “counsels” me on “anger issues” but does not control his own anger
Self Righteous
Inflated Super Ego
Cheap
Selfish
Petty
Twisted
Omits the truth
Manipulates people
Inappropriate
No boundaries
Uses People
E-mail bombs
Possessive
Scares Me
Emotional Abuse
Mind F***
Perverted
Gee, I wonder why I don’t miss him. NOT!
The Truth, a Lesson, and Peace
Imagine if the Bad Man’s personal dating profile was the list above. He doesn’t sound very appealing does he? This, of course, is not how he describes himself. That is why it is important to write down the truth. I wrote my list in one of those raw, painful moments, standing on the edge of “the Fog” as we say. My list is me, speaking to… me. It is the rope I clung to whenever I started to dangle over that black hole again.
The list is the TRUTH.
In the days when I still missed him, it was all about the fantasy of the Bad Man, the great seducer. Today, I am learning to pay more attention to what I see and not so much to what people say. This is fundamental to restoring faith in myself because I let myself down. I need to trust myself to assess a situation and trust what I see (ie.: intimidation, blame shifting, hypocrisy, etc.). I need to stand up for me when life calls for it. No one should be able to talk me out of my instincts to protect myself and my spirit. That was far too easy in the past. This was one of the lessons I needed to learn.
If you chose to do an exercises like my list, it may bring up a lot of pain but ultimately, it is meant to bring you clarity and eventually peace. When I look at this list today, I feel peaceful knowing that I left this man in the dust. There was no other choice.
Don’t feel bad. I put up with way too much not only from the get-go but for 20 years following. Why? because I had 18 years living with TWO malignats. I was well trained and prepared to live the life. It was normal. In fact, being treated well made me uncomfortable-what were they up to, anyway?
See how distorted truth can be. There was no one to teach me any different. 🙁 Until I lost everything, 20+ years of my life, my family, my home, my livelyhood. THEN I taught myself.
WOW! Some really great posts there today gals!!!
Yes, Ewe, it seemed “normal” and yes, Gracie, so many people don’t get it—I wonder if they too don’t some how try to “normalize” this behavior as “not all that bad.”
I am also glad that you had your group to support you Gracie, it is important (especially at the first) I think to be VALIDATED. I had one of my sons that validated me, and the sheriff, and one friend, but my entire family otherwise was INvalidating me and the church and the community. I’m not sure how (if I even could have) come through it with NO ONE to validate my “reality”—-even with the ones I had I felt crazy.
And what you said, Ewe, about “being treated well made me uncomfortable”—wow! That is SOOOOO RIGHT ON.
Grace,
I’m glad that you had a supportive base within the recovery program. Sometimes people in “the program” are still struggling with their boundaries, and unknowingly enable an abuser’s dysfunction. I was the subject of this about ten years ago, during my first relationship with an alcoholic in recovery. When his controlling nature reached a fever pitch and he got physical during an argument, I broke up. The relationship lasted about 4 months. Several male AA program members with poor boundaries took it upon themselves to contact me and plead his case… including one who enabled my ex’s suicidal blackmail. “You just killed somebody!” he said, slamming down the phone. As if *I* was responsible for his drinking OR suicide. Yeah, right! However, there are good intelligent people in the 12-step community and thank God for the women who supported you.
Interestingly enough, suicidal manipulation was the final emotional blackmail that catapulted me away from the S that I married in 2004. Just one of those charming characteristics to add to the “list”…somewhere between controlling and manipulative.
Melissa
http://www.myspace.com/kittentigress
I find this topic pretty interesting. I have made a list of those attributes that I would lile to find in someone. I had never thought to make a list of attributes that my ex S had. Here they are–its a start–
Liar
Cheat
Job jumper
Thief
Charming and funny
Master manipulator
Blame shifter
User
Arrogant
Power hungry (he was a cop until he lost his job)
Chaos (from many businesses, relationships and home renovations)
In the next few weeks this “catch” is getting married. His fiance knew him only one month before they became engaged. As much as I despise him and never want him back I am very hurt and sad about this whole wedding. I am taking a cruise to the Bahamas during the wedding weekend to get away. Why can’t I stop thinking about him standing at the altar waiting for her? Why does that hurt so much? Do I need so desperately to see this relationship fail to validate that he is a S? I KNOW HE IS–WHY CAN’T I GET THIS THROUGH MY THICK HEAD? Would a 2×4 work? I have been divorced/seperated for three years; and have known that he was a sociopath since the beginning of June. This is new to me. It feels like I am going through the divorce process all over again.
I have read on this blog many times–take good care of yourself and not think about him. I am taking good care of myself and I am making changes that are uncomfortable but needed for my own and my kids health. “Uncomfortable” is the word that my counselor said to use, instead of guilty. Why can’t I stop thinking about him?
I love this website and have referred people to it because it is a place where you know you are understood…
Thank you and hugs
-Ginger
cherrydreamsicle,
I’m so sorry for what you went through. We see the strength of the human spirit all around us as we see people battle some of the most difficult things life can throw their way and they turn it into something beautiful. S/Ps don’t change because they’re OK with themselves just the way they are. To change brings up so much discomfort that they would rather stay who they are than risk feeling out of control. You just see them squirm if you try to talk to them about their behavior and even infer that they are responsible for what they do.
My jaw dropped when reading your post. I warned my ex’s g/f about him and a couple of days later he thanked me for doing what he “didn’t have the balls to do”. I so wanted to tell him that I had seen his balls and he was right! He is a coward and pathological liar. He enjoys watching people hurt over him and that’s just plain sick. They are very disordered folks. Love women to fight over him. Only I won’t fight. Once I realized he had lied and was unfaithful I was done.
After he “thanked” me he hacked into my computer and hid his gf’s blog from me. You can’t see it from my old computer. Good reason to get a new one :)) I didn’t need to contact her online. He’s so pathetic! Why write a letter in my own hand-writing if I was going to send an email? Me thinks he’s not so smart! LOL
As then there was the letter he sent out to a co-worker of mine “tattling” on me. Only he lied and made a fool out of himself. How grandiose can one be? It had us laughing for hours though! LOL But all this was his retaliation for revealing who he is and trying to help someone else figure it out before getting to the point I did and almost losing your life. They’re not worth it!
You are so much better without him. Mine would go on “business trips” too. Yes, probably to see his other g/fs I’m sure! Thanks for sharing with us and please keep us posted on how you’re doing.
Grace63,
Same to you with being able to relate. I love the whole, “I sent you an email and it’s your fault you didn’t read it” thing. I demanded an apology once from the ex. It was probably the only time I had something to hold over his head to force him to do the right thing. I didn’t care how insincere it was gonna be. I got the same line…”I sent you an email already with an apology”. Reeeaaaally!!! I asked him to say it to me in person anyway.
Oh, I can bet he hated me even more for that one. I never did get that email until I confronted him about it later. He quickly sent me one and said, “I don’t care if you think I just made it up”. I never even inferred that he did but before I could even consider it he gave himself away! They are overgrown children. Always have to be right and will gaslight the hell out of you in order to make themselves look perfect and right all the time. It’s so dangerous and so sick how they distort reality.
All in all, the posts her never cease to amaze me. They are all so much alike. I still wonder if they have a guidebook!
TOWANDA! (that’s a shout out to LIG)
Oxy Darling,
I love my mom but I’d adopt you any day! You’re such a blessing. I’d imagine we’d have had a lot of fun. You’ve got the gumption I always wished my mom had. She’s gotten stronger over the years but she made her choices and it’s her life. It’s just sad when I see all that she could have had. I think you’d really like my mom. She’s a lot of fun to spend time with too when she’s not tethered to my dad running to and fro for him. I was thankful after all was said and done with the S. I actually said outloud, “I refuse to live my mother’s life!”
Eighteen years ago I said something just as profound. It was the only time I ever felt suicidal before last year. I said, “I refuse to allow my father to destroy me and I refuse to be like him”. Called my mom and asked her to come and get me from school. My therapist has told me of a private hospital I could go if I needed to get out of my house to heal. I went and it changed my life for the better. I was able to get myself together while away from him.
I ended up running a new art therapy group before I left. Hmmm…the budding therapist at age 16 LOL. The staff there kept asking me for the first couple of days if I had really gone there voluntarily. They said no kids ever admitted themselves. They were surprised. I have always taken responsibility to take care of myself once I identified something was wrong. I guess that’s why I don’t kick myself for it taking so long to figure out the truth last year. Con men are cons after all.
I’m taking care of myself again. Afterall, no one else is going to do it for me. God can point the way but it takes my two feet to follow. It’s a pleasure walking this path with you and so many other strong men and women on this site. It’s like we’re building an army and standing up and staying no more!
Dear Melissa,
isn’t it amazing how they get others to “triangle” into a relationship that is NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS and to try to manipulate us (victims who are getting away) for them by PROXY.
Their message of course was “You do what he wants you to or he will kill himself, and then you will feel really bad that you made him kill himself” HORSE HOCKEY!
AA groups have so many good qualities and so many good people, but unfortunately, like any group where “anyone can join” there are always dysfunctional people with some agenda of their own involved. I believe in AA they call them “dry drunks”—they aren’t drinking any more but they still keep the dysfunctional behavior, anger and crap—but now, because they are SOBER a$$holes, that makes them “OK”—NOT! LOL
My P-son recruited the entire family for his “mob,” and of course “numbers make strength,” to try to control me, and when I refused to be controlled, I was “cast out” of the “family” for failure to be “cooperative.”
It is disheartening to be in the minority, even if you know in your soul you are “right.”
I guess one of the most difficult things I EVER did in my life was to keep my mouth shut when my son C brought home the P-GF that became my P-DIL. I knew from the get-go that she was “deceptive” and she never responded at all to any of our efforts as a family to “include” her. She kept her distance from us and distanced my son from us as much as possible, even after they moved here to the farm. It was only toward the end, a year or so before she tried to kill my son her husband that she started to “curry favor” with my mother by going to church with mom, and joining the church, sitting on the front pew next to the Trojan Horse P that she was sleeping with and getting herself in a position to steal money from mother.
I was labeled the “crazy” one by the “mob” who felt so justified in treating me this way even though my P-son (in a prison cell 400 miles away) had “diagnosed” that I must have a BRAIN TUMOR to act so crazy. Is this the way you treat someone you love who develops a brain tumor? Mom sure didn’t treat her P-brother, Uncle Monster, that way when he had brain cancer.
Standing up to the “mob” mentality of the proxies that the Ps pull in to try to dishearten you, to break down your resolve, is very difficult, but as you gain strength being away from them, it becomes easier and easier. That’s why Ii don’t associate with anyone, or listen to anyone who tries to talk to me about how “pitiful” my poor old mother is, or my poor son sitting so alone in prison without any money or visitors, etc. and not even any letters. I didn’t put my son in prison, his own behavior did, I didn’t leave my mother, she cast me out in exchange for the adoration of the Ps, but now they are gone, and she IS INDEED alone, by her own actions. I didn’t treat my DIL poorly, I treated her well (even if I had to bite my tongue to keep it quiet for nearly 8 years) it was the law who took her away for her criminal behavior.
But I will never let these people back into my life again. I am free of them. I felt for so long that I had “lost” something valuable, but as time and NC continues, I am more and more realizing that I didn’t lose anything except my own delusions.
Sometimes I wish I had a mother’s love, but it’s odd but I don’t even connect my physical mother with that desire, I guess maybe I am becoming my own mother, nurturing myself, becoming my own lover, loving myself, and finally at this late stage in life, growing up and truly becoming independent—it has been a LONG ADOLESCENCE. LOL
This blog is such a blessing to me, and I thank all who share their thoughts. I don’t know how to heal from my brush with my sociopath of 27 years. Thank god for the internet. I found LoveFraud. It gave it a name. Sociopath. The pain and destuction they leave you with, it’s hard to wrap your head around. It’s hard to believe anyone can be so evil, and hateful. Kick you when your down and seem to enjoy your pain with no remorse. I want revenge, but I know that’s wrong. I want him to fall, I want him to be discovered for the fraud he is. Eveyone thinks he’s a great guy. It’s eating me up inside. They think I’m the crazy one. That hurts. I wish that they could see what had gone on behind closed doors. But the “S” are so good at their game. We are no match for them. I hate that. I know the truth, my kids know the truth. I will keep reading these blogs. Written from men and women , who like me, have been there and understand. Thank you.
Dear Kager,
I’m so sorry you spent 27 years persecuted by a psychopath, but I am so glad that you did find LF and that you have come here to learn and to heal. You are NOT the crazy one. I am also glad that you do know the truth, and that your children know the truth. Too many times they can alienate our children from us.
This is a good place, a safe place, and people do understand the devestation that the Ps leave behind with former victims. Learn all you can about the psychopaths and that will help you to understand what happened, how to defeat the next one that comes along, and help you heal from the trauma. God bless.
Kager.. 27 years is quite a brush! Welcome.
I was re-reading some of your posts on this thread, everybody, and thinking about pain, and all the different ways I responded to it. I have had many different S’s in my life, but every one of them has one thing in common, they have been contemptuous of my (admittedly) very deeply felt emotions.
Even my last S-bf, who was so nice to me most of the time, when I reacted to his subtle abuse with a raised voice or other indicator of my pain, would get very angry at me for “yelling” at him, and then use that as an excuse to pull away further, until he happened to remember he liked playing with this particular toy.
He has often told me I am the only woman he has never been able to walk away from completely. Why? Because he cares? No, because in the sack I rock his world just as much as he rocks mine.. sigh. I hope someday I can find a good, normal relationship with a man who makes me feel even half as alive, but in the meantime I’d rather be alone than deal with the intense pain of loving him.