Not long ago, Lovefraud received the following note from a reader:
Your articles have given me a lot of peace and the ability to see good in life again, though I’ll never go back into the mainstream of society because of the abuse and betrayal I’ve experienced. It’s sad that the vision and understanding one achieves after being victimized by a sociopath prevents you from ever being able to get close to anyone again. I’m working through that though, so I just take it one step at a time. Maybe you could write some more about that?
Yes, dear readers, we do need to take recovery one step at a time. But know that we can go back to the mainstream of society. We can recover to the point of allowing ourselves to open to love again.
For each of us, the experience of the sociopath was probably the most traumatic of our lives. The betrayal shakes us to our souls. But sometimes what gets shaken loose is the negative beliefs that enabled us to fall for the sociopath in the first place. Beliefs like “I’m not good enough.” “Nobody loves me.” “There’s something wrong with me.”
Those were my beliefs. They were buried deep in my psyche, hidden by my brains, writing talent and management ability. But my ex-husband, James Montgomery, plowed through my life, crushing the structures I’d built to present myself to the world—like my career, bank account and credit rating. With the structures gone, I came face to face with the beliefs.
The beliefs were wrong. It was the sociopathic upheaval that enabled me to realize that and let them go.
How did I do it? Quite honestly, it was painful. I cried. I raged. I released layers and layers of negative emotion. And finally, on April 19, 2001, I gave up the battle to make my ex pay me back.
Nine days later I met Terry Kelly. We dated. We fell in love. We married.
Friday was our fifth wedding anniversary. We still love each other as we did when our romance was new and fresh. Today, we exchanged mushy Valentines.
These have been the happiest years of my life. We enjoy each other’s company. We comfort each other in times of stress. We support each other in everything—in fact, without Terry, there would be no Lovefraud.
So yes, there can be life and love after the sociopath.
Please do not give up on life because of the terrible experience. If you do, then the predator will truly have won.
Instead, give yourself time and permission to heal. Find the blind spot within you that made it difficult for you to see the sociopath’s agenda. Recognize that you are now educated about this personality disorder, and you won’t be fooled again. Trust your intuition.
When we’re in the midst of the pain and trauma, it is difficult to believe that life can turn around. But we really do need to believe it, and allow ourselves to move, day by day, toward our own healing. Because healing can bring us love.
luv716, I’ve read a lot of comments that others feel exactly the same way you do (nobody has asked me out, so I don’t know how I would react). The best advice I’ve read is… take it slow. I used to hate it when a guy I was seeing would say I’ll call you back in a little while, and then they wouldn’t call back when they said they would. Maybe he has a good reason… but if he keeps doing that… it would seem like a red flag, like he is pushing to see if that is acceptable behavior to you. Oh my, I guess we have the same suspicions! I would be interested in hearing others experiences with this too!
Luv:
Yes…..take it slow…..
And keep in mind, this advice is coming from a woman who can fight a sociopath, but not attract a decent man for dinner once in awhile…. 🙂
I think we want to get our hopes up…..but time is the only tell tale….months and months….
I personally need to just ‘go with the flow’ and have NO expectations…of dating….
I realize I ‘hear’ what they tell me through my own filters…..
I just need to be deaf, dumb and blind to be a successful dater!!! then i’d land up with another SOCIOPATH!!!
SHIT!
Okay….sorry not to be ANY help on this one…..I’m the celebate lesbian now!!!
It just seems easier and way safer!
I have my gf’s…..but not interested in sex with them…..just buds!
Its like I wish I had ex-ray eyes like on one of the old cartoons. so I could look through his chest and see his heart to see is it sincere. Like I told you guys it’s almost like having a panic attack, but It actually trust issues. Slow is not the word, I feel myself likeing him, I smile when he call and text, excited about dating but scared shitless of the possibility that the bull-shit will pop out any day. The not return phone call really is almost like a lie to me, Wow, am I not tatooed by the sociopath. Someone please help me through this, please. I’m lonely as shit, been celibate since july 2009. seem like I’ve lost my ability to just let it flow, I even analyze if I should or should not call him this shit is crazy!
luv: maybe it’s just too damn early. maybe there isn’t a slow enough right now.
i had an idea: that we need lists. checklists of things we won’t accept, bottom lines. lists of red flags. and lists of what IS loving. then we fill out the check boxes every day. then we evaluate. at first, we evaluate every day. three strikes they’re out, or something like that. a high percentage of boxes ticked in the loving list they get to be in our lives another day.
I have come to be a gatherer of data, and an an evaluator of data in my work. I recently had to make a choice between 6 possibilities. My gut said, ‘go with A’. but i created a set of conditions and evaluated all the choices – and I went with B. Very interesting for someone who uses her intuition or ‘goes with the flow’.
to put it bluntly, your flowing isn’t flowin’ if you are this scared and anxious. there are basic things we need to know about people – are they good, not just, are they spaths. do you know anyone he knows? can you meet his friends? how long has he had his job? friends? see him in group situations where you can evaluate how he treats others.
have you googled him? check him out. no one will get near my lovely things again, unless I can find out LOTS about them first. spaths isolate us, i think they do it in some ways right from the beginning. you are spending a lot of time with him on the phone – is he in your area?
It sounds like you are in like long before any trust has formed. to be blunt again, you might want to take a look at this. have you read the ‘betrayal bond?’ I am working my way through it. slooowly. it’s important to show up to the table with cutlery.
all the best,
one step
…oh, and breathe.
luv: a bit more – I think we need to evaluate the values and the long term compatibility of potential lovers, long before we get physically involved.
I had a friend who told me that if we humans could go four months no sexual contact (nor building on the sort of romantic intention that leads to it) and still liked the person and admired their values, saw their actions and words as congruent, that it was worth checking out further. given that the 4 month mark seems to be a golden time for the mask of the spath’s to slip, i would amend that to 4 months.
i have been no good at holding back the moment i get that romantic intention going. and one of the ways i have been able to circumvent the power of it, is to not have sex. and to not plan to have sex. actually, that is the only way i have known until now.
we have to get smarter about relationships, in general. it really is our own lives and heads we are messing with when we rush into things because we want and need so badly, or someone looks too interesting/ yummy to pass up.
I am a highly sexual person, and yet have gone for years at a time not being sexually involved with anyone, because I could not find someone whose values and interests matched mine. The other thing is – I am trauma bonded, and i have known that for a long time – just under different names (and i don’t think I saw the whole of the elephant, either). when i finally did find people whose values and interests intrigued me – they were big fat liars. one was an narcissist and the other a spath. THIS, in itself, attests to how trauma bonded I am.
luv, do be careful. be very very careful with your precious self, and your life. we don’t get back the time or heart we use to difficult ends.
Hi Luv. I think One-step has offered you some excellant advise. I can identify, whole-heartedly. I wasted the years between the ages of about 12 to 47 obsessing about one guy or another…it was soooo damned important to me. I was married at 17, then divorced, then married again, then divorced, then looking, then in my last long -term relationship. All of those relationships were pathological. They were all miserable and addictive.
I’m convinced that each of the three men I was involved with long-term were either narcissistic or spaths. But, and here’s the point, there was something wrong with me to be that needy.
I have been out of my last relationship for 2.5 years…I haven’t even dated, mostly because I don’t trust myself NOT to get in that crazy obsessive state, almost immediatly. I DON”T WANT THAT INSANITY< ANTMORE.
Maybe someday I will be ready, but not yet.
I think you are already too invested in this guy. Yes, there are trust issues at work, understandably, but there's more going on, here, imho. It wouldn't matter if he were pure as the driven snow, you would probably sabatouge it because of your own issues. Am I being too blunt? I dont mean to rain on your parade, I just want you to take a look at what I'm saying.
Maybe you should take some time-off and have a relationship with yourself….
At any rate, I'm with one-step…wait as long as possible to have sex…once those bonding hormones kick in you're toast.
I wish I would have taken my therapists advise when I was in my thirtys and taken a breather instead of rushing headlong into more of the same. I wish you the best of luck, though, either way.
Onestep
Can you please expound on trauma bonded? I have not heard of this before.
Thanks
knowledgeempowers: there is a great book available online and in the lovefraud store, THE BETRAYAL BOND.
The hypothesis is that we bond much more deeply in trauma than in love – and that for those of us who have these sorts of bonds (mine start in my own family in childhood) that we mistake trauma bonding for love bonding. and you can see where that might lead.
going to childhood origins – in households where parents are abusive, alcoholic, etc. where there is a lot of chaos, instability and harm, bonds are strengthened through the chemicals and hormones released in those situations.
I am prone to being over empathetic and sympathetic – my spath was in (fake) dire need of both empathy and sympathy. so I bonded to her, not only out of care and concern, but because it is a hook and ring situation for me; i am set up to fall into this crap. then she pulled all sorts of fake crises – bonded me more deeply. pulling away from that kind of bond is traumatic in and of itself. that’s one of the reasons we feel like we are dying, why it is so devastating for some of us.
i am a bit foggy this am, hope i have explained this adequately.
get the book, it’s a very good tool. lots of exercises.
best,
one step
kim frederick…
NOT TO BLUNT AT ALL.. SPOT ON IMHO…for ALL of us.
Take some time off and have a relationship with yourself…
Get to know yourself…
Many of us didnt and dont even know what those words mean. I surely didnt. Until I started to focus on myself – after I focused on him and his faults. I focused on me and who I was — and how I could be a stronger, wiser, healthier version of me!!
It isnt easy to do. And kim I wish for you the ability to trust yourself again because with boundaries set and a healthy self-awareness of what you deserve and want for yourself – you can only and will only let in healthy like minded people. Because you will know WHO YOU ARE and WHAT YOU DESERVE and WAY YOU DESERVE TO BE TREATED.
Its true anyone can show up in our lives and lie, cheat, etc… But they always always always F-up… get caught…give us a weird feeling…dont keep their word on something minor in the beginning… or they just plain treat us bad at some point — THATS WHEN THE JIG SHOULD BE UP — THE VERY FIRST TIME — no writing it off, or excusing it, or pretending it didnt happen. JUST GET OUT. Good people just dont exhibit the SH@.......@ they do…
Luv – they have to earn your trust this time around… how? by keeping their word. If he says he is going to call you and is running late or got tied up – thats one thing – but if he blows you off – doesnt mention it– thats another. If you dont invest your emotions and body upfront — if you just give a go at a relationship (if you think youre ready) then just COAST– TAKE NOTE– Just live and breathe and be yourself — he will either prove to be trustworthy or not BY HIS ACTIONS. You dont have to say or do anything — just be yourself — keep your boundaries.
Personally for me, if he says he is going to call and doesnt…now I just know it wont work for me. Thats my plan and Im sticking to it. Alot of times we invest in long phone calls, texts, WORDS — This time around I invest in ACTIONS – what he says is one thing – what he does is another.
GOOD LUCK!! Take it slow in that the ball is in your court. You dont have to be a spy or a detective. If he isnt treating you right — than you will know by his actions – if you choose to still stay once you have evaluated his actions, his treatment, his respect and its not up to par–then at that time you are walking a slippery slope with not being in a healthy relationship for yourself!
Trust yourself in that you now know what you deserve! Good luck!
Thank you Onestep, I will check it out, it may explain a lot about my own relationships as well.
Appreciate you taking the time to clarify!