My 100% responsibility.
I had a glass of wine last night with a girlfriend who is leaving for a three month holiday at the beginning of February. Where she’s going is not important — except when put in the context of who is at the place she’s going to. A man. A man she once loved who could not, would not commit. A man who hid behind silence. Who never told her where he was, what he was doing or who he was with.
She spent the first year after leaving him healing her broken heart. And then she started dating. A few months ago she decided to phone the man far away. “We were such good friends. Friends stay in touch and I just wanted to see how he was,” she told me.
With that phone call, the game was on. Three months ago she decided to go visit him. “Great!” he said. Now, plans laid, trip organized, her packing almost complete, he has stopped calling and stopped taking her calls.
“Why does he do that?” she asked.
“Because he can,” I replied.
I also had lunch with a friend yesterday who, after 15+ years of marriage, told his wife on Sunday night that he is leaving. “I didn’t tell her I know about her lies, the cheating, the affairs,” he said. “I just told her the love is gone. It’s time for me to leave.” She shed two tears, he said, and that was that. And then he told me when he got home last night, she did everything in her power to seduce him. “I love you,” she said. “I promise to give you everything you want. Don’t leave me.”
“Why does she do that?” he asked.
“Because she can,” I replied. “Because it’s what she does.”
When I was with the psychopath, he did what he did because he could, because it is what he does.
While I was with him, I focused my energy on coping with what he did, coping with his lies disguised as truths, coping with my confusion, my fear, my anxiety and avoided, at all costs, coping with the truth — what he was doing wasn’t what was making the biggest difference in my life. I was. By not focusing on my ‘doing, I was choosing to live with his abuse, his lies, his deceit, his manipulations.
What I wasn’t doing was making the difference between living with abuse — or not. I wasn’t looking at me as the root of my own sickness. I was looking at him continually — looking for my answers in what he was doing, saying, being — and not checking myself out against what I was doing, saying, being by remaining in his duplicitous embrace. I continually denied what I knew to be true — he was lying. I continually told myself, ‘it can’t be true that he is lying’ and instead reminded myself, ‘It must be true. He loves me. He wouldn’t lie to me.”
The lie in that statement was — I positioned the pain of my existence in the context of his loving me.
The truth is, from hello to good-bye, I love you to I hate you. You’re beautiful to you’re ugly — everything was predicated on the lie of what he was doing, saying and being. In my denial of the truth, I bought into his lies and gave up on me.
I never asked myself the tough questions, What do I feel about what he’s doing? How does it affect me? What can I do to change my situation? What if I give myself permission to leave without hearing his voice telling me I can’t? What if I quit calling his abuse love? What if I quit taking responsibility for his bad behaviour and instead, take responsibility for my own?
If by chance, I did happen to ask myself one of those tough questions, I always completed my answer with — I can’t leave him… and then I recited the litany of reasons he’d told me why I could never leave. In the process, I became very, very emotionally sick. In my ill-health, I never gave myself the cure I needed to rid myself of the disease causing my illness — I never left him because I kept my focus on trying to figure out him — not trying to figure out a way to heal myself.
For me, focusing on his behaviours, trying to figure out why he was doing what he was doing, continually looking for meaning in everything he said, and keeping the light fixed on him, kept me stuck in confusion. It kept me from shining the light on my own behaviour. My constant angst around his bad behaviour protected me from having to face my bad decision-making, poor judgement in character — and ultimately, face myself, with tender loving care.
I feel for both my friends yesterday. Theirs is not an easy road. Both will have to decide to either do what is best and caring of them — or not. Both will have to give themselves medicine — or not. Both will have to turn up for themselves and let the other person go — or not.
Turning up for me has been a constant journey into self-love. It has been a continuous quest for finding my truth within me — and letting go of looking for my answers out there. Whatever answers I find in someone else will always be best for them. Just as whatever answers someone else finds within me, will always be first and foremost best for me.
In healthy self-care, the person I keep healthiest must be myself. I cannot properly care for my daughters without first taking care of me. If I always jump to their aid, continually do for them and not do for myself, I will drain myself of energy, of passion, of commitment. For in my desire to do for them always, I let go of my responsibility to do for me so that I am strong enough, courageous enough, healthy enough to do for them what is loving, supportive and caring.
Once upon a time, I gave up on me and gave into a man who told me he had all my answers. He was my shortcut to happiness. Lost on that road to hell, I found myself again beneath the debris of his tumultuous passing through my life.
In healing, I have awakened to the truth within me — I am 100% responsible for my journey. I am 100% responsible for living in the light of love, for turning up for me and living this one wild and precious life as if it is the only life I’ve got — it is. It is my responsibility to live it up.
The question is: Where do you let go of responsibility for your one wild and precious life looking for someone else to turn the light on?
Thanks M.L. for your encouraging words. I just re-read my post. I feel like two different people sometimes. I go from feeling totally hopeless, helpless, and worthless to feeling strong and determined.
About the gay thing-my ex always despised gays and sometimes would mention one was hitting on him. When he would say things about it I would get that uneasy feeling. At the time I thought it was just because I didn’t harbor hatred for anyone like that and thought it was wrong, but since then I’ve wondered.
When I showed a picture of the girlfriend to a few friends (none of them know each other) the first thing they all said was “she looks like a man…maybe he’s gay”. He also told me when he was trying to deny the affair that her best friend was gay(male) and she was probably a lesbian. The part about her friend is true and for as much as he didn’t want to be around gay men, he spent a lot of time around this guy. He would never (scratch that) I don’t think he would ever admit to it if he was, even to himself. I don’t know, but it’s funny that this was brought up because I really have thought it possible.
my s path, told me one night that he went home with a transexual but he said he did not know it was a man, he also was younger at the time. he said that nothing happened that when he found out she was a man they just had a few drinks and talked. i dont believe him i think he would be very curious cause he was such a sexual person. and if nothing happend why did he tell me. i told him something important at the time first then he came out with it. it made me wonder and seemed very odd. also my ex was very vain about his looks and grooming he would take much longer than me to get ready if we went out looking in the mirror a million times. to me that isnt manly its a bit feminine, its too extreme for most straight guys to be that vain. i think he might of had gay or bisexual tendencies also he bragged to me once that this gay guy a friend of a friend used to flirt with him and grab him on the behind, he thought this was really amusing and funny. most guys i know would be a little annoyed at the invasion of space by being touched like that. he just reacted differently to things that most guys would not like. it makes me wonder what else i did not know about him or his sexual experiences. is it a fact that s paths woul be more likely to have these gay- bi tendencies. or want to experiment.
trying to recover: when my ex s path and i broke up after a few months he met someoen else and started a relationship with her. i never saw her then one day at work someone told me they knew her and said they could not believe he would go out with hr after being with me when i said what did they mean he said shes totally different to you. then one day with the same friend we saw my ex with this girl and she looked gay like butch, i mean a crew cut hair very big girl and just looked like a gay girl its not that i have anything a gainst gays but that is the only way i can describe this girl the total opposite to me i am very feminine. its almost like he looked for someone the most unlike me he could find. normally he would be saying oh that girl look s butch or gay but here he was with someone who looked like that. it makes me wonder. i didnt know anything about her much my friend said at school she was strange and told every one her father had molested her! anyway they broke up after a while and my ex just told me they were just two different for it to work out.
Jules: My ex’s girlfriend is as different from me as he could get too. She’s (these are his words when he was saying they were just friends but after he said he wanted to separate) tall with long blond hair. I’m average height with dark hair. What he left out is she looks like Ted Nugent. She is about the same size as my ex is and has a stronger chin. He always made comments about big manly looking woman too. I don’t know if it’s just her money he’s after or if some of it has to do with him getting as close to a man as he can. I don’t know. I don’t like talking about some one’s looks like that, but she’s the exception.
I just want to stop and get some of the anger out I have for the girlfriend. On the subject of feeling sorry for their next victim. I believe he’s lying to her, but I don’t feel sorry for her. In her case she knew he was married and she lost any victim status when she pulled my son into it. She would call our house to talk to my ex. I didn’t suspect anything because he told me “all” about her. They were in the police academy together and she’s from the same area as we were.(1500 miles away from the academy) She called the house one night and my son answered. She said to him “Is your dad there. It’s his girlfriend”. I heard my son say “ha ha very funny” in a annoyed voice. He then asked me if she really was Dad’s girlfriend and if we were going to get divorced. I told him that she was just kidding and that us getting a divorce was one thing that he never had to worry about. (he had plenty of others) My ex just stood there not saying anything so I asked him to say something because he was pretty upset. He reassured him she was just kidding. I believe the two of them planned it or he put her up to it some how. A few days before that call my ex told me when he got off the phone with “Ted” that she was going to say it was his girlfriend calling for a joke, but then thought she better not. I just looked at him and said “ya think?”. So when this happened I thought she just used her bad judgement and carried out her joke. This happened about three months before he told me he was leaving. They had to wait until it was relatively safe for their jobs and my mom got there to use for his cover story.
tryingt recover: i totally relate. it just amazedme to see this girl i wasinsulted actually cause myex was always soooo into looks then he was so deeply into this woman who was anything but atttractive to say the least. they had a strange raltionship i found out later she didnt like to go out so she let my ex go out sat nights without her, with his mates big mistake if you knew my ex. anyway he aslo iked to her about me i presume he gave some sob story. cause after they broke up i rang him to tell him he had some mail, and she was there withhim he did not tell me when he answered the phone she was there but i could tell in his voice then i hear d her talking in the back ground. we had slept together few weeks prior to this after he broke up with her.anyway he told me she was there and she was saying in the back ground who is it, it better not be jules. then she said to him hang up the phone right now hang up she was really upset. he and i were just friends at this stage so i dont know why she got so upset he must of lied about me to her. prob said he has nothing to do with me anymore. then he saying on the phone stop calling me stop texting me so she would think i was hasseling him, which i wasnt. so he lied to her aobut me and also lied t me about her on other occasions as well. it was funny almost as if fate made me call that night and her to be there to show both of us he was a liar. i felt good about that at least.
My Sociopath I found out way later in the relationship was seeing a woman who was 20 and he was 52! He met her at work and they actually lived together. When I was at his place and I was his girlfriend, she would stop by sometimes to “borrow a carpet shampooer” or borrow a camera… he told me they were just friends and that was all. She had another boyfriend…and he had helped them out once so they were still friends.
Well I found out later that he lived with her. Is that sick or what.. then he lied to me all along about their relationship. She is 24 years younger than me, pudgy and very young looking even now at 24 – she looks 12. I even caught her “stopping by to pick up some smoked salmon” he made for her grandma – towards the very end of our 2 years together… after all the problems we had with him and other women.. he still had the guts to have her over and do favors for her. Hate to think what the other favors are.
Anyway – I found out about her being there because his cell phone on his belt, accidentally got bumped and it phoned my cell phone!!!! Can you believe the luck! SO I was listening to their conversation until he noticed the phone was on, and hung up on me. I called right back and he was full of 10,000 excused why it was safe and ok that she had stopped by. What kind of luck is that, his cell phone rang mine. So ironic and funny to me, but sad and sick at the same time.
jules: My ex did the same thing on the phone. We were talking on the phone after my son and I left the state that he had moved us to and in the middle of one of my sentences he said “stop yelling at me”. I started to react and said “I’m not yelling. What are you talking about?”. Then I remembered everything I just had learned about him. I stopped and asked him who was there that he wanted to think that I was yelling at him. He didn’t answer or even acknowledge the question.
That brings up another post about using your words as there own. When he would yell at me (I’m a quiet person and rarely yell or raise my voice for that matter) I would ask or beg him depending on how bad it was to please stop yelling at me and he would look at me like he wanted to kill me. Then when he was in the process of leaving and I said it to him one night, he started saying how he likes to yell ,his whole family yelled that’s who he is. I told him I was sorry I could change. Then a few days later he was yelling again and I asked him to stop and he looked at me and I remembered and felt scared I guess because he just proved his case that I couldn’t change.
I’m out of time, but that last example is, I know, where my accountability come in.
The truth is I feel empty without him. He was my sun and I in his orbit. He was my everything. The first thing I thought of when I woke up. An extra snuggle. Mmm…he always smelled so good. On days he had to go to work (3 12’s a week), I’d get up early with him, make his coffee, sit and talk while he got ready for work. A kiss good-bye. “I’ll miss you!” we’d both say, and I meant it.
And he’d call me when he’d get to work so I’d know he arrived safe. And he’d call me at least two more times during the day. Then when he got off work, and again when he was ten minutes from home, and I’d be standing out on the driveway when he pulled in. I was genuinely happy to see him.
And we’d sit and talk at the dining room table while he’d eat the dinner I’d fixed. He’d recount his day and then we’d go up to bed. And so on.
And so on and so on and this is the way life unfolded for me and the way I thought life unfolded for him and I’d think when are his days off and when he’d have a long stretch off I was so happy to have him around. So happy.
And now he is gone and there is a huge vacuum and even knowing what I know now, even knowing that he is a cold-blooded killer, yes, he’d even be that if he got the chance and thought he’d never get caught, it is a dreadful gripping inside.
It’s the worst sort of pain. Not only losing the love of my life but knowing he would kill me if he could. How does one get over this?
I’m working on it. I have my friends and my little activities and my goals and dreams. But it’s to bed alone at night, wearing sweatpants and socks it’s so cold in bed now, and it’s reading until I’m so tired I fall asleep and it’s hoping I don’t wake up in the middle of the night and it’s that horrible first thing in the morning, and it’s knowing he stole 19 years from my life and feeling too old and too old-looking to attract another man.
It’s knowing that even if I do find someone else, they will never be a parent to my children. We can never be a family like that. I can never have a family like that. I thought I had a family like that and I don’t know how to get over this. I don’t know how to be a saint and pray for my enemies and just get on with it.
I don’t know how not to want to fuck them over. I don’t know how not to want to make them pay.
I don’t know how to help my 32 year old son and my 29 year old daughter who thought of him as their father, knowing now that he knew they rode in my car also, heavily loaded while we drove out of the mountains on the way to my mom’s for Christmas. He knew, the socio knew, that we would all be in the car and he knew the brakes were shot, and for sure he knew the brakes were shot; I took a closer look at the receipt for the tires that were put on my car at the end of October and it is even documented there that the customer was advised of the work that needed to be done and the customer said nothing, he deliberately said nothing to me, we spent that day together and he said nothing.
And it is the shock, the horror of losing this man that I dreaded ever losing through death and knowing that he was plotting to leave, that he wanted to leave, that he was desperate to leave and it’s being so astonished that he would betray me like that and it’s knowing that he deserves the worst sort of punishment and it’s hoping that someday there will be justice, if not in this life then the next, I think it would have to be the next and sometimes I feel so hopeless about that.
Gillian,
I struggle with a lot of the same feelings, myself. I want to force him to be accountable for the things he’s done. Not only to me, but to every woman he’s treated this way. I want to make the ones he’d currently doing it to open their eyes and see what’s happening to them.
And despite all that anger, I still miss him. I miss what I believed was true. I miss the sweet things he actually did say and do, even though I now know they were entirely contrived and were the exact same things he said to every single girl he met. I came across an angry email he’d written to me back in October when I was first confronting him with my belief that he’s a sociopath. In it, he claimed it was ok to tell all these girls that they could be His One True Love on the first date because it’s just his personality, just the sort of romantic fool he is, and that they loved hearing it, soaked it up in fact, and that made it all perfectly ok. He made them feel good, he said, so it was ok to say those sweet things to everyone. Yes, he admitted it was a formula, but it WORKED and they felt good, so it was a win-win situation. Talk about your paramoralisms! He genuinely failed to comprehend how girls might be hurt when they found out he was saying the EXACT same thing to every girl. I really don’t think his imagination stretches that far because he has no compassion and no conscience. He truly can’t see it as hurtful because it’s not in his programming. It’s not a massive rationalization, even. He sees only that it brings him pleasure and therefore must be ok.
I still miss the way he’d call me at 3am and talk to me just because he was lonely. I miss the sweet things he said. I miss the way he made me believe I was sexy and fabulous instead of dumpy and middle-aged. I miss the lies he told me because when I was believing them, they were the best things anyone had ever said to me. And I’m madder than hell knowing that those things WEREN’T REAL! It was all a lie. Everything he said was the same thing he was saying to at least ten other girls. I wasn’t special. In fact, he referred to himself once as a stallion visiting mares in his stable! Why do I miss that? How’s it even possible to miss something that wasn’t real?
Yep, still struggling. Probably will for a long time. But I’m also relieved to have gotten away before it got any worse.
Gillian: Our stories seem so similar. I started crying when I read your post. I thought I had all that too. I haven’t been able to cry lately and every thing is just rotting inside.
I have to watch my 14 yr old be lied to and manipulated and there’s nothing I can do about it except be a rock in his life and let him know how much I love him.
Your last paragraph-I dreaded losing him to death too. One night about a week before he told me he was leaving he went to his training officer’s house. He had asked me if I would mind if he did because it would be good for his career and it would help us get back on our feet quicker. I said of course not. I was so proud of him for working so hard and accomplishing what he had. (The whole time he was telling lies about me to set up his cover story.) He never came home that night. His cell phone was dead and I didn’t have the number of the guy’s house. I lost a few lbs that night because I thought he was dead. To make a long story short, after I found out everything and pieced together time lines, he was at the girlfriends house. I wish he would have died that night then my son and I never would have had to know what he is. (I just read that over and his training officer was behind him in his patrol car when he came home. That’s why I believed he fell asleep on the guy’s couch.)
I desperately miss the person I thought he was, but despise the person he actually is. It’s so confusing. It’ hurts so much to know he had no feeling for me.
You’re not alone and you’re going to get though this. We both are. I’m not going to let him steal the rest of my life. I have days when I feel like he will never pay for what he has done and then days I think he’s paying everyday because he has no love. I loved a lie. His son no longer looks at him the same way. His new soul mate is in love with a lie. I still have my fantasies about revenge. I would love to watch as the gf found out the truth about every thing. (She’s not an innocent victim.)
I don’t know how long it’s going to take, but I’m going to work on healing like M.L. wrote. Right now I think I need to let out the anger. I just don’t know how.