It has been just over six years since the man who promised to love me ”˜til death do us part (and took the ”˜til death part way too seriously) was arrested. In the intervening years, I have grown and healed and cried and slipped and stood and leaped and wrestled with truth versus fiction. I have sought to make sense of his nonsense and dropped my need to understand him as I’ve struggled to find my one true self beneath the debris of his torturous ride through my life.
And I have survived.
I have stood up tall while the sky was falling down around me. I have turned sour grapes into the heady bouquet of sunlit days of wine and roses. I have uncovered lies. Torn away the darkness and peeled back time to find my truth within me. I have been drawn by courage to face my own culpability in all that happened. I have faced my fears and asked for forgiveness. I have forgiven and been forgiven. I have asked for strength and found the truth of who I am. For in the end, truth has overcome his lies. Triumph surpassed the tragedy of his abuse.
In the years since his arrest, escape from prison, stalking and subsequent re-confinement to eventual release I have ridden the rollercoaster of my emotions, sometimes confident in my knowledge that I would be okay, sometimes terrified I would never find myself again, never know peace of mind. Yet, through it all, I have breathed gratefully into the joy of being free. Of the gift of living without his lies poisoning my mind, without his deceit blurring my vision and undermining my belief in who I am. I have embraced the truth that I deserve so much more in life than him. I deserve all of this I have today, and everything better.
It has been a journey of self-discovery. A voyage into the wonder of being me, in all my laughter, tears and fears and sorrow. It has been a journey into self-acceptance, forgiveness, humility and self-examination. And through it all, it has been a journey of love. A journey of knowing, this is my one and only life. It is up to me to make it a life worth living. A worthwhile life. A life of joy and laughter. Love and beauty. It’s up to me in how I live it up — or let it slip away. It’s up to me to be all that I am meant to be, dancing in the light of my beauty, warts and all.
It is the greatest gift of that relationship — the wonder of knowing me. Of knowing I am okay, exactly the way I am. That I have all I ever need, or want, or desire, right here within me. That I am free to love without fear, to laugh without tears, to cry and spill my heart out. To walk away or walk into open arms knowing, no matter their embrace, I will be okay. Because I am a woman of worth. A woman alive. An enlivened woman, dancing in the rain, splashing through puddles, leaping for joy at thunder crashing and lightning flashing. I am okay, however I am, whomever I’m with, because I have me, myself and I. Fearless. Uncompromising. Honest. Caring. Kind. Beauty and the beast. Yin and yang. Sunlight and sunset. Dark and light. And always loving.
In my journey from the darkness of those days where I believed his lies and abuse were all that I deserved, I have learned to accept myself, just the way I am. To let go of regret and to give into hope. To let go of anger and fall into truth. To let go of fear and surrender to love.
I have learned that the past is only a memory — and I decide its value in my life today. That what someone does to me is nothing compared to what I do with my experience. That someone else’s lies are not my truth, unless I choose to believe them. That there is beauty in this world around me. That I can trust myself to know the difference between false hope and honest possibilities. I have learned that I have courage, that I can stand up and turn up for me without fear of falling under someone else’s assertions I am too weak, or stupid, or short or tall or fat or skinny.
I have learned that I am not measured by my past, but by how I move through each moment of today. I decide if I create harmony or discord. Love or hatred. I have learned that each step I take is determined by the foundation under me — and I create that foundation with every breath, thought, word, action I take.
I have learned that I am me. Unique. Special. Magnificent. A human being of immense worth. A wondrous, luminous child of God. Filled with the greatness of my human being. Capable of falling down and courageous enough to stand back up and take another step and another and then another. My journey is not measured in the falls I take. It is built upon the hands I reach out, the steps I build towards creating my higher ground where I become my best me yet. My journey is measured in the love I give and receive.
I have learned that being me, perfectly human in all my imperfections, is the greatest gift I can give. I have learned to create value in all things in my world. My value is in everything I do. In how I treat myself and those I love and the world around me. My value is not measured against what I have. It is created in who I am in this world of wonder when I live this precious life in the rapture of now, without fear that I am not enough.
I am enough. Just the way I am.
Dear Morgan, WISE WORDS INDEED!
Dear Jfog,
The O-as in OBLIGATION of (F-O-G) and the Built of not doing that “obligation’ to suit whoever our slave driver is—-that’s what keeps us BOUND as with CHAINS of FEAR OBLIGATION and GUILT.
I willingly took care of my beloved step dad for 18 months before his death from cancer….I did a lot of care for my egg donor at the same time as during that time she had major surgery and complications for months that required daily dressing changes, etc.
There came a point though, after my step father’s death when she was well (except she should not drive) that she became so DEMANDING and of course there was nothing I could do to please her and she would not accept boundaries but wanted my complete attention ALL the time. Even when I begged her to let me have time for myself to grieve over my husband’s death and to take care of my OWN FINANCIAL BUSINESS INTERESTS—not a shread of compassion or care–of course when I tried to set boundaries and TAKE that time for myself I iwas DEVALUED and DISCARDED as I was not going “enough” to suit her. I needed that time, I was foundering, I NEEDED to take care of myself—but she would not allow it. So she picked the psychopaths as her “caregivers” and of course they kissed her feet—until they stole from her and were ready to skip out. She was flabbergasted because they “were ALWAYS so respectful of me!” LOL ROTFLMAO Of COURSE they were “respectful” to her FACE while they got their plans in order! LOL
Your “friends” and others telling you how you should ACT and how you should or should not talk, and what you should say or not say is these people attempting (or succeeding) in CONTROLING YOU COMPLETELY. It sounds almost as if you are a slave or an android as far as these “family members” are concerned.
Of course it is difficult when there are elderly and ill lfamily members to care for, but you and your brother sound to me like you are designated the roles of “caregiver for mom and pop” at the COST of your own lives. Him leaving his family to come there for the sake of the caring for your parents who continually criticize everything you and he do.
You say you want to “grow up”–I felt that same way too, and to a great extent I have, I am financially independent from my egg donor and always hav ebeen, but more importantly I am no EMOTIONALLY dependent up on her APPROVAL. I never got it anyway, but now it is not important to me any more. I tried desperately to please her, but never got it right according to her, but now….I only have to please myself.
I am growing up, I am 62—better late than never. I thought I could not live without her in my life, but I am finding that without her and her continual criticism, I do much better.
Good luck to you in decideing what you want when you “grow up” I can tell you my journey to EMOTIONALLY disengage from my egg donor’s apron strings wasn’t easy. Lincoln freed the slaves and LoveFraud freed me! (((hugs))) My heart and my prayers are with you in this quest!
Eureka! I got it. I’ve been reading all the old posts, (from before I joined) and it hit me. How can you know if someone is an S or a P before you invest your time and energy?
This might be offensive to some but the answer is to tell a small, inconsequential lie. I know, we don’t want to lie because we don’t want to be like them, but think about it. The only times we have ever won with a P was when we lied. Think about Tilly, she told the “fake friend” that she wanted certain books from the library. That ff went right up and checked out the books first.
In my case, I told my P that I was tired of answering the phone because everyone I know kept calling and calling to try to reach me rather than waiting for me to call back at my convenience. At that point, he began to call and RAGE when I didn’t pick up the phone. Just because I told him that it bothered me.
So, to test our new friends, we tell them something is important to us, which is actually inconsequential. Pick something like, germs or a keeping your car very clean. Different tests will apply to different people depending on what they are looking for in their supplies. Don’t make a big deal about your quirk, but state it with some emotion and then drop it. If the new friend is an N, they will hone in on it, because their first step is always to know their victims’ weaknesses. So make one up, don’t reveal your real ones.
Skylar: good idea! I’ve actually done this on my X just to see if he was really being cruel on purpose. And….he was.
Oxy: exellent info! Know you are a four hooved animal owner tho…..’foundering’. :):):) ((((((hugs)))))
Uh…sorry typo should read exCellent.
You are right on….I used to think the P was oppositional defiant! Whenever it was clear I wanted to do something, he dropped it. Whenever it was clear I didn’t, then we had to do that. He wasn’t oppositional defiant….he was just a P!
Here is a quote from the reclaimbaggage site…a little different point, but so true.
Wondering why he behaves badly, is like knowingly leaving your handbag with a wad of a cash in it in front of a handbag thief and wondering why he’s taken it” You’re focused on the fact that you’re showing him trust and care, and forgetting what’s in front of you ”“ a thief.
LOVE IT!
Hi skylar and justabouthealed: Great points for testing others to determine if they will respect boundaries. As long as we know we are not trying to do serious harm to another, and will not prolong such testing beyond a reasonable point, these are very good and ethical ways to find out about someone’s intentions. We must also balance any approach with understanding of potential unintended consequences if we go beyond certain limits, however.
Interestingly, my ex-N explained that some of his bad/inconsiderate behavior was to test me — in hindsight, I realize he did it a lot in the middle of the 1.5-year relationship. But in putting me through the ringer, he explained he was trying to protect himself due to past experiences with people who didn’t treat him well. All I can say is that he lost out in the end, because I feel his approach was extreme and I had low tolerance for paying the price for another/other people’s mistakes or making his past all right. I told him if he still had lingering hurts, it was his responsibility to work through his own unresolved issues and that I had done the same and therefore would not pay the price for his salvation.
By this time, as a result of the gaminess, I felt emotionally abused and mistreated. Afterall, I had been open to giving him benefit of doubt and was demonstrating through words and actions that I was a decent person, so why should I suffer because of his past when I had already suffered for my own past. I feel he set the stage by testing me too much, and it resulted in the very things he didn’t anticipate. Despite many positive things he did for me, the unwillingness to judge me on my own merits rather than “the world” made me begin viewing him as insincere. The confusion made me not open to trusting him any longer and resulted in me falling out of love with him because I felt a stronger pull to love myself when I had to choose between someone who could not fully “see” me based on my own actions. Whether his “testing” was an excuse to engage in bad behavior and/or a cover-up for N-behavior, I’m not sure.
All I know is that any relationship involves risk, and we all have a past. I should not suffer for anyone else’s past negative experiences. In this situation, my ex-N’s projections resulted in me “doing unto him as he had done unto me” — later in the relationship when he became physically aggressive and I felt overwhelmed and responded in kind. I felt he deserved my anger and contempt rather than allow myself to take it all out on innocent people.
Toward the end, I abused him verbally in response to all the built-up stressed and confusion he had caused for me. I said hurtful things I would have never said to him before, but felt justified because he basically had invalidated who I was and tried to dishonor all that was good about me. I really had to flip the switch to restore my power and sense of integrity. Things got so bad that I could no longer view him with any positive characteristics that initially attracted me to him, and I became very unresponsive to him sexually and even saw him as boring given that he seemed to have a need to create way too much unnecessary drama — rather than use time productively. All this was the result of the “hoops” he had me jump through in his backward thinking/ efforts to get me to prove I was a good person and loved him. Of course, in hindsight, a lot of it was N-manipulation. Funny he had verbalized fears of being “abandoned,” yet his extreme efforts to control me and the relationship resulted in the very outcome he claimed to not want. How ironic.
Dear Skylar,
I sort of do that, but without bothering to “make up” a quirk, but just one that happens to be TRUE but inconsequential.
I also use stories to “set boundaries” with some people–tell how X-friend did such and such and how I did not appreciate it, and that I then told x-friend to hit the road.
It is funny, that in a recent encounter with a person high in P-traits, they did not “get it” that I was setting a boundary by telling them that I would not tolerate certain behaviors in my X-friend, and then they did that exact same behavior.
P’s don’t learn by their own consequences and they sure will not learn from OTHER’S consequences.
They also do not respect boundaries large or small, so by letting them come up against SMALL boundaries and see how they react it give you a good idea what they would do with larger more important boundaries.
A friend’s ADULT son was here once and stole a pack of cigarettes, he got caught and confronted about it. My husband told him he was BANNED from our home and farm forever after, and he was flabbergasted that he got “banned” for stealing a lousy pack of cigarettes–something so small. My husband said, “You’re a THIEF, I don’t want you here. You only stole the cigarettes (which you could have had for asking) but next time if it was something else you wanted, you’d steal that too, and I don’t want a THIEF any where around me.”
This young man went on to steal from other friends.
JAH—Psychopath=oppositional definance, they are the SAME THING!
A little toast of all of us gals:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhNrrrCCTdA
Dear Recovering,
The kind of “testing” your X was doing was cruel and hateful, not the same thing as setting a small boundary just to see if they will cross it.
His “testing” thing is just CRAP and an excuse to do for covering up for the hateful things he was doing.
The story in the Bible’s Old Testement about Joseph TESTING his brothers who had sold him into slavery and told his father he was torn by a wild beast, was pretty rough, but Joseph did this to see what kind of men they had become in the 20+ or so years from the time they sold him until he saw them again in Egypt.
He had forgiven them, but did NOT trust them after the deception and heartless behavior they had done to him, and with good reason. His testing was harsh and he determined that they had changed, that instead of being like they were, they were now at a place they would have actually given their lives in order to save his younger brother and to keep from giving his father grief over Benjamin’s death as well.
But this was a serious case to start with, and secondly it would take some serious testing to determine if their hearts had really changed. They had already demonstrated hatred of him to the extent that they wanted at first to kill him, and then they had sold him into slavery, so his brothers had been pretty bad boys to start with and had already seriously mistreated him.
I’ve always thought about that story, and how their father favored the two younger boys so much over the older 10 to the point that the older ten boys were pretty tired of listening to the narcissistic favored younger sons. I’ve always thought how unfairly their father treated them by openly favoriing the two younger boys born to the beloved wife, while the 10 older boys, born to the wife he did not love but was forced to marry anyway were second class where their father was concerned.
It obviously wasn’t the fault of the older 10 sons that their dad was forced to marry their mother just because she was the older of the two sisters, though he loved the younger woman. Jealousy does some nasty things to people. Unfair treatment between sibs in families also has some bad consequences. Joseph and Benjamin were the “golden boys” of the family, though they were the 11th and 12th of a family of 12 sons.
During Joseph’s testing of his brothers, the older brothers were in a bind—starve to death or go back to Egypt for grain, taking their younger brother with them…but they pledged their lives to protect him. when the golden cup of Joseph was found in Benjamin’s sack of grain, they offered to take the punishment for the “theft” rather than to deprive their father of the last of his mother’s children. They put their father’s peace and their brother’s life at a higher price than their own even. By them doing this, Joseph knew that they had truly repented from the prior behavior of sending him into slavery because of their jealousy of him.
Then, and only then, did Joseph reveal himself to them as their brother and tried to reassure them that he held no “bad blood” against them. It was difficult for them to believe that was true though because later, when their father died, the brothers all expected Joseph to have them killed once their father was dead. Joseph did not take revenge on them.
Though sometimes it is difficult for us to forgive others, sometimes it is difficult for us to believe fully that someone has forgiven US for the bad things we have done to them. To reestablish trust after a horrible experience—on either part, the abuser’s or the victim’s–is difficult.