This week we received the following email. I am sharing it with you because what she reports is very common on a number of levels that I will discuss.
I was married to a sociopath for 25 years. They were horrible years because most of that time I had no idea I was married to a sociopath. I was deeply in love when we met. He told me everything I wanted to hear. Knowing all my weaknesses and fears he fed them, made me totally emotionally dependent on him. He helped me get great jobs, pumped me up so I would keep making more money, while of course he lived off me. But at the same time kept telling me I was ugly, fat, sickly. He had affairs. All of this and I still kept hoping he would change and someday really love me. He even encouraged me to do some illegal stuff — which I did — just to make him happy.
Twenty five years and when I finally couldn’t take it any more I left (8 months ago) Thought that was the end of it — but I actually kept worrying about him. He didn’t have a job or enough food to eat.
Well, he had used my computer one day when he was visiting and his email site was left on. I got curious and started reading his emails. He had been seeing other women, started relationship while he was still with me, telling them the same things he had always told me — but what I found most hurtful was that he was talking to these women about me in derogatory ways. That I was a psycho, unattractive, that I didn’t inspire him to do anything, etc. In many ways, this should have been good. Had I not seen that with my own eyes I would have never believed that my husband of 25 years who told me every day that he loved me more than life itself was bad mouthing me to these other women. I feel such anger and hatred in me that I know is not healthy”¦but I don’t know how to let it go.
I cut off all communications with him, but I still check into his emails. It’s like watching a soap opera — I’m hooked on this and don’t know how to stop. Every day when I see a new email where he’s dragging my name through the mud, it just makes me feel like crap. Even though I know he’s heartless and I should just not care what he says — I do. This is the man I slept next to for 25 years. I’m 58 years old and I can’t even think of starting a new relationship with all this distrust and hatred in my heart. How in the world would I ever trust another man? The duplicity that men are capable is incredible and every man I meet gives me the creeps.
Is there any hope that I could ever get over this? I just don’t know how to move forward.
First of all 25 years is a long time to spend with another person, might as well be a lifetime. To come to grips with that, a person has to focus his/her attention on all the other things he/she did and accomplished during that time period. Usually the relationship was not the only part of life. Since the outcome was so bad the mind naturally wants to focus the attention on the bad and recovery means fighting this natural tendency.
Second, worrying about the sociopath is extremely common. Again overcoming this means focused attention. Attend to what this says about you. You are a person who cares and naturally worries about those you have loved. Just because you have a feeling does not mean you have to act on it.
The third issue, spying on the sociopath. I have seen that behavior a great deal so don’t feel you are unusual because you do this. I have also observed that the spying is often linked to anger, as is difficulty letting go.
Why would spying, anger and difficulty letting go be linked? I think this relates to a need for power and mastery over the situation. How many times have victims said, “I just didn’t want him/her to win”? I think recovery starts with admitting that we “lost” and the sociopath “won.” In the same breath though we have to question what the “prize” for winning was. If we don’t go on with our lives and recover, we give the sociopath a real prize!
The fourth issue is trusting again. That will come with recovery, but perhaps the trust for others will always be different. I will say that evil people tend to capture our attention. Some studies show that the good has to outweigh the bad 4 times in order for good to capture as much attention as bad. Evil men are much more visible in society, so make it a point to focus your attention on the loving empathetic men you know. This is difficult for many women who are attracted to power because they do not find less powerful men very attractive.
I would rephrase, “The duplicity that men are capable is incredible and every man I meet gives me the creeps.” To the duplicity of every man I focus my attention on… I am working on a book, both discussing love and empathy in men and telling the stories of men who have been victimized by sociopathic women. I am doing this to help both men and women realize that loving behavior is the norm for men. We just attend to evil/powerful men more, the loving man goes unnoticed. He is invisible to us.
That gets me to recovery and some tough advice. Recovery takes a great deal of work and self discipline. In order to have the mental discipline you will need to stop reading the emails and move on, you have to work on your physical health. If you are out of shape, smoking and/or using alcohol, you may have great difficulty recovering. The part of the brain that is responsible for will power and impulse control is easily affected by poor health andxiety and lack of sleep. Start with a total health program. That program will go a long way toward lifting anxiety and depression. Keep a healthy diet and exercise every day. I would really like us to have a virtual exercise club and I put up Fit and Smart for that purpose. On that web site you will find a free program to help structure your exercise routine.
Fill your free time with activities that build you up mentally and spiritually. Build yourself up mentally by reading and perhaps taking a class. Build yourself up spiritually by volunteering or participating in a spiritual community. If you do all these things, you will have the health and strength to focus your attention where it needs to be. The writing of M. Louise Gallagher may be an inspiration to you.
Hiya Jules, good to see you back and I remember your story very well! Well done girl – you protected yourself and you resisted his ‘charm’! If he makes another appearance, just keep remembering how badly he treated you, he had a chance and he blew it big time.
Jane,
My “amount” of heart ache is no more than the rest of yours, becaues like Dr. Frankl said Pain behaves like a GAS, it fill entirely whatever space it is in, whether it is a little gas or a lot of gas. That is such a profound analogy I think that it gave me a lot of strength to see that his pain as a Nazi concentration camp suvivor filed him ENTIRELY, your pain filled you entirely, my pain filled me entirely. Which of us had it “worse”? IT DOES’NT MATTER, that is the thing! We all has the totality of pain that we could live through. Period.
I have seen people who have led “charmed” lives and have never suffered anyting in the way of “tragedy” and when they “break a proverbial fingernail” they SHATTER. WHY? Because they have never learned to deal with pain of any kind. Disappointment of any kind.
I think today when we “sheild” our children from the grief over the loss of a beloved pet by rushing out to buy them a new one so they will stop crying, we are doing a disservice to our children. They need to LEARN TO COPE WITH GRIEF in a way that they can understand, little griefs at first (a lost toy) and so on, until they can cope with grief and loss in a healthy way. That they can feel and move through the pains of losses and grief with the support of their parents.
Sometimes we are like the “kind hearted” dog breeder that wanted to save the puppy the pain of cutting off it’s little tail all at once, so he cut it off an INCH AT A TIME. DUH! LOL Our efforts to be kind ot our children and help them AVOID pain of loss doesn’t let them learn the lessons that they need for later from dealing with losses.
This is an absurd example, but remember the Texas mother who killed the mother of another student who was trying out for cheer leader so that the girl would be so distraught that HER daughter would get to be cheerleader? Talk about “buying another puppy the next day”???????
Going NO CONTACT to us (it was for me anyway) so difficult because we have trouble “cutting the tail off all at once” but NOT going “no contact” totally reopens the wound each and every time we break it. For those unfortunate people who have children with their P and have to “share” custody and see the Ps on a regular basis, I know it makes it much much harder, especially if the P is using/abusing the children as many of them do, to “get to” the other parent. Sometimes that takes years and years of agony to finally get emotional no contact even if you can’t have physical NO CONTACT.
I guess the thing I miss the most about my Ps is the friendship I thought I had with my mother. She and my best friend and I used to do so many things together, took vacations together, prowled junk stores together, did projects together and just had a GREAT TIME when she wasn’t being an enabling witch—now, I miss that good time and the fun, I miss my step dad too and my husband, but it is a different “missing” because I know and accept that they are DEAD, but with my mother, I also know that the relationship is JUST AS IMPOSSIBLE as a physical relationship with the deceased ones, but at least I can STILL have a good emotional relationship with the deceased ones, but there is NOTING WITH MY MOTHER, no physical relationship and no emotional relationship either. I don’t feel wrath and hatred any more, mostly just a pity or a sadness for an old woman who has thrown away her only child that loved her so much and now she is entirely alone to face her own declining years without the love or respect of her child or her grandsons. She isn’t a psychopath, but an enabler of toxic proportions.
The devestation which the Psychopaths cause to those they delibertely hurt and those they manipulate is unfathonable interms understood by humans. Even we, I think, only know the tip of the iceberg of evil.
ox dover and beverly, thank for your support in this issue for me. he has not returned to work but i have heard he is still seeing this new girl so i dont know why on earth he would come into see me at work . he is i know actually very nosey so prob just checking up to see what he can find out about my life right now. someone i know told him i am still single so i guess he will find joy in that. can never work out why he did anything he ever did any way so im just going to let it go i did think about calling or texting and saying just stay away from work he never tries to contact me any other time so why should he come there, if hes seeing her anyway. but then i thought no, he wants me to contact him and say something anything so i wont give him that. he said when he came by that day at work ring me and we should catch up. so he did want me to contact him . i m just going to leave it i cant be bothered but it does just hurt me when he comes by unexpected like that in a work enviroment even that alone seems like a invasion of my space in a way. it did get me thinking about him for a few days wondering if things maybe werent wroking out with the new girl. but i tried very hard to put it out of my mind and then i was just annoyed that he did come in at all. now i am not really thinking about it i a m just thinking i wont contact him, his birthday is coming up and i usually call and say happy birth day, i am not even going to do that this year, so when that happens he will probably get the message . i do how ever think that the new girl maybe on to him or something as she wasnt there with him when he called at my work and it was a sat afternoon. i can only hope she wakes up to him he doesn t deserve a nice persons company or anything else either. also on another note my brother is visiting my parents as we had my sisters wedding and he came to stay for it. i am pretty sure he is a sp ive had my suspicions fo r a while i just get funny feelings about him, i am pretty sure he lies about stuff, he is always trying to big note himself to sound better, and i am pretty sure he is smoking dope i think he has a long time and is addicted. i feel uncomfortable, my parents god bless them arent totally wise to him if you know what i mean they are good salt of the earth people. so when i have been there while he is there now it makes me feel weird knowing what he prob is a sp. he talks all the time about crap usually but theres is no silence when he is around. anyway i am just trying to switch off from it and do my own thing despite it bothers me how he treats others and how he acts considering i just got away from a liar and sp myself and here is my brother well into his middle age and he is one i am pretty sure. i would never ask him. though the other day he said something about a s path refering to something on tv, so it seems he knows a bit about them. i also would not want to upset my parents by mentioning anything. i have questioned some of his lies just subtly but he always worms out with some answer. so i am just trying not to let this upset me now. he lives interstate so i dont see him often he only visits my parents very rarely thank god at least it may not upset them if they knew some things going on in his life, i dont even want to know either. it does sadden me my parents are good loving people they tried there best to be good parents and he truns out like this. my father is a heavy drinker though and has been along time, also my other brother died when we were all growing up maybe this had something to do with it all who knows. my mother is very intuitive i can almost see how she is sad about him but she is covering it up but i think she feels things the way i do. my sisters wedding was a bit sad for me being alone and single all my cousins were there with partners and there babies. but i was happy for my parents and my sister so that kept me smiling on the day. i will just keep looking onward and upward. thanks again everyone been wanting to write for a few days but been busy its funny how important writing here is sometimes when things come up. sometimes im ok and feel like i dont need to write then others im like ive got to hurry up and write so i can get some feed back on whatever has happened or what i am thinking about. by for now.
Dear Jules,
Unfortunately we can’t “fix the world” and we do have Sociopaths in our families, and it us usually just best to avoid them if we can rather than confront it unless they are directly disrespecting us.
Chances are your parents are aware on some levell that your brother isn’t what they would wish, but it may be easier for them also to ignore it and just “pretend” all is fine. Not everyone WANTS the stress of actually confronting and changing their own behavior or going NO contact with the Sociopath, and that is THEIR decision, they are adults.
We are only RESPONSIBLE for our own behavior and we can’t “rescue” them if they don’t want to be rescued. My own mother refuses to be “rescued” from the psychopaths in my family, and that is her choice—I coudl’t make her see, even when they were stealing from her and probably planned to kill her, but she REFUSED to see it, acknowledge it, or even consider it, she branded ME the liar because she didn’t want to hear the truth if it conflicted with her “beliefs” that the psychpaths loved her.
Your X may or may not get the picture when you don’t call him for his birthday or return his calls visits or texts, but maybe if he jurst drops by again, you can tell him that would would like it if he would NOT come by any more. Even then he may continue to call you from time to time or come by. Sometimes they are difficult to discourage because even though they have been disrespectful to you, they still feel that they ahve a “right” and want to keep that contact in case they “need” it later when they get dumped by the current victim. It isn’t about you, it is all about THEM, still. It won’t change.
You have made a great deal of progress and I am so glad for you. That’s the way we all do it, baby steps at a time, and it will get bigger steps and bigger steps and first thing you know, you will be totally emotionally free of him. You deserve so much better than him. (((Big Hugs))))
Moving on is full of setbacks.
Has anyone had the experience of wondering if they were wrong about the extent to which their partner was disordered (ie – is it reparable, can it improve, with insight)?
And has anyone ever had a reconciliation where things DID change, against all odds, when the situation or the disorder was of a more mild sort? What constitutes mild vs moderate vs extreme, in terms of these personality problems?
Also has anyone’s ex-partner ever realized their wrongs, admitted them fully and sought counseling on their own after you left them? This has happened to me. He won’t heed the “no contact” rule though – he’s written and called me to idealize the hell out of me – I’m now the best thing that ever happened to him, he’s desperate to get me back, and he’s admitting that everything, everything that was fucked up in our marriage was his fault…
I believe right now that HE believes he can fix himself and that he really wants to atone. But I don’t think I can let him in again, because I know full well he’d probably backslide. Doesn’t mean it’s not making the process of moving on an absolute nightmare though. Will he always be there to plant the seeds of doubt?
Dear Tmassar,
Yep, he is SAYING it and he is CONVINCING, but you know, you are like DOPE to an addict, they will say ANYTHING, promise ANYTHIN G to get that FIX and once they have it, the promises fo out the window.
Go back and read the thread about Psychopaths make promises that NEVER TURN INTO HEALING ACTION. Read all 100+ posts on that thread and you wilL have your answer!
I will bet you 99% of the women and men on here took the back again and again and again after all the EMPTY PROMISES. They KNOW WHAT WE WANT TO HEAR and some of them will say it, some won’t, but even the ones that SAY it CAN’T MEAN IT–what they are “meaning” is I NEED YOU TO TAKE CARE OF ME CAUSE I DON’T WANT TO DO IT MYSELF, then when you do it, I will start to tell you what a LOUSY JOB YOU ARE DOING OF IT. Back to SQUARE ONE!
Tmassar, it is sooooo tempting to believe them because we WANT to believe them, but I have spent my LIFETIME believing their lies, enduring their abuse, and just TRYING to do enough for them to get them to really mean it “THIS TIME”–but they never ever do.
Remember : He is the LIe.
I think someone on here said recently (forgive my poor memory for who) Love is giving someone the power to break your heart and TRUSTING them NOT TO”
Do you intend to give this man another chance to break your heart on the REMOTEST chance he might be “nice this time?” An, come on. If you belive that one, I suggest that you go buy some Ocean front property in Arizona or go to Vegas and INVEST your money in a slot machine. The odds would be BETTER with either of those “investments” than investing your heart and soul in this man’s LIES.
NO contact is the “rule” because IT WORKS FOR US, it puts them on the spin to try to hook us back by hook or crook, lie or more lies, and if we listen to their lies it just precludes us healing or getting on with our lives. It is like picking the scab off the sore, it will never heal.
I wish you could have read the PITIFUL letters my P-son wrote from prison when his MONEY GOT CUT OFF and he didn’t get mail from us any more to give him the opportunity to tell “his side of the story” he would have made a rock cry with his piteous pleas for “unconditional love” that we owed him. Where is the PUKE emoticon when you need one?
It wasn’t hard to know he was full of s#it because all I had to do was reread the letters full of hate, venom and crap that he wrote to his partners. It was all phony but would, like I said, have made a rock cry if you didn’t know it was all a lie, that NONE of it was sincere. He was after SUPPLY, and so is your husand. The only person I know who went from an abuser to a saint is the Apostle Paul/’Saul and he saw a light andheard Jesus’ voice on the road to Damascus and unless your husband has had a direct visit from God I suggest you not believe a word he has said.
ps. Unless YOU and 5 OTHER WITNESSES SAW him have the “vision” I wouldn’t even believe him then. LOL
tmasser,
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain… OZ.
It’s all an illusion.
For the record, the Bad Man claimed he went to some anger management group after I left the island. He realized his mistakes after two meetings… read the book… and had it all mastered after that. He loved to say things like, “What was before will never be again!” (referring to his abusive behavior) and yet… experience taught me that… what was before will be again and again and again… and thanks to the Internet and Craigslist, I learned that… what was with me, was with everyone else.. over and over and over… without exception. I am referring to the 100+ ads posted on Craigslist in the Hawaii community with women (and men) warning eachother about him. You might not get that kind of confrimation… but you do already have all the confirmation you need.
This says it all: “he’s written and called me to idealize the hell out of me – I’m now the best thing that ever happened to him, he’s desperate to get me back, and he’s admitting that everything, everything that was fucked up in our marriage was his fault””
He will believe it is all his fault for as long as it takes to turn the tides back in his favor… then.. well, you know.
“Will he always be there to plant the seeds of doubt?”
As long as you allow him to be… heck, he might even do this while he has another woman on the side… He loves your devotion and your turmoil. He is playing you like a puppet.
Tmasser, my theory is if you had a relationship that was bad enough that your scoured the Internet until you found LoveFraud… and you thought.. even for a moment… WOW! This sounds EXACTLY like my man… then you are in the right place. LoveFraud is truth land… and once you get here, there is no going back. If you take him back, you are entering INFORMED DENIAL. A term, I guess, we love.. or maybe we love to hate because if we had a disordered partner, we practiced this over and over until we got it… any pain from this point forward, know you are an accomplice to its infliction upon yourself.
You know better. Now it’s up to you to take care of yourself and stop the bleeding. We can only type our words to you in this little box… but it’s up to you to stand strong for yourself.
When you feel yourself slipping into a SOCIOPATH INDUCED LOVE COMA…. remember that all of us here at LOVEFRAUD… will continue to talk to you.. hoping you we can pull you back to conscious life. See definition:
con·scious ”“adjective
1. aware of one’s own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc.
2. fully aware of or sensitive to something
3. having the mental faculties fully active
4. known to oneself
5. aware of what one is doing
6. aware of oneself
Don’t forget.. a sh*t covered carrot tastes like sh*t.
If you haven’t already, please read the Romeo’s Bleeding articles. I will repost the links below.
Part 4 and 5 are the absolute best description I have ever read about what happens to the victim and how it happens psychologically to us. This helped me so much. Now, if anyone really wants to understand how this happened to me… I tell them to read this article instead of trying to tell them my stories. Way more effective. :o)
Hang in there!
Hmmm… I tried but the links were dead. All the links are live at the end of this article.
http://www.lovefraud.com/blog/2008/05/12/the-verbal-attacks-of-the-sociopath/
Read 4 nd 5… or maybe a different one will speak to you.
HAve a great day!
Hi Oxy! Great to be seeing you here again. Thanks aloha – i looked at the Romeo’s Bleeding stuff. While I thought it was really good, I wonder at the author’s credentials..? Couldn’t find much that validated him as someone with any authority.
Here’s an interesting “moving on” technique I’m using with myself tonight…I’m reminding myself how many times I thought I had reason enough to leave – going back YEARS now. Like..”oh remember when that happened and i swore to myself I would go because i knew it was wrong”…and on and on. Finally leading me to the conclusion: am i INSANE to worry that he’s going to improve and i’ll miss out on it?! Even if he does, I’ve been through more than enough!! Honest to god, why is it so damn hard to break the pattern.
Well for anyone wondering whether to go or stay and struggling with the decision (mind you, my decision is made, i’m just still struggling with MYSELF now, not actually with the decision, if that makes sense) – there’s this book called ‘too good to leave too bad to stay’ by Mira Kirschenbaum. While it doesn’t deal specifically with S-P or personality disorders, it does talk about what you can handle, the prospects for change, and what the absolute dealbreakers are. I think it’s good (i just started it, i’m definitely using it as a crutch).
He emailed me again on Saturday night after i told him no more contact!! Unreal. To tell me how much he loves & misses me. And then today i learned he called my best friend and asked her & another friend if they’d meet with him this week – undoubtedly another attempt to win me back. It’s so immature and desperate – horrible. I am his only remaining source of Narcissistic Supply and he is panicking at the prospect of losing it. I’m happy he’s in therapy because his immaturity is really reaching new heights.
Well: as i’ve said before – this too shall pass, right? I’m feeling so calm tonight. Like – i’m going to start living my life and quit this bullshit. So much wasted time. HE’S got the great career, 3 books published, all kinds of things that he can leave as his legacy! Lucky him! What do i have? Nothing that grand!! Just myself. Which is big, I know – he doesn’t have that, but I need to quit wasting time on him and DO something productive. Enough already!!! A call to action. Here i am, writing to inspire myself. Hahaha. Live on ladies.
You all are wonder women. I kissed my S goodbye, told him to have a nice day and I haven’t heard from him since. That was after a verbally abusive fight. His language was reckless and foul and always talking about women in flattering ways, very disrepectful to me. I figured out that I had lost my house and that he was no longer interested. Could that be true? It’s been 4 weeks, lots of anxiety, doubt, wonder? Did I really get duped? He was so adoring, flattered me all day long. Hey! Maybe we’re all talking about the same guy, all of a sudden I’m nauseous. Can’t we say who they are? Is there another site for NAMES?