Joyce Alexander

By Ox Drover I flashed on something a while back. I know a man who went into the navy at age 16. When he was 18, he was on shore leave and met a young girl, rapidly fell in love with her, married her, set her up in an apartment and went back to sea for nine months. When he got back to shore, she was gone. He couldn't understand why. Later, when he was 22, he met another girl when he was on shore leave and married her as well. Lived with her a couple of weeks, during which time she got pregnant, and then left her and went back to sea for a year. When he came home, his wife and baby daughter were gone. At this time, he started thinking about “what had gone wrong” with his two mar …

Diagnosing the problems correctlyRead More

By Ox Drover I was led to believe as a child that we should “love unconditionally” and that we should “forgive unconditionally.” This was the rule around our house. I did start to notice, though, that while I was to apply this “unconditional forgiveness and love” to others, those same people did not always apply it to me. When my children were born, I felt the first real and true “unconditional” love I had ever felt for anyone. I would gaze into the crib and watch my child sleep, little fists curled up, ten perfect little fingers with ten perfect little finger nails. The warmth of this truly “unconditional” love swept through my heart and made my eyes tear up with joy. Even when my …

The Fantasy of Unconditional LoveRead More

By Ox Drover I've been on the “Road to Healing” for a couple of years now, working on getting over the worst of the grief of my losses. According to the author of Overcoming the Devastation of Legal Abuse Syndrome, Karin Huffer, M.S., M.F.T, the greatest loss known to human kind is loss by deception. I have surely suffered PTSD from the extreme losses by deception that I have suffered. Ms. Huffer outlines eight steps to recovery for her LAS (Legal Abuse Syndrome), which she shows as caused by the legal abuse that our unfair judicial system heaps upon the heads of those already abused by others. Her eight steps for recovery are basically the recovery from the grief of our losses that we …

Life is different than I wished, but now I accept what isRead More

By Ox Drover Many of us here remember the pain of laboring in childbirth; we thought it was so painful we couldn't endure any more without dying. Yet, even in that all-encompassing pain that wracked our bodies and our minds, in the back of our minds we knew we were giving birth to a New Life, and we were hopeful. We knew, too, that though we were giving birth to New Life, that it would not be an independent soul. We knew that New Life would require our tender nurturing to help it grow for many years. I see our pain in recovering from the devastation of our experiences with a psychopath in a similar light to the pain of labor and childbirth, and caring for that New Life. I see that we …

Recovering from the psychopath: A New LifeRead More

By Ox Drover Many of you know that I have a background and interest in animal behavior, and that I look at the way animals behave and apply what I see to my own life. I have two mammoth (horse-sized) donkeys (correctly called asses) named Fat and Hairy that I frequently talk about on the blog. Someone called them the Lovefraud mascots, because I talk about them so frequently. I've ridden and owned various horses over the years and they are loveable creatures, but really not very bright. They will trust their safety to you without question once they are trained and will do what you tell them to, usually without protest, even if it gets them into a situation where they will be injured …

Why I Am Becoming an AssRead More

By Ox Drover Someone sent me a forwarded e mail the other day that I had seen before, but this time, as I read the sweet story about how to tell the differences between heaven and hell, I started to think about my own life in relationship to this story. You may have heard it before, but here is the story. A man was walking along with his dog one day down a pleasant road and he realized that both he and the dog were dead. The road was nice but he began to be tired, hot and thirsty. He came around a bend and saw the most beautiful golden gates, with a kindly looking person standing there. The gate was surrounded by flowers and he thought how beautiful it looked. He approached the kindly …

Man’s Best FriendRead More