It’s amazing how people can have differing opinions of the same book. Last May, the Lovefraud Reader Ox Drover wrote a review of The Gaslight Effect, by Dr. Robin Stern. I am always on the lookout for books that will help readers understand, and recover from, a traumatic entanglement with a sociopath. Because Oxy was so complimentary about The Gaslight Effect, I was anxious to read it, and possibly recommend it to others.
Well, I read the book, but I’m not sure I can recommend it.
Oxy did point out that Dr. Stern never mentions the word, “sociopath,” referring to the perpetrator as the “gaslighter,” and the victim as the “gaslightee.” Although Oxy was willing to look past this omission, I’m not.
First of all, let’s define “gaslighting.” According to Wikipedia:
Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse in which false information is presented to the victim with the intent of making them doubt their own memory and perception. It may simply be the denial by an abuser that previous abusive incidents ever occurred, or it could be the staging of bizarre events by the abuser with the intention of disorienting the victim.
Gaslighting is nasty behavior. The problem I have with this book is that Dr. Stern never, ever mentions, not once, that a person who is gaslighting someone else may be malicious, controlling, and intent on destroying the soul of the victim. She does not mention that the gaslighter may be mentally and emotionally abusing someone else, simply for his or her amusement. She does not say that the gaslighter may be evil.
Here’s how Dr. Stern defines the gaslighting relationship:
The Gaslight Effect results from a relationship between two people: a gaslighter, who needs to be right in order to preserve his own sense of self and his sense of having power in the world; and a gaslightee, who allows the gaslighter to define her sense of reality because she idealizes him and seeks his approval.
This definition makes it seem like the two parties—gaslighter and gaslightee—are equally responsible for the dynamics. I don’t think that’s true. Then, a few pages later, Dr. Stern writes:
Of course, neither of you may be aware of what’s really happening. The gaslighter may genuinely believe every word he tells you or sincerely feel that he’s only saving you from yourself. Remember: He’s being driven by his own needs. Your gaslighter might seem like a strong, powerful man, or he may appear to be an insecure, tantrum-throwing little boy; either way, he feels weak and powerless. To feel powerful and safe, he has to prove that he is right, and he has to get you to agree with him.
Excuse me while I barf. Sociopaths who engage in gaslighting do not feel weak and powerless. They are motivated by dominance and feel totally entitled to do what they want and take what they want, even if it is someone else’s sanity.
Three types of gaslighters
Next, Dr. Stern describes three types of gaslighters—the Glamour Gaslighter, the Good-Guy Gaslighter, and the Intimidator. She spends the most time describing the Glamour Gaslighter:
He lets you know you’re the most wonderful woman in the world, the only one who’s ever understood him, the fairy-tale princess who has magically transformed his life. He’ll transform your life, too, he implies or even promises, he’ll shower you with affection, take you to wonderful places, sweep you off your feet with gifts or intimate confessions or sexual attention of a kind you’ve never known before.
This is a perfect description of a sociopath in full seduction mode. But Dr. Stern doesn’t seem to get it. Instead, she explains that this man is in love with the idea of a relationship. He likes to be a leading man, and is looking for a leading lady to fill her part.
Dr. Stern describes the Good-Guy Gaslighter as someone who needs to appear reasonable and good, but is deeply committed to getting his own way. She spends the least amount of time describing the Intimidator, perhaps because the problems are so obvious—put-downs, yelling, bullying, guilt trips and other types of punishment. In order for a relationship with an Intimidator to be more satisfying, she says, the Intimidator will need to alter his way of relating. Yeah, right.
Stress response
Much of this book describes sample cases of gaslightees trying to understand and cope with gaslighters. I’m sure this helps people realize and identify what is going on in these relationships.
The book, however, falls down when Dr. Stern explains why this behavior happens. She writes, “Gaslighting is a response to stress; people become either gaslighters or gaslightees when they feel threatened.”
Sociopaths don’t engage in gaslighting because they’re stressed. They engage in it because it’s who they are and what they do. And victims don’t become gaslightees because of stress. They are trapped because of a psychopathic bond created by the predator.
Then, Dr. Stern asks the reader to be honest:
Think about the ways in which you aren’t being your best self. Do you set off your gaslighter by being overly critical or demanding? Do you belittle your gaslighter or play on his vulnerabilities? Do you say or do things that you know will make him crazy?
Gee, the people I hear from are walking on eggshells trying not to set the guy off. Until, of course, it gets so bad that they have not choice but to explode.
What’s your view?
In the last chapter, Dr. Stern offers three courses of action for people in these situations: Changing the gaslighting relationship from within, limiting a gaslighting relationship, or leaving the relationship. Yes, these are the three choices, and the book offers suggestions on how to decide what to do.
When considering whether to stay in the relationship and change it from within, Dr. Stern reminds the reader to be compassionate, both for herself and the gaslighter. She writes:
You don’t have to put up with unlimited bad treatment, but if your gaslighter persists in gaslighting you, you can remind yourself that he is also suffering, perhaps even more than you are. After all, he almost certainly grew up in a home where he was gaslighted by someone and couldn’t make it stop—so now he doesn’t understand why you have the power to say no.
Is this true? I am asking an honest question of Lovefraud readers here, and I would appreciate your feedback. Have any of you ever been subjected to gaslighting by someone who was basically a good person with problems? Can any of you attribute gaslighting behavior to the perpetrator’s stress or internal pain? Or, do you feel that gaslighting behavior is due to sociopathic traits?
Afraid to recommend
Overall, I have mixed feelings about this book, The Gaslight Effect. The author does a good job of explaining what the behavior looks like, and the questions victims should ask themselves to determine what is really going on. She offers strategies for coping with the behavior, including leaving the relationship.
But Dr. Stern seems to come from that school of therapy that believes both parties contribute equally to relationship problems. Throughout the entire book, I kept waiting for the author to warn the reader that some gaslighters have dangerous, pathological personality disorders, and they should run, not walk, for the nearest exit. The warning never came.
Therefore, I’m afraid to recommend the book, because it may encourage people to stay and try to work things out with an abuser. And the longer people stay in a gaslighting relationship, the more power they lose, and the harder it is to finally leave.
tobehappy,
can you tell us more about how you deprogrammed yourself?
Details are helpful. I need deprogramming badly and I’m about ready to go see a hypnotist.
Tobe, Thanks for your story. Did you ever feel guilty for spoiling your kids? Ex hated being very strictly brought up and instead of not wanting it for his kids, did exactly the same things because he would feel guilty if anyone accused him of spoiling the kids.
Aussiegirl, I’m a fellow Aussie, east of you obviously!
Oxy, thanks for your input. I did have a place booked at a shelter 6 months ago when I wanted to separate, but now the kids and I live in our family home which we have kept in the settlement.
At this stage, I don’t want to leave my church because my younger kids love it there. The older ones are fully involved so it doesn’t matter where I go, they’ll be there. He stalked them a few times, but the youth leadership know and won’t let him near them and won’t talk to him or take his calls either.
If I go anywhere else, the church leadership won’t know our history and will be hoodwinked by him. At least where I am, I have pastoral support. I recently had a word to them about the harassment and I have been told they will be setting some boundaries with him, although they have no legal leg to stand on because it is public property. I also have support for starting an abused women support group. There are a few DV professionals in the membership who will get involved as well. I may not have that support anywhere else.
You said your church as a group would not listen – if it got to that point, I would leave. The fact that he can manipulate people speaks more of his control/manipulation than the type of people they are. And he targets the unsuspecting. Those who have known us for a long time won’t fall for it. He tries to get those back by sending cards and gifts to them to say he was an idiot in the past and show he has changed by turning up at every meeting and volunteering more. I doubt all are convinced. Humans being humans, some are more enabling and ignorant than others.
I did stop seeing both the counselor and the psychologist just before we separated. The counselor was happy for me to see an abuse counselor – I think she knew she was out of her depth and apologized for not stopping his verbal abuse right in her office!
His psychologist still doesn’t see any psychopathology, but said he would do personality testing. I see a great DV-trained psychologist now who offered to write to his psychologist, but I really didn’t want any contact. Ex is livid he doesn’t know who I am talking to and just refers to them condescendingly in emails as “my advisors”. Now LF should be added to that growing list!!
The hardest part is that some of our mutual friends, who are not abusive people but in fact very caring, feel sorry for him and want to support him. They acknowledge his past but hope he will change. You see, the theory that people can’t change is not accepted in the church. As long as a person shows signs of wanting to change, they will open their arms.
Some I have managed to educate on abuse but others just don’t see the evil (which in itself is so evil – like in the thread about the spectrum of psychopathy). They want to “give support” to me as well but they may be giving up because they know I don’t think like them. I keep wondering if I should just feed them all the info I know about the dynamic of abuse and about sociopathy.
I am with you, Donna, in that gaslighting sociopaths are not responding to external stress, but some kind of internal evil direction! At least in my experience, growing up with a s/p sister only 2 years older than me. The only thing I did to instigate it was being born after her. We were treated more or less the same till I was about 9 years old, and she got cleverer and sneakier with age, disrupting our family and making my childhood a hell. I was in my 30’s before I figured out all the pieces. If gaslighting is a response to external stress, I would have become a gaslighter. Dear sister, rather than being a co-sufferer in the experience, only benefited from her behaviour, at least in the short term.
I’ve had it with the “blame the family” thesis. We still make our own choices, even young children can chose not to be cruel despite their circumstances. Some people just enjoy being cruel. Don’t try to change them, just get away from them!
Not too Late…
In reference to your question…Did I ever feel guilty about “spoiling” your children……
Well, I used the word “spoil” ..however, to spoil means to go bad. So, really, I did not spoil them the way I am raising them.
In fact, they have been cooking hot meals,doing thier own laundry, cleaning their own rooms since they were all ten years old!!!
I have rules…and they respect me and follow them. They know that being a single working mom, I needed help. I taught them that if they don’t help..its less time that we can spend having fun together!!!
I raised them with LOVE LOVE LOVE and kindness…never yell or hit them….I couldn’t do it…because of what yelling, anger, and being beaten did to me!! It made me hate them. I don’t believe in hurting anything alive…not even a dog. Why would I hurt my children.
Somehow..whatever I did, worked. People come into my home and say ..”Why is everyone here always singing, happy, giggling???” Because of my attitude toward life on earth…Farrah Fawcett said…”Life is temporary, so enjoy it”.
I have two pianos in my home, oil paint and drawing easles out all of the time…treadmill out…recumbant bike out…and a hot tub and jacuzzi on my deck! Call me a hedonist…but everything I bought was second hand….and to me, necessary to have a quality life!!!
After growing up in a snake pit full of anger…hidden from the outside world….(when people came over for swimming or big dinners …socio mom was so warm and happy! )…I decided to make MY home a happy one for my girls!
I never forced them to eat what they didn’t want to eat…they survived and made their own choices. Etc…
Well, the xhus and xbf socios were militant and mad at me…for letting my children have freedom as I do. I divorced my xhusb because he was beating the kids from age 3 on! He felt that what was done to him was right! The xbf also kept telling me to “take it to the Ass” when they were fighting or having a tantrum about something! OMG…HE also thought that I was too easy on them! Finally, toward the end, he admitted that my girls were beyond “hitting” …that they were too smart and above that kind of treatment!
Anyway, they aren’t spoiled, because I cannot afford to buy them everything they want…but somehow, I try to buy things used..and give them whatever I could.
Thank God I raised them without an abusive, ignorant socio in my home!!!
Not Too Late:
Ya know what? I think it takes ENORMOUS strength and courage to do what you’re doing. I sure wish I went to YOUR church! SO FEW are willing to address the issues of abuse, let alone psychopathology, therefore personality disordered individuals FLUORISH in the church because of the well meaning Christian folks you described. N/P/S’s can go for YEARS undetected, even on a church board of which my ex POS was. Not now. His wife was much like you in that she told EVERYONE she knew what was going on once she was out of the marriage. Her parents attend the churcch, the majority of her family does and all of her friends and their children. They supported her. Ex POS tried to manipulate them, but it didn’t work. Eventually, they all dumped his ass. She is FULLY protected from his influence on people and her family at the church. GOOD FOR HER!!! I don’t know if she believes he’s a sociopath, but her sister’s references to “We know just how controlling POS can be”, tells me they have ideas. She doesn’t let him get away with anything. Of course the story he told next love bomb was that he was asked to leave the church LOL!!! WRONG! He left because he could no longer MANIPULATE anyone there, nor her. So he’s off doing it at some other church down the street where he’s sucking in new victims. POS.
And so it goes.
What you are doing is incredibly important and those that support you will be helping A LOT of people to heal from this disastrous tragedy. I hope you touch LOTS of lives. I think God will use you in MIGHTY ways!!! If I could find a church to plug into that wasn’t infiltrated by Spath’s I would do it, but even one of the “mega” churches in my area that offers support groups to women who have been abused, is FULL of spaths. I’m going to be careful as I don’t want to be revictimized either. My preference is to try to go to a United Methodist church. We shall see. But I miss connecting to people that are spiritual. I feel like I need a lot of guidance and wisdom spiritually right now from those who have either been in the trenches or understand it.
I wish you well on this journey. Sounds to me like God has really protected you. I think it’s great. Stay strong. He’ll go away when he realizes he can’t get anywhere.
Skylar….wow, what a question!! Do you have a few days??? LOL
Well, to begin…I spent weeks after each breakup with him…just pampering myself..eating what I wanted, smoking alot…(usually only have a few a day), leaving dishes in the sink…talking and journalling a lot. Whatever I felt like doing. The house got messy…but when I was ready, it got done..it didn’t go anywhere. lol!
Then I began working on ME ME ME. I pretended he died. I carried on. I set some goals to better ME.
I bought books on spirituality…Louise Hay, (You can Heal your life) listened to Abraham-Hicks on Utube….Listened to Robert Najemy (utube) about healing the inner child.
I joined and gym and FORCED myself to go. I took each day hour by hour….did what I felt like doing. If my g/f called to meet me for lunch..and I felt like talking…I’d meet her.
So, now I’m working on my “spirituality” and my physical body.
I learned from Echert Tolle that if you allow your MIND to control you..instead of YOU controlling your thoughts…(by NOT thinking of past mistakes and not worrying about the future…), you will go crazy and not be happy. So, I learned MINDFULNESS…being in the present.
I made a conscious effort to NOT think. When driving I focused on the ride..the trees..etc…keeping myself in the now. If I did want to think about anything, it had to be something positive. Negative thoughts could only be addressed if I had a keyboard in front of me!
Somehow…within a few weeks, I started to feel peaceful and happy. I was attracting good things and better people into my life.
I keep working on it…not to let the “subconscious” mind rule my life. I read, keep busy, watch my recorded shows..hang out with good people…who care about me…watch utube videos of interest…post on here…WHATEVER IT TAKES….to keep me peaceful..I do it.
Setting new goals for the FUTURE is key. I see light at the end of the tunnel in my life…I am taking care of ME ME ME. Its all about ME now. No more catering to men who are using me and give me nothing in return….waste of time.
I read online about Cognitive Behavioural Therapy too..and basically it teaches you to change your thoughts…change your life.
I truly believe in the Law of Attraction. I was so lonely, unconfindent and down when I got involved with these two sociopaths. So, I basically put up with their lies and deceit…and I was too trusting from the start.
Now I don’t trust anyone, except myself. I didn’t trust my OWN gut feeling when I met them both…Now I ONLY trust ME. I will never violate my OWN laws again..do anything I don’t feel right about….because when I did…it was self destructive.
So, after you validate that you WERE with a severly disordered person…and you understand yourself and WHY you got tangled in their web of deceit….and you make up your mind that you don’t want to feel unhappy anymore…and you are ready to MOVE ON>……you take steps to take care of your body, mind, and spirit.
PS People of the Lie by Scott Peck is a great book.
to be
I agree with just about everything you said.
We are POOOOOOOR!! Me being a single mother and a student, we are POOR! lol!! BUT, my home is filled with love, laughter and my children’s music. My son is musically gifted and my daughter sings. My son comes over and plays guitar and piano…and everyone sings. It’s wonderful. They laugh together have fun together….without the influence of POS around. I stopped allowing him into my home about six months ago or so now. It was just too unhealthy to have him around. He didn’t WANT them around. He didn’t engage them much AT ALL. It was almost as if they were a nuisance and invading upon HIS time with ME. POS!!! But it was healthier for them. They hated his presence and they were done. It also put a stop to the daily lunches and the drinking.
I too allowed my children to eat what they were gonna eat and not what they were not. I learned that early on. I have a child with food allergies that are potentially fatal so I learned to work around fixing a variety of things that the kids enjoyed and would eat. I didn’t sit and make them eat every single thing on their plates either.
I gave them (and still do, my son’s HATE that lol) lots of affection. Everyday my youngest comes in from a friends or from school and the first thing that I get is a kiss on the cheek. I get that from my second son, but I have to ask lol…they are NEVER too old for affection and love. ever.
And that’s the key to all of it.
LL….
My house is still in foreclosure..Xhusb is hiding in Florida and hasn’t paid support…I will find out on Feb.9th if they will lower my mortgage so that I can keep the house…
My Xbf TOLD me that he is JEALOUS of my children…because he said..”I need a woman to be totally into me. If you didn’t have those kids..I’d marry you tomorrow”. OMG…He said this after 4months of seeing him.
Let me tell you …I was SO brainwashed by him..I started to be irritable with my girls…and then they felt it..and they hated him. They even said that I “changed” and wanted to look for thier father!!!
OMG…I woke up fast and started to avoid him and spend more time with them. He always said…”Oh, lets take the girls out…” NEVER DID> He was a selfish phony liar…who is looking for a supply (woman) to cater to him, give him sex that he always wants when HE wants it.
He said to me once…”After all “I” control this relationship. “I” decided when I want to see you…”
OMG…he was SO obvious that he was a sociopath.
He was TELLING me what he was, and I still didn’t believe it!!
How blind was I???
Actually, I did see it..but made excuses to stay in the r/s…TRAUMA BOND!!!
Really, he was ALL talk. Even with himself. My sister and I used to laugh about him telling me daily…”After work, I’m going to the gym…then this and that.” HE NEVER WENT!!!
He even lies to himself!!!! LOL!!!
Wow…I have so much more time now for ME and I don’t miss his constant texts every hour of how much he misses me and loves me…..Well, you only live 35 minutes from here…where are you?????????LOL! I called him on that one too…I asked him if he ENJOYS missing me????LOL!
PATHETIC PATHETIC PATHETIC this is all I can say now.
I am writing a book about my life…whether it gets published or not…is a matter of fate…but I am writing it.
In it..I speak about my xhusb sociopath….
When he was threatening me…that if I file divorce…I will “get nothing” (meaning money)..and I will be eating rice and beans….(his children and I!)….
Well, everyday I laugh…because he was right. He give me nothing…However, my oldest daughter’s b/f, who is half hispanic….loves to cook. He and my daughter are “vegans”. And everyday, they cook the BEST food I ever tasted! He learned from his grandmother! Its mostly rice and bean dishes!!! LOL!!!…which we all LOVE! So, he was right. But we are healthier than ever!! I am enjoying a bowl right now…with great spices he uses….sofrito…sazon..etc…lol!
Everything he threatened me with….KARMA gave to HIM!
I hear he is homeless now…living in a trailer…living off of the church to feed him….not working…closed up his business……and he looks awful!!!
And he is preaching the Bible to everyone…
PATHETIC PATHETIC PATHETIC
tobe
Ohhhhhh I will say some prayers for you about keeping your house! I hope you do! Stability for the children is so important!
WOW! Yours actually SAID THAT? OMG! Mine never said he was jealous of the children, he just well, basically ignored them and when he did “interact” with them it was all fake. He didn’t HAVE to say anything because he ACTED on it. I hear you totally about being irritated with your children. I was irritated with mine too. That bothered me A BUNCH! ANother of the MANY reasons he was not invited back to my home.
ExPOS has two children he has joint custody of. OMG what a constant drama. I feel so sorry for the new love bomb!! What an EFFING mess THAT will be!!! HIs daughter is as sweet as can be. His son, OMG what a NIGHTMARE! Spath is turning his son into a SPATH!! I feel sorry for ex too, having to deal with his constant drama drama drama about his own kids. If I said ANYTHING to that kid when he was little, he threw a major temper tantrum and his father would evil eye me BIG TIME….what a nightmare for new love bomb omg I’m so GLAD it won’t be ME INVOLVED!! POS jr. doesn’t want dad to get married again LOL!!! hmmm. wonder how POS is gonna handle that one LOL!!!
Takes away from POS jr.s time and money. I could not believe what I saw when I was out at their house. Spath jr.s room was FULL OF ITEMS and money just laying out all over the place. It was a disaster!!! His daughter had stuff in her room, but not NEARLY to the extent that POS jr. did. I feel so sorry for new love bomb. It’s gonna be a NIGHTMARE, a massive chaotic mess. He lies to his children too. So sad…..
I didn’t get the messages that directly to be lol!! Sure wish I had though!!! I got them in other ways, but once things started falling apart this last year, and he got more and more demanding, and we spent more and more time together at the first of last year….I’ll tell ya, it got WORSE not better, WORSE…he also made promises that we’d go here or there..never happened. When there was a time that it could, I didn’t want to go….
IN thinking about this today, I find myself stuck again.
I’m not sure I can quite verbalize it, but I’ll try.
He demanded that I be with him twenty four seven, unless HE had HIS children with him, in which case I wasn’t allowed over because they knew about me being his mistress and well, that just wasn’t gonna happen, even though he kept telling me to give it time and that he’d eventually tell them (Lie). But if I had something going on with MY children, he CASTRATED me for it. I got the childish temper tantrum shit, “YOU DON”T WANT TO BE WITH ME!”, “THAT’S JUST AN EXCUSE”, “THEY”RE OLD ENOUGH TO COOK THEIR OWN DINNER!”….you know….shit like that. I wanted to drop everything and go, and sometimes I did, but other times I chose not too, made excuses not too…tried to plead to his “loving” side as a parent, nope. But I can’t help but wonder in the back of my mind…I WANTED to go SO bad, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it anymore. I knew that if I went to his house, I’d be drinking and it would be all about him or he’d ignore me on the computer, or sex would be had, and then he’d beg me to stay, and I knew that I didn’t want too…I didn’t feel comfortable around him at all. There was this horrible sense of anxiety and FEAR. I feared him greatly. Because I never knew what was going to happen next. All of it felt like a “set up” of some sort. He could be very “loving” and “attentive” but then something weird or compulsive would be said or done…like cooking together in the kitchen and all of a sudden he’d scream and run out the front door or into another room simply because I used a steel utensil in a pan or a scrape of a plate…the reaction was so overboard….so out of context….other times were weird too, like he had his uvula removed because he snored so loud, his ex wife complained, so he said,anyway one night, we were eating dinner and started laughing about something and he started choking, ran to the bathroom and started puking!! It caught me so off guard and I felt IMMEDIATELY uncomfortable. Like it was a big show…I can’t explain…then I went to check on him and he was pissed AT ME! “WELL YOU DON”T KNOW WHAT IT”S LIKE TO HAVE YOUR UVULA REMOVED AND GET SOMETHING CAUGHT UP IN YOUR PARANASAL SINUS’S!” took everything I had to keep from laughing, and I didn’t, but…overreacting. His evil looks at me disarmed me and often were given on a DIME…to where I was so off balance, I was afraid!! this was CONSTANT. A lot of it was very subtle, very covert, gaslighting…he would look at me weird if I laughed “too loud” while watching a comedy show, or he would turn the tv up if I was talking to him and he was watching something…then turn it down when I stopped talking…he was constantly “sick” migraines, gutt issues you name it. He used the sick card A LOT. I just never knew,minute to minute what was going to happen and then he’d accuse ME of making HIM walk on eggshells because of my reactions to him. I remember one of the last times I saw him, just prior to knowing about love bomb, he was on his computer, always running to the computer, when I’d go over to see what was up, he’d quickly click onto something else or off completely then YELL at me….”WHat? DO you think I’m doing something wrong? I’m not. Wanna see what I’m doing?”
Living with this man would have been an absolute nightmare. I would feel so wounded because whenever I did spend the night, same thing, I never knew what to expect. What was going to happen next, and often as I’d lay there in the dark with him, he would say something horrible to me….and all I could lay there and think is, I want to go home…so many times…and there were a couple of times that I DID go home after he fell asleep…
I keep wondering, even with all of that (leaving out quite a bit here), what would have happened had I acquiesced to his demands. Was I the source of frustration because I DIDN”T do what he wanted? Could that have been fixed had I acquiesced to his demands? My logic and part of my heart tells me no it could not have. I was just someone PRESENT and that was ALL.
He was EXTREMELY needy, yet while also needing his “space”. He was so sneaky. So very very sneaky. It wasn’t until it was over that I figured out he had lied to me about dating and then would blame me and defend himself when I asked about it or confronted him on it. He even invented big stories about having been meeting “friends” on the evenings he was going out. Nope, those were dates.
He’s off the dating site now. New love bomb has his undivided attention now. Either that or he’s cruising other dating sites because i created a profile on that one so I could bust him after I found out he was on it.
It’s really hard to unravel this mess in my mind.
Went to the store today with my kids. Tried to stay in the present, praying and praying and praying that God would protect me and that I would NOT run into he and love bomb. I didn’t. I got to see people there that I’d not seen in awhile that I care about and whom care about me. I miss bantering with them when I go in. It was at that point that I started to feel angry too. I know self care is very important right now, to be. While I want to go to my local starbucks and get a coffee, or go to my favorite stores, I still feel too raw to do it. He’s banned from everything I know now.I do not check his fb or any of his family or friends. I’ve been tempted but I don’t do it because it emotionally destabilizes me. Appearances are deceiving and I know that if I were to see anything I’d be taken down more than I am. But it still pisses me off. This is MY town, NOT his….I’m looking forward to the time when I don’t worry about it anymore and can enjoy my life again. But right now, I’m just too raw…
It’s all just too raw yet. But I did make it through that experience today.
sorry……..lol….gone on and on……….**sigh**