Editor’s note: The following article was submitted by the Lovefraud reader who comments as “Pearl.”
By Pearl
Someone on this blog once mentioned a book by Alice Miller and Andrew Jenkins, and it caught my attention. So now I’m reading The Truth Will Set You Free—Overcoming Emotional Blindness and Finding Your True Adult Self.
Even though I’m only about halfway through the book, I wanted to share parts of it because it is so important to what a lot of us are working on—forgiving ourselves and trying to understand why this (fraud) happened to us. I know this won’t apply or appeal to everyone, but it might help some of you as it has me. Miller’s ideas help me understand why I was susceptible and forgive myself for my blindness—my inability to spot a “bad guy.”
Miller focuses on childhood—on how corporal punishment (spanking/whipping) and humiliation—cause a type of blindness in adulthood that can lead to being manipulated and UNABLE TO SEE THROUGH LIES. She emphasizes that the kind of parenting and education aimed at breaking a child’s will and making that child into an obedient subject by means of overt or covert coercion, manipulation and emotional blackmail leaves long-lasting imprints on the way we think and relate to one another as adults.
Here is the cycle as she sees it:
- Traditional methods of upbringing, which have included corporal punishment, lead a child to DENY suffering and humiliation. (Can anyone related to having a high pain threshold? Where did I get that bruise or cut—I don’t remember getting it? Ever feel humiliated at being spanked, paddled or whipped as a child? Ever experience a parent being insensitive to suffering?)
- This denial, although essential if the child is to SURVIVE, will later cause emotional blindness.
- Emotional blindness produces “barriers in the mind” erected to guard against dangers. This means that early denied traumas become encoded in the brain, and even though they no longer pose a threat, they continue to have a subtle, destructive impact. (The memory of how to respond to such crappy behavior from our parents and authority figures is still there.)
- Barriers in the mind keep us from learning new information, putting it to good use, and shedding old, outdated behaviors.
- Our bodies retain a complete memory of the humiliations we suffered, driving us to inflict unconsciously on the next generation what we endured in childhood, unless we become aware of the cause of our behavior, which is embedded in the history of our own childhoods.
As children, some of us learned to suppress and deny natural feelings. Some of us lived in a world where our feelings were ignored and denied.
All the beaten child remembers is FEAR and the face of the ANGRY parent, not why the beating was taking place. The child may even assume he had been naughty and deserved the punishment. Miller writes that in the absence of a witness who can empathize with us in childhood and genuinely listen to us, we have no other way of protecting ourselves from the pain but to close our minds to it.
In a bid to blot the fear and pain of our abused younger self, we erase what we know can help us, we can fall prey to the seductiveness of sects and cults, and FAIL TO SEE THROUGH ALL KINDS OF LIES.
Having this information helps me understand why I was “ripe for the picking.” It also goes a long way toward helping me forgive myself and move on in the healing process.
I’m thinking of the Marilyn Monroe movie, “Bus Stop.” A young man leaves the ranch for the first time to go to Phoenix to compete in the rodeo. He meets Cherie, the saloon singer, and decides he’s going to marry her. Of course everything works out with a “happily ever after,” right?
Ah, if only . . .
Rune:
“Notice the reaping big admiration on someone else’s dime.” Man-oh-man do I know that song. Every word. Every note.
I remember the first time S did that. He wanted to take the friend who had taken him in after he was released from prison out for dinner on the friend’s birthday.
The evite went out from S and me. I bought the birthday gift. I picked up the tab. S got all the credit.
Buying drinks for everyone in a bar? Yours truly. But, who was thanked? S. Charity events? Yours truly. Whose name was on every thank you? S.
The list is endless. Like you I felt boxed into a corner as I watched the money fly out of my wallet and the credit card bills roll through the door.
S soaked up my greenbacks and soaked up all the glory. You’re right. That was the point.
Wow, Matt. Thanks for validating my experience. You might check my comments under Steve Becker’s blog. This is part of why it is so difficult for me to explain how I was abused. That pattern of behavior was just part of what he did to destroy everything I had.
And coincidentally he was destroying everything as my area of work was disappearing: a double whammy. You can probably still find work. My livelihood is gone, so I feel a gruesome kinship with the devastated victims of Madoff.
Rune:
As I still sift through the financial carnage S wreaked on my life, I would kill for some of that money back.
Especially as I sit here and watch everybody with experience in my place get fired. Why have somebody with experience when you can hire a three kids with no experience at the same price?
I find myself thinking I’m too young to retire and too old to start over.
Matt: In direct losses, hundreds and hundreds of thousands — not that it was ever in my hands to enjoy, but it went into work that I couldn’t then get my profit out of. And then the loss of opportunity. And then the loss of credibility and business connections because of the fabrications behind my back . . .
I wondered, with your background, what you would do if this guy came to you to hire you to defend him . . . and then flip that around — is there any way I could go after him for his predations? Given your experience, would you know how to help someone develop a civil suit that could reclaim some losses, or at least create a liability for him that would shut down his likelihood of defrauding others? It seems you have the legal background and the strategic mind to consider a game plan that might serve some of us out there.
I have nothing to retire on, and I don’t know how to start over. I know just what you’re saying.
Rune:
One thought I have on the criminal side. In every state that I know of there is a section of the penal code that goes by names such as “larceny by pretense”, “theft by deceit” etc.
The names of the statue speak for themselves and could be used to prosecute our individual sociopaths who took us for money by lying. Your local district attorney could tell you if there is a prosecutable offense.
As for the civil side, there is civil fraud which is a different legal standard than criminal fraud. Often suits are brought in both criminal and civil court.
The civil is often brought after criminal — if you have a criminal conviction, you will probably succeed in civil because your case has essentially been made for you. Also, civil is often brought after a failed criminal prosecution (think OJ Simpson) because civil is a lower standard of proof. I’ll give it some more thought and see if I can come up with something.
Matt: I went to the DA’s office, but couldn’t get past the receptionist. That doesn’t mean the statute doesn’t exist, but I couldn’t get even an initial conversation. I was also stuttering and easily startled into tears, so not a great advocate for myself, by the external evaluation of the “uninitiated.”
Thank you for putting your creativity into this. You may bring a missing piece to the puzzle.
I also went to the police, who told me that the liar S/P would say, “She gave that to me,” so I would likely lose if I even tried to pick up my belongings, like . . . my clothes, pictures, books, business records, business equipment, sculpture, electronics, furniture, heirlooms, oriental rugs, . . . oh, and how about house payments of $7500 per month for how many months? I have documentation of an alternative intent with this guy, but no one has been willing to look at it, and I think it’s because they don’t understand the malicious extent of the disorder.
I posted this under an old thread. This is a blog that I recently ran across written by the woman that my ex s husband left me for. She wrote it after she found out that he was cheating on her just as I had repeatedly warned her that he would based on his history of s behavior which I didn’t know about until after he left me. I think her blog illustrates just how much power and control the s can gain over their victims. And, how they twist things to make US feel guilty for their wrong doings. Notice how she is SO convinced that he is being totally honest with her simply because he has convinced her that he has told her the “whole” truth. Isn’t it odd how they know just how much truth to tell? I know the lady that he cheated on the girlfriend with personally–another unsuspecting victim herself–a good person that he pursued until he finally won her over using his s charm. This blog just amazes me. He is a 41 year old man with a history of s behavior going back to his teens and the woman he is with has been made fully aware of it by not only me, the ex wife, but also by his own family members and long time acquaintances. Here is her blog:
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Rough Times
Current mood: blessed
Category: Life
The past few months have been really rough for me. I found out my boyfriend was cheating on me and it was very hard to find that out because he had such a bad past when we met which caused trust issues anyway. I found out many things that truely broke my heart such as he had her come to MY house, not his,but MY house to have sex with her. That speaks what kind of person she is right to come into another womans house to screw her man! He also told me other things about her that puzzled me why he would continue to see her, such as she was so shallow she told him that she couldn’t stand to touch her husband because of burn scars that he got when there house burnt down. He said when she told him that his view of her totaly changed but she was willing to see and have sex with him so he continued to see her. He said she would meet him on the side of the road if he wanted to and have sex.He said she was a whore that would have sex with him where ever,whenever and listen to him complain and he kept filling her with bullshit lines to keep her coming around.I guess that speaks what kind of man he was right! But we all truely get what we deserve including me!! He told me he needed to feel wanted physicaly and mentaly and she gave that to him at the time when I built up walls and kept him out and told him multiple times I was leaving him to move to Reno with my parents.After finding out about the affair we did talk for a few days and a lot of things came out that neither one of us was willing to talk about before.I asked him why didn’t he just leave and he said he kept thinking things might get better and I would come around to wanting him again. He said thats why he got so jealous because he wanted me to treat him as I did the other guys we hung out with and I didn’t. he said in a way he was glad all this happened because it made both of us realize what we had and we almost gave up. He asked me to stay and work things out and said he wished he could take it all back and he wished he had been a stronger man through our trials but at the time he just felt he needed someone to want him. I have a lot of respect for him because he has been very honest through all of this and a little to honest sometimes. He got on his knees and swore on his mothers life that he wouldn’t never go to another woman again and this was one big screw up. He loves his mother very much and when he said that I couldn’t help but to forgive him and try to work on things because I love him so much and feel he was being as honest as he could. I also know our relationship was on the rocks and a lot because of me pushing him out. I feel I let him go and he came back to me so I guess he really does love me. I know people have bad opinion of Mike and thats fine but I do have unconditional love for him and will stand beside him no matter who thinks what or be disgusted by any kind of scar or deformity he may have or develop. We are learning to be able to talk to each other and it feels great to be able to be so open. I guess the point is sometimes god puts obstacles in your way to make you open your eyes so you can find what your looking for and sometimes you realize you had it all along. Sometimes you have to have the bad to see the good thats right in front of you if you just accept it. Mike and I had a perfect relationship in the beginning but some how it fell apart. I got scared of him and was ready to run because I had found out so much about him and the past and Mike and I met in bad circumstance anyway. But I felt we dealt with that part the best we could witout trying to hurt anyone but it didn’t work out that way. anyway I know this is boring but I was wanting to just get it off my chest and write down some feelings. Sorry if I have bored you guys, so I will shut up now!! lol
Matt & Rune,
I am tangled up in my own “legal” battle, also. Back in July 2006, when the divorce from the s. was finalized (he never came to any of the hearings), the final decree awarded me x amount of dollars, which s. had 30 days to pay. Of course, he didn’t pay. I continued to call my lawyer , to see if he could DO SOMETHING to resolve this issue. After the second year the s. fraudulantly put income on my my name that he had earned(thus resulting in me getting a letter from the IRS, saying I owned over $500.00 in taxes), I went flying into my lawyers office, & told him this chit was goona stop. He filed a contempt of court charge against the s. This resulted in about 5 more court hearings, with the s. saying he only had food stamps to live on, blah, blah, blah. The judge gave him 30 more days to get payments set up, or go to jail for 10 days. 2 days before he would have gone to jail, the s. called my lawyer, offering to pay me $100 a month to pay what he owed me. He made exactly 2 payments, then quit (& my lawyer thought it was so great that the s. was paying, even tho I told the dumba** it wouldn’t last). I told my lawyer I wanted the s. put in jail for contempt. Lawyer tries to get warrent sworn out, judge says, he just didn’t want to throw the s. in jail. Another court hearing is to be scheduled, AFTER I put up another $200.00 court cost fee. So, in essence, I feel that I am paying the s. to break the law. I have worked 2 & 3 jobs over the last 2 1/2 years, paying off the debts that were accrued during the time i was married to that flippin’ creep, rebuilding my credit, & have gotten it all done. Justice is indeed blind, & pretty f*ckin’ stupid, IMO.
Dear Stiles,
I’m not sure how much money you are talking about here, but you know, sometimes it is just better to blow it off than to try to get blood out of a turnip Of course they count on that and so around and around it goes. Good money after bad.
Sometimes it is (or may be) worth it to you, but I have decided that in most cases trying to get money out of them just isn’t worth the hassle. Good luck. (((hugs))))