When we realize that we’ve been involved with a sociopath, and that person has callously betrayed us, we inevitably ask, “Why? Why did this happen to me?”
To help find the answer, one of the books that Lovefraud recommends is The Betrayal Bond—Breaking Free of Exploitive Relationships, by Patrick J. Carnes, Ph.D. The book explains the deep psychological wounds caused by trauma, and offers a way for us to identify and overcome abusive relationships that we may have experienced.
When I read the book, I was struck by what Carnes wrote on page 68:
My experience with survivors of trauma is that every journey of recovery depends on the survivor coming to a point where all that person has gone through means something.
I believe there is meaning in what we have experienced at the hands of sociopaths. Here it is: The object of the exercise is to force us to jettison mistaken beliefs about ourselves.
Promising to fill the void
When sociopaths come into our lives, they snag us by promising to fill some void. For most of us on Lovefraud, the void is our missing soul mate, but sociopaths can also promise career success, monetary rewards, spiritual enlightenment—any number of things. (Please note: This dynamic doesn’t quite apply when sociopaths are family members.)
Sociopaths are experts at identifying our vulnerabilities and exploiting them. So the question becomes, why do we have the vulnerabilities in the first place? Here’s where the mistaken beliefs come in.
We believe we cannot attract a fulfilling romance.
We believe people only want us when we do something for them.
We believe we cannot succeed through our own efforts.
We believe we aren’t good enough.
We believe we are unlovable.
We believe there’s something wrong with us.
We believe we cannot cope with life by ourselves.
We believe other people come before ourselves.
We believe someone will come and make all our troubles disappear.
These just a few of the erroneous beliefs that create voids within us. Where do they come from? Perhaps from abuse in our past, as outlined in The Betrayal Bond.Perhaps they come from simple misperceptions. In any event, the sociopath steps right in to fill them.
Feel free to add your own mistaken beliefs to the list.
Critical juncture
So the sociopaths make promises—and break every one of them. At some point we wake up, come out of the fog, and realize that our lives have crumbled into piles of debris. That’s when we ask why? Why did this happen to me?
This is a critical juncture. We can certainly blame the sociopath—they are evil, and they deserve to be blamed. We can say it was fate, or luck, which is sometimes true—there are sociopaths who randomly assault or kill people. But in most of our cases, we believed the sociopath, went along with the charade, for a period of time. Why did we do this?
If we can find the answer to this question, we can discover the meaning in the betrayal by the sociopath.
As much as I hate to admit it, I did benefit from the destruction wrought by the sociopath I married. I am not the same person that I was before him—I am wiser, healthier and happier.
Why? Because I found and released all those mistaken beliefs.
Yes, it was painful. Yes, it was traumatic. But by looking for the meaning and undertaking the healing journey, my life is now much richer than it ever was.
First of all, I want to say that I am so grateful to all who read my posts & responded. It has just been so long since I have have anyone care about what I was saying, or even really listen. I have had so many emotions & thoughts running through my head today. I felt guilt for saying out loud the stuff my dad did to me. Your parents are supposed to be the ones who take care of you, to keep you from being hurt, they are like super beings. All these many years, I justified whatever he dished out to me as something I must have deserved. Good people are not treated like this, so I must have been really bad. Maybe my mom stayed married to him because her own father had died when she was only 2, & she watched my gramma struggle to raise 5 kids by herself. I had never even made that connection until I read it here. I think the Sunday school class I am taking (Battlefield of the Mind),has really started me thinking about the lifelong wrong beliefs I was taught as a child. I know I have to work at getting rid of those beliefs before they kill me. I have to learn how to take care of me, something that never felt right to me, almost selfish. I ordered The Betrayal Bond, & I started to read that last night. It’s weird that I never thought of my childhood as unremarkable, it seemed normal to me. I didn’t know at the time it was training me for a life of self inflicted pain.
Right now I have to work the 2 jobs just to survive. I worked up the courage to call about another place to live. I am going to go see it tomorrow after work. I have to get out of the place I’m in now, it is just too much to remain here. When my son helped me find it when the s left, I was working in a factory, & making $18 an hr. The job I have now pays $8.50 an hour, hence working 2 jobs. I live in OH in the county with the highest rate of unemployment in the area. Alot of the industries have closed, gone bankrupt, or laid folks off permanently in my area. I have to get this financial pressure off myself. I don’t think my body can take too much more of being in this state of high stress alert much longer.
Well, I’ve rambled on for quite a while. I don’t want to hog the post. I’m going to read back through this thread, to see if it triggers any new thoughts or memories. Also to feel the love & caring you have all shown me. Wow whatta feeling.
Isabell, thank you for that long, personal post. What you did is something like what I did. Go back into the past, the parts that I had pretty thoroughly blocked, and face the truth of them. I wrote a lot of letters too.
I find that, after all the psychological work of cleaning house, the next stage is practicing. Part of it is trying out our best ideas of what it means to be the person we are now. I wrote in another thread about how our buried strengths, when we finally bring them up to the surface, have to grow up from wherever they got stuck by trauma. So our first ideas may not be the ideas we will use when are strengths have grown up a bit.
Like I think the formal “red flags” ultimately become less important than really well-developed boundaries that let you know, clearly and urgently, when you don’t feel comfortable with something. That discomfort isn’t about what’s wrong with the situation, but about you. That you don’t want to be there and need to either fix it or leave it. Because your real life is about you, what you need and want.
And how that relates to your situation with your ex is that he is creating obstacles to how you want to raise your children and the conditions you want in your life. You identify what is wrong and then you go to work on it. Tell the dojo master that this man is disruptive to your child’s wellbeing, and that you expect him to have some loyalty to your son. Take the money for the uniform, but if he becomes more involved , you will have to pull your son out. And you don’t want to do that, and you assume he doesn’t want that either. But you want you son in a psychologically safe environment, and you are looking for his support.
If you assume you deserve to have things go right for you, you take on the challenges as they arise. It’s a different mindset, but it is the mindset of someone who is emotionally free and feels entitled to a good life. You don’t owe anyone anything, except the gratitude and loyalty to the people who help you (as long as they are helping you). If you get clear-eyed about this, you may be surprised about not only what you can accomplish, but also how it changes the way you look at things (including yourself).
One of the ways to look at recovery is that first we have to learn how to say no. And then when we get really good at that, good enough that we have some confidence in our ability to protect ourselves, we learn how to say yes. To look at the world around us, see what is good and what we want in our lives, and say yes to that. At that point, all the business of saying no is just the way we keep cleaning house, keep ourselves directed toward the good, and keep ourselves feeling like our lives are effective, meaningful and rewarding.
All of this is very abstract, and I apologize for that. I’m not in your life, so I can’t tie this to your real circumstances. But two things to keep thinking about are “how do I want this to come out?” and “what would I do, if I knew I could not fail.” And of course, get very comfortable with the phrase “this doesn’t work for me.” That phrase works best when you’re really clear about what you do want, but it’s also pretty good when you just want to get rid of something that you find repellent.
What you have already done in your life just makes me want to jump up and down and cheer. I think you’ll figure out how to manage this weasel. Not directly, but by recruiting other good people to help you maintain the safe, rewarding life you want for you and your children. No one likes a destructive user. You’ll see.
Kathy
Donna — You really hit things on the nail with this article. I know that my experience with character-disordered people forced me to come to terms with my own “human condition” neuroses — misguided beliefs about what it means to “be a good person” (childhood undoctrination that promotes guilt when we object to others trying to use us), the admonition to put others first, always turn the other cheek, believe the best about others and give benefit of doubt despite evidence to the contrary.
I am grateful for my experience not just with ex’s but also various family and friends who were users. I found me in the process and can now embrace my own Shadow — those parts I once disowned in attempts to be the good person who always sacrificied. The integration within my psyche about my own potential to do harm made me even more conscious of my ability to make choices and in the process to learn clearly how to hold myself and others accountable for behaviors.
I am humbled by, as well as uplifted, in owning this power to choose. It is the foundation of self-love that knows my strengths and limits enough to take care of myself and not attempt to fix others who have a right to choose how they conduct their life as I do.
Through this ongoing inner journey in recovering from co-dependency, I remain clear about my boundaries and do not allow others to manipulate me. I challenge people quite easily now — without having to be overly confrontational — and don’t care what they think about me for doing so. If they leave my life because I set boundaries, so be it.
In fact, I’ve become adequately repulsed by single-focused takers/users. I have no interest in giving them permission to enjoy my company or otherwise take up my time beyond what I am comfortable with.
Well, I managed to down two computers last week…..and could not fix them…just now got my laptop back.
This article sure hit home for me. I was ‘groomed’ at an early age to be pleasing and I was unloved. I found my love in my marriage/and especially my children….and I sacrificed too much for all of them.
I guess my x has dealt me one of his final blows he thinks….he met someone online and married her today after only knowing her several months.
[in a huge church wedding] a woman from another country- whose main exports are coffee and drugs- possibly not in that order. Her dead hub was murdered by the drug cartel!! [all via my daughter who told me so I would be prepared during
family get togethers]. Marriage means nothing to him….but I think this one might..because she has two tough sons that I believe will not allow him to treat her the way he treated me. I have learned a lot from betrayal.
Oh, TB, that is wonderful news!
Finally, he will get his just desserts! Her sons will keep him in line because those latin american’s don’t like people messing with their families. They especially have strong attachments to their mothers.
If you ever get the chance, to meet one of the sons, you should prepare what you will say. You know, just a friendly warning to keep a close eye on him.
LOL! Good idea!
TB, he’s such an assclown, and she doesn’t sound any better. “Two tough sons”… that is great!!!!
LOLOLOL! Assclown….bwaaahahahaha!
Yeah, she is really sucking up from what I hear….she needs citizenship and to get one son to America…one son already here. Ole’ X might have met his match when it comes to using………………:P
TB Its so pathetic, really!We dont even have to buy them the rope, they not only buy it themselves, but they make the noose, put their head in it, and sooner or later, they kick the chair away! Thank you God!! They are their own worst enemies! all we have to do is sit on the side lines and wait, -sooner or later they will hang themselves!They dont need any help from us! all we need is patience, then__TOWANDA!!! they have f—d themselves!!!LOL!!!Love, gem.XX
I believe I am learning from this, becoming stringer and becoming a better advocate for myself,
BUT
I still want him out of my life…the pain will always be there if he continues to have joint custody and can emotionally abuse me through our son….
somebody explain that away.