Here’s more proof that total No Contact is the way to recovery. A new study finds that continuing to follow a former romantic partner on Facebook after breaking up makes it harder to move on. Read:
Study: Stalking your ex on Facebook is bad for you, on ZDNet.com.
Story suggested by a Lovefraud reader.
Lots of empowering discussion on this thread, today. I really, REALLY like this discussion of fear and trauma-bond.
About the “pearl.” The story of the friend who had shown her heart of hearts to a spath touched me, deeply. I love pearls. For me, pearls are more beautiful and mysterious than any diamond could be. And, they are uniquely “feminine,” to me. The damage to the “pearl” of one’s soul is utterly devastating, and I could identify with the friend.
Yep…..lots of good type, today.
Brightest blessings
You know, not that Love Fraud isn’t ALREADY an amazing place!
So much information on our ‘plights’ and such validation when
there really isn’t much understanding for our perspectives in
all of this….
BUT: (And not discounting anyone else for any reason…it is
all just amazing stuff; truly) BUT: “I” think this is one of the
very BEST threads I have read here. Seriously.
Amazing conversation and it’s really helping me a lot.
I want to respond to a few of you but not right now.
I just returned from jury service and am exhausted.
I wanted to leave you all a note who has posted to this thread,
so far, how utterly AMAZING it is for me to read all of your posts.
THANK YOU; THANK YOU; THANK YOU!!!!!!
I will write more soon, to each and every one of you.
Love ~ Dupey
darwinsmom:
Yes, I am like you. I don’t panic and am level headed and have that exploring type personality. Curious. Spath loved that.
Thank you for this:
“It doesn’t have to be fear for physical harm as per my example, but it could also be anxiety over other harm: have your heart broken, being betrayed, emotional harm, etc””
That explained it exactly for me. I WAS extremely anxious about having my heart broken and the emotional harm because the OW had warned me about him so I knew the possiblilty was there for him to break my heart. That is why I was closed off from him and didn’t tell him anything about myself…I didn’t open up to him, but I still had sex with him. In that way, I gave him my all…now THAT really breaks my heart.
Edit: I hadn’t had sex with another man for 20 years. I had been in a very long term relationship and then he came along. I know this is why I was hurt to the core of my being…I didn’t just give myself up to anyone like that and I did with him. I am not sure I will ever 100% get over that. And yes, that is how good he is at the con.
skylar:
The Pearl. This is in response to your post about the Pearl. First of all, you are so correct…he also accomplished wanting me to kill myself. I never admitted that to him, but I thought of suicide many times that is how low I had become.
So I have a question. When you are talking about the Pearl, you don’t mean sexually, right? Because I did give him my Pearl in that way unfortunately. That makes me very sad. But in the other way, I didn’t reveal anything to him. But he did con my body away from me. Some may wonder why I would have sex with him, but I have to ask MYSELF that question. It was like I was in a trance. He is that good at his con. He was also very pushy yet in a subtle way if that makes any sense. It wasn’t rape, but he WAS pushy. He even told me that he thought he was being pushy…huh??…that right there had to be part of his con. Trying to make me think he was an understanding guy who had realized that he pushed beyond the limits.
This is all so interesting and I have learned so much…thank you so very much.
I never even thought of the Pearl in a sexual way in this thread before, but of course it can be very much interpreted that wat. It is referenced like that in culture already.
My sexual history is very different, though initially it was similar. When I met my great love, I told him he was the third man I ever slept with (at age 26), which quite surprised him. But it was the sweetest and most intimate of sexual relationships I ever had. It was very precious and satisfying to me both emotionally as physically, and even spiritual. You could say that I gave my pearl to him, because it was almost spiritual.
And then suddenly it was all over. And I just could not move on. For years I could not even kiss another man. It would imo be dirty and crass in comparison to what I had experienced with this prior love.
Almost 2.5 years were between my prior love and the next affair. It had been a conscious decision to move on, for the first time I started to let go emotionally (well I had letten go, accepted reality before that, but wasn’t ready yet to consider a new man). This seemed a kind, sweet man who was very much enthralled with me, and someone I felt safe with to explore this. I very much enjoyed it, but he was falling head over heels, while I didn’t.
After that something changed. I started to discover my feminine power. I had many short affairs and one night stands (though when averaged per year I come to 2 times a year). It was as if I had become a totally different woman than before. Sex had little to do with romance anymore, nor love for a person. This was not a negative experience for me. It was very empowering, emancipating. It is through this period that I explored my womanhood, found my femininity and sexual self-confidence.
The spath relationship was hot and sexy, but also the closing chapter on that period. It never had the same level as it was with the great love. A simple fact was that I never really considered him as my ‘soulmate’, though I did think I would marry him and spend my life with him. The reason it was not just an affair for me, was because I was not suffering commitment fear again, whereas before in the years of exploring my sexual freedom I could not commit and helf my cards very close. I felt guilty over that during those years, but I know that in a way it did protect me from some men who have some red flags about them and opened the door to exploring that kind of freedom. If I hadn’t had that commitment fear, I would have fallen prey to a spath sooner I’m sure, and I might not have been ready yet to learn from it what I have learned from it now.
In any case that period is over. I do not have that sexual freedom anymore. For one, I run the risk of getting triggered: a stranger you don’t know is not a situation to feel and trusting. Secondly, I don’t want to risk an oxytocine bond with someone I should not trust. On the other hand I don’t mind not having that freedom anymore. I know that part of my sexuality already. It can’t satisfy nor teach me anything anymore. Instead, I’m now FREE to take my time and only engage sexually with someone I have taken my time with to trust.
But I understand your hurt Louise: to you it felt like it felt for me with my great love, except that he was an undeserving human being, in your mind tainting that experience with falsehood. I’m very very sorry it has been tainted so.
Louise, here’s a pov that perhaps might help: whether or not he was sincere or not, does not take away that you had the opportunity to discover these feelings within you. Even if he was false and wrong, it doesn’t make your own passion a falsehood nor wrong. I committed myself to a falsehood, the commitment from the spath’s side was false and wrong. But I also rediscovered a commitment side of myself that I nearly had forgotten. The falsehood of his commitment doesn’t marr my self-conquest over this yearlong difficulty for me.
You cannot undo what happened, cannot undo your choices, but you can get the most out of it for yourself for your own personal dvelopment, including your sexual growth.
(((((Louise))))))
Louise,
just as Darwinsmom said, all we can do is use our experience for personal growth. And BOY have I GROWN due to this experience! I’m at a place I couldn’t even imagine. This life was not the one I signed up for, but it’s interesting and there are many rewards, including just “being with” you and everyone on LF.
I like the fact that I can finally understand so much of what was going on beneath my radar.
No, “Pearl” didn’t have a sexual connotation. Our bodies are not ourselves. Yes we identify with our bodies but they are vehicles we use while we live, then we discard them and our essence is all we take with us. That essence is our pearl. The more we identify with material things, including our own bodies, the easier it is for spaths to control us.
I call these MacGuffins and I’ve been wanting to write an article on it for sooo long, but just don’t have time right now.
MacGuffins are plot devices in a story. There is “the ring”, “the gold”, “the weapon”, “the documents” or whatever else the characters are chasing after or trying to keep others from taking. It’s the prize that drives the action in the story.
Spaths don’t value anything. They only want what YOU value. Your spath knew you valued your body and didn’t want to share it with just anyone, so he went after it. I’m sure he wanted your soul too, but couldn’t find a hook.
The OW didn’t value anything either, so she had to dangle a MacGuffin in front of you (the spath) so you would grab at it. Once you did, it’s ‘off to the races’! The game is on.
Spaths only feel alive when they are playing games, and when they are chasing the MacGuffin that everyone else wants. Without values, their lives have no meaning and they feel empty. So they look to us for direction on what to value. In other words, they want what YOU want. If they can’t figure out what you want, they’ll tell you a story that will make you want something, like the OW did. They have to do SOMETHING to get you into their stupid games.
That’s why you won when you walked away. The whole idea was to get you to play their game.
That’s why Jesus said, “be in this world but not of it.”
All the suffering my spath created in my life was supposed to make me bitter. And it was supposed to make me feel like life was not fair. All it made me was more compassionate and it made me feel that life was amazing.
The pain from the strychnine poisoning made me have compassion for those who suffer physically. The mental anguish, made me compassionate toward those who are in abusive relationshits. And let me emphasize that I SORELY LACKED COMPASSION for those people before I realized that it was happening to me.
Spath tried desperately to dangle MacGuffins. The one thing I mentioned that I might like to do when I got my insurance settlement, was travel. Really I had no clue what I wanted, but he focused on that. He made sure I was unable to go anywhere. Even when we traveled in the helicopter, he would up the poison, so that I was extremely uncomfortable. When he sent the trojan horse spath to marry my sister, he made sure to tell him to take her traveling all over the world. I was supposed to be envious about that. I was not, I was happy for them, but spath just doesn’t get it. The travel also served to add to her mounting debt…they owe about a million and can barely make their payments. Both houses underwater and the cars are leased. Though he makes about ten grand a month.
So my point is that spaths use MacGuffins to make us feel like we lost. And MacGuffins can be anything, including your own body. This is why I abandoned my house for 3 years. Even though I own it and he tried to convince me that he would take me to court over it, I didn’t bite. What I did instead, was just ignore the whole thing. So now he doesn’t know WHAT I value. It appears that I don’t even care about my house. That is how it’s meant to appear. Spaths only go after what you try to protect.
But in the end, I got the thing I most value most, due to him: Knowledge + Understanding = Wisdom. It is my pearl. Try taking that! Spath!
darwinsmom:
Yep, he didn’t deserve my “pearl” at all and yet I gave it to him because he became everything to me in a very short time. That does hurt…it feels so violating. I opened up totally to him in that way and he was only using me. Sigh.
I agree. He awakened those feelings in me that I thought were dead so even though they weren’t real for him, they were real for me. It’s encouraging to know if I ever meet a man worthy of that love that I will be able to give it unless I’m 80 by then….haha!
Happy Birthday to me! I just went dancing to my rock star neighbor’s band. What a blast. I danced my butt off for 3 hours! Tomorrow night is my zumba/salsa party. What a great b-day it’s been. Hope you are all well.
Love ya’s,
Star
Star:
Happy Birthday! Mine is on Tuesday. Libras. I am one through and through.
skylar:
The MacGuffins, I love that! What a concept.
What would I do without your insight? I love how you have made it clear what the OW was doing to me. I saw it on a more infantile level…just that she was lying to me, but not WHY she was lying to me and pulling me into her game.
And the spath? You bet he realized that I was not that kind of woman to just sleep with anyone so he took it. What are your feelings about this?…because we know that they KNOW what they are, do you think they push us away on a certain level? I realize I am probably just having cog/diss, but I can’t help but wonder that if they know they are rotten, maybe that’s why they push good (us) away? It would make sense to me, but as we all know, nothing makes sense with a spath.