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.
Sky,
You’re absolutely right. That was exactly why he must have made that call. I knew when I said “No” that he would blame me to her, but I didn’t care. Not that I don’t care about paying what I owe, but in that situation it made no sense. With all the money he owed me, and the money he had inherited, paying 10$ on a tab situation he created was nothing. But I can see that he was starting to smearcampaign me. He was preparing a situation to get pats on his back for discarding me.
And he had lied about his inheritance. He originally told me he had only inherited part of the house, but no money at all. It was because his sister contacted me very upset about how he behaved right after his father died and the amount of money he spent in one night and informed me his mother was coming down to procure the rest of his financial inheritance for safekeeping and raising his son, that he later on told me that he had inherited money after all. He was very angry over his mother safeguarding the rest of the money, saying it was “HIS”. I couldn’t support him in that anger. A) he was too irresponsible with money B) she was raising his son and giving a home to the mother of his child.
Just before Christmas, a week after that phonecall about the tab he had mentioned he was thinking that maybe we should separate. But then his mother procured the rest of his money in her safekeeping, and he had to set up some sort of plan to get his hands on the money again. His father thought there finally was some hope for growth and betterment in his son because of me. And because his father believed this, so did his sister and his mother. He had to create a stalling situation for all of us, so he could get his hands on it again, supposedly to solve his “divorce” situation and the airplane tickets and whatever other paper problems he lied about. Meanwhile he looked hard for a replacement. By the time he discarded me, the OW was already hooked and I fear his mother must have given him close to everything that was left of the money.
I knew by instinct the last months of paper problems must have been all lies, and that it was a set up. I instantly called up his sister and his mother to alert them of the reality of the situation. They had an incredible hard time to believe me, claiming he must have been drunk or so. But I insisted he was not drunk at all, that he had prepared this and had someone else. I informed them of the length of time he was with the OW and how he had tried to get an OW already in January but failed and that the paper problems must have been lies. While his cousin was going to find out more by asking him of what was going on, at least his mother was angry (and hopefully managed to keep some of the inheritance to raise his son).
Anyway, everything points to the fact that once he returned from Costa Rica the night his father died he was starting to set up the discard, and doing that phone trick in the bar in the way you explained it Sky totally fits.
What brought me back to my financial senses with him? I had just borrowed 2000 euros from my parents to cover the pit I had dug for myself with him. It was the first time ever in my life I had to do that. My financial independence was something I always prided myself about. It was humiliating to me to have sunk so low, and it was important for me to honour their help. I knew they had lent the money for me, not for him. And I simply could not be disloyal to them, nor dishonor that help, by starting the whole money pit all over again. It was my loyalty to my parents in a financial way that gave me the power to say “No”. When the bank lent me money I considered it mine, when my parents lent me money I considered it theirs. I paid it all off to them last August, and the bank loan of 7500 euros was paid off in May.
skylar:
Haha, yeah, NOTHING means the same thing to a spath as to a normal man. Everything about them is skewed.
You said: “It just means you make a good facade and you won’t be getting sex but you’ll still stick around.” Exactly! He told me, “Can I see myself with you?…yes.” It took me quite awhile, but I finally realized why and it was because of what you said. He knows I would be a good facade and because I loved him and am easy going, he would probably be able to get away with his shenanigans.
I failed! Yay for me! I agree with you…I just wasn’t cut out for it no matter which way you slice it.
With regard to “intimacy,” I think I always confused sex with intimacy. If I had sex with someone, it meant that I was “intimate” with them, and this simply isn’t true. True intimacy is a meeting of the minds and an ability (and, willingness) to share parts of my Self with a reciprocal trust that those inner pieces won’t be trampled or used.
A question of money came up on this thread, I think, and the attraction to money. The exspath knew that I would be inheriting a sum of money, at some point, and he had always asserted that he was “a patient man.” I thought that he meant that he was “patient” with regard to my personal healing. What the reference was about was that he could wait for a long time for someone in my family to pass away.
I believe that it was this anticipation of financial access that was so heady to the exspath. Finally, and at long last, he could appear to be the individual that he so desperately believed he DESERVED to be. His family background was very humble and dysfunctional. So, aside from the “safe mommy” figure and cloak of respectability that I represented, the money that he anticipated could paint him to be successful and cultured. He could also lay claim to my family’s colorful history. He believed that he was entitled to this.
Hens, I deleted my FB profile simply because these “social networks” are not about being “social.” They’re about promoting narcissism and dysfunctional communication. Although this didn’t come as a surprise, not one person on the FB “friends” list posted a personal comment or sent me a personal message after the exspath left and, months later, I had to relocate for the second time in a year. None of these people really cared about whether or not I was a “friend.” I was simply a technological contribution to the testament of their popularity.
I am often tempted to research more into the exspath’s activities, but I know that it would be pointless, academically. I already “know” everything that I needed to learn to put an end to the charade. So, any additional information would only further damage me, not him.
As a complete aside, I was speaking to a friend last night about a moral dilemma that had to do with my experiences. She finally said that her oncologist advised her to put her bout with cancer in the past and avoid any/all banner-waving and fundraising and to focus on living, rather than advocate for patients or research, etc. She was essentially suggesting that I “get over it” as so many people do.
I almost became defensive and I recognized triggers that could have caused me to feel really angry. I know that I have to move on – better than anyone else, I know this. But, what I also know is that this recovery process is tedious, long, and difficult. Whether someone has been entangled for 2 months or 15 years, exposure to spaths is a whole-self event. And, no matter HOW much I talk about the devastations, people simply are not going to “get it” unless they are completely destroyed, themselves. Although they mean well, they cannot fathom the carnages.
Brightest blessings
Truthspeak:
I think we all have confused intimacy and sex. They absolutely are not the same thing.
I think that’s really odd that your friend’s oncologist would tell her to avoid all fundraising and advocating for research! Wow! I do understand the bit about focusing on herself and living, but to not advocate for research on something that could have potentially taken her life?? That just seems weird to me. Oh, well. But you are correct…that is what she was trying to tell you basically…get over it. I, personally, am just so sick of people’s attitudes with that. They don’t know the damage because it didn’t happen to them and the things that all of us on this site experienced was not a “normal” breakup. If it was, I would have been “over it” a long time ago! ARRRRGGGGG!!! I mean, I have had boyfriends in the past where when it was over, it was over. It was what it was and I moved on, sometimes without missing a beat. So why has this one been so different?? Because he was an evil spath who set out to destroy me. And until someone experiences something like that for themselves, they will NEVER understand.
Sky, on the oxytocin experiments, I can’t find the reference now, but in one study I remember reading it said that while psychopaths have a normal AMOUNT of oxytocin they have FEWER receptors in the brain for the Oxytocin to BIND to.
With any hormone or chemical in the body/brain, if there are no RECEPTORS for it to bind to it can’t have the positive (in the case of Oxytocin BONDING effect)
Liane Leedom did an article here on LF about experiments showing that bonding with their babies is blocked in animals if they are given drugs that block the production of oxytocin which is done at the birth process.
Orgasam, birth, nipple stimulation in nursing etc. all produce oxytocin in humans, and skin to skin contact does as well, and it makes sense really that NORMAL people will BOND to others when this hormone is present. I think that is why that normal people BOND during sexual intercourse and why psychopaths DO NOT bond to the people they have sex with and thus most Ps are very promiscious and seek partner after partner.
JUST MY OPINION on this, but I think they somehow “know” that WE get something really good out of sex that they don’t get and I think part of their looking for more and different partners is to try to find that ELUSIVE “something” that we get that they don’t. Of course I THINK (*again, only my opinion) they will never find true sexual satisfaction because they don’t find that oxytocin “high” and “satisfaction” that the normal person gets when they bond to their sexual partner.
I think that this bonding process is what has kept humans alive on the planet because the woman needed to bond her partner to her to take care of her during preg and nursing and while she was raising the infant. Of course the male P that was out there spreading his seed far and wide but not hanging around to raise it may not have had as many surviving children to leave his Nasty DNA but they obviously left SOME because it is out there in the human genome. LOL
Louise, precisely. So, last night’s conversation kind of prepped me to not discuss my situation with this friend, anymore. She’s not a bad person. She just doesn’t “get it.” And, I can imagine that it gets quite tiresome for anyone who isn’t ME to hear about it. It’s just an indication that I need to keep my mouth shut and “talk” to people who DO “get it” and can help me to “see” where I’m stuck, where I need to fortify my boundaries, and various ways to approach my recovery.
Is anyone addicted to watching “Walking Dead?” Okay, I will admit that this is a creepy series and full of drama/trauma, but what it clearly demonstrates is how the Human Condition is revealed and altered under extra-ordinary circumstances. People who were questionable prior to an apocalypse are free to act out, and “moral” and “ethical” people are forced to either fight for their beliefs, or abandon them to preserve their own lives.
The discussion of the oxytocin and receptors kind of spurred the reference to the series because there comes a point during this series when one character expresses the mistaken belief that the “walkers” are simply sick or disordered and can be cured. Even an empathetic viewer “knows” that this belief is erroneous and that the “walkers” aren’t humany, anymore. Well, isn’t this sort of what spaths are? They’re encased in human tissue, but they don’t really possess human feelings and empathy.
Very off-topic, I know. I just was compelled to throw that out there….
Truthspeak:
I do the same thing. I have learned who I can talk about it with and who I cannot. I just don’t talk about it to the ones who I know don’t want to hear it. There are only two friends I talk about it now with and that’s my best friend and another very good friend who also used to work at the company I left. She “gets” it more in part because she worked there at one time and gets the whole dynamic.
No, I do not watch The Walking Dead, but gosh, I have been hearing about it so much, I think I need to start! I am not sure why I haven’t watched it before now as I love gory, scary, weird stuff like that. I think this is the second season already? If so, I have already missed a lot! Would I be able to pick up on it at this point?
Truthy, I don’t have cable TV so don’t get the series and not sure I’d watch it if I did, but as far as psychopaths and oxytocin, and empathy and a lot of other things…it all comes in “levels.”
It isn’t an either/or situation with psychopaths any more than it is wit people who are autistic. Some people who are autistic have ZERO empathy or ability to relate to others at all, they are totally inwardly focused. Others, like Temple Granlin are highly functioning, yet lacking in a normal amount of empathy or the desire even to be touched.
So while we say that psychopaths “lack empathy” this has been shown by Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen a well respected researcher and expert on Autism that ALL humans have a RANGE of empathy from Zero to X and all stages in between, and we also can CONTROL the amount of empathy we FEEL and act on as well. If we had 100% empathy we would give away everything we owned and starve ourselves to death giving all our food to others who had little or no food. So we may feel some empathy for the homeless man on the street but we do NOT give him our last dime and let ourselves get evicted from our homes because we can’t pay the mortgage, so we CONTROL our empathy, but we have it.
Psychopaths generally have LESS EMPATHY THAN “NORMAL” but they may actually have some empathy. They also have less oxytocin receptors than “normal” but they may have some receptors, so there is this RANGE of empathy (or lack of it) as well as ability to respond to oxytocin and bonding.
Accepting that “some psychopaths are worse than others” I don’t think is too much of a stretch….yet, they ALL have SOMETHING in common, and one of those things is a decreased ability to empathize with and bond with others (lack of loyalty) as well as a decreased level of conscience. They may also be very narcissistic. It is also possible that they are sadistic as well, enjoying “duping delight” onto and upwards to sadistic murder.
While some psychopaths are dumber’n dirt, some are extremely smart and well educated and can function at a high level in society…Lance Armstrong is a good example, John Edwards is another (and I could name off a string of 1,000 more) and there are also those that are such poor judges of how others think that they are like my son, who though he is extremely intelligent is so narcissistic and so lacking in empathy and so lacking in understanding HOW OTHERS THINK that he is almost incapable of getting away with his crimes. Almost to the point that if it weren’t so serious it would be FUNNY! In spite of how bright he is he is so CRUDE that the only person he can “fool’ now is my egg donor.
Skylar, The oxitocin experiment is interesting. It’s important to remember that BPD’s crave intimacy, but, at the same time, intimacy triggers their intense fear of two things, engulfment, and abandonment. So, it makes sense that a bonding hormone would cause them to distrust, and set up these defenses. This where the “push/pull” comes from….the come here, go away.
Also, it should be noted that the testosterone in NORMAL men, somewhat waters down the effects of oxytocin, so that even NORMAL men, are not as effected by the bonding hormone as women are.
Thanks for the information.