How to recognize and recover from the sociopaths – narcissists in your life › Forums › Lovefraud Community Forum – General › Doubts and regrets years after divorce
- This topic has 13 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 4 years, 4 months ago by sept4.
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September 4, 2020 at 8:52 pm #63814sept4Participant
Hello all. I divorced my ex years ago. And left our joint company a year later under threat from him. We did not have kids so our only divorce issues were financial. He is a successful business man and money is extremely important to him. Maybe the most important thing in the world to him.
During the breakup I did not understand his horrific behavior so I started researching online and I believe he has ASPD and NPD. I have read extensively about these disorders and I understand them. He has spent several years in prison and has had other run ins with the law so I believe his behavior is to the level of ASPD and not just NPD.
All divorce/financial/company issues have been finalized and we have not had any contact in years. My problem is that I have lingering doubts/regrets/rumination over whether I made the right choices in the divorce. At the time I was afraid of him. I understood from his disorders that he could be dangerous if I backed him into a corner. He was threatening me, harassing me, intimidating me, bullying me. And he had other people pressure me as well to give up my assets to him.
At the time I did not trust a court to protect me. I was afraid of his reaction and rage and retaliation if I tried to sue him in court. He is a powerful successful person and a master manipulator. I assumed he would lie and charm his way out of any court proceedings. Or that he would run up my lawyers fees until I was out of money. Or even if I won the case that he would just hide money/assets abroad and never pay me.
So at the time I chose peace and safety and just agreed to what he wanted. Which was against my financial interest. Now that I have had several years away from him to heal, I wonder if that was really the right choice. I feel that I should have been stronger and stood up to him. And at least tried to win a case in court. Instead of just letting him take my assets under threat. At the time I thought I was making the smartest and safest decision. But now I regret not fighting.
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September 5, 2020 at 3:45 pm #63815SunnygalParticipant
sept4- It sounds like you did what was right at the time. Hope you can go forward.
SG
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September 5, 2020 at 6:16 pm #63816sept4Participant
Thank you. At the time I thought it was best and safest to retreat and heal instead of fight.
But now I am struggling with my decision and still am emotionally tied to the past. I think if I had stood up to him that would have helped me move on. It would have given me strength. Maybe even if I had lost the case. Because I would have at least tried instead of just backing out.
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September 5, 2020 at 7:35 pm #63821SunnygalParticipant
The past is the past but you can remember for the future. sept, are you a virgo?
SG
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September 6, 2020 at 12:02 pm #63822sept4Participant
No I’m a cancer!
Yes I know I need to let go of the past. I finalized everything legally/financially years ago. I’ve been NC for years. But the past still haunts me every day and I can’t find peace.
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September 6, 2020 at 3:03 pm #63825emilie18Participant
sept4 – I understand the regrets and doubts and second guessing – hindsight is always 20-20, they say. I think you did absolutely the right thing at the time — if you had a gut feeling he would hurt you physically, emotionally or reputation-wise, you HAD to let it go and run – and congratulations for making that decision. You were not strong enough at that time to withstand his dirty tactics, dishonesty and viciousness – but you WERE strong enough to recognize what that could do to you. Now that you have had time to heal you are so much more confidant and probably could take him on – but to what end? You are correct in that he will still be just as nasty and devious and you probably won’t see a penny – but you WILL spend thousands in court and attorney fees. Not worth it, even now. HE is not worth it. After I recovered my equilibrium, sanity, mojo – whatever you want to call it – from my relationship with my narcissist, I, too, wanted to get even – recover the money and possessions he stole from me, make him hurt, even though he, too had threatened me and I knew how violent he could get when thwarted or confronted. What helped me get over beating myself up for not going after the money he stole from me was getting in touch with other women who had been involved with him. When we compared notes it was uncanny how similar our stories were. And how afraid we were of his retaliations. And we all agreed that getting OUT of the relationship was worth 10 times the financial loss. You will get to that point too – just give it time – and work on yourself. You need to believe in your deepest heart and bones that you did the right thing and are so much better off for doing so. Stay strong..and keep posting here. Just reading some of the stories on here might help. Blessings!
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September 6, 2020 at 3:31 pm #63827sept4Participant
Thank you Emilie!
Yes exactly, at the time I was not strong enough to fight. I felt like a Bambi in the forest starting a fight with a pack of wolves. He is rich and powerful and a substance user/addict and he has a felony record and I was afraid.
Now that I am stronger I think back to the ways I might have stood up to him and which strategies could have worked in hindsight.
He reminds me of Fotis Dulos. Goodlooking and very successful businessman. I bet Fotis was very charming and charismatic and well liked. But he was secretly a monster with no morals. And Jennifer did go to court and specifically told the court in her filing that she was afraid of him and that she knew he would retaliate. But the court did not protect her.
Now I don’t know if my ex would be capable of the same. Sociopathy is on a spectrum and I would like to think that he is not that severe of a sociopath as Fotis. But he definitely would have retaliated in other ways like financially or legally. And at the time I simply was not strong enough to stand up to him. So I decided to just back away and walk away instead.
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September 17, 2020 at 10:53 pm #63903sept4Participant
Any more comments? I’m struggling with this issue daily.
I wish I had been strong enough to take him to court. But maybe if I had taken him to court then I would have regretted that later too.
I just can’t find peace with this.
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September 24, 2020 at 7:58 am #63930nospParticipant
@sept4 Have you looked into treatment for betrayal trauma & complex post traumatic stress disorder or C-PTSD?
I suspect therapy of this sort with the right people may help you. You may have other earlier traumas either from childhood or you may have had an event recently that is re-triggering the intimate relationship betrayal trauma.
Personally I have found a lot of fast healing & empowerment from learning about things like poly-vagal theory, somatic / body experiencing therapies, etc
One site I can recommend with free classes is Dr Kevin Skinner’s Bloom For Women.
It’s targeted to women whose intimate partners may be pornography or sex addicted but it’s got some classes on trauma recovery that might help you self soothe better. When they discover their partners are sex/porn addicts, they too experience betrayal / intimate relationship trauma.You can check it out here: https://bloomforwomen.com/courses/
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September 24, 2020 at 11:31 am #63936sept4Participant
Thank you nosp! I will look into that!
Yes I am in counseling and it helps. Physical work also helped me a lot like exercising and gym. Fitness helps you focus on yourself again and on your health. It helps not just physically but emotionally as well.
Because I’m so much stronger now I have a different perspective. At the time of the divorce my main goal was just to get away from him and get to safety and peace. But years later now that I’m stronger I now would be strong enough to stand up to him.
So now I look back and wish I could go back and stand up to him and fight back. Because I don’t have peace with the injustice of it all. That he could behave like that with impunity and that he got his way in the divorce because I was afraid of his threats and his retaliation and of getting pulled into his problems. Justice was not served. But at least I did get to safety.
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September 24, 2020 at 9:45 pm #63943nospParticipant
@sept4 If physical exercise works for you you might want to look into yoga classes that are trauma-informed. I know there are a few courses on that on the Bloom site. Those may help you to feel more soothed & they’re good for your physical health.
I guess in some weird way I am closer to the opposite pole. I never really felt all that unsafe largely because there was never any in-person contact between me & the disordered guy. I still ran a free assessment on the disordered guy & what happened between us using Gavin DeBecker’s MOSAIC threat assessment (very very famous security expert, he wrote the classic book ‘The Gift Of Fear’, my father made me read an early edition of it when I was a brand new college graduate, moving into my first place by myself, thank goodness Dad did!). Threat assessments can be done for free at https://www.mosaicmethod.com
I had the results of my situation’s assessment emailed to me, also to a far more secure backup email account the disordered guy doesn’t know about & to my longest running best friend (30+ years & counting) who is my proxy for incapacity & my executor, my best friend lives in a different state from both me & toxic guy, thankfully I had consulted my best friend at every stage of this situation.
The MOSAIC assessment was eye-opening, the disordered guy is definitely dangerous, less so to me personally because we never met in person, but still dangerous. I wouldn’t feel as free to be as angry as I was, as vindictive as I originally was had we met in person & especially if the disordered guy didn’t make his living in the public eye (if I thought my life were in imminent danger, I’d go to media friends of mine with everything I know, they would spread the word about him further among his professional colleagues). The disordered guy is also lazy when it comes to whatever happened between us, so about the worst he could do is hang-up phone calls and/or some types of virtual harassment (like through a new email account, a new cell phone, possibly new social media accounts). He’s getting up there in years (he’s supposed to be turning 70 sometime this month) & if he wasn’t lying about having stage 3 colon cancer when things were ending, he might not be inclined or able to come after me & I think a COVID-19 pandemic also makes him more likely to stay away
Can you imagine being 70 (or older), a cancer patient, trying to figure out living in a highly contagious respiratory viral pandemic, living by yourself in a different state from those who society thinks should help care for you (your family) & you’re also deeply pathologically disordered emotionally & psychologically speaking? I’d say he’s living in his own personally created hell. I admit I smile a little at the karma he’s brought upon himself & then I remember that I’m a healthy decent human, I don’t add more to that & get back to my general indifference towards him & living my life well (the best revenge).
I know you are thinking about how you didn’t have the power you have now back then @sept4, that it bothers you how your divorce unfolded & that’s okay. You really don’t have to do anything like stand up towards your ex. I expect his justice is still coming to him, it might be slower than mine was, it might bother you now that he hasn’t seemed to experienced the karma or retribution, but I’d suggest instead celebrating how far you’ve come since getting your ex out of your life.
As Maya Angelou once wrote “When you know better, you do better”. You know better than to beat up on yourself psychologically & emotionally (it’s definitely not helping you). And my late maternal grandfather had the best saying about money (& most stuff). “If money had been meant to be [tightly] hung onto, it would have a handle”. Money comes & goes, it will flow back in to your life now that it has room to do so, you just have to be open to the idea of abundance. There will be enough money, things you really need, positive experiences & positive people which is why you never need to hang onto the negative people you know, they take up the space that good decent healthy helpful positive people you want in your life should have.
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September 24, 2020 at 11:37 pm #63947sept4Participant
Thank you nosp!
Yes I don’t want revenge but I wanted some type of fairness or justice. I feel like my only chance at fairness was to go to court and stand up for myself against him. But it was too risky at the time and I was very worried about his retaliation and also the legal cost and stress etc. I felt powerless against him as he would have done anything to win.
After all that happened I don’t believe in karma anymore. He basically just went on his merry way leaving all the destruction behind him and he could not care less. He knew I was too weak to fight him or stand up for myself.
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September 25, 2020 at 1:02 am #63948nospParticipant
@sept4 I actually now believe more strongly in karma but I worry less about the now gone disordered guy & what is or isn’t happening for him & instead focus on my karma.
A couple months after I was done with this disordered guy, last November, one of my very favorite actors, Matthew Modine came to my tiny corner of the USA to take part in a 3 day film festival celebrating his movies. Matthew happens to be the best friend of my very favorite still living still working actor (whom I have yet to meet in person, but if that’s meant to happen it will) and I could not have imagined those 3 days going any better. There were plenty of opportunities for me to talk about Matthew, I got to hang out with a nice guy who sometimes does publicity for Matthew named Adam & his son, all my friends who were in film club were there, I made some new ones, it was just amazing. Hopefully he comes again & we show more of his more obscure movies (I’m more of an indie movie, documentary, art house, human interest story kind of moviegoer, Matthew mostly brought the films he’s most known for to screen, between breaks we were diving deep into little fascinating films he’s been in like Streamers, Gross Anatomy, Abel Ferrera’s Mary, Equinox & a favorite of his & mine Orphans, it’s based on a theatrical play, a weird but delightful little fable of a story. So serendipitous!)
And weirdly in one of the movie Q&A periods with Matthew, someone in the audience asked him about why he rarely plays villain characters. Without missing a beat, Matthew (who was raised in the Mormon faith, but he’s not particularly religious) said, ‘Wow when you play those types of people & play them well, they take a little piece of your soul. And karmically speaking, over time, that can’t be good for a person’.
I didn’t think about the few months gone disordered barely has a career actor/martial artist once that weekend, I was totally in my own life, enjoying myself thoroughly, taking the breaks between screenings either chatting with Matthew & Adam or with film club friends or working on an idea for a course (it probably should take a video form, but I might also do a book for it) I didn’t have time or feel the inspiration or energy to work on because toxic disordered people are so draining & so defeatist & I was so into doing what I was doing Matthew had to come by & remind me that another screening was happening & I would be missed (Oops! LOL!). If that disordered actor had been around, he would have been pressuring me not to go to the festival, not to meet Matthew (jealousy, he would go nuts if I complimented another male actor’s performance), heck not to see my friends or hang out with them. None of them would have been romantic rivals, but toxic disordered actor guy would have hated that I was having fun & he wasn’t in the center of it.
And I can’t remember where here I posted it, but toxic disordered actor guy (who is Asian American) thinks his only acting role choices are ‘smart but geeky foreign tourist with camera’ type or ‘villainous martial-arts-competent fighter’, because ‘racism’ or whatever else he can say to make himself look like a victim.
Um, nope. If he wants to be the victim turned villain, that’s his choice. But he doesn’t get to victimize people in real life (especially not women, or the children they have with him), not while I am around.
The only thing he has right about me, is when it comes to him & what he does wrong is I will fight my corner, but I don’t do that by physical violence or even by seeking karma for him. I do it by protecting my karma & enjoying my life so much he’s irrelevant. The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference to the point of where you have almost amnesia around the disordered person, where someone has to remind you about them, and you have an ‘oh, *that* guy’ reaction, complete with a little giggle at your old self who didn’t know better, the one who didn’t realize her strongest traits are only weaknesses to the disordered unless & until you realize you have them & can use them like superpowers, and tell the tale as if it’s a cocktail party anecdote. I’m sure he’d like to make it into a battle royale, like Avengers: Endgame or some big overblown epic drama, but honestly he’s not that formidable a foe, he’s now more like Toto the little dog pulling back the green curtain on the nerdy professor at the controls of the machine trying to project ‘The Great Wizard Of OZ’. And I’m more myself than I ever was, even happier. Even in a pandemic (being an only child we get a pretty healthy head start on having a good relationship with ourselves & being rather contented when by ourselves, we’ve been doing it longer than those who have had siblings do).
So yeah, from my perspective, karma looms large but in the best of ways. It’s my friend who keeps me having ever more interesting & fun adventures. I’ve got me back & I’m only getting better & better.
So who really cares what if any relationship karma has to him now?
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October 2, 2020 at 4:52 pm #64150sept4Participant
Thank you nosp and I am glad you are recovered and doing well.
Yes I would like to get to the point of indifference but I’m not there yet. I have made progress over the past month in finding more peace as to my decision to retreat instead of starting a war with my ex in court. It was a dangerous situation and I know he would have done anything to win and to retaliate.
Looking back if I had been stronger and stood up for my legal rights in court, it might have turned out better for me, but there is also a very real chance that things might have gone very wrong. And then I would have regretted “poking the bear.” There was a large chance of further financial and emotional harm and possibly also physical harm. He is not a good person to antagonize or fight. As he will come out fighting dirty and determined to win by any means necessary. And he would have retaliated in any way that he could. A dangerous situation as he does not care about the law or morality at all.
I’ve settled on thinking that the most important part of my divorce was that I got away from a disordered, toxic, unhealthy, and potentially dangerous person. Even though there was a chance of a better result if I had fought him in court, there is a maybe bigger chance that it would have gone terribly wrong.
So I need to focus on the bottom line result that at least I got away from him safely, and got away safely from his toxic world of sociopathic friends and business associates that were enabling him and covering for him, and their toxic environment of drugs and alcohol and addictions. What an ugly group of people and an ugly world their little circle is. And at least I escaped that world.
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