Few, if any, walk away from their experiences with psychopaths completely unscathed. They may leave us bankrupt, homeless, or destitute. They may feign victimization, as they continue to wage their assaults, further insulting what we actually endured at their hands. Their thirst for destruction may be almost insatiable when it comes to us.
Those are just the tangible losses. Let us give equal time to the emotional confusion and trauma. Many of us suffer from PTSD, depression, or serious physical medical concerns, as a result. Living through experiences with psychopaths, or those with such features, is an incredible feat.
While we tend to focus on the negative consequences, we should also take time to examine the positive ones. It’s important! Here’s why….
Defeated? Don’t answer yet
Human nature and our culture tend to leave us concentrating on what we do not have. If a psychopath enters our world and then exits, leaving us in turmoil, we think this is a bad thing. We mourn our losses, feel bad, and wish things were different.
This is normal. Typically, we don’t enter relationships to leave them. However, when these folks touch our worlds, no good can come of the connections. As a result, as we progress through our journeys, we can come to learn that we have actually been given second chances by their departures.
The little things that are not so little
For example, from the day the person I learned my life lessons from entered my world, I spent a lot of time sick. I am not talking about major issues. Mainly, I experienced lingering colds, strep throat, unexplained fevers, bronchitis, pneumonia, and the like.
It seemed that I visited my doctor frequently for minor, but legitimate, concerns that needed some level of attention. Almost a year and a half ago now, I saw my doctor for a regular check up. She told me that she was surprised to see me. She assumed I had left and gone elsewhere.
I must have looked at her strangely, because she backtracked, explaining that she only mentioned that because she had neither seen nor heard from me in that time. I thought for a moment. It was true. I had not been sick at all.
Similarly, several years ago, my dentist advised that I should sleep with a mouth guard. Apparently, I was grinding my teeth fairly seriously. I recall waking many mornings with my teeth clenched shut. I remember trying to convince myself, while half awake, to unclench my jaw, but could not. I had to fully awaken first and consciously force myself to separate my teeth. The result, serious headaches that sometimes last lasted for days.
Last year, even at the height of two separate court battles, the same dentist indicated to me that he could tell the grinding had stopped. So, what does this indicate? These individuals bring undue harm. Their departures, even if only partial, can change us for the better.
One day at a time
I am not saying that all of the bad magically disappears one day. We may carry many of the scars for years or even for life. However, we can re-emerge with the help of our attitudes and awareness. Even if they persist and seem truly unable to move on, we can work toward freeing ourselves from the burdens. They no longer have to matter to us. It takes time and can be very difficult, but know that it is possible. Once, we invested in relationships that were destined to fail. Now, we can concentrate on rebuilding ourselves successfully. It truly is an example of gain, diguised as loss.
What if there is no way to stop them from continuing their attacks. For over 7 years, people have been saying “This too shall pass.” and when I tell them there is no truth to that statement until they have reason to stop… and they won’t stop until I am dead, I am perceived as defeatist.
When someone hires a sociopath lawyer, expect unrelenting injustice and manipulation and harassment and terror. And no one helps.
Help me please. My story is here… http://www.work2bdone.com/live or GOOGLE: Terroristic Divorce
Teranceh, I am going to hazard a guess that you are divorcing from an attorney?
You have my deepest sympathies. I have no words of wisdom or support that would suffice. If it were me, I’d leave the country if I could afford to and go underground. I would disappear myself.
Most sincere blessings
Dear Teranceh,
You have my deepest sympathy my friend. In dealing with a psychopath, it is extremely difficult and if they are an attorney and if they also have kids with you….you are screwed. I wish I could tell you that you will be “free” of this harassment even one day before you die of old age, I can’t tell you that.
The only thing, and I mean the ONLY thing that you can do is to CHANGE WHAT YOU CAN…your attitude about what they are doing to you.
YOu can’t change what they are doing, only the way you THINK about what they do.
This may sound crazy, Teranceh, but I’ll give you an example of how I did it.
My home is built on land that is “family” land, land I have invested many hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless hours lof hard labor in building and improving the entire piece of property not just my home…my son, who is a Psychopath with a BIG P, is in prison, and since I am an only child of my egg donor, and the way the estate is set up, IF AND ONLY IF I DIE BEFORE SHE DOES, DOES HE GET A THING…
Now I am very ATTACHED to my home, and to the farm, and to everything about it….but it eventually became apparent in the spring of 2007 that if I stayed in my home I was going to be murdered, and though my home here was the most important thing to me in the world, I CUT THE UMBILICAL CORD OF EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT TO MY HOME AND I GOT THE HECK OUT OF DODGE. I quit caring about my home. My life was more important and I got out while I could. Eventually the person sent to kill me by my son (my son is still in prison for another murder) was arrested and I returned to my home.
But…I have changed the way I regard my home. I no longer am ATTACHED to it emotionally. It is simply a house, a roof over my head. A nice one I will admit and one I enjoy but I am also quite willing to leave it in a heart beat and NOT LOOK BACK.
I can’t change the fact that my son probably WILL get out in a few years and I will have to “head for the hills” again, either that or stand and fight because HE WILL COME AFTER ME IF HE GETS OUT. But I have realized that nothing he does to me, or deprives me of is going to hurt me if I don’t let it hurt me.
The Bible says if someone wants your coat, give them your cloak as well, or if they require you to go a mile, go two…and I think what that means is that whatever they try to take away from you…LET IT GO. QUIT WORRYING ABOUT IT…
Whatever the psychopathic lawyer is trying to take from you, quit letting it hurt you. CHANGE YOUR ATTITUDE ABOUT IT, quit giving a flying rat’s behind. ACCEPT the things you cannot change, and pray for the wisdom to know what you can change and what you can’t. (to paraphrase the AA prayer)
Glad you have found LoveFraud, and again, welcome and God bless.
truthy.
it started with pity letters from prison about seven years ago. i said no to that. tried to get her to ignore him. i knew he was a loser and child molester. then in april 2009 he got out and as soon as he was off the ankle bracelet, he showed up at our house on halloween of 2009( fitting) he of course is not supposed to be anywhere near kids. upon learning that he dropped by and walked in while my 4 teenage kids were home without us, i showed them his profile on the state sex offender site. my wife was pissed. she said i had no right to show them that because he was innocent. she claims that is what triggered it to start as she felt so much pity for him. she also stated that she felt “your not my dad” i think she was already in the bag though. so she was with him as i looked the other way from about november 2009 till i found out in january 2011. she claims she was trying to break away in late 2010 but in her words she “just couldnt get there”.
from early to mid 2011 i watched her run to him weekly till i had a no contact placed upon him. then in late july she went to his parole officer and had the no contact lifted and promptly went to him for sex again.she finally confessed in august. i had kicked her out in june 2011 but i let her beg her way back in and to be quite honest i dont know if she told me expecting to be kicked out again. (trying to make it my fault??) i know from his letters he was forcing her to tell me. there were a lot of things said about them and their “stuff” together. details i shouldnt have seen but were probably put there with the intent of destroying anything that might be left of us. aw crap details right down to a list of things “She said” i wasn’t doing for her.
i have suggested calmly that we try a temporary separation just to allow our heads to clear(weeks or months) but she gets really upset over it and wants nothing to do with it. we do get along much better since i have gotten into my own healing and have calmed down but it seems to me that the distance keeps stretching out.
she claims that she told him as she was trying to pull free that she wanted to have with her husband what she had with him. and that she really didnt love him as he so forcefully tried to convince her but that it was only lust on her part. so now i’m wondering, where is the lust you once shared with me?
i really am feeling the “not receiving my love and attention” thing here. its like she is afraid of feeling. i know i do it for her. heck thats something that is just about knowing how and being present. but if she starts getting passionate it is as if she gets going and then something frightens her into retreating.
we have been doing a ton of fun stuff together this summer. last weekend we went to the renniasance festival in mn. and we dress up for it. she was noticing that i was getting a lot of attention from other women, (so she told me) once i noticed this it kind of creeped me out. i think it made me feel kind of self conscious.
is she so ashamed of this that she cant have any passion anymore?
rgc
so in sept.2011 she went to the parole dept and had the nc re applied and after some more harrassment and at her having supplied evidence that he’d been breaking it, they threw hin in for 20 months. so she has been nc for about 7 months. funny thing. it feels to me like weve gotten further apart during this time.
rgc
useless.
problem is i think, she doesnt deal at all. i think she is afraid. afraid of the can of worms she will find, afraid of really seeing how bad she screwed up. afraid of feeling passion again. maybe she feels she has to suppress her passion so as to never let this happen again. i know in the big picture this is foolish. she will have to figure it out or im not staying. in the end its gonna be tough crap baby. i am worth more than an empty symbolic marriage to someone who wont take responsibility for their actions. I am a damn good man even with my faults. i am a good father, an incredible provider, and yes a passionate and totally accessible lover who will do anything (within reason) that my mate needs.
she doesnt just heal differently… she just plain does not heal.
Respectfully.
rgc
Rgc, who cares if she gets upset about a physical separation? This isn’t about HER, it’s about you and your needs. The tip-toe-around-the-issues is a wedge that is firmly driven between any possibiolity of true reconciliation.
The “lust” in any marriage is an impossibility to maintain. The initial lust is (IMHO) replaced with a comfortable passion that glows rather than burns and consumes. She wants with you what she “had” with the spath because it was fantasy. She will never, ever, EVER have the same thing with you – THANK GOD – because you’re not pretending to be something where the maggot was.
Having “fun” together isn’t necessarily a relationship (again, IMHO). I had “fun” with the exspath – in fact, I often told him that the best times of my life were spent with him. “Fun” isn’t the same thing as communication, healthy physical relations, and trust.
Rgc, maybe the feeling that you’re getting further apart since you began your focus upon your own healing is an indication of something extraordinarily significant for you. It very well may be that you don’t “need” her so much as you used to, and you’re recognizing that you are a valuable human being with, or without, her.
When is the spath maggot due to be released? I dunno, Rgc, but I’d bet that she’s still clinging to the fantasy that he’s going to change and remains with you as a matter of convenience. If it were me, I’d be working like a fiend to sort out my experiences if I truly wanted to save my marriage. I’d be engaging in deep, strong dialogue with my counselor and partner.
Then, again…..I could be just a cynical old bat that doesn’t cut anyone any slack, anymore! LOL
Brightest blessings
I remember the comfy passion! she’d come to me with that “look ” in her eyes. and she would just put herself in my hands and we’d take hours.
yeah. i dont want what she had with that little boy either. i dont want controll of her. be nice if she had control of herself though!
and the maggot gets out in sept of next year. i know he will be back. though he supposedly told the parole officer that he found a way to stay in for the rest of his sentence. ???? wtf??
truthy. clinging to fantasy? yup i worry there too. she wrote a letter trying to scold him as it were after they threw him back in. didnt send it though. showed me. yup there at the end was the phrase i dreaded. ” now be good and follow your rules!” she chewed his ass and then gave him just what he would look for.
I’ll see if i can copy/paste a letter i wrote for her but diddnt show her that reflects how she might feel after discovering ALL the truth and REALLY having a grip.
hang on a sec.
You lied about your past
About your relationships
You Lied about your guilt
About how you treated others
You lied about what you did to little girls
About how you violated them with your coveting
You tried to hide how you covet what you can’t have
Your own daughters can’t trust a man because every time a good man approaches them,they still feel you.
You gained my trust with lies
You distorted the meaning of the word friendship with lies
You caused me to worry about you with lies
You made me feel sorry for you and then used my pity for you against me to get around my faith in my marriage
You managed to convince me that you couldn’t have a woman because of all the unfairness life had thrown at you when actually you earned your mess
You tried to convince me that you liked everything I did
That you were just like me
That the entire span of time we had known of each other’s existence counted as a friendship
Where were you for the past 20 years?
Violating other lives that’s where
You lied about looking for me
You could have gone into any bar in ——— or ——- and found out where I was because I have many friends
You took every bit of information I gave you in trust and used it to convince me that my husband didn’t care
That he could not love me if he would touch another
You tried to make me forget that he was honest about it
That he could not touch me again without being truthful first
He has something you will never possess
And that is Honor
You told me lies about how much you care
You lied about being unselfish
You lied about being faithful to women before me
You led me to believe that you were a great person
Where are the flocks of friends that you should have?
I don’t see them anywhere
You made me believe in you with your lies and your fakeness
You pretended to be like my husband
You tried to convince me that you had the same career
You said you shared the same hobby at one time
You just added a few small things to him that I told you were important to me and pretended to be a man I would want.
You even tried to look like him
You said you would build me a house
But you have never built anything but lies
You pretended to be all lost without me
That you would die without me
But you never lost even a pound from worry
My husband lost 50 pounds
You lied to me about my responsibility in this affair and tried to hold me hostage to it
You tried to make me believe it was all my fault
And that you were the victim
That I started it
That it was destiny
You lied to my family
You turned them against me
Used them as tools to try to force me to submit to your will
You used my own dying mother against me in the end
You pretended to respect me but it was all about you
You did the same to every other woman you have coveted
We girls of your past are not the same, so you are surely a fake
You have made me so sick of words with your lies that I don’t want to hear any more words
My husband is right about you
But he didn’t convince me
Cause I wouldn’t listen to him
I figured it out myself
You see, I remember things too
And all his badgering pushed me away
Only when he could shut up for a few days at a time could I really think about it
Then I began to piece it all together
Yes! I can think for myself
I am strong
If I want, I can leave my husband at any time
He respects me, so he will let me go if I choose
And he will support me and help me keep my children and grandchildren near to me
No matter what
He knows and appreciates me and accepts me for who I am
He is my friend
You tried to change me
And in a way you did
I will never be vulnerable again to a fake like you ever again
Never