UPDATED FOR 2020
A Lovefraud reader who posts as “LadyA” sent Lovefraud the following email. At the end, I suggest how she can recover from the sociopath.
I’ve spent a lot time thinking about my experience with my spath, and how it affected me and the people around me. I have read article after article, story after story. I now fully understand what spaths do and how they do it but I didn’t understand why I don’t feel any better about it. What was I missing?
When I left my spath it was a fairly dramatic experience. He had just been sentenced to serve jail time on the weekends for an obstruction of justice charge. My mom flew into town and in one swoop we packed up everything we could get in the car and left the province to go back to my hometown. I had to quit my job over email and send a goodbye text to all my friends.
I am thankful every day for what my mom did for me. I sure wasn’t happy about it at the time but I knew I needed out and this was my chance. What I didn’t know is how much moving back to my hometown would affect me emotionally. I had originally planned on only being back for six months. Just long enough for him to move on and get me out of mind, but it has now been just over three years and I still haven’t moved back. I got settled in a new job, new friends, and a new relationship. Even after all of this I haven’t been able to figure out why I’m not happy. Until three days ago.
Pride. I was proud of myself for the life that I had built. I moved 1200 km’s away from home right after high school to a big city. I was on the fast track to a strong career in a competitive field. I had a brand new car, paid all my bills on time, and was saving to buy a house. I was independent, reliable, strong, caring, and had a really great outlook on the world. Not many people can say that at 22.
All of that was ruined by a six-month “whirlwind romance.” I’m no longer proud of myself. I feel like I have failed because I came back home with my “tail between my legs” to my mommy. I no longer have a new car because it was repossessed as soon as I got back here. I am jaded, I don’t trust people easily, and I am no longer as strong as the face I put on the outside. I’ve gained weight because deep down I just don’t care anymore. My career is now on a plateau due to the location where I live. I don’t have one reason to be proud of myself right now.
How do I get my pride back when I know what happened? I want to feel proud of myself for my life but I just have zero idea where to start. I’ve thought about moving away again, but I don’t really know if that’s the answer. How can I be proud of what has happened in my life? I’m really honestly just so ashamed.
Donna Andersen responds
Dear LadyA,
I am so sorry about your encounter with a sociopath. Although this is not a normal breakup, the good news is that you can recover from the sociopath.
Right now, however, it does not seem that way. Why? I can see two reasons.
The first is that betrayal by a sociopath is a huge emotional injury. In the beginning of your email you said that, after all your reading, you now “fully understand what spaths do and how they do it,” but you don’t feel any better.
Understanding is a critical first step to you to recover from the sociopath. But understanding is an intellectual process, something that you do with your mind. The wound you experienced is also emotional. It needs to be dealt with emotionally.
How do you do that? You allow yourself to feel the pain of the injury.
This means letting yourself cry. Letting yourself scream and wail. Letting yourself experience anger — I’m sure there is anger — perhaps by working it out on a punching bag.
This isn’t pretty, and you probably want to do it privately, because other people often have difficulty being around this. Or, you may have a good therapist who can help you.
One way or another, any bottled up emotion you have within you needs to come out.
Underestimated the injury
Next you wrote that you identified the reason that you’re not happy as “pride.” But it seems like you are regarding pride as something bad, like one of the seven deadly sins.
You had every reason to be proud, because your pride was based on your achievement. And the sociopath took this away from you.
Here is what I think has happened: You have underestimated the scale of the injury, and the severity of the betrayal.
LadyA, you were building a life for yourself. You went out on your own; you started building a career; you were moving forward.
And some manipulative, deceitful parasite, who did something bad enough to end up in jail, ruined it for you.
Not only did he cost you money and hurt your career, he corrupted your outlook on life. You’re jaded; you don’t trust; you don’t care. You are not the young person you once were all because of the sociopath.
Recognize that this was not a normal breakup after all, you had to flee your home, job and friends.
Your life was shattered. Your psyche was deflated. This is a massive shock to your system. It’s no wonder that you are still struggling.
Drain the emotion
So what do you do? In my opinion, you do exactly what I suggested earlier — allow yourself to feel the pain now, knowing that the pain is bigger than you originally thought.
So you cry. You stomp. You imagine him standing in front of you and yell at him. (Do not, however, attempt to confront him in person. This would be counterproductive.)
The idea is to drain off the negative emotion.
As you drain the emotion, a void will be created within you. It’s very important to fill that void with joy.
This may sound preposterous to you, like you have no reason to be joyful. But don’t look at the totality of your life right how.
Do any small thing that makes you happy: Go for a walk. Play with your pets. Have lunch with a friend. Listen to music.
To recover from the sociopath, it may require many rounds of draining off the negative and replacing it with positive. But with time, you’ll find that your entire outlook will change, and you’ll be able to get back on track.
Importantly, with the wisdom you gained through this experience, you’ll never fall for a sociopath again.
Lovefraud originally published this article on May 12, 2014.
High school boyfriend pursues her, then abuses her
NWHSOM
No I am not from the US I’m not far though…I’m in Canada
Undertheradar
I can’t say I have heard of miss muddy lol but it sounds really fun!
Good for you getting down and dirty 🙂
Have a wonderful workout!
Thanks janedoe and I will have fun 😉 today is the day!
Side note; the s has found another way to contact me…grr! Looks like I’ll have to buy a new tablet and phone and start from scratch as a new identity 🙁
Undertheradar
What has he done now to find you?
Janedoe
Messenger! It’s a linked from of communication with Facebook and I haven’t removed my old profile because I didn’t want him to discover the alias profile I have. It’s still linked to my old phone number because I didn’t change it with Facebook – thank God or he’d know the new one by now… I think the only way around this is to restore both phone and tablet to the original factory settings and start fresh with a whole new identity that looks like someone else’s relative, lol I have to become him in order to avoid him!
undertheradar
they taught us well didn’t they??
mine contacted me last week, now that he is alone in his home country waiting for his wife to get her visa”he contacted me almost begging me to come to visit him while she isn’t there! of course i said NO!!!
the funny thing was in one of the messages he said when she gets there, he wants to resume corresponding and he will make it a point to visit me”he even went as far to show me a copy of a fake “official” letter that he and i can use and show her, that would ask him to come for a job interview!!! loll omg he used to show me, to make me believe him, an official letter from a big company”addressed to him and he would tell me it was a response to him applying for a job and the company sent a letter to have him come for a job interview”wherever in the world it may be AND i believed it!!(he used it as a hoax so that he could prove to me he was away on business but was off somewhere screwing his brains out with anyone he would meet online) it went DING DING DING in my head last week when he said he would come up with a letter for her”
my point was he was trying to get me to partake in HIS phoniness just like you have to do to your ex”hey sometimes it comes in handy, this time for you anyway!! lol
Janedoe
They are incredibly stupid when you think about it. Using the letter idea on you and expecting you to simply go along with it, never knowing that they are giving themselves up – “captain nuts!”
My ex was always doing stuff like that that I’d pick up on but then he’d deny it and turn the conversation back onto me. If I wasn’t so determined to make my marriage work he’d be gone before I’d let him speak the 2nd sentence.
janedoe
It makes me laugh at him and be sad at the same time. He thinks you’re his ally to con his wife?!! He doesn’t want her yet he’s open to you that he’s conning her.
That’s what my ex did to me, he was telling others that he didn’t want to remain married to me, (and telling me that they were lying because they were jealous)…but then they all helped him to con me into the marriage, and then participated in the coverup and being the reason I was kept uninformed so that I could not get free from a monster and HEAL.
I had ALL these suspicions and NO proof. Nothing concrete. Just awful feelings and bad attitude from him which he blamed on me, so I thought it was because I was a failure at relationships. If just one person could have told me the truth when I asked it, or could have showed a printed message that revealed my husband’s deceit, I would have lept on it, validated my suspicions!
I will say, finding emails that my ex sent to women after I did leave him were like precious drops of water to a parched desert critter. He had kept our family email address, it was our last name, so of course I read his emails…and his smarmy seduction was there in print, he even used some of the same words I said to him, only I was sincere when I said them. 🙁
NWHSOM
It’s like reading your own story so many times on here. If only 1 person had told the truth, if only one person had shown me that my instincts were right… I had to spyware up his entire life to find out the truth but by the time I did that the damage to my self worth was already done. Even now, armed with all the knowledge,I’vem still finding myself second guessing with other people – one that has never really shown me any loyalty and I’m feeling bad about asking her to remove my number from her phone because the creepy stalker ex has access to obtaining my new phone number through her husband. I know I’m in the right but still feel bad for doing it because she took it personally and she can’t see that she betrayed my trust by repeating something I said?… I’ve got so much work to do on myself!
Keep the reminders coming because they help me remember who I truly am 🙂
Janedoe
Miss Muddy was a blast! I had the best day and I’m sore as ever but it was so worth it!
If you type in http://www.missmuddy.com.au it will show you photos of what I was doing 😉
undertheradar
wow!!! i love it!!!! omg i would spend the day rolling like a pig in that mud!! i bet that gets frustrations out!!!! good for you 🙂
Lol janedoe
It was so much fun but it took half an hour in the shower to get it out of my hair and I had to sacrifice my clothes but worth it 😉
Undertheradar
What you are saying about the denying the an S does makes so much sense. Dealing with a person like this in my experience is like dealin with a child and has to be taught right from wrong. I always felt I was reprimanding him when he was caught lying or denying something. I had to further explain how it wasn’t nice or you “don’t do this” or “you don’t say this” just like he was two years old, like he was in the beginning stages of learning….
Mine would probably set off fire alarms with all the lights that would light up when his brain would be examined. I seriously have thought about him being a split personality/two people as well…
janedoe
I worked so hard to avoid the truth about my ex. I wondered about him having a split personality too. But eventually I had to accept he was just two faced, acting differently because he was such a jerk. When one manipulation didn’t work with me, he’d try a different tact.
AND I also found myself explaining how to treat people with respect and dignity, as if he didn’t know how. Another BS manipulation of his, because again, he did not accept responsibility for his bad behavior so he’d pretend it was “unintentional”. My poor husband, it never occurred to him to say NO to the woman who reached inside his pants and …. Dontcha feel sssssooooo sorry for my ex…. that I was SO mean to not believe his innocence??? That I blamed him for being with her in the first place? Gee, I was SO mean to not believe him! It was HER fault and my fault. He was not to blame, nosireebob.
NWHSOM
I think mine wants me to believe there’s an underlying problem with his brain. Last we spoke when I asked him why he married this person his response was “what’s done is done and I can’t do anything about it and don’t make me dig too deeply and explain, I may panic and disappear”
Wtf does that even mean? He’s schizophrenic? And he doesn’t want to get into it?
His drama is way too much for me. Always has a reason for stupidity and he creates dramawith every detail…funny how I see a very different side I never knew existed…
janedoe
Sorry but I have to laugh at him and his obvious sociopathic behaviors. In ONE sentence, he denies responsibility (“can’t?!! lol!), pity plays you, threatens you, blames you, and smears you as bad(?)before you can say anything for expecting a NORMAL response, that he explain himself to you.
I’ve reviewed a couple of my journals about what my ex would say to me. At the time, I was traumatized. Now I read some of it and the red flags are so blatant, the craziness… and to think I took the blame, that all the craziness was because I was too “difficult”. Yep. I asked those darn questions when his behavior confused me… questions like what does that mean, or why did you do that?
hahahahahahaha. I think these bizarre behaviors would make a great Adam Sandler comedy. There’s the jokester and the straight man(woman) who takes him seriously.
Not that I’m naïve, my ex is and always will be dangerous. Sociopaths and their entitlement to do anything they want, and their demands to be treated as superior? I can’t predict how that will happen but I can predict it would harm/hurt me far more than it would affect him. To my ex, emotionally towards me I am merely a thing, a knat, a spider to pull the legs off of.
Jane. Why isn’t he blocked from you? That’s very emotionally unhealthy for you. You know what he is. You know there is no future with him, or what a “future” with him means. So give yourself the gift of dignity. Cut the cord.
NWHSOM
yes! Freedom is cutting the cord but I had to find that out for myself. I listened for a year to the NC rule before the s ended up driving me crazy and changed everything to rid him from my life (well everything I thought I needed to)
I listened and learned but had to come full circle with this new information and Jane will as well – one day x
The denial had a negative impact on me. When he’d deny something I’d question myself and he knew it – avoid detection by taking the focus off himself…
NWHSOM
Aren’t they just gems the whole bunch of them? The funny thing is they know we know they lie but they want to make themselves look so stupid that it’s funny. Mine always had a dramatic story and I eventually started calling him princess towards the end, he was sooo upset and broken up over all he’d done…ugh the drama used to make want to kill him
Yes I have him blocked, obviously without him knowing. He has two different addresses, one for business and one social. I blocked the social one (the one we corresponded on) not even thinking of the business one because we never used it. That’s where he contacted me from, since hearing last from him, I deleted that as well.
janedoe
Princess? Oh you were so nice.
I confess. I called my ex a “whore” and a “bitch”. He’d make the meanest, nastiest comments, and it just popped out of my mouth. I actually think “bitch” is the worst word in the dictionary. It’s so demeaning to women and should be reserved for the worst of the worst… which was my ex…
a man who had sex with ANYTHING THAT MOVED….
It never occurred to him to say no and he always blamed the woman, as if he (6’2″, 210lb) was so overpowered by the 5′, 90 lb little darling who didn’t know he was married and was expected at home by his wife. No. He didn’t tell her he was married. No he didn’t say no. And No, not HIS fault… somehow she was supposed to know that his massive giant seduction and comeon was… hmmm I don’t think he ever explained away his lovebombing some woman who thought he really wanted her. Because of course women just get that idea out of thin air, right?
I laugh at how outrageous his manipulations and insults and betrayals are now because NOW I see them for what they should have been for me THEN, a Run-Like-Hell card.
Truly, discard is a blessing. It still infuriates me how he decided he was entitled to steal ALL the fruits of my labor and destroy my daughter’s ONLY childhood. MF. Bitch. Whore. $#@.......%&!!!!
Not
You are so correct. The worst of the worst. I have committed 20 plus years of my life to someone that took all my energy and decided to cheat on me, to enact his plan behind the scenes long before mention of being “out of love” was ever made.
He is nothing to me, not even the father of my son. I cannot us the term “human”, because he lacks the human-empathy. It’s weird how some people can justify every poor decision they make with all kinds of nonsense , but never really possess the ability to admit that they severly f****ed up and hurt someone else beyond simple excuse. They do nothing but absorb, and suck the best parts of other people right out of them , into their vacuous void that is their lack of self-love . Nothing will ever fill them, and I refuse to line up again in any radius close enough for him to be able to take from me again. Some would call it “harboring resentment ” , but I know my reasons , and that’s good enough for me.
Not
For me cheating is the worst betrayal in a marriage. He formed a “comittment ” with the coworker and other minions, a commitment he had with me, his wife. That’s a really bad thing to do. But on top of that, to abandon me, trying to send me to a mental institution, trying to put me in jail , declaring me mentally ill, that’s beyond cheating. That takes it to a higher level. A level that is right there with satan.
His time will come. He will be with the one he always worshipped, Satan.
Kaya, you said exactly how I feel – I committed 7 years of my life to someone that took all my energy, cheated on me and enacted his plan to destroy me behind the scenes long before he made his final move.
Essentially, what he did was use me for his own purposes, and he played life like a chess game, always leading me toward danger while keeping himself in safety. It’s really sickening when I think of how callously he used me, knowing I was sincere and invested in the relationship while everything that came out of his mouth was a lie, calculated to get me even more invested. On the surface, it appeared as if we were on the same page, had common goals in life and were working toward then together, even if he wasn’t treating me the best. The reality is that yes, he was sucking me dry in every way possible.
He lied right up until mere hours before he walked away for the last time, telling me how, when he got the new job he had just interviewed for, in a few years we’d be in a position to buy a second home in my favorite place on earth. The reality is, he never intended to follow through with any of the things we had moved forward with. He lead me directly into financial jeopardy with a smile on his face, knowing he had destroyed the security I had worked my entire life to build. Knowing he had destroyed ME, someone who had done nothing but love him and try to please him in every way possible. Just, in his immortal words “because he could”.
To me, “prick” is the ugliest word in the dictionary. He is a prick of the highest degree.
I’ve been traveling a zig zaggy road, first, working to keep my head above water and take care of that house until it was sold, now, trying to get my feet firmly back on the ground again. I am so, so glad something in me kept me from marrying him, because I am certain I would have lost all control of my own life if I had (one thing that held me back is that he always said once we got married, he would handle all the finances so I didn’t have to worry about them anymore”uh”NO).
Thinking of this, I’m overwhelmed by gratitude that that prick discarded me. I only wish that he had done it sooner.
These men are not even worth the time we spend thinking about them.
Yuk!!!
I surely was blindsided. The only thing he had going for him was a cracking sense of humour send a fantastic laugh but then, as I now know, that was manufactured, justo for me!
The real him is the man his poor wife spends her days with….. Morose, aggressive, inconsiderate, unfeeling, deceitful, unreliable, inconsistent………….
My friend said to me that she deserves no sympathy because she knows what he is like and has put up with it and taken him back time after time.
He will never take me in again. I dornt believe a word he says anymore.
Thank you to everyone here for continually drilling in NC to me. I can fully sympathise with the struggle that that is. People like us want to reconcile, find common ground,, put things right etc. but none of this is possible with men like this.
Coupled with the South traits was a cannabis addiction which increased his paranoia and instability. That is his one true love in his life. He is a washed up, ageing drug addiCt. Nice!!!! NOT!!!
I feel like I have seen the light!!
Hi Elsa, Welcome back to the “Light Side”!!! You are a very quick study & you have come such a long way in a short time. So glad you stuck to NC.
As for his wife please find some sympathy & compassion for her. I was the wife & I was mentally, verbally abused on a daily bases and when I was ready to leave he became physical. I was so brain washed & mind controlled just like a cult follower that I was literally mentally, emotionally & physically exhausted to the point I even became bed ridden (adrenal fatigue/ptsd).
Please look at him as a cult leader & his wife as a cult follower. She is broken down in all ways… physically & spiritually. It’s very sad the situation she is in. Maybe in 6 months or a year you will send her info on sociopathic abuse anonymously.
She knows something is wrong with her husband mentally but cant put a finger on it exactly what because she is not educated & because he intimates her from leaving, uses gas lighting abuse to change her perception of their marriage, most likely installed fear & phobia’s into her mind she is to scared to leave him etc. Throw in the fact that her religion or upbringing by be keeping her in her marriage too. It’s not easy escaping a sociopath when you are married to them a lot of time the sociopath controls the financial side of things.
Anyway so glad you have “seen the light”!! So much better then the dark side.
I am not sure where my previous reply to this went but I did reply!,
I do feel very sorry for his wife. Now, with hindsight, I can see how much he has played her, even form comments she has directly made to me!
I have no idea how a man like him was able to convince me he was my friend. Makes me feel sick, ashamed, vulnerable etc etc.
His wife is a very committed Buddhist. She meditates for hours a day. He often derided this but once when we were all in the pub, I startiped swatting a fly.. Then, realised she would be offended, so I stopped and apologised. HE then turned to her, squeezed her arm affectionately and said “there you are darling, here is some own you have managed to influence”
At the time, I thought he was being kind. Now I see it differently!! He does jot have a genuine bone in his body!!!
12 days NC!!! x
Jan7
Thanks for this reply.
I have found compassion for all my husband’s affairs. I know he played on their dreams, lied to them, and lied about me.
But too many times, the other woman (there were MANY women) was my nightmare because she decided that I deserved what he did to me.
People don’t realize, you don’t just marry a man. There are MANY reasons. For me, I stayed to protect a daughter who was of age to chose him in a custody battle, she had NO clue what he was really like. But I knew. Before that, I had not worked outside the home and was of an age where work would be hard to find. He controlled ALL the assets. And somehow even though there are laws, they were set aside in his case. We had community assets and he was granted ALL of them, with the provision that I could win my share at the end, the judgement of my divorce. SO I had NO assets to hire an attorney or pursue a divorce. I was isolated, he controlled who I saw, who I talked to, and what others said or saw of me. His family/friends/community minions helped him. I never knew what new trauma was going to come at me.
I had NO where to go. I grew up in an awful family, rapists, thieves, welfare frauds, pedos. I had lost all my friends during my marriage. Even ones I used to have were now loyal to only my husband.
And as you wrote, I knew something was wrong, but my husband did not lay a hand on me. I could not put a finger on it (I used to say he was jello, because something would be certain one day, and he’d wiggle out of it in short order.) The sense of overwhelming failure and worthlessness flooded my every waking moment. I had nightmares when I did sleep. I had terrible insomnia. I couldn’t think straight. And there was his constant pressure for me to commit suicide. And ABOVE ALL THAT, I worked so hard to hide the bad stuff from my daughter. I believed it was not appropriate for her to know/deal with the nightmare. Her job was to be a kid, to get a good education, to enjoy her activities, and to have a chance at a good life upon adulthood. I USED to think, well at least he loves her. And that mattered to me ENORMOUSLY. I wanted my baby to have a daddy who loved her. Of course, in hindsight, knowing about sociopaths, I now realize he was using her to control and abuse me. He didn’t care about her at all. Like he did everyone, people are tools/objects for him to manipulate, dominate, and “WIN”.
Other women, who say I deserved what I got in my marriage, don’t have a clue who or what I am, what I accomplished in life, my values, what I suffered, or why I endured what I did. I don’t blame them for their ignorance, but I used to think, at least they knew he was married and they chose to disregard the meaning of marriage. That was more warning than I ever got. ANd I DID actively check out my husband before marriage. People lied. THEY thought he was only shitty to them. His family was a HUGE part of my husband’s scam on me, they helped him spin his story, and they were HUGE helping him smear me the last few years.
So when I advise people how valuable NC is, and that there will be an enormous wonderful difference in the end… it’s because I know what an EVIL monster my ex is, and will always be, under that aw shucks, “me lie? With-my-honest-face? grin.
I am sorry, Not, I certainly didn’t mean I had no sympathy for his wife. I was just commenting on my friends perspective. I have always liked her and I also never used to allow him to be horrible about her. I used to encourage him to be kind, spend time with her etc. and I often used to argue her corner.
He used to say ” you have no idea, she has lost the plot” etc etc.
I just wanted to clarify! X
elsa
I am sorry too. If I implied that I was writing to you or about you at all, please know that I was NOT. I was referring ONLY to/about the women in my situation.
And like you point out, even if someone was kind to me, my ex asserted his entitlement, his pity play, he invalidated other people’s kindness. I will say, their kindness pissed him off and he vented/did something to punish me. So I was punished for more than what I did, I was accused of manipulating others because of their kindness, even though I hadn’t seen or spoken to them.
It’s ok Not. I had replied early but it got lost somewhere! I probably had put it a bit better in the previous reply.
I know my situation is not quite the same as many. And I know that that is why I haeve recovered relatively quickly , after a slow start!
I would love to talk to her about it all really since I know that he probably deliberately taunted her and made me out to be something more significant than I was. In order to hurt her.
NotWhatHeSaidofMe, Thank you for sharing your story. it’s a true nightmare and sadly the wife is not only the victim of her spouses abuse but also the abuser is able to create a smear campaign that eventually your friends are abusing you verbally too by blaming you…so crazy. This is where I think the domestic abuse centers truly lack educating the public on who & how abusers abuse.
Most people think that abuse is only physical when in fact emotional & mental abuse happens far more often as we know then the physical abuse. And when there is physical abuse it is typically at the end of a relationship when the victim is ready to leave or has left.
After I left & found out who my h was (now ex thank goodness), I was able to find sympathy & compassion for all of his mistresses as they too were just sucked into his con game just as I was but sadly I was the “chosen one” to be his wife. Prior to finding compassion for his mistresses my ex h triangulated me against one of his mistresses stating she was the one that targeted him (lol) and then he got other friends to manipulate me back into my marriage when I was done after finding out about his 2 year affair. I remember thinking during my marriage that I wish I was just a friend to my husband and not his wife because he treated his friends so much better but even they were manipulated, gas lighted, lied to etc so no one escapes their abuse. I look back and the saddest thing is I knew he was bad news but he was able to just spin my head constantly away from my gut reaction = get the HELL away from him fast.
Elsa, I am sorry that I did not specifically state that maybe you could educate your friend on the sociopaths wife situation. That would have been a better approach on my behalf. Sorry too 🙂
oops spelling error…Should read “because he intimidates her her from leaving (not intimates)
Hanalei
Exactly like yours mine walked away with a smirk on his face. He left me in financial ruin to pick up the pieces. He planned his exit behind my back for years. He refinanced the house a week before he left, increasing the monthly mortgage to an amount I could not afford without his help. His goal and his words were ” I want you on the street begging for money”. He wanted that for me, the mother if his only child. I too wish he would have discarded me much sooner.
But then again , in this state alimony/spousal support is only awarded in long term marriages. Sometimes God told me to hang on a little longer. That was the reason . And he never realized that all the evil things he did, he also affected his son. Now he begs for contact but I have educated myself enough to know that it’s just part 2 of his game plan. We will never participate again.
Like I said, the day he discarded me we spent at the beach. I had the feeling all day that something would happen that day. In the evening I caught him in more lies and all “hell broke lose”. He called his cop buddies and said I was “a danger to myself” because I was crying. Sure, they agreed with him. Send her to a mental hold and evaluation. I was back within a few hours because the doctor saw the truth.
While I was give he told my son ” it’s for the better, it’s just you and me now, your mom is mentally ill”. To mess with my /his child’s emotions like that, is callous and evil.
And his vicious acts continued. That was until the day I started no contact. He had no puppet anymore to play. It was game over.
Hanalei. We lost our homes, but we are alive. That’s all that matters. And nobody lies to us and hurts us with their words and actions. I am here today because the minion was too hot and sexy to resist. Thank you, I used to hate her , now I actually owe her for saving my life.
Kaya, isn’t it great that you recognize part 2 of his game plan for what it is? Definitely it would lead to more ruin for you.
My ex never said anything to me like he wanted me on the street begging (though I have no doubt he did), he focused on presenting himself as having been mislead by me from the beginning, that I had hidden my “disorder” and while sad about it, he now needed to protect himself from further harm. It was all calculated to make me come apart at the seams and when I did, he’d have the paper trail to prove that he was the harmed party.
Ironically, what I had “learned” from him allowed me to identify this for what it was.
To quote him “remember, I’ve lost my dreams too”. Hahahahaha! I guess if that means owning your ocean view home that the value has continued to increase on, not having lost a cent and now having a wife to pay half the bills and cater to you.
He doesn’t have any dreams, except to harm. His wife will be harmed, if she already isn’t, and the only way that it can end positively for her is if he dies young.
Little by little, I’m finding myself again, the me that was before he came into my life. I’m remembering what made me happy, what gave me joy. I’ve been frustrated by how long it’s taking to get back together, but as I start to have some of these realizations, I think that maybe God has been guiding me, and what seems like slow progress is actually necessary for me so that my next step is the right one.
It’s just sickening that your ex created a situation to make you look crazy and then sent you to a mental hold. I have no doubt that mine would have done the same at some point. I had never acted “crazy” in my life before he lead me there, and I’m sure you never had either.
Good riddance.
kaya48
I’m repeating myself here, and I know it. But it’s such an important point for me to validate what you write.
My husband was a nightmare to me but what he did to my daughter… as you write “to mess with my child’s emotions… is callous and EVIL.”
And like you, I used to hate the other women, now I am so grateful, esp to the one whose affair allowed me to get away. Her bitchy viciousness actually saved my life.
Victimoffemale
I’m not sure how your laws work where you are nor do I know how your lawyers do but I’d assume they’d have to do their own investigation into the case and request the information that is needed via phone carriers etc? In Australia we don’t have the technology to retrieve text message conversations before the phone carrier is told to start monitoring them – we have to show just cause here to be able to breach someone’s privacy and then only certain people are able to apply to have that done. If its not proven then the person that was monitored could counter sue, although they are usually so dysfunctional that I doubt they know that!
I’m not in the same position but I’ve just handed over my case to the lawyer and washed my hands of any emotional involvement because I don’t want to waste anymore energy on the past. My solicitor will contact me when she needs a signature but I’ve left it in her capable hands 🙂
Best of luck!
Not
I am so much like you. I also stayed because I wanted to protect my son, not taking his security away, let him be a child. I was able to do that until he became a teenager. At the age of 17 he found out about his fathers picture taking. He tried to hide it oh so well from his son. “Oh, your mother is just crazy, she is imagining things”. “Really Dad, you put the pictures on our home computer. ” And still he tried to shift the blame on me. He twisted and lied and I honestly think he believed his own lies.
No, he never loved his son.and yes you are so right , he used his son to control and abuse me. I never worked much since I was a stay at home mom. He told me “what are you gonna do, you have no degree, nobody will hire you “. It actually came back to him since my attorney used that reason to get spousal support. One of the arguments was “the physical , emotional and mental condition and the age of the wife. “. Ha, he thought I was mentally , so there was another reason for alimony.
In a way they dig their own grave. He tried to destroy me any way he could. And he did not succeed. Oh yea, he wanted me to comity suicide. (No need for support then). Well, that was never in my plan because I have my son to keep loving.
I am sure he told his bosses, co workers and minions what a crazy b*** I was and they believed their precious Cpt America. And that is why the no contact is so necessary. Not to punish him but for the protection of my emotional well bring and not to cause further harm to me. It’s my safety in place to keep me sane and not pulled in his web of lies again.
Like my lawyer said “he is cooking up the next thing to hurt you, alwsys be one step ahead “. So true.
Not
You stated it so right. Yes, it took that one minion to finally set me free. “Her bitchy viciousness “. Exactly. Once she posted pictures on facebook of a cruise “he finally bought me a cruise ” . I told my lawyer. He said “so what, we use it against him and would you rather be on a cruise with this evil being ?”
He was right. Let the minions have him, who cares. I am the winner because I have a new, much better life. What do they have ? A liar, a cheater, a person whose word means absolutely nothing. Poor minions.
I agree. Keep the NC to the greatest extent possible and eventually they will give you all you need.
I was just thinking about a quote I saw:
“Isn’t it sad when you get hurt so much, you can finally day “I am used to it”.
My mother would often say “how do you live with this guy? And yes I said “I am used to it”.
One thing I also learned :
Don’t tell them ANYTHING you aren’t prepared to get shoved up your butt later… Or down your throat, or in your heart in the form of a dagger . And also there are those things you tell them that you have to be prepared to have TWISTED inti things they can shove ……
Even after 20 years that I devoted toy ex husband. Now when I think of him I feel absolutely nothing , zero, no hate, no pity, not an ounce of love – just nothing. And it’s wonderful.
What is nice is when they try to shove your words back at you and they have no effect because you just don’t care anymore.
Nomorewool
That is probably the best feeling, I agree!! It means we know now they are full
Of crap!