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
One week till my holiday!
Two weeks tomorrow since I set eyes on him!!! Am trying so hard to avoid him at all costs!
And, thank God, I am sleeping.
I hope and pray you all recover. Mine was such a minimal involvement compared to many on here. I am grateful for that but I also know how much it hurt me and shook me, so can only imagine the pain some have experienced.
Monday morning, a manic week ahead of me as I get ready for my holiday as well as lots of other things to do!
Elsa, so happy for your Island holiday being just around the corner!! Sounds like lots of fun for you & your friends.
Undertheradar
Amazing how negative what they did to our healthy minds made us question…he threw so much stuff back during a disagreement that yes like you, I questioned “what did I just say” or “should I have said/done that”
He had me so worked up at times I couldn’t Even remember what I was trying to explain, or caught him
Doing…that would get my brain to turn to complete mush!!! Then when I figured out what I wanted to say…I’d be nervous to bring it up because he had a way of making it soon pointless and it would get me nowhere…ever
Janedoe
Yup! I’m hearing ya honey! At least on here I can get a word in as I was never able to finish a sentence before he’d either take what I said and twisted it back onto me or he’d completely jump ship mid conversation to something he could project back onto me, all to avoid detection! Mind scramblers I say, it was almost like I was dizzy trying to keep up 😉
Side note. F***wit has discovered that he can send private messages to me via messenger. Lucky for me I’d never changed messenger to my new number or he’d be able to call me and immediately have my new number… that was another “walk off the anger” and come up with a solution, kinda arvo for me yesterday. It blows my mind that he could find out that I’d done the muddy challenge just 24 hours before the message which was an invite to go with him to the next one – I’m horrified! I’ve realised he must be following people on Facebook without their knowledge – bloody Facebook and their lack of privacy! It doesn’t matter that my profile is shut tighter than a fish’s asshole, if he’s following people and they comment on my posts then he can see it! Time to remove everything/delete my entire life and re-emerge as a whole new identity – sucks that this is going to take hours out of my day because he’s a delinquent!
Undertheradar, I’m SO glad you figured this out about FB!! The best tactic is to have no online presence at all, or one that he can’t figure out is you. But – if he is following people and they comment on your posts (or post a pic of you), won’t he figure out the new identity too?
PS – I have never heard the expression “shut tighter than a fish’s asshole” but it is my new favorite!!
Hanalei
I’m glad you like it! Lol (fish’s…) 😉
I have a plan and I intend to win this war! I’m going to start 2 new profiles, one will use the family name of my son’s girlfriend because we are all close family friends so I’ll just look like an aunt and the other will be for old school friends. I’ve got an online business and obtained permission from two of my overseas clients to use their photos but under different names – they have become friends over the years but not in the presence of the spath. I might have to change my identity but he will never stop me from socializing because I’ll never isolate myself for that prick again 😉
undertheradar
im laughing so hard at that comment “tighter than a fish’s asshole” lololol i love it!
i think there may be a way for you to “disappear” on fb to certain people, i know there used to be. somewhere in settings you were able to choose who you wanted to see your posts, comments, pictures etc”i did it at one time. i was able to put the name in directly and although that person was able to see my fb profile, i was able to pick and choose what they were allowed to see”i don’t know with all the changes on FB if its the same.
also i believe when you post comments you can pick and choose “friends” “friends of friends”or “public” viewing”don’t quote me though.
Janedoe what I found out was that if I wrote a comment on someone’s post and they didn’t have their settings set so that only friends could read them, then my comment would come up in a google search for my name. There didn’t seem to be any way I could change that with my settings alone, so I just quit commenting on anything I didn’t know was absolutely safe. I had to go back and delete the comments that were coming up in the google search.
It’s hard to be invisible if you want to use any sort of social media. I have my profile on LInked in but the location I have listed isn’t where I am, since I don’t want him to know where exactly I am but it’s kind of at cross purposes for the whole idea of how Linkedin works to lie about your location. Arggh!
HM
Hanalei
There is a way to delete the past on Google now with Facebook, it’s in your privacy settings and you can nominate to remove all past and future comments 😉
Janedoe
Yes you can! I’m aware of all the settings….now! But my problem is that 90% of my contacts are walking around with their heads in the “innocent” cloud and never contemplate the potential threat to their own privacy by staying in a state of “PUBLIC.” I remember being that person in a blissful state of ignorance… I can’t ask everyone on my list to change their settings, as it is and despite what I’ve told some close friends, some think that what I’m doing to stay under the spaths radar is overkill – they aren’t walking in my shoes so they don’t understand and as a spiritualist, I do not wish them to ever find out so I’ll protect their innocence as much as I can. This is my fight so they’re just along for the “what’s she up to now” ride 😉
HM
jeez sorry..i am having some difficulties with the site
i didn’t know your comment on a friends page could go to google?? yikes!
in that case you set it up with a friend whose settings aren’t set and you post something nasty about him so when he googles you”he reads what you wrote”lol
i say this but i don’t think i could go public and do that, i am not that mean, but it may teach him a lesson not to be so sneaky
Janedoe
I can’t help but laugh at the hypocrisy of what I’m now attempting to do, bahaha I’ve become him! Sneaking around trying to avoid his detection on Facebook lol
Undertheradar
Yeh the old letter trick Was a good one. Does he seriously think during our time together he never showed me an “official” letter? Omg and you know what? I admit that’s one of the few things I DID believe. I would say to myself, “of course he is going away like he said, he even has the proof”. The only thing I used
To find a little off kilter was “why does be back up his story by showing me a letter that he has to go away for business?”
He has just revealed his sneakiness to me by suggesting “he and I together” create a formal letter with a fake name so he can use it to show his wife…doesn’t he think I remember he used it with me?
Also I told him he was a full blown S/N and he replied “do you even know what one is? Would I be comin back in your life if I were?” He knows that’s what they do, so this is a typical brain f**k game he is playing by pretending he doesn’t know that is what they do..does that make sense?
Perfect sense Janedoe! And I would always be asking the same question to people because my s made me doubt myself so much!
“Do you think I’d come back if he were a sociopath” is classic sociopath and exactly how mine would cause doubt in myself – they really are predictable now that we know 😉
Undertheradar
When he contacted me a cpl wks ago stating that I don’t know what an S is and he wouldn’t be recontacting me if he were…would you believe that even though YES this is exactly what an S does, not to mention I have read article after
Article about what they do, just by his statement, it almost cleaned the slate..I was so close to doubting myself and believing “ok I suppose a typical S does this, but he really really loves me”
I can’t believe the brainwashing almost began again, he almost got me. It makes
Me thankful when I hear others on hear confirm what he tiny voice in the back
Of head is tryig to get out and warn me…
Janedoe
Your SO not alone with this manipulation! My ex turned up at the door yesterday but luckily I was in bed with a mild concussion and my sister turned him away. I spent most of the afternoon feeling like I’ve abandoned my child, he is acting like a little lost boy now that I’ve blocked all avenues of communication and I feel sorry for him – WTF is that?
undertheradar
even after having you take him to the hospital for his heart attack or stroke, he is still showing up places??
did he have a reason for showing up yesterday?
you see what they do to our minds?? yes of course we feel bad…ARGH!!! they’ve trained us damn well, and we fall for it.
Janedoe
Yes I’ve noticed a pattern of my own bad behavior 😉
I’m a sucker! Anyway you will all be pleased to know that I have maintained the NC rule and gone a full 3 weeks without responding to any avenue he’d discovered, but I just keep shutting down those avenues and I’ve ignored him when he said hello at the beach then turned around and left the beach and found another beach that he doesn’t use. I might have felt sorry for him this morning but I managed to get over it and I’m back on track – now when he has a heart attack he has no one but a child to help him – she is his little probationary cop minion and thinks she’s won the jackpot lol
NWHSOM
yeh he wants me to be a co-conspirator lol he really is insane!!! why would i do the very thing to her that he did to me?? he told me it was to get her back for her stealing him away!! I’m even laughing as i type this..i swear these reasons are why i sometimes feel his is a double personality, like i mentioned to you before
why do you suppose all your “friends” didn’t tell you the truth?? they must have all seen he was a con and what he was doing to you??
even if i found emails he sent to other women like you had”guess what? he always had some stupid story for it and he really expected me to believe him, with the truth in front of my eyes
Janedoe and NWHSOM
Yup! Even with the truth in front of our eyes – boy was I blinded by his words there for a while but not anymore! Lol
Jane doe
Do you think it is a good idea that you actually told him he is a sociopath and that you speak with him? I think you are giving him control by engaging in a communication with him. Don’t mean to be judgmental , just worried about you talking to him .
kaya
no no i am not speaking with him, this happened the last time i spoke with him.i have since blocked him from contact”from everyones advice on here
thanks for your concern!
Jane doe
Oh so sorry. I thought you were communicating with him now. I am glad. I cannot believe his idea with the letter , how crazy is that.
I know they all want us to be declared mentally ill but in reality they are the ones crazy and ouf of the world vicious. I am so glad I am not playing into my ex’s mind games anymore. What a positive change in my life.
Jenna
My ex was a cop. Several times during our marriage someone would repeat a story about me being crazy but he always explained it away as jealousy or it wasn’t about me or…
After I left I was told again that someone in the police force thinks I’m crazy but this time I was lucky to have been told about the rumors going around about the spaths suspension – solid gold moment when I burst outlaughing and said “you think!” Wonder what all is extra martial activity was doing to send me crazy and winked. Life is grand now!
Kaya
I’ve mentioned before that besides being an S that I fear he has other psychological mental issues.
To suggest the things to me, that he clearly pulled on me, and to do this to his wife am I would partake, has to be a form of some sort where he believes his own lies/forgets what he’s said and done/ forgets that I know all about how he cheated and married tjis girl…a “normal” S (even though there
Is no such thing), doesn’t get this weird? He wanted to know why I wouldn’t partake when it’s because SHE stole him away from me?? Omg! When he first contacted me, he apologized left, right and center for ever
Doing this to me…do he forget he admitted it? And now wants me to partake in getting revenge?? I’m serious when I question if there is more
To it on top of being an S/N/ psychopath..am I wrong to assume?
Just because he is a sociopath doesn’t mean he is a genius. He probably isn’t smart enough to keep track of all of his stories and has so many scams going on at once he doesn’t remember which ones he used on you.
NoMoreWool
if i am not being paranoid by assuming there were other women, i believe he would use the same tactics. i once found an email to another woman, where the words were almost exactly the same phrases he used with me”
he also keeps a list of things to do for the day, and without it he was lost..i never knew what was on it, because he would always hide it, so i never got to see it. as careless and unorganized as a person as he is, i think things were pretty much the same with any women he contacted,,,
you may be right as far as him forgetting when and who he told what to..
he is also a big drama queen and everything in his life is such a major disaster”anything from needing to run out for groceries to cutting his stupid toenails is such an ordeal with him
hahahaha – it is amazing how similar sociopath stories are. List-making, grocery drama and toenail cutting drama – who would think such strange things would find similarities with other people? Because only the missing toenail clipper will work and not the other five in the drawer, right? I hate lists – the lists of things for me to do or not do were always so condescending.
Divorcibg a cop is a nightmare, believe me. How can they be wrong and of course they are entitled to everything. After all they are the law. I am so blessed I survived this divorce as he pulled out all of his “cop cards”. That’s why it is so important to retain a criminal defense lawyer instead of a family/divorce attorney.
And yes, I was told I was discarded because I was crazy. To this day he writes in his notes “I did not leave you for another woman. I left because you are mental.” Only that I don’t care what he says anymore. By staying no contact I took all his power over me away for good. And I know ignoring a narcissist is the biggest punishment for them. Being ignored is their worst fear. They will have to look inside of them , wonder why we don’t pay any attention to them and they hate it. And of course my ex, the cop, the Cpt america. His dare is he not worthy enough to be responded to. The next weapon out of his arsenal will be the pity card. Which will not work anymore because I know how he operates. Push my buttons , I respond, he wins. But that game was over almost 2 years ago. Don’t know why he can’t be happy with the sexy , young co workers ? I guess that supply got boring already. What a pathetic life they live.
My son said the other day “have you noticed how quiete it is in our house, no yelling, blaming , no chaos ?” So true.
Kaya, I am enjoying the peace and absence of chaos in my life too!
The fact is, they intentionally treat us in ways that cause us to lose it, just so that they can call us mental. The day before he discarded me for good, my ex put on the performance of a lifetime, although I didn’t realize it at the time – having a complete meltdown first thing in the morning about him not having his sunglasses, despite my having asked him several times before we left the house if he had them, and all I was trying to do was take him out to breakfast to surprise him – and using that to turn on me with such extreme unrelenting accusations and dissatisfactions with me that I felt like I was losing my mind, and yes, HIS behavior drove me to act like it. It went on ALL day and into the night, and happened out of the blue. Of course, all the prior times he had done this on a smaller scale had “trained” me to react like this, when my response to anyone else would have been a calm “why are you making such a big deal out of this”. The next morning, I made him breakfast before I took him to the airport and he said, amazing how you think cooking some bacon will fix everything. (Note, a mere 36 hours earlier, we were having a wonderful lunch, reviewing how well his job interview had just went, and talking about how great the future was going to be with us with all that money when he got the job.) I was merely doing what I had been taught to do – get up the next morning and make him a hearty breakfast and everything would be ok.
He got what he wanted so that after he walked away, he could say he was hiding from me to protect himself, and imply that it was my fault. I tortured myself for months, asking myself why he would have bought the house with me if he had no intention of moving into it, how, if he loved the house and me as much as he said he did, could he just walk away without a look back?
It’s all so crystal clear in hindsight, isn’t it?
That creepy tape of his that he had in his things, of him detailing his first wife’s mental instability, his fear of her harming him, his need to run downstairs to protect himself from her, even detailing that yes, he had grabbed her and might have left bruises on her arms, but it was only to protect himself from “the blows” she was making to his body (Right, he with a chest like a whiskey barrel and her about 5′ tall”) – I didn’t find that until months after he was gone. But it told the tale that this was his MO, and like making the tape, he was making a paper trail to use against me with the emails he sent after he left accusing me of abuse, mental disorders and his needing to hide to protect himself from me.
No contact is the only way to live, thrive and be free of these predators. I’m grateful that he had a “stable” of women close at hand to choose from and that he wanted one or more of them more than he wanted me. It saved my sanity, and probably my life.
You know, when I got into therapy at one point I asked my therapist if I had any mental disorders, if there was anything “wrong” with me. She said the only thing wrong with me was that I had been unfortunate enough to have become involved with him.
Fortunately my mental health evaluation came out ok. The sociopath’s not so much. The psychologist reported on the results of the testing with a note that the sociopath was most likely attempting to “play” the tests and the results were probably skewed. Apparently the tests have some sort of built-in mechanism to detect manipulation attempts.
Nomorewool
Hindsight is a wonderful thing and today I’m making headway with all these posts. My spath, the cop, was made to do a psychological test every year. He’d come home and tell me all about how he passed it with flying colours because he knew how it works and how to manipulate it – we’d laugh and I always said they were asking the wrong person because they only had to speak to me to work out that he was nuts – while still laughing… in hindsight I have to wonder why he felt a need to manipulate it in the first place? Talk about subconsciously telling me he was crazy the whole time!
The really creepy behavior was when the sociopath would watch crime shows and detail what the criminal should have done to get away with the crime, or even worse, watch shows about murders and intently study what went wrong for the crime to get pinned on the murderer. I often wondered if the sociopath was studying for a time to put the knowledge to use since it was only true stories and never fictional tv dramas.
undertheradar
He HAD to manipulate it because he knew he couldn’t pass it by being himself… That’s worse than crazy, that’s sociopathic.
undertheradar
yeh thats pretty scary”telling you that he knew how to manipulate the system, what an idiot!! mine once told me he was a good liar and could get away with things very easily as well”i guess they let their guards down”or they slip up and let the cat out of the bag”how stupid are they. and to forget they told us these things about themselves as if we would not remember it when they are such wicked shits”
NoMoreWool
if mine were figuring out why the murderer in a show was being blamed for something when he shouldn’t be, sounds like a disturbed mind!! ”but”we didn’t know to think at that time, these men were mentally disturbed” was he a dangerous man?
Janedoe, yes the sociopath is very dangerous. A possible comorbidity of paranoid schizophrenia makes for a lethal combination with sociopathy because in addition to having no empathy, the sociopath is unable to distinguish reality from auditory and visual hallucinations.
I think the sociopaths brag to their victims about their various talents at deceit because their narcissism makes them. They need someone, anyone, to admire their abilities and the only way to obtain that admiration is to brag about it since otherwise no one will know what successful deceivers they are…. Kind of like being Michelangelo in a country full of blind people. Who will appreciate your Sistine Chapel?
Nomorewool
I blows my mind about the things that I’d question but then ignore. I thought his constant watching of crime channel doco’s was creepy but then I wrote it off as his job Because he was a policeman. The memory you’ve just pulled up from your post was that he never showed any disgust, no horror or emotional involvement while I’d have to leave the room with most of them. Maybe I was just too sensitive and he’d been de-sensitized was what I concluded but looking back now… I piece these incidences together to get “SOCIOPATH!”
Hanalei
I asked my therapist the same thing, I even went as far as telling her what I’d lied about and what information I’d withheld from the spath, so surely I was one… she laughed and said it was easy for him to undermine my confidence and make me question my own sanity but I wasn’t a sociopath nor did I have any narcissistic traits – she was my savior from the craziness!
You also reminded me of my last mother’s day with the s and it was a disaster. The kids, actually it was my son that rescued the day, and I went out on our own in the end and had a wonderful day while the spath stayed home and played with himself on porn sites… oh those heady days of innocence – not!
Undertheradar, my therapist laughed too, and shook her head, as if the notion of there being anything wrong with me was the silliest thing in the world.
I could have kissed her.
Imagine that once we had to ask that question, and how far we have come!!!!
Hanalei
I’m still not convinced although at the time I could have kissed my therapist as well. Sometimes I find that I’m asking myself the same question again but I’m glad to see that eventually I’ll get it! 😉
HanaleiMoon
Proof he is stupid… bacon DOES fix almost everything. mmmmmmm. Baaaccccooonnn.
It won’t fix sociopaths but then again, as we know so very well…NOTHING fixes sociopaths.
Gotta go. Chomp Chomp. YumYums. I LOVE BACON!!!
NWHSOM, I forgot to mention the fresh homemade hash browns! Ambrosia!!
Kaya
Divorcing the cop is the least of my problems because I took your advice from the moment I started communicating with you, that has become my family lawyers problem and I can’t see that as being a problem because he’s being charged by the cops for criminal offenses and that is the case I’m more involved in. My family lawyer has it easy! The ex has become a creepy stalker and the bail conditions will state that he’s not to contact me. He’ll be furious when he’s made aware of the part I played in his downfall and breach those conditions and end up in jail – I win! The family lawyer then has power to settle our assets without him signing a thing = $1000 instead of $10,000 And yippee to me! Then his criminal charges are his problem and I don’t care if he spends his 50% share of our assets trying to lie his way out of his criminal charges – they have forensic proof and I want to watch him squirm!
How evil Hanalei. Your ex had it planned for months probably and just waited for the “perfect” moment. Just like mine. Declaring us mentally ill justifies their cheating. When I was sent to the mental institution for evaluation (my cop ex had arranged this with his buddies) my diagnosis was “mixed emotions because of spousal abuse caused by husband”. The psychatrist was very upset for wasting his time while he could have helped someone who really needed treatment. He reported it to the sheriffs dept how I was set up. You know what they did, they covered up my ex’s plan and said “she is some crazy b***”. They all stick together. I sure am glad I don’t live in the same county.
I will never give him the opportunity again to do this to me. Never. Who they believe ? Of course the Cpt smerica cop, not the almost 50 year old woman. Pure evil.
Kaya, I’m sure he had it planned for months, maybe maybe more. I remember the day we found the house, after a couple of years and looking at so many, and were like kids in a candy store, so full of joy at having found the perfect one. This is just my own story, but I believe that he acted like he loved the house so much because he saw that it was the one that put me over the moon, and he knew that if he “let” me have it, it would hurt me all the more when he took it away. It was a cold and calculated move.
It destroyed me all right, but after the two hysterical calls I made to him in the days after he left, and a couple of emails, he didn’t get to see, and enjoy, ANY of my destruction.
But, I was just trash to him. He had moved on and for all I know, never gave me another thought.
My taxes for 2014 have been filed and that is the last of any connection with him. There is no need to hope and pray for his cooperation on anything ever again.
I can’t even imagine what you went through on the mental hold. Thank God for that psychiatrist and his diagnosis.
Hanalei
Just like my ex when we bought our “dream house” in our “dream location”. It didn’t last but 5 years there. Yes, being handcuffed by his police buddies and taken to the mental hold was the worst 3 hours of my life. I was reduced to a piece of trash that he threw away. While I was there hd changed all direct deposits and discarded me that evening. He completely cut us of financially. The house, the pets, the family. Nothing mattered to him but sex with the co workers. I don’t want anyone in my life who is capable of all that.
When the mental hold did not work according to his plan, he tried to get a restraining order against me for “bothering him”. Well, that did not work out either. By then I filed for divorce. I had enough. I knew the next step would be some bogus criminal charges.
Hanalei I am so happy for you no more connections with the ex. They tried to destroy us but we are still here. Stronger and happier and healthier than before. So who are the losers ? I sure feel like a winner. I won my life back. Like you said thank God for the good supply of minions for them. We can thank them for setting us free.