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
hi all
i have done a terrible thing and broken NC i don’t know why or what i was thinking.
i went to my email and unblocked him and wanted to see if he had written during this time, he hadn’t..
i can’t believe how upset i was..here i was blocking him so he wouldn’t bother me and all my efforts of doing that were for nothing, so i felt.
on a whim, i wrote him. just emailing from our last convo before i blocked him..
he wrote back, much to my surprise…in the email i had questioned why he hadn’t written me and he said he didn’t want to give me false hope and lead me on…so doesn’t that sound like an authentic person??
i responded and asked how happy he was with this newish much younger person…in the past when he would contact me, he would continually put her down and claim he had made a very big mistake marrying her on a whim, she wasn’t what she thought, she was much too young for him and she just didn’t appeal to him and he would move heaven and earth to see me, only to retract this the very next day, claiming he loved her…that turned me off and led me to the NC
but when i wrote him just yesterday telling him i feel he is very unhappy with her as he told me before, i asked him if he was happy or not, telling him i am not here to interfere with a married man but is he truly where he wants to be because he led me to believe he was unhappy..he responded and told me although i haunt his thoughts too often and he misses me, he can not continue leading me on making me believe we can be together…and he is happy for the most part.
now i am completely mixed up and i feel perhaps i have judged him wrong, he isn’t a S or N..because isn’t his response to my email something a NORMAL person would do and not an S or N?
i so regret what i have done, by contacting him..i can’t even explain why i did it..
Hi Janedoe, no worries about breaking the NC rule….everyone does it at least once. Day 1 of No Contact starts now 🙂
Remember the NC rule is not just to block the abuser from contacting you but also for you to take back your power and give yourself time to clear your mind from the brain fog. Block him again right now even if he never contacts you again you are the one in control of the situation not him.
Sociopaths play mind games ever min of the day, every conversation…this guy is playing mind games with you. Have you thought that he could have someone new on the side besides his wife? This is what you have to think about when dealing with a sociopath as they know exactly how to manipulate your mind so you question everything you know in your gut that is concrete.
You questioning now “Is he a sociopath or not” is what he wants…he wants you to be emotional, to be sad, to be hurt, to fall a deep depression…this is the power & control they love to have over not just you but everyone.
My ex h IS a sociopath…but there were times when I first left him that I too felt confused & conflicted by his behavior sometimes he was kind & nice but then he would switch to mean, angry, mood, controlling & abusive but I know 110% that he is a sociopath now. I know now that when he was nice or kind it was to con something out of me or to control me and spin my head away from what ever evil he was doing at the time.
How do I know this? because for one thing my counselor told me this truth the very first day I went to her office that he was a sociopath & the fact that I have read everything on the subject and everything about my relationship with him was based on his lies, manipulation, brain washing, mind control, gas lighting abuse etc.
Your gut lead you to Lovefraud….you added up all your ex’s behavior and it lead you to Lovefraud and to the truth about your ex. Don’t weaver on your initial gut reaction about him….your gut is NEVER EVER WRONG!!!
The fact that he is married is a huge RED FLAG that you do not want this two timing cheater in your life ever. Once a cheater ALWAYS a cheater no matter who they are with they will cheat!!!
My advise to you is to go up to the top of Lovefraud and read everything over and over and related it to your relationship with this guy and also watch the videos. This will open your mind up to the truth again about your relationship with this guy and it will open your mind again that yes he is a sociopath con artist.
Don’t beat yourself up over breaking the NC rule….today is a new day….a new start for the No Contact Rule
Day one 🙂
Take care
hi jan 7
thank you for your kind words…you say everyone has broken NC once? oops lol a little more than that for me…i have responded when he has written, since he’s been married 10 months ago, then i finally blocked him from his bs and i am the one who wrote him yesterday to which he responded how he hasn’t forgotten me and never could, he will always love me and he is happy…
you bring up a very valid point, he could possibly have someone else along with his wife, absolutely…would i be surprised at this from him? NO i wouldn’t put it past him for a second..i can’t say for certain he has someone but its possible. i almost would feel much better if he did because it would prove so much more that he is the scum of the earth, instead of having to throw around the idea if he is a decent person or not…if that makes sense?
yes like you i have the doubts and it led me here..you were told by a therapist so that makes it official for you and now you can deal with that..thank goodness for that…
i read and go by what i see and hear and all the great advice i receive here…i couldn’t wait to get on here today and admit what i had done…contacted my ex and tell him i still had feelings..but made it quite clear it’s only because he has told me in the past he isn’t happy with his wife…omg i am dumb..
honestly i didn’t think he would respond because when i write him, i do not get answers unless he feels up to it or he is horny or something immature like that…he writes very eloquently because he is a writer (if that is even true, its one of his many occupations!) and u do believe he uses it to his benefit…when he responded he actually told me he was happy…and my response was ” ok now that you have admitted this month that you are happy, i do not need to hear your bull any longer. you have told me repeatedly each time you write, you are very unhappy, but now you are? this will be my last message and i am sure you are relieved by that, good luck in your future and i am glad you’re happy”
thats all i have to say really…yes he is married and that is bad bad news, i wouldn’t interfere with that if he had told me from the beginning he was happy to be married…
so yes, day one is here…i told him i wouldn’t write him and i have no need to at this point..
truthfully i can’t understand how he goes from loving his wife to disliking her in a matter of weeks..that just doesn’t make sense..
thanks jan 7, you are making me see clear, like a slap in the face :).
Good question about how he goes from loving his wife to disliking her in a few weeks. The truth is that he doesn’t love anyone and he doesn’t dislike anyone. The truth is that he goes from faking loving his wife to faking disliking her in a few weeks in order to exploit and manipulate others to get something he wants – sex, money, a place to live, duping delight, power and control, impression management, prestige, whatever.
Don’t worry too much about breaking NC. It is pretty common to do so in the way that you did – checking if he wrote, and then writing him when he didn’t. It sounds like you are naturally seeking closure and for him to clear up your confusion by his contradictory statements. Many survivors initiate contact like you did.
It’s true that his words and behavior appear normal in this contact, but if you look at the big picture you may find that the whole situation he created is not normal. If it is now against his values to lead you on, it would have always been against his values and he would never have led you on.
You might also consider that if he ever lied to you or others, then he is a liar and the content of what he is saying now may or may not be true. He may or may not miss you. He may or may not have a problem leading you on. He may decide to get involved with you in the future if he feels like it; and he may decide to discard you again in the future if he feels like it.
Keep in mind what he does overall in the big picture view, rather than what he says at the moment.
Consider that if you feel mixed up, he is probably doing things that are confusing and crazy making. Normal interactions with normal people don’t leave one feeling mixed up.
Even if you judged him wrong, you have discerned for sure that he is not good for you. Whatever he is, you are better off without him around, so there is no change to your decisions.
Consider viewing your contact with him as a confirmation of him not being good for you and making you feel confused. Use your regret to determine not to keep him in your thoughts any more.
Jane doe
I stopped wasting my time trying to figure out my ex husband. I, as the betrayed spouse, used to spend 24/7 on thoughts like “WTF? How could he do this to me and his son ?”
All this kept my energy focused on him and not ME . What my ex did was unacceptable and truly evil. Instead of focusing on him , I fixed MYSELF. It took me 3 months to realize that ANY contact with him would set me back years in my recovery . Today , after more than 2 years of no contact , I am the “queen of silence “. Silence is my permanent answer to him. I don’t have any desire to talk to him. All I must do is remember his crazy lies. Why would he tell the truth now when all he did was lying during my marriage.
Jane , remember , no matter what your ex says or writes , responding or initiating contact feeds him his ego kibbles so he can manipulate more.
I have peace and sanity now because I don’t want craziness anymore. Do you actually feel happier now after emailing him? Ask yourself that question and be 100 percent honest. Praying for you to stay stronger in the no contact.
kaya
your case is more complex than mine..you spent many years with a monster and he did nothing but harm you and your son…no excuses for that and he deserves everything you are doing to him..you have come out of your situation so valiantly and you should be very proud, almost like highly achieved goal and you could win a medal..
i understand when you say any response is feeding his ego..it is so weird to think that when he turns on his charm and asks for forgiveness as he did when he responded to my email, its the tone of the email that got me..very sweet and so charming…i mentioned earlier he is a writer and knows how to speak and write very very well..he doesn’t come across as dumb so you feel as though he is someone sincere…i have a hard time with that…maybe he uses that as a form of manipulation and f***king with my head…
well, no i don’t really feel any happier after emailing him…i am more surprised he responded truthfully..usually when he writes he initiates it and tells me how much i mean to him…its almost as though i have caught him off guard by his response. i am not used to him telling me he is happy because he won’t write me to tell me that, he writes only when he needs to express how much he dislikes her and how he has made a mistake, when he writes me…so it has kind of made me a little off balance today by his response..
so by him telling me he is happy its just weird to hear because he hasn’t expressed that before
Janedoe,
You wrote: he doesn’t come across as dumb so you feel as though he is someone sincere.
That is the ESSENCE of a personality disordered person: To appear to be what they are NOT.
Many of them, like the rest of us, are not dumb. But all of them, dumb or not, are able to manipulate us if we don’t recognize and accept them as disordered. Even some very brilliant people are sociopaths. And they are really GOOD at appearing to be the exact opposite. That is why our gut instincts, our ability to recognize our own feelings of discomfort and confusion are vitally important to us.
I too know an extremely eloquent type of psychopath. Very charming and well spoken. He is very confusing to people, because if he just directed his natural intelligence to something worth while he could be a total human success story. BUT, he CAN’T. He is disordered. He cannot stop being that way”no matter how smart he is. But people just keep throwing opportunities his way because they don’t ‘get it’, that he cannot actually be something he isn’t. In other words: a healthy, well adjusted human being.
Don’t (please please please) take it to heart that he is ‘happy’. Don’t despair. It isn’t true. AND it is NO reflection of you. It doesn’t mean, not for one second, that she is making him happy now, or that he is even capable of happiness. It is a big fat manipulation, so you feel insecure that someone else is finally contributing to his ultimate happiness. That is the only reason he is saying those things.
That is why we CANNOT listen to people who use words and concepts as weapons. These things are meant as tools for communication and connection. When they are used as weapons there is no actual communication or connection between two people. There is only a ‘winner’ and a ‘loser’. He won, because he is happy. You lose because you are not with him and you are confused and sad about it. He thinks he won.
He just doesn’t know what a total loser he actually is. So, let him have his illusion.
Restart no contact and live in the truth.
With heart, Slim
slimone
isn’t that amazing? they almost intentionally are intelligent and sophisticated so as not to look damaged…this is very important to remember for me, because mine has always tried to portray this persona.
and people just keep giving them the benefit of the doubt because they are here to make people believe “they deserve the benefit of the doubt”..how extremely exhausting these idiots must be, their minds are always full of ways to work their next con move…i go crazy with figuring out one sentence he says and they have an entire group of people to convince their lies and bs too…
i do realize a person like this can never ever be happy…i have heard of his many relationships from one to another before me and no doubt i am just one of those many women he is trying to make feel better with his “special words” i don’t believe for a minute when he tells me how beautiful or amazing and special our years were together, because i have no doubt that he is still trying to portray his sweet image to many of us at the same time…married or not…i am convinced that almost a year ago, did he not only leave me the way he did, but many others at the same time as me he has done this to
if the past patterns say anything…he will not keep her for too long…or he will keep her and have a completely secret life on the side…he will slip up, no doubt about it, that was his past patterns and with me also..its just a matter of time.
you and everyone have some very valued advice..thanks for that 🙂
Jane D,
Consider that he never speaks truthfully. He just says whatever he thinks will work for him at the time. If he says something that’s true, it’s a coincidence, not because he’s committed to telling the truth. He will say that he is happy or unhappy based on how it manipulates you, not based on what is true and what is best for you.
I think that you are trying to view his interactions as though he is normal and motivated by resolution and truth and meaningful human interactions. Based on his past behavior, this is not the case. He is motivated by what he can get by lies, manipulation and exploitation.
annette
you have hit it right on the head…he speaks for what is good for him at the moment…
when i contact him its a whole different story versus when he contacts me…why? because i have learned that he is only unhappy when HE messages me and he is happy only when I message him…proving he doesn’t need me at that moment.
when i think back to the years of communication, when i emailed or texted first, he would never contact me shortly after. he literally has nothing to do, he would just not want to respond, because it wasn’t HE who wrote me first, or simply put, he didn’t need me for anything until he was ready…it all makes sense.
all of this NC, recontacting, rehoovering, love bombing has all given me such a clear picture of what i didn’t want to see when we were together.
i do try at times to give him the benefit of doubt and think of him as normal, you’re correct…but when i think of my bad list of traits, i see he most definitely is a very abnormal and mixed up emotionally/mentally individual that only being apart from him has taught me..
JD,
Aww, i’m sorry to hear you upset at breaking NC. It’s ok, don’t be hard on yourself, you are only human. Heck, I felt myself feeling sorry for the xSpath the other day.
I know you have been battling the back and forth is he or isn’t he for a while.
I went through that as well. The labels don’t matter as much as his behaviors and all he has shown you.
You can’t believe anything these fakes say…the I don’t wana hurt you or lead you on…please, now he has empathy for you?
All bulls***, it’s feeding his ego-beast saying that to you.
Maybe one day you will delete your email address…when you’re ready.
xoxo
remember
so true about his behaviours and what they show…we have to see that for what it is!! its frustrating at times when all the hard work we have done slips through our fingers in a matter of seconds…i had no intention of breaking NC yesterday..i had a moment of “?”hmm i wonder what he is doing and if he has written me?”, so i checked and one thing led to another…
i can say i feel like someone who has to stay away from alcohol and has slipped
he is very wishy washy with what he says, one day he loves his wife and the next he doesn’t..but boy oh boy does he know how to suck someone in with his charm…he asked me to forgive him for all he has done…im telling you he has two personalities…one when he initiates writing he begs me to see him and another when i write him first he tells me it is impossible to be together because he loves his wife…these two personalities clash like no other…
right now i am just laughing at how messed up he is by reading what i am writing and realizing it all…
All I can say this is while reading your recent posts that’s what mine would do. Mr Jekyll. Mr. Hide. ( I mispelled it for a good reason.) Needless to say try not to beat yourself up. I too am guilty the past week of unblocking. To find nothing and be alarmed and actually “hurt”. But I’ve realized something and maybe it can ring true in your situation as well. Whenever I had my shit together. My boundaries in check and I was showing I wasn’t going to take no more bull or mistreatment- 3 things happened. He either met me half way, silenced me or did the complete unseen opposite of what I was expecting. All of which to gather control, knock me down confuse me and take my power back in a matter of seconds. I just hope this guy isn’t doing reverse psychology on you. You know ignore her because she’s been to me and she’ll come running when I want her.
I actually think what happened is a good thing. As I’m trying to focus on the good in my own life I read your post and I see here that one of two things can happen. This could be your conclusion. Your final interlude. Your grieving point. Now you can start on you. Not wondering. Not blaming yourself. It’s very clear to me he isn’t a decent person. Any decent person doesn’t go back and forth and forth and back on love. Love is in essence a big deal. He has. Many times. One day he loves his wife the next not. Regardless if he is happy or not. He is married. He shouldn’t even be emailing you in my opinion. If anything he should be upholding his vows and fedelity to his wife.
He just shows right here even if he was charming or manipulating and self serviving his response was for himself. Alone. If he is sorry fine. But shouldn’t that had happened on his own? By himself. Not after you reached out? Shouldn’t it have been you opened your email and poof an apology of recollection and there you go. I’m thinking a healthy and normal person would function this way. Yes there are circumstances but in essence putting that aside in the excuse pile this guy is not respectful. Not to you nor not to her. He was waiting for contact. Why? Is in my head. Sorry but this just seemed to fishy to me. But I’m taking it and I’m changing it to positives here and I’m seeing you did good. You listened to your emotional need and got enough answers that you can start to move on. The one thing I’m learning is if you are confused and you’ve asked questions to dispell it and end up with clarity there is a reason. There is also a reason when the other person refuses to give you that. Considering his past he clearly always left you confused. No matter the method used. If he truly was a decent and caring person he wouldn’t do that. So you have your answers.
He was not decent. Not to you. Not to his “wife”, and not to any other female. Life is way too short to live in confusion. It just hurts. Especially when you love that person. You deserved better. Hugs
bluelight
again as i have said to others, your situation has similarities to me as well…
you described exactly what i felt the other day when finding nothing from him…i was hurt because I was doing the NC and by not hearing from him it was like he was doing the NC…
i couldn’t even begin to understand his motives because each time they are different..the only thing i can think of for his silence is that i don’t have anything at the moment he needs…could be reassurance from me that i cared for him, or our time together was great, or he asking me if i would agree to see him because he wants out of his marriage…whatever his reason is…its a pattern and they are all lies…
when i contact him the feeling i get is that i am bothering him and he pulls the nice crap of how he never meant to hurt me…but boy are the tables reversed when he does the contacting because he probably needs to get his dose of reassurance from me..
you are right maybe it was good i heard him say he is happy (whether true or not), i can leave him be now i know and start once again on myself.
after my contact yesterday i wrote him and said it was my last message to him and all i needed to hear was he was happy and I’m gone…
now i know if he needed to contact me for his ego, he would have responded..i am glad he has not and i will be back to the NC and block or delete the email account.
Consider that forgiveness doesn’t have much meaning to him, unless he regrets the wrong he did, recognizes it as wrong, and never does it again to anyone. In reality, he is asking you to excuse him from being accountable for what he did without any commitment on his part to do differently in the present and future.
His two personalities are the same one – he just uses different tactics to train you to do what he wants. In this case it’s possible that he is training you to contact him, so that he can justify an emotional affair with you by saying that he couldn’t help it because you contacted him, etc. But who cares exactly why he’s doing whatever he’s doing? He’s a bad man and the best thing for you is not to have to even think about him.
annette
the only time he really is sorry is when he wants something from me or recontacts me..suddenly he loves me and he never meant to hurt me. and even still he is not really sorry.. he has proven this by repeating his behaviour over and over again..
for example: he will apologize for not writing for months and swears never will he do it again, that he doesn’t want to ever lose me…blah blah…then…i don’t hear again for a few months..and this gets repeated many times…of course now he is blocked so it can’t happen but this is how he operates since last summer when married.
i will achieve the no thinking of him eventually…am trying and trying…i had a weak moment and i see the really bad man that he is, and that is what keeps me grounded
I experienced this fake remorse (also called abuser’s remorse) from my ex psychopath. It is not real remorse; it is actually manipulation in that the spath says he is ‘sorry’ for something for the purpose of manipulating his victim into giving him something he wants.
Because they are so opposite what they portray and because the truth about their motivation and behaviors is so difficult to believe, it takes a while to wrap one’s mind around it and get to the point of moving on. It took me a long time to get to NC and get my ex psychopath out of my mind. Things get so much better exponentially when one gets to that point, that the sooner a survivor can go NC the sooner she will recover and have a good life.
Jane doe
Yes, he is playing games with you. You are probably more confused now than ever. This exactly how my left me during those 3 months after the discard and during our marriage. Totally confused. He loved it. He had that power over me. You can only take it away by not engaging with him. It’s the one and only solution.
My ex still tries to play games but I don’t participate anymore. I was done 2 years ago and j am find now. Evil is always evil.
kaya
how did your ex behave during your first three months? you said he left you confused…was he one day expressing he loved you and then the next he did not love you?
i know he writes you little notes now and that you don’t respond or even read anything
Just remember – not all “jailhouse conversions” are religious – or from a jailhouse. Sociopaths can fake any legitimate human interaction they have had the opportunity to observe and make note of. They just can’t do it 24/7 for sustained periods of time. Eventually whatever mask the sociopath has chosen will crack. If you have seen the cracks in the mask, don’t be fooled just because the sociopath has put on a new mask.
nomorewool
i have actually seen a couple different masks when with him and they were red flags i ignored…i should know by now that the behaviour will not change and what he claims to be is not the real him…
they must be so exhausted with being so many different people all the time…its exhausting just trying to figure it out.
It would be exhausting for a normal person, but with the spath’s conscience seared so they don’t experience guilt, nor care about others’ well being, maybe they don’t expend too much energy. I was always amazed how much pain, suffering and destruction my ex psychopath caused without much effort.
JD, BL,
Jane you mention the alcohol, like you slipped and took a drink, that’s exactly what it’s like…
That’s exactly how I broke NC in March, I opened up my old email and seen he had been emailing me until February.
After I broke the NC and messaged with him a whole half a day, he kept on through April every other week or a few weeks. Even though I was not responding, I found myself checking, and peeking.
I knew the things he had done to me, the behaviors, and the pain he had caused me, leading me to a dark depression. I had to accept that I just cannot communicate with this person. We can’t be friends.
What kind of message am I sending out about myself if I was friendly with him?
I was hesitant to delete my email, but I knew if I didn’t I would find myself peeking, and checking. that is just like giving him power all over again.
It had been 3 weeks since he emailed me when I deleted my account.
I now have no idea if he ever tried to mail me again. If I kept checking and he hadn’t, I may have been hurt or tempted to message him one day maybe….
I’m not telling you to do that, BUT it is another way they stay in our minds.
Sometimes I wonder if he has tried, but not too much.
Stay strong.
God bless all of us, these are matters of the heart.
xoxo
That’s EXACTLY it! As long as I only gave lip service to NC, I found myself peeking and checking…just to satisfy curiosity. Which means we are still in their power.
I find myself spending more money lately – buying myself gifts to fill the hole in my heart. So now I have double trouble! I didn’t do myself any favors. So like the alcoholic, I blocked my email and need to stay away from stores! One step forward and two steps backward…
Never again
Yep same here..I found by keeping busy and shopping for things filled in the time I would spend with him normally. In the meantime I’m buying way too much, but it does make me forget for the time Being Now I need to find ways to stop shopping
Remember
You bring up a good point here when you say what kind of message am I sending out?
By stooping to their level we really aren’t having much respect for ourselves. That means we are excepting the abuse they show us. We need to think more positive and believe we don’t need this treatment and we are making ourselves look desperate. Would we want to see a close friend bow down to this level and what message is it we are giving by doing so? Not a very good one
Blue light
I totally agree with you. Jane does ex should not even be emailing her as a married man. They do not respect their boundaries. When I caught my ex husband with the co worker , he said “so what”? No respect , no compassion for my feelings . No respect for his son , nothing.
Jane doe
During the 3 months after the discard he totally confused me. He would blame and accuse me and then text me “hope you guys are ok ?” . He gaslighted me for 20 plus years, you are right , very extreme. I even went to the beach with him once after the discard. Only so he can tell me how crazy I am. I was sitting there crying and you know what “I asked for it by going with him. ”
In all honesty you should delete your email address and never talk to him again. He now is a married man and hex will always be a cheater. Don’t ever make yourself an option to anyone. If you are not a priority then you should remove yourself.
Believe me I was devastated when my ex left. I thought I would never be ok again. The truth is I am more than ok. I am MYSELF again. And yes during those 3 months I broke the no contact several times only to feel much worse afterwards.
I finally accepted the truth. This isxwhatvyou should work on, accepting the truth. It might sound harsh but it is reality.
Each time we seek validation from them, we only validate THEM, that they are speciale and desired, while we kick ourselves for wanting something from them that we once again did not get.
Try to get validation form other survivors, therapists, friends and family, but not from him.
Once we realize that the ex is not capable of giving this to us, we let go of this desire and free ourselves from the vicious web of lies.
Whenever you start to romanticize the relationship as anything other than the abuse, STOP and remember all the abuse and lies that really did take place.
The argument that were never resolved, all the discounting of our emotions, the name calling, the cheating, the threats, the harassment, the lies and smear campaigns, the blame, the toxicity and finally THE HURT, THE TEARS, AND THE LACK OF EMPATHY FOR THOSE TEARS. NOTHING HE COULD EVER DO OR SAY WILL BE GREATER THAN THE PAIN HE CAUSED.
No contact is a struggle, but it gives us the clarity we so badly need to go on with our lives and see, recognize and accept the fact that they are nothing but evil.
kaya,
Amen! The abuse was real, the rest a ruse.
kaya48
That is the secret that I learned.
At the end of my marriage and after I left, I’d call and rant to my husband about the pain he caused. And he’d egg me on, wanting me to say more and more. I’d like to say I was smart but it took a long while for me to WAKE UP and realize, contact with him, ANY contact with him, FED him… it FED his insatiable drive to WIN, to prevail, to eat my soul. Contact with my husband fed the EVIL demon his dominion over ME.
No contact cut off his supply of my soul, he couldn’t drain my soul without ME letting him have contact.
Although he lost eating my soul, he had other souls to drain and eat. He didn’t miss losing me.
No contact was for ME. I stopped an evil demon from draining my soul, and that was the beginning of becoming able to be ME again.
I love how adamant you are about NC. It is TRULY the start of healing.
As you write and there is no way to minimize this TRUTH: They are NOTHING but EVIL. No matter how softspoken and charming he appears to be. He was NEVER anything less than an EVIL soul sucker. All he did was to set ME up, to make it easier to suck my soul dry, and even when I moved out and he was openly blatant about who he was, he was able to drain my soul when I had contact.
ME, standing up for myself and not having contact was what it took to stop him from draining my soul and poisoning my well being.
When WE decide our souls are worth more than death, we empower ourselves from the first step by going NO CONTACT and STAY NO CONTACT. To do anything less is to give EVIL the option to drain the life out of our souls.
Our stories are carbon copies of each other – so much so that I feel that when I write, I am just saying something that has been said hundreds of times by others. The advice we give and receive here is sound…so how do we get hooked back in and break NO CONTACT? Our minds know better, but our hearts are still tender and fragile and want to believe that our story is different and could still harbor hope.
I too, broke no contact. I wrote to tell my spath that their actions were unconscionable and broke my heart and my spirit. I said that I still feel love, even through the tears, and that I just wanted to say this but would prefer not to hear back. As one would expect, I DID hear back. There was no comment about anything I said. The letter basically said that life was content (not happy or sad), the daily goings on, and how I would be loved for 1000 years). I have blocked incoming messages, but – like everyone else here – I just wanted to have the last word and for the hundredth time, realized there is no one listening at the other end. I keep reading the wisdom on this site, but hope keeps me prisoner.
Like others here, starting at Day One again….
Love is a series of actions, not just some words about “love” and “1,000 years.”
Never again
I agree with nobody listening at the other end…it’s very frustrating to say things that they once pretended to understand .. And now? We pour our hearts out hoe hurt we are and they just ignore it. In one ear and out the other…mine is great at saying he will answer all my questions later on…of course it never gets answered snd once again I’m being shoved shown that I must really not be important unless he wants something.
After writing my message that I broke NO CONTACT, I decided that the time has come to stop torturing myself. I had been saving old emails, with pictures, in case I needed them as evidence of continued contact. I deleted everything. I had also set up a rule that if any more emails come in from this email address, they were to go into a special folder. Since I have now deleted the folder, I blocked any future emails from coming to me. My last email sent out basically said that I feel love, and that is a good place to end things. I figured it is OK to say it because I feel it. But I don’t want to hear anything else from her. So it is ended because her email address is gone so I cannot be tempted to write anymore. I probably could have taken this step from a stronger place, but it’s done. I know that if I ever weaken again, I can always unblock her and hope for an email to have her address again, and the true FINAL step would be to change my email address so that she cannot contact me and I cannot “unblock” her – thereby making things truly final. I need to release the HOPE….
Never again
That is s big step and I hope you succeed!
Stick to your guns. I hope to do the same by starting eith the nc and blocking him…seems I am taking baby steps.
Not
I so much agree with your comment. After the discard I gave my ex exactly what he wanted. Like you had to learn to refuse to feed into his evilness. While he was labeling me “mentally ill” he was living it up, screwing his co workers and who knows who. I had to learn to accept the truth. It was very difficult for me to accept that truth. Even after the discard I wanted to “save ” my marriage, wanted to see some “good” in him. Only going and staying no contact truly opened my eyes.
The truth was I was living an illusion of a marriage , a complete lie . I was nothing more than his option, his convenience .
I had to go through different stages of grief and acceptance. Looking back now discarding his family was the best present he ever gave me. He wanted to punish me and destroy me. He did not succeed and he never will.
kaya48
You say something further that is also very valuable:
“had to learn to accept the truth”.
YESSSSSsss. My life was so deceptive and crazy and NONsense that I had started writing all my conversations down b/c my ex would say something happened that didn’t or that an agreement NEVER happened. I found myself involved with covering for his lies b/c I was told I was the reason for the lie, and while I knew that wasn’t true, I was trying to FIX whatever was wrong with me that he would say such a lie… only “whatever was wrong with me” was a guessing game, I truly didn’t know Nor could I predict what I’d do/say/look at wrongly that he then would justify as a reason for his cruel/humiliating responses.
Does my explanation sound convoluted? Yep, I sure think so and I know what’s in my head!Imagine what I was living on a daily basis. ONLY LF members can imagine, which is a sad thing to KNOW about… and ya’ll would be right!!! The truth is, NORMAL people could NEVER imagine the hoops I jumped through to get through my days, it’s toooooo Bizarre!
In the last years of my marriage, I’d go to bed every night and pray to GOD to open my eyes to the truth and give me the strength to bear it (the truth) because I had lost my ability to discern the REAL truth! It turned out to be simple. If my ex said it, his words were evil. I actually learned the definition of EVIL. It was personified in a person who did the behaviors of my husband and his family.
Like what happened to you, my ex wanted to punish me (for discovering HIS real self) and destroy me (so that no one would believe me if I tried to warn them). My Screwtape ex nearly succeeded but now that I KNOW the truth, that crap is crap. He tried to sever my humanity and my dignity and my ability to LOVE.
I don’t want anyone to think I went through this nightmare easily or quickly. I didn’t. I was pretty darn DUMB. But I DO KNOW what matters, and what the end game is. And the faster you can accept that normal decent people don’t DO ANY of this crap, you’ll realize they have a hidden agenda and it’s NOT to LOVE, it’s vengeance, a form of anger. Their goal is dominance, to gain power and control. The WHY and HOW doesn’t matter. What matters is that GOOD DECENT people would NEVER do this crap. It would break the heart of a caring person to harm another person in ANY of the behaviors that these disordered perpetrate… including stringing a person along promising to leave a wife, or girlfriend if ONLY you “earn” his affection by helping him smear/destroy HER well being.
NOW I am very low tolerance for people trying to do “crap” to others. NO DECENT person with a conscience does that. We have to decide if we are decent. And If we aren’t to be decent, there is NO excuse.
Which is my final reason to be/stay NC… I WILL NOT be “LIKE HIM” or “THEM”. Thank GOD he did not succeed in destroying my desire to LOVE… or else I’d be a demon like him. Screwtape LOST! hahahaha!
Blocking email , moving to a special folder , putting into spam. , all this is not effective. The final step deleting your email address so everything gets returned to them as undeliverable is the only solution. Once I had the strength to change my phone no and email, I wAs never on any social websites, then I was able to shift focus on me. Not HIM.
And yes, I also kept a journal with whag my husband said. He always tried to make me think I am going crazy in my head. I also prayed to God every night to give me stength to make it through the next day. He answers my prayers in a way k never imagined. God took him away and gave me a new life. I now know any contact with my ex ei give him opportunity to blind and accuse. I heard that for 20 some years. No thanks. I now know to listen to my brain and not my heart.
I am very consistent in my no contact because I know the consequences of breaking it. Nothing good or healthy would result. Like I said he told me I was crazy for 20 years and he would just continue where he left off. I do not communicate with the devil, period .