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
In the case of adultery and abandonment, there are practical measures that must be taken for it to be committed. Adultery cannot be committed accidentally. It is a deliberate sin in which one must will, choose, purpose, and carry out a plan.
We were taken by surprise, while the betrayer had months of planning, emotionally and financially. We did not have a choice. It was made for us, like trading in a car for a newer model. Just like that.
I decided that even though I am almost 49, I can start a new chapter in my life. It might not include many material assets or even a boyfriend/partner/husband. I take every day and I will try my best to make it a happy day. I don’t spy, I don’t check up on him, I don’t care what he does. Its none of my concern anymore. He is absolutely nothing to me. And that is my choice. I choose no contact. He cant take that away from me, because it is my choice and I am in control.
I was just thinking about WHY he’s still lurking around the corners of my mind when he discarded me almost three years ago. I’m sick of beating myself up for my life not being restored yet and for continuing to feel out of sorts.
We know and discuss here that they have no real attachment to us, that is why they are able to “move on” so easily. We also know (I’m talking to you kaya especially) that they plan in advance the discard…not only are they mentally/emotionally prepared, they are physically and financially prepared, and they have another relationship/companionship/minion/sexual partner in their lives (plus backups). They know what’s coming and they have already moved on. They make sure they suffer no discomfort.
We, on the other hand, are blindsided.
I sure was. I was skinned alive and my life was turned upside down. We just closed escrow on that stinking house, I saw no alternative but to stay there and pay the house payment, keep it maintained and take care of repairs as they came up. My savings account was empty; my income was my retirement and I had no job. We had discussed in depth that the house required two incomes to support, he had assured me the days of me doing everything on my own were over, I now had a true partner. Right. After I was capable of presenting myself to the world, I found a job and went to it every day. I paid my attorney when the ex capriciously drew things out to run up her fees. I sold everything I could on ebay and craigslist, and I bartered for repairs. I lived on the bare minimum and I saved every penny I could, since I knew I was going to lose my investment when the house was sold, and I did. This went on for two and a half years until the house was sold in February. I went to two years of therapy, working on myself. Getting myself right. I had a full time job just keeping up with the mess he left me with, there was no time to start building a new life.
Meanwhile, he is living in the same house (that he took off the market as soon as he discarded me). He had fixed up the piece of junk for sale, and now he is enjoying his improvements and his “obstructed ocean view” in a neighborhood that I could never afford in my wildest dreams. If his savings accounts were touched, it was because he spent on himself, not because of the house that he had half responsibility for and walked away from. He let ME work my ass off to preserve HIS credit, along with mine. He’s probably driving a new vehicle, while I’m driving the car I’ve had 11 years and I’m limping it along. And he has a wife to handle half the expenses.
So why should I be surprised that he got married less than two years after discarding me? Why should I be surprised that his life has not been impacted by the devastation he caused in my life? He knew it was coming and he set it up so it had no impact on him. I don’t know if the woman he married was in his life before he discarded me, but other women were. He was not busy trying to keep his head above water like I was, cleaning up the mess he left, so he had plenty of time to build new relationships and get married (even if it is all a lie). He had nothing else on his mind except his wants and pleasures.
So I say, even though he discarded me almost three years ago, I wasn’t free to move on until February when the house was sold. Oh, I worked hard on my healing in therapy and I am so grateful for that. But my every waking moment in that house, the monument to a destroyed dream, was like he was standing right there, smirking at me. I didn’t think about it like that day to day when I was living it, but it was true.
I lost my family; him and his kids, his brothers and sisters, his parents. He lost nothing. I’m sure he painted himself the wounded one, and then the triumphant one, with a new bride.
I lost my friends, who couldn’t understand what I was going through.
I say I am done beating myself up because my life isn’t all put together yet. While he was gone three years ago, the chains of the responsibility of the house were on me. It was a ball buster, friends, trust me on that one.
No wonder my life isn’t all put together again today…it’s only been four months since I’ve been free.
If he was impacted at all, it was less than swatting away a fly. I didn’t have time to go out and meet men, get involved with them and plan a wedding. I didn’t have time or finances for trips or wining and dining. I didn’t have a free mind to pursue these things. I was TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS. I was saving myself
That is because I am normal. I am a compassionate human being who loved someone who purposely and intentionally pulled the rug out from under my life. He could have bailed on the relationship before we bought the house – I gave him plenty of opportunity. But no, he said he loved me and we were going to have all our dreams come true. I will never believe otherwise than he already had the discard planned…sticking me with the house was his finest hour.
There is nothing wrong with me because my life isn’t in order yet. I am strong, intelligent and resourceful and inhumanly resilient. I am not crying in my beer about what I lost, but I need a reasonable amount of time to rebuild and regroup and start fresh. I had to vacate the house when it sold and I did the best I could, finding a place to land.
A launching pad. There is a lot of preparation to do before you can launch.
I was just freed of my responsibilities four months ago. There was no time, money, or energy for anything else until then. And my heart still hurts, because I am a normal human being.
I’m done beating myself up. I should be standing proud and tall, knowing that when the chips are down, I can do what it takes to survive. I may be alone, and I may only have one or two true friends who are 700 miles away, but I know what I did was right.
I’m done beating myself up. What if everything is not only working out just fine, but today, as things are, I’m actually way ahead of schedule?
Thank you friends, for listening to my rant in this safe place.
LOL, that wasn’t a rant, that was a Life-Coach Lesson, thank you for it! We should pay tuition to participate on this site. 🙂
I sure am hoping you don’t have delusions about your ex maintaining his new relationship. The chances of it working out over the long-term are just about nil. Since the door is open, better fly through it soon as you can! since he’s bound to REbound once she kicks him out (which my bet is, she will).
Rant away, HanaleiMoon.
Somehow you are writing MY story as well, just some of the details are different. Quite a few are writing my story on here. Seems to be an epidemic right now. Same age group, same jerky behaviors, same loss of home, same age of kids.
Yes, I was completely Blindsided. I knew my ex was sometimes a real jerk, but I didn’t comprehend how much his moral compass was broken until after his mask was off (he tried to put it back on, but once I saw reality, there was no going back.)
On one day, I would have BET my LIFE that my ex was a certain kind of guy (faithful). The day after, I was being swamped with the truth, and the revelations kept on coming after that. The scams, the fraud, the smears, the women, the men, the attitudes, the threats, it just never stopped.
Yes,even divorced I keep tabs on him. It’s prudence. He hates to lose and he intended my death. I don’t think he’s given up on that. He’s an opportunist. So while I don’t think of him all the time, and in fact, spend most of my time trying to get my health back and rebuild a life, I do maintain security. It’s not paranoia if someone’s out to get ya! LOL! But no, I don’t follow the gossip of his daily life. I could care less. In fact, I wish him to get all he wants because I know that eventually will blow up on him and I’m a little vindictive that way, I am ALL for him getting what he deserves.
But mostly, I want us ALL to take to heart that WE are NOT the cause of what a sociopath predator did. I am SO glad to read that HanaleiMoon has decided to stop beating herself up b/c that is EXACTLY morally decent. If there is ONE person that MUST be “for you”, it’s YOU (us!). We must be on OUR side, and all pledging to not beat ourselves up!
Thank you for writing my history with yours HanaleiMoon/NoContact/kaya48/Ain’t/Annette… Crap. Is crap. Is sociopath crap. It’s not from me.
HanaleiMoon
Not a rant at all..I find it very therapeutic to “rant” and listen to others do it too..especially when there are similarities…planning it well in advance? Yep right under my f***ing nose and I asked about it because of things I found out…giving him a chance to come clean…not a chance. He lied and claims now it wasn’t lying but misconstruing his story so I wouldn’t be hurt. All along knowing he would have to tell me he was leaving but waiting for the perfect time to tell me and finally said all the things I suspected him of were true…he waited til he was 100% sure of what he was planning was going to work out then he confirmed my suspicions. Even a week or a cpl days before I was the only one who meant everything to him and it would kill his soul to see me unhappy and to leave me…he acts like he really didn’t do anything horrible because by not telling the truth..he was saving me from being hurt…idiot.
Rant away honey ♥
Thank you all for your support! I always knew that he had moved on even before the discard and that he had no true feelings, but for some reason it just clicked yesterday that there is nothing wrong with me because I haven’t put all the pieces back together yet. I know I’m not wallowing, or feeling sorry for myself, rather feeling frustration that I’m not where I want to be yet, or think I should be. Like I said, for all I know, God and the Universe are smiling because I’m actually ahead of schedule.
I had a hell of a job cleaning up the mess he left me in, and that wasn’t the time for rebuilding. I did a LOT of healing during that time, but the reality is, there was no way I could start to rebuild until I was out of that house, out from under that crushing financial and emotional burden. The truth is, the entire time, up until the day that escrow closed on the sale of the house, there wasn’t a day that went by when I wasn’t afraid of him – what he would do, how he would react, when and how he might throw a monkeywrench into the works to mess things up for me. I never got complacent, thinking things had been quiet for awhile, I always was sick to my stomach at each step where his input or signature was needed.
When I moved, I moved away from my therapist too. One of the last things she told me was that through it all, I had always acted appropriately for the circumstances. I need to remind myself, if I didn’t lose it through all that, I certainly have not lost it now, and there is every reason to believe that I’m acting appropriately for the circumstances now too.
I am fearful of wasting time and so I get frustrated. But I can look back over the past three years and even though I know I went through pure hell, I am mighty proud of myself at how I handled it overall, and that includes the days of not getting out of bed, the days of ranting and crying, the endless hours of feeling hopeless, alone and lost. It all added up to triumph and survival.
I’m older, but I would be older now too even if this hadn’t happened. I might not be so fearful of time passing if all had gone according to plan and he had been a good man, or I might anyway. I’ll never know.
I have to be honest, I broke my own code and looked at his wife’s fb page yesterday and she had changed her profile picture to their wedding picture. They have now been married a little over a year. He has changed a LOT – where he was clean cut and suave before, he now looks like an aging hippie (long, white stringy hair omg!). He had often spoken to me about how he’d like to grow his hair long and I had thought it would look ridiculous and it does. He looks like a cross between Jerry Garcia and Captain Kangaroo. Not a good look for a 58 year old man.
She, on the other hand, looks very pretty…and very, very happy. God help her.
I felt very detached looking at this picture – he was never the man I thought I knew and now, he doesn’t even look like the man I knew. I still look pretty much the same, except for the wear and tear. I had pictured him in my mind, looking all handsome like he used to to me, and in the interim, he’s reinvented his “look” and looks like a complete stranger.
Time to move on.
Hanalei Moon,
Your ex is the same inside. The new wife may or may not be happy. She is not going to post a pic on FB of the times she is not happy or their fights. I am my ex P’s second ex wife and looked happy in the wedding pics because it was the thing to do and I thought I should be happy. Things were already bad, red flags waving all over the place that I didn’t understand at the time.
If your ex was different he’d have stayed with you. Whatever he does with her to you, he will do to her with someone else if it suits him. He might not, but he is capable of it unless he changes and changing his hairstyle isn’t much of a change. Him making an issue of the hairstyle is a means of subtly blaming you for his choices. My ex does something similar on FB – he is a pedophile and he is constantly posting pics of him with his grandchildren. Everything they do has a negative ulterior message.
Your ex is not the man you knew. You knew whatever he deceived you into thinking he was. If you knew the truth, you wouldn’t have married him.
Annette, you are right, my ex is the same inside. I totally believe he was the same before he met me and he will be the same for the rest of his life. He just alters the approach and techniques to each individual woman to what he feels will work best with her to achieve his goals.
This woman was in the right place at the right time to help him achieve whatever his goal was at that moment. It could have been anyone. She is standing on quicksand.
And you’re right about the photos – I had photos of myself, looking happy and proud to be with him, including times where I had spent the prior night crying on the floor in the bathroom because of his cruelty and abuse. I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
NoContact, that is a chilling story. Keep safe. Yikes. Don’t know what else to say.
Meanwhile, I’m heading out to get some probiotics.
Whew, Hanalei, thanks for just writing back, it’s great just to tell ya how grossed-out and scared I have been lately, and get your response.
I think drugs are (must be!!) involved in some of my spath’s behaviors, which is not to say they are the cause of them — but think that he must use something, or maybe that’s just Denial of how much of a spath he was all along. Memories of the past are SO precious, it’s SO hard to accept that “he was never there” throughout so many years! the worst theft of all. It’s easier to imagine he’s shooting up, snorting, or whatever one does with meth/molly/whatever — than showing his true colors without any influence from a substance.
NoContact, I have to tell you, there have been two dead women found in the same city my ex lives in in the past month…I’d be lying if I said I didn’t follow these stories.
As my esteemed therapist would say, you are acting appropriately for the circumstances, being scared. Like I said, keep safe.
Incidentally, everybody, I signed on to this site about three years ago, long-long-long before this latest horrid thing happened.
This is what my story finally evolved into after I first ID’d him as a spath, in other words — it’s not why I signed on. And — that was after separating years ago, buying my own home, getting a divorce, splitting up the property, and totally staying away from him except at major family events! Just imagine if I hadn’t kept my distance!!! (although I suppose one could say, those are the same acts that made him keep turning up the volume)
PLEASE let my story serve as an example of why you cannot “work something out” with a spath, and why it’s essential that you get as far away as possible, before anything worse happens. I didn’t think it was possible either, boy was I wrong! and do I ever wish I was still just jealous.
NoContact
Wow is that really what happened?
I can’t remember which show but I just watched something the in the last cpl weeks about ppl being killed on a farm and fed to the pigs!
Has the family been suspected of this?
Hi Janedoe, yes it really happened and the family is absolutely suspected. The news first reported that the police had been called to the residence on multiple occasions, and the family had been asked to leave even tho they’d only just moved in a couple of months before — so something was going on, and I think my X got caught up in it.
My “take” all along (everybody’s story is different, right?) is that the OW was not really interested in my X, she had an abusive partner of her own and my X thought he would take that person’s place (that’s what I got out of it, anyway: that x had offered himself to her, and been refused or declined, so he might as well stay with me.
The first notice I received that anything was going on was one day when out of the blue, he said, “She’ll never leave (her bf)” and I said Who in heck is She?! and why should you care whether or not she leaves (her bf)? Oh. That. 🙂 But she never “arrived” — instead, she seemed to tease him and describe herself as a Friend while at the same time shoving me out of his life. She was not the traditional OW in the sense that they ever became a couple, in other words.
Nocontact
I read stories like this and thank God I was discarded. I thank God I’m too old for his focus, that his dick controls his desires, every waking moment – true liberation for me so I’m taking the gift of it and running!
Sashastrong
You sound exactly like me
I find it hard to get out on some days I’d rather just stay home instead if running errands or being in different place than home
I spend a lot of time sitting out in the back yard because I just don’t have the oomph to get going on some days…sometimes days are ok though and I can get up and go…but like you I’ve spent some time crying in the oddest places
janedoe
I know the feeling. I am SO tired. I wish I had the energy. I know I am not lazy because when I do have the energy, I enjoy work and accomplishment. My getup and go seems to have died when my marriage did. People say go get a medical checkup. Well, part of the abuse is having my insurance cancelled. Part of being so sick is not being able to work. Part of being totally fried with anxiety is being sick and unable to work. It’s all a circle, where my ex broke the law and the courts helped him but geeeeeee, I am the one who is blamed for being “lazy” and “crazy”.
Not, I understand where you are as I was unable to do much of anything for a long time. I work for myself and my professional business suffered and so did my client. It was a gradual process and I’m not really back to being as productive as I was. I have days when I’m down and don’t feel like doing anything. It is a cycle and when things start to turn around for you, it will cycle upwards. It does get better.
It sounds like a good time for you to take advantage of some services you helped pay for when you were working and paying taxes. Not sure what state you’re in, but I, and several of my friends and family, have had very good experience getting very affordable insurance through the new exchanges. A friend of mine now has excellent health insurance that is almost completely subsidized. Are you taking advantage of some assistance programs while you’re not working? In my town, there are almost more people who want to help others than people in need. Many churches offer free bags of groceries on a weekly basis to anyone who needs help.
If you think counseling and/or a physical exam would be helpful for you, consider if it’s worth going into debt.
NotWhatHeSaidOfMe
I’m sorry about your health and anxiety. When it gets to this point it is so necessary to get back to our right frame of mind. I, like you, have let this situation take a toll on me as well. I’m not sure of your health issues but I hope it’s temporary? Nobody has a right to do this to us and I don’t see them suffering for the stress they cause others. It’s so wrong in every sense of the word.
Sashastrong and janedoe
I’ve been hiding out for years during the marriage and now I’ve gone a week doing the same thing. I’ve made excuses to stay home but I know I have to force myself to make a move. Now where to start… before I left I had a list of the things I wanted to do with my life, one week out and the list has disappeared from my mind – do you get that list back?
ironic
You didn’t direct you query to me but I wanted you to know… I lost myself and didn’t even realize how much I lost until I started getting it back. About a month ago, I got back my “possibilities”. I had forgotten what an optimist I used to be, that I was a seeker of life’s possibilities. Just last week, I realized I had made two solid friends. How did I get to the place of assuming no one would ever like me or be friends with me ever again?
These are the corollary traumas of life with a sociopath, that we are so numbed that we don’t realize the parts of ourselves that fall by the wayside.
That’s how I know your answer. yes. YES! You DO get that list back and it matters even MORE because you realize the bigger value of it. And you NEVER let anyone take that part of yourself away EVER again.
ps. I used to have to write things down, such as what makes me happy, because when I was “lost”, I could not for the life of me, remember what made me happy. Maybe you could sit in a lovely garden spot and try to recall what USED to be your list and write it down? Search the woman you were BEFORE and connect to her. She’s still there, inside you. I know it because you are here and you still have your beautiful heart.
Ironic, I hope you (and everyone else) feels free to read and comment on everything I write. I hate to bother other people with my problems!! and feel like I’m sort of “dumping them” by telling others about them — so typically address a response to whoever has asked — but that’s an attempt to keep from burdening others such as yourself and not by way of excluding anyone from the conversation.
I’ve received an awful lot of PRO energies from everyone here, especially the exchanges of comfort and encouragement that read as though they’ve been written by the closest of longtime friends. 🙂
Oops, that should have been directed to “NotWhatHeSaidOfMe” which btw is a great name, because I’m not either. 🙂 But it was really for everyone.
Kindred spirits, NoContact. We are all Kindred spirits.
NoContact
You are NOT bothering others with your problems (but I understand the feeling, it comes from being constantly invalidated, diminished, and NOT allowed feelings by our abusers.)
I also meant to say (where is the edit button?) that when others write their problems, I don’t feel so alone. We write such similar histories. And people say what I am thinking! I am so Happy to connect with others who understand that We are NOT the crazy ones!(even if I find myself feeling upside down sometimes!)
Thanks, NotWhatHeSaidOfMe, and maybe that’s the scariest part of these stories: spaths tend to escalate into more and more twisted versions of themselves, as opposed to healing into “normals.”
Nocontact
You warm my heart with your posts regardless of who you direct them too. I think we all do and feel the same. We are one big loyal family in LF ♥
ironic-
Life’s a voyage, not a harbor.
The list that made sense to you before, may not make sense for you today. Focus on what gives meaning to your life here, now, and in the future.
It’s good that you know you must force yourself back out into the world. There is no comfort in dwelling on the past, but there is a period we all go through in which that is all we feel capable of doing. It is part of the grief process. We lost what we believed to be our future and we must grieve its loss before we can think about establishing a new one.
Wishing you the best!
Joyce
Thanks Joyce
I’m not dwelling any longer. I found it easy to get things done today and have only just given thought to what my ex spath is up to and I’m now getting ready for bed. Yippee! I’ll keep your thoughts in mind when I’m having my coffee tomorrow morning, I’ll ponder what’s important to me now – thanks again x
Hoping
Thank you I thought this list describes them so perfectly. I think they are pure evil. That’s why I don’t email, message or talk to my ex. I do not communicate with the devil.
I truly believe in “ignore the devil and he will go away. “
My therapist always said “he should not do the things he would do if you were next to him”. My ex exchanging nude pictures with the coworker is definitely adultery. Of course they proceeded to having a sexual relationship. But long before that he was obsessed with porn. Often I caught him in the middle of the night looking at porn on the computer. His profiles on cheating websites. All that is so disrespectful to the wife. Not only are they cheaters, they wear the hat of a liar. I think they are weak and have no self worth. Selfish cowards.
I know as a Christian I am suppose to forgive and honestly I have a problem with doing so.
Kaya,
Has he asked for forgiveness and has he repented/changed his behavior? I am aware that there are a lot of definitions of forgiveness.
My understanding of the Biblical paradigm is that to forgive someone who has wronged you is to give up the right to retribution; and that forgiveness is only possible if the person who sinned against you changes his behavior and wants forgiveness. What point is there in forgiveness if your ex continues to commit sexual sin and continues to ignore your son and continues to lie? Forgiving him isn’t going to repair the relationship (whether you are married or divorced from him) because you can forgive and the next minute he’s still doing the same sins.
What I try to apply to my life is turning the person who sinned against me over to God for justice when there is nothing I can do to repair the relationship; in the spirit of Romans 12:19,Hebrews 10:30, Deuteronomy 32:35, all of which repeat God’s instruction, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” God promises to punish appropriately and righteously in His time, and that frees us from the burden of carrying the negativity in our hearts. God promises us justice but we must be patient for it since only He knows what is best for the perpetrator.
AnnettePk
I am so grateful for this post that gives Bible context to what I have chosen to do. I prayed and prayed to God about what to do with my feelings that I could not process, that I was unable to forgive as others insisted I do. What I chose to do was give to God that which I did not have the strength to do, I released it to God. In doing so, I let go of my burden and focused on my healing.
As you write, and I believe as well, God knows what is best for the perpetrator. I do not have the need to know when my ex and his mother receives justice for his abuse of my child, I trust God.
I don’t define forgiveness as the same as letting go. When spaths ask for forgiveness they are usually really asking us to approve their behaviors and to somehow mitigate the natural consequences of their choices, which is another way they mess with their victim’s minds. Sadly, when others encourage us to forgive, they wrongly assume that the spath didn’t really mean to do what he did and that the spath isn’t still doing it.
I have to remind myself daily to turn vengeance over to God. My natural inclination is to take matters into my own hands.
AnnettePK
That is perfect. I took a screen shot of that line and I’ll use it to remind me daily!
“I have to remind myself daily to turn vengeance over to God!”
Thanks for reminding me ♥
I beg anyone reading this to not hold onto your unforgiveness and bitterness. It will do absolutely nothing to the offender. It will eat you alive and destroy you though.
Forgiveness rly has nothing to do with the offender. It is about you. Vindictiveness is not a human burden. We take it on and it crushes us. The offender is not our worry. He doesn’t matter in this.
It’s about you. For your peace, forgive.
…forgiveness does not mean ever even speaking to him or her again… But if you did, it would not bother you. You’d be free 🙂
Ain’t, I thank you for that reminder.
Aint
I thought I’d just add that forgiveness doesn’t mean you condone. Forgiveness can also come in the form of forgiving their soul for choosing this path while you don’t acknowledge their human form…this is easy for me to do.
Forgiveness is a release of the dis-ease that will cause disease if it is carried too long.
Kaya-
Something strange happened in my reply, and I can’t even get into it to edit it….. so I thought I’d just start again.
What happened to us is personal so we take it personally. That’s a perfectly normal reaction. I loved your comment about giving it up to God…. and see that act as a form of forgiveness.
Normally, we see forgiveness as an act we bestow on another, but that is not its only form. The forgiveness we can all achieve that may give us greater peace is more like “recognition.” We can recognize that the offender is who they are, and they would be that way to anyone, not just us. When we are still ruminating over the “he said-she said” of it, we have yet to achieve the perspective and distance that enables us to comprehend that the problem wasn’t anything that the predator led us to believe it was, it was simply that they are morally disordered.
The other form of forgiveness is the recognition that they targeted us because we are caring people with a code of loyalty toward our loved ones. In other words, we are targeted because of the good that exists within us. When we can embrace that recognition, we can forgive ourselves for falling victim, and set ourselves free of self loathing.
Doing so will enable us to regain our self worth. Then we can grieve our losses and set ourselves back onto a joyous and productive path.
Joyce
Joyce
Joyce
I wish you were my mother ♥
I will cherish that comment. Thank you!
Hugs!
Joyce
kaya-
What happened to you is personal, so you take it personally. But t
Nocontact
I’ve just read your post regarding the change you’ve made today and I’m so TOTALLY happy for you. As for the circumstances surrounding the OW (haha just worked out what that meant….) I agree with AnnettePK its your story and I remember reading somewhere that we were deceived, we couldn’t be blamed for the decisions we made because we wouldn’t have made them based on the truth. So I applaud your honesty! We all know the value of the truth and wish more people spoke it.
I cringe at some of my truths like why was I so hurt that my spath moved on so quickly when I should be horrified and disgusted at the reality of his child sexual assult of my daughter! God I’m so disappointed in myself!
Ironic,
Happy Sunday to you. You are another of my blessings.
Maybe you didn’t realize it, but you do see that you have a conscience, empathy, pain for your daughter? Surely you know that Maya Angelou saying, “when you know better, you do better?”. It’s what I think of when I cringe at some of my decisions… that had I been allowed certain info or answers, I would have made a different decision.
I understand that you feel bad (I actually can imagine just how bad you feel, sadly too easily imagine it), but I hope you can be compassionate towards yourself, that you would never have tolerated pedophilia had you known. You were deceived by the great deceiver. I know my ex used my daughter to destroy me. He knew that was the greatest pain a mom can suffer;I hate what my ex did to me, but I agonize over what he did to my beautiful trusting child.
Please take care. It’s Sunday and I reserve the day for my faith and if it’s okay with you, I include you and your daughter in my prayers.
Not
Thanks for your compassion and words of discouragement, they work for me! I too have everyone from LF in my prayers ♥
Ironic and Not-
The chemistry of romantic love can blind us. Mother nature planted powerful chemicals in our brain whose function is to cleave us to our lover. When people say, “love is blind,” they are correct. It is the normal functioning of our brain. In order to commit us to a relationship, we must be chemically induced to overlook their flaws. That’s one of oxytocin’s roles.
Perhaps if you thought about this backwards, you could see how impossible it would be for us to be otherwise. Can you imagine being immediately, continuously and readily suspicious of the person you were in love with? By the time you can admit to yourself that something is amiss, you would have to be exposed to a lover’s bad behavior over a significant portion of time, or have received a significant betrayal…. or both.
If you feel that there is a divide with your daughter because you hadn’t been responsive over her situation, it might help for you to research more about how the brain works in romantic love, and reach out to her with a sincere and knowledgeable apology.
Joyce
Jm_Short
I have researched many theories about the disordered. And I assure you that my daughter is my dearest heart. I have not held back at all trying to find the divide between us. You didn’t ask but to let you know, I have done everything, from every perspective to reach her and make amends for her. I’m sorry what whatever I’ve done to lead you to think I would ever do less to the most important person in my life. and Yes, she is more important to me, than me. Always has been, always will be.
Not, I’ve read kaya’s old posts longingly, wishing I had the same relationship w/my daughters that she’s managed to achieve with her own adult son. Instead (while they are both loving to me, and kind as they can be), our relationships will never be the same now that their father has “come out” as a spath and hurt them. The topic of their father is off-limits in every way, and if I raise it I can count on a stormy session (I don’t want to talk about it!) or just being cut-off altogether, with a new topic raised and the subject ignored.
I think that part of being anti-social is being able to destroy others’ relationships, with themselves and between meaningful others in their lives (like daughters and mothers, former friends and/or employers), as though trashing their own connections was not enough to satisfy their sadistic selves.
I will pray for both of us! that in the future, our daughters will See more clearly, and evolve whatever inner characteristics are necessary for us to resume the relationships we deserve as mothers, and that they deserve to have with us, as our children. Until that occurs, I’ll consider both my daughters as additional (and totally involuntary) victims of the man I chose to marry. The fact I exposed them to this damage has been — of course — the worst part.
Hang in there! xox
NoContact
Yes, you seem to know my innermost heartache.
It has nothing to do with Oxytocin and everything to do with a predatory sociopath who was so full of rage and envy when he realized that I loved my beautiful little girl, which felt like loss to him so he had to destroy her in order to punish me for loving her. There is no “LOSS” for him, he only WINS. He is the very personification of EVIL.
Joyce
I’ve apologised several times to her but after reading the email with this post, I went and made sure she could feel the depth of my guilt over what had happened to her.
Thanks again as it felt like the beginning of a healing for both of us. X
Ironic, spaths groom their victims and hypnotize them. Your ex may have done a lot of preliminary set up work messing with your mind before the sexual abuse, so that you’re in a fog in many ways and less likely able to respond in the way you normally would. They train us in many ways to accept the horrible things they do as ok and normal. As you get farther out and have time to think and reframe some of your experiences with him in a new light, you may start to see things he was doing along this line.
When you blame yourself for your responses, consider there is a big difference between a good husband and father who fulfills his role of providing and protecting his family and doing all he can to facilitate conditions for his wife to be the best mother and wife that she can be, and for his children to grow spiritually, emotionally and physically into adulthood in the best way they can; and what spaths do to our lives and our families. Not to blame the spaths for our choices, but consider that they are trying to make it very difficult for us to exercise good judgement and good character. They want to bring us down to their level in every way, and use us, fight with us/against us (same thing to them) forever. That’s what they do with other people.
“They train us in many ways to accept the horrible things they do as ok and normal.” Yes, this is so true! My ex would do mean and hurtful things, reduce me to tears and then comfort me, telling me that he always had my best interests at heart and to trust him, he had an ultimate plan for me.
He sure did.
He also told me that the men who had been in my life before him didn’t truly care about me, or they would have spoken up and corrected me, etc. like he did. In other words, telling me that he abused me because he truly cared for me. This seems so blatant now, but when they have you in that fog, under their spell, you can’t see the forest for the trees.
So, so evil.
The two behaviors you describe are typical abusers tactics. My ex did the abuse and then comfort Stockholm thing until I recognized it was a deliberate pattern of behavior. For the longest time, I thought he was coming to his senses about abusing me and making amends. Turned out it was a game.
Telling victims that they are being abusive to help you is also typical.
FOG – Fear Obligation Guilt – the spaths keep us in it because it keeps us under their control and under their spell.
AnnettePK
I’m totally understanding all that everyone is explaining about their behavior but my conscience won’t come to the party!
The same thing happened today. A lady was very rude to me and when I pointed out that I’d done nothing to warrant her stern reaction she accused me of threatening her…WTF? I haven’t responded because I either shaking my head or wanting to let her have a piece of my mind a ll while I questioned whether she had a point…nuts!
Whatever the rude in public person’s issues are, they have nothing to do with you and everything to do with her – her life, her experiences, who she is, whether she’s being abused by someone, whether she abuses everyone she can, whatever.
Your response is a reflection of who you are and the experiences you bring. It was an opportunity for you to notice how much you were questioning your perception and your right to be treated respectfully. I went through many similar doubting moments, still do from time to time, before getting my bearings with respect to reality a bit more. I was and still am over sensitive to anyone treating me badly; it’s difficult to let it go as it brings up being abused by the spath. I think the whole world is pretty much insane these days, there don’t seem to be many reference points of what is normal and sane and right anywhere.
As a practical matter, sometimes it’s best to ignore rude people’s rudeness and approach them from another angle, ie can I help him/her with something, or talk about something else, ask a question. Without losing sight of the fact that he/she was out of line and that I have a right to be treated better, and I would not choose this person as a friend.
AnnettePK
Being oversensitive at the moment sure makes sense to me. This information I’ll take into my day and maybe just give them my old self instead. There was a time when I’d react with the benefit of the doubt, I’d never just immediately assume an attitude had anything to do with me and I’d react with a kindness like, is everything ok sweetie, or something like that. Boy I miss that person but you reminded me of her and I’m sure I can work towards her again xxx
Ironic, I am your Not-At-All-Secret Admirer!! thank you for your words of kindness. xox
Nocontact
♥aww ditto!♥
Annette
Thank you for your wise words. No he has not asked for forgiveness , he is an atheist. Like you, I have everything to god.
I am my sure if I can forgive the ex but I am working on it. He will never be a part of my life again, I know that. I forgave myself for allowing what he did to me.
And yes is still lives in sin. His attorney once sent a letter to my attorney saying “my client did not have sexual relationships with the co workers until your client filed for divorce”. Hello, we were still married and the divorce is not final. Probably at the end if this months it will be finalized.
Annette, my son and I wee baptized in 2012. After that day “all hell broke lose ” with the ex. That is when he went totally over the edge. Do you think our baptism had anything to do with this ?
Forgiving yourself is an important step towards peace; a lot of us have difficulty in doing that.
On one level your ex may have felt threatened by your commitment to God and Baptism, and reacted accordingly.
On another level, I believe in the very real spirit world as described in the Bible. It is my understanding and experience that when someone commits him/herself to God and is baptized, intense trials begin to happen as Satan and the demons go after those who are trying to live God’s way. Satan doesn’t need to bother people who are already living a life full of sin apart from God; he’s already got them doing what he wants them to do. It sounds like Satan was enraged with you and your son. Revelation 12:17 describes Satan’s wrath at the Church (woman) and his determination to fight Christians.
As described all through the NT, especially in Paul’s letters, God allows trials in order to test us to strengthen our faith. He promises not to allow us to be tested beyond what we can endure, and He promises to make a way of escape. He also promises that all things (including trials) work towards ultimate good in the lives of believers.
I was baptized twice for various reasons. The first time, others in the church warned me, “Watch out, when you get baptized Satan really comes after you.” I didn’t experience it then, but the second time I was baptized, which was the ‘real’ valid baptism, the spath began targeting me within a couple of months from in that very Church. I learned many spiritual lessons from that trial; I now understand some of the reasons God allowed it.
Wow
Annette, your words are so true. I appreciate the explanation from a biblical standpoint. It all makes sense to me now.
Yes, my ex did the same. Whenever I caught him, he twisted and turned , at the end I was the one who apologized. Deep inside he was probably laughing and thinking “wow what an idiot wife she is, apologizing for my cheating, ha”.
And yes, I forgave myself a long time ago for his abuse. He was and is a weak coward, who has so many inner demons to battle. I hope his new minion can help him with that. But then all he cares about his sex, porn, and admiration. What a sad world for someone to live in. But he created it.
Thanks again Annette. I truly think god have me this trial to make me stronger in my faith. Which it did.