UPDATED FOR 2021: On this Valentines Day, if you’ve been previously devastated by a sociopath, you may wonder if you can ever love again. The answer is yes. And here’s a bit of wisdom that will help you decide if a new romantic partner is authentic and true: Real love is easy.
I am living proof. In February 2000, I was divorced from James Montgomery, who took a quarter of a million dollars from me, cheated throughout our brief two-and-a-half-year relationship, had a child with another woman while married to me, and then married that woman 10 days after I left him, committing bigamy. I was crushed.
After I left Montgomery, I had one nice relationship with a man, although it didn’t turn out to be permanent. He was normal, not disordered, and supportive of me. I was sad when the relationship ended, but it was a step along my path towards healing.
Then, in April 2001, I met Terry Kelly. We married in 2005 and yesterday we celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary. The photo is a picture of the art glass heart that my husband gave me. It’s another one for my collection — I have art glass hearts all over the house.
After 16 years, we are still totally happy and in love. From our wonderful marriage I’ve learned the important truth: Real love is easy.
Signs of real love
In real love, there are no mind games. There is no manipulation. There are no guilt-producing accusations like, “Don’t you trust me?” or “Who are you sleeping with?” There is no pleading to be forgiven, no promises to never do it again, because there are no violations of trust that require forgiveness.
I do not wonder if my husband really loves me, because I know he does. I can feel it.
Here’s what you get in a true, loving relationship: Enjoyment of each other’s company. Honest caring for each other. Consideration of each other’s feelings. Real partnership—not a one-sided deal, with you as the giver and the other as the taker.
Sure, there problems that need to be solved. Guess what? Issues are resolved and life goes on. There is no drama.
I will say this—after the disaster of a marriage to a sociopath, I am highly appreciative of my new husband. He, too, was previously married, and although his ex wasn’t malicious, the relationship had become empty. So we both appreciate each other. In fact, we find joy in each other.
Making the transition
So how does this happen? How do you make the transition from wounded victim to a whole person ready for love?
As I’ve written before, I believe your emotional pain needs to be processed. When my heart was broken, it allowed all the trauma from my bad marriage, and all the pent-up pain from other disappointments in my life, to be released. Slowly, over time, it came flowing out, through tears, yelling, screaming and punching pillows.
You don’t want to inflict this display on other people—my releases were witnessed only by my therapist and my dog. And they really upset the dog.
The emotional release takes time, because we all have many layers of pain. But as the negative energy dissipates, there is room in your being for something else. That something else is love.
So if you’re in recovery after a run-in with a sociopath, give yourself time and permission to heal. Trust that you’ve learned the red flags of personality disorders, and by listening to your instincts, you won’t be deceived again. Believe that real love is possible, know that real love is easy, and someday, it will find you.
When you feel the snap, it’s time to escape the toxic relationship
Aloha,
Humans are gregarious (herd) animals. I have noticed that even with my cows, each one has a “favorite” friend, and prefers her own offspring, even her adult offspring, to others.
If a cow is deprived of her favorites or her offspring she will “become friends” with just ANY cow (as long as that cow is not abusive and they generally aren’t)
I notice with myself sometimes if I am feeling the need for human interaction, I will start down a list of preferred people, and if they are not available I may get down to the “bottom” of the list of people that are “Okay” but not my “preferred” company, just to be with another human.
I am needing that less and less, though, as I am becoming more comfortable in my OWN SKIN and my own company. I’m not as needy for “just any human”—and of course there are those Ps that I would rather be in solitary confinement for the rest of my life than even see their ugly faces. LOL Looking back at them now it is so difficult for me to remember why I CRAVED their company, felt I could’t live without it, that they FILLED my life–yea, with pain!
I look back at the cow, long gone, named Gina that was a dominant cow, larger than the others, and she was ABUSIVE with her dominance, which cows usually aren’t. She would take her long horns and painfully hook another cow just for the heck of it, just to hurt it for no “reason” that any one could see, it wasn’t about dominance for feed or space, she would go out of her way to hook another cow just because she couldl.
Eventually 3 of the other cows ganged up on her and whipped her to a fair-thee-well, I thought they might kill her, but after that she was the OUTCAST of the herd, having no friends to groom her, and the only other animal in the herd that would associate with her (except the bull of course and then only when she was in heat) were her own offspring. It was actually pitiful to see her play with her calf like a “friend”—to watch her lie out to the side of the herd when everyone else was contentedly lying in the shade chewing their cuds and doing whatever cows do when they congregate like that in contentment.
All but one of her calves was aggressive with humans, and I still have that beautiful sweet baby who is now a beautiful magnificant cow that is very social to other cows and to people as well.
I think the Ps will eventually do the same thing with their lives, they will abuse others until some day, some way, they lose it ALL and they are alone not only with no one to love them but no one that they can abuse either. How pitiful is a P without a victim! LOL They are LOST and don’t know what to do with themselves.
Oxy, it’s instinct. And I gotta say, when you throw in the ability to reason that humans have, sometimes the animals have the advantage (pointing the finger at myself too). My dog didn’t even like him, I should have taken her cue.
They’ll find someone to feed off of, they’re just like buzzards.
Benz
Dear Donna, Thank you for sharing your story and the beautiful photo. I would like to express my appreciation for your great work, creating this site, educating the public, and giving us a hope for the future.
HoneyBearII, your story is so inspiring. My mother has been married to my narcissistic father for 40+ years, but she has no clue about this disorder. When I told her about it, she accused me of labeling my own father as a disordered person. I do not think she would admit it. I wish she had courage to leave my father at some point of her life.
When we had courage to face the reality and we are determined to heal and grow, a miracle happen, I think.
As for love, now I have a different kind of love. A puppy came to my place two months ago. Since then, I am in love with her. This is not a fake. She helped my recovery tremendously. I just did not have time to think about my ex p at all. She somehow liked to pee and poop (sorry!) on an expensive wool rug my ex p left in my place. I could not throw it away, because it was too nice. But she completely trashed it!! So it is gone now, out of my sight, thanks to my puppy!!
I have been having bad days lately because I realized that I now have some health problems due to emotional distress.
However, for the first time in my life, I feel content. I do not need anyone to make me happy.
Dear Chaos,
YOur puppy KNOWS! GOOD FOR HER! She knows instinctively where to put the stuff! Right on anything that belonged to HIM! Good dog, give her a bone for me!!! LOL
Yea, Benz, I think sometimes animals do have the advantage over our “superior” minds! LOL It is interesting to me though to see the generational interactions between the animals and their offspring-2-3-4 generations down the road and to see the “family traits” that are passed on from mother to baby. Even if the babies are half sibs (as they usually are since I only kept one bull) you can see the mother’s influence on the calf and when you go to halter break them, they are very much like their mother’s were at that age, some very gentle and some that will kick at you for what seems like “forever”–some you “kickk back” and some you just ignore the kick and pretend it didn’t happen.
When I moved back here after being gone for years and years, I could see a kid that Iknew I couldn’t possibly know, but I could tell by how he acted, and his facial features which local “family” he belonged to. The actions and face might not be the same as the last name because it was his mother’s family he resembled, but I could pick out the different “families” by the offspring even though I had been gone for 30 plus years and maybe I didn’t even know the parents, just the grandparents.
The families we called “trash” then are still pretty much the same today, drinking, drugging, beating their wives, stealing, etc. or “solid citizens”—the funny thing though is that many of the people you would EXPECT to be trash are not–they are poor, uneducated, not really bright, but they are the rock solid people that are GOOD people and some of the more well-to-do people are the ones that are still TRASH, and unfortunately there are those like my family that APPEAR on the surface to be “upstanding folks” and in actual fact, are anything BUT “upstanding.” They just MASK IT.
Most of the time in a community like this you can know who is who witout a score card, but there are those folks that are TOXIC like my mother, who reserve their venom for the SELECT FEW closest to them…deliberately hiding their fangs behind the benign face they show to the public.
I had no problem finally in acccepting that my P-son is a monster, just like my P-bio-father, but I bought the MASK as the person of my mother even though I had SEEN the fangs. Now I know that the FANGS are the REAL person and the benign “saintly woman” is the MASK. That was really hard to accept about one’s mother, more so than about one’s child even. Acknowledging just how twisted and dysfunctional my upbringing was (though I did have a wonderful step father) is almost like denying my entire life’s ideas of “truth” and starting over from scratch.
Yet, at the same time, my whole life I have somehow felt inside my gut that “something wasn’t right”—and then my mother would tell me that I had the wrong “truth” and I would try again to twist my own reality to fit hers, without a lot of success. Now that I am out of the FOG, though, I can SEE that I was “right all along” there was something very “rotten in Denmark.” (EnnLondon, I don’t know where that phrase came from either. LOL)
Now all I have to do is clean up the mess and move on. I’m getting there, but there are still a few emotional pot holes on the road. LOL
OXY THAT IS A VERY GOOD POST. I have been living with and surrounded by predator’s my whole life. It took this latest bout with evil, to open my eye’s and become aware that they are what they are. They feed off of our soul’s because they don’t have one. They break your spirit, they turn off the bright light. They do this for a reason. They take and take and take and never give anything back, when you are broken down and of no use to even yourself, they flee…Yes I realize I am a target, but thanks to this website (thank you Donna) and me educating myself on personality disorder’s will save me from ever doing this again. I am finding my spirit, I am looking forward to tomorrow again.
Dear Henry, When we piece the PsNsSs in the context of our lives, and hold that up as a barometer against our other relationships, we realise where we were in the dark, so to speak. I realise how naieve I really was. I was telling a friend last night, about some of his childish antics, before I finished the sentence she gave the diagnosis ‘he was rubbing your nose in it and getting off on it’. True, but at the time I did not see that at all, because I dont play mind games. The one great thing the experience taught me, is how much I have been manipulated by other people in the most subtle ways. Like you, Henry, I am much more switched on these days. Thanks you for your words of support.
Dear OxyD. I have lived in lots of different places, and wealth and status do not guarantee the quality of the persona. I lived in a well to do area, where when people get angry, they do it so politely, usually throw the weight of their connections behind their threats. Im going off camping for a few days on ‘no mans land’ – and thank you so much OxyD for your support. (((hugs))) and God bless.
Oxy,
Not to sound like a literary snob, cause I’m not, but the quote..”Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”..is from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Kathy, (rest in peace, love. We miss you so much) was constantly quoting Hamlet in her posts. Hamlet was dealing with some troubling situations in his life, as his stepfather murdered his beloved father and was now sleeping with his mother, the Queen. His stepfather was the classic manipulative, cunning, covetous psychopath and Hamlet was torn between whether to kill the man outright or to wait until he acquired evidence to oust him to the kingdom, hence…”to be or not to be”…
I’m a big time lover of Shakespeare. Not only are his beautiful plays and sonnets timeless and can be continually performed even to suit “modern” times, but his birthday is the day before mine!…haha. How cool is that!
Bev, sweets, I so agree with you about rich people. Yeah, I’m not going to generalize, but the one’s I’ve met had this annoying, irritating sense of entitlement that drove me bonkers! So true that money can’t by class, honor, dignity, ethics, and all the other admirable qualities that make us exceptional human beings.
Have a blast hangin in nature, celebrating your serenity, peace, and love for yourself. You deserve it, you lovely woman! ****hug****
Dear JaneSmith. Well Ive packed up my car and will set off tomorrow morning. I will miss you JS, I will miss reading your posts and I will miss all the ‘gang’ here. When I read your posts JS, I have this ‘sense’ that you have a noble and articulate way of expression. (((Hugs and Love)))
Dear JaneSmith,
Thank you for reminding me where that came from! I love Hamlet! It is a great play! But with my CRS (Can’t remember Chit!) I have trouble remembering quotes from the Bible, quotes from many other places too.
I even have word finding difficulties, and almost stutter if I am under the least bit of stress with a conversation. My psychiatrist says it is from the PTSD from when my husband was killed here at our airport in an accident, and that the stress of all the other “events” over the past 4 years on top of that has added to it. I got so worried I had my therapist administer an IQ test cause I felt like I was really not able to depend on my brain any more. I scored where I always score, actually 1 point higher than I’ve ever scored—so my brain is working, it just doesn’t seem to be hooked up to my mouth—DUH! Boy that is a true one! ha ha Or, in this case, to my fingers.