Editor’s Note: Lovefraud received the following email from a reader called “Adelade.” Her previous post is “This is the time for me to learn who I am.”
I’m having a really tough time, these days. The divorce hearing is coming down to the wire, and I am very fearful that the sociopath ex-husband is going to walk away from his crimes, unscathed.
Last week, I had a discussion with someone whose husband is an attorney. She works in his office whenever she can to help him with his busy practice. We were discussing the facts of my divorce, and she said several things that caused a mild onset of anxiety, but I began to cogitate about the US and State legal systems that have not been overhauled in 200 years. This woman was so compassionate about my situation, but also for those who are suffering through no fault of their own. Yet, her observations on our Legal System were alarming and absolutely factual.
I’m also in a space where I am looking at a loss of health benefits and I have a medical condition that requires close and constant medical supervision. Like most victims and survivors of domestic violence and abuse (OR, sociopath exposure), I have an auto-immune disease and I’m having a difficult time managing it. What am I going to do about my health needs once the divorce is final and I won’t have his benefits to rely upon, anymore? How the heck am I going to afford health care, at all?
How is it that I even continue living and fighting to get myself through this? I have moments (sometimes, several a day) when closing my eyes and just not waking up seems reasonable and almost inviting. To just end this looping emotional turmoil and physical struggle just seems to be the best option available. No, I’m not suicidal in the sense that I would actively end my own life. But, not wanting to live is a visceral, real feeling, sometimes.
Discovery
Several months ago, the marriage ended when I discovered what my spouse truly was. The moment that I made this discovery, I knew that there would be no mending of this union – one cannot live a sexually deviant double-life for over 15 years and expect their partner to give them “another chance” to make it right. They just can’t. Of course, they DO, but it’s outrageous that they would. Once trust is shattered, it cannot be put back together, again, in any form resembling what had previously existed. And, the “worm” was aware that I would never tolerate deception, violence, or infidelities, under any circumstances, yet he hid vile aspects of his interests from everyone, even before we ever met.
Subsequent to the end of our marriage, I discovered exactly how much of a sociopath the “worm” truly was. He had relieved me of over $250K through manipulations and outright forgeries. The forgeries, alone, amount to a Federal crime, and the “worm” looks to be walking away from his crimes without facing anything more severe than having a Family Court Judge wag his finger in his face and tell him what a naughty boy he is to have done something so heinous.
No easy way
Factor these ingredients into the roiling emotional cauldron of Sociopathy Stew, and it’s no wonder that I sometimes wish to just cease to breathe. We all feel this way, at some point during our post-sociopath experiences. I’m in the midst of an emotional de-briefing that is often too much to manage, and there’s no way to get around it. There’s no shortcut to healing. There is certainly no Magic Pill that will teleport me to the other side of this living hell. There are few people (outside of LF and counseling therapy) who are able to “get it” and will tolerate my rants, raves, fears, self-pity, and despair with understanding, support, and encouragement. There is no easy way to get through these experiences. There just isn’t. And, dammit, I am angry about that, as well – WHY is this pain, defeat, and despair so daggoned complete?
Well, it just is, that’s all. I am only human. I am not omniscient. I am not clairvoyant. I do not have the ability to direct other people’s actions and decisions. I do not know everything. I do not have the answers for everything. I do not have the ability to exact true Justice where it needs to go. I do not have control over the past OR the future. I am not a god, demi-god, or even a Priestess. I am a simple human being experiencing an ugly aspect of the Human Condition, and I have got to get over myself and my self-pity, yesterday.
Recognizing my helplessness where “woulda, shoulda, coulda” is concerned may be academic, but I just need to connect the facts with how I feel. The only way for me to do that is to feel the pain on a physical level – you know, that kind of crying that actually makes your chest hurt and your breath stop? I need to feel that anger on a physical level – screaming, punching a pillow, breaking things, or something. I’m afraid to feel these things because I’m afraid that the physical pain and exertion is going to cause a heart attack. I’m afraid to let these feelings go on a physical level because I’m afraid that I’ll cause hemorrhaging in my eyes if I scream the way that I need to and really WANT to. I’m afraid that if I let go of these feelings, I won’t be coming back.
Punch my way through
What’s the solution to this? To simply stop breathing would make all of this just end. Quietly. Without any fanfare, tantrums, or unrealistic fears. But, I don’t believe that rolling over and giving up is what I’m supposed to do in this lifetime. For whatever reason, I’ve experienced these things and I have to punch my way through all of these experiences, from childhood to the present, and “do something” productive. I don’t know what it is, yet, but I have to believe that there is a reason for all things. And, I hate having had these experiences more than I can begin to articulate. I hate it. But, Life ain’t Fair, and that’s the truth of the matter. Getting on with the process of living – not simply existing, but truly living – is a moral imperative. If for no other reason, I want to see my way through this so that I can glimpse what it is that I am supposed to have accomplished. Maybe, I will have the opportunity to see whatever it is completed. But, whatever it is, I have to make my opportunities happen instead of waiting for them to drop out of the sky, or for other people to present me with them.
I have learned one valuable thing, so far, and that is that I cannot, should not, and will not rely upon other people to push me in the right direction, ever again. I will not rely upon someone else to make me feel complete, approved of, accepted, or valuable. I am complete. I approve of myself AND my myriad mistakes. I accept myself. I am valuable. And, I can push, shove, and claw my way through this and get through the other side of Hell in very good order with some very valuable knowledge.
Thank you all at LoveFraud.com. Thank you for your honesty, candid recollections, priceless insight, and precious support and encouragement. Thank you, Donna Andersen, for turning something horrible into something wonderful – for NOT laying down and giving up and being an inspiration to me to push through this terrible angst.
Darwinsmom, I don’t know how I’m viewing the lifestyle – what I believed to have existed were trust and honesty. I trusted the exspath because he told me over, and over, “I’m NOT your EX!” I believed that he was honest because he would “do things” to prove what an honest, upright guy he was: turning in cash gifts to internal affairs, refusing to stretch the truth (lie) for an insurance claim, etc., etc.
The metaphorical car DOES have a pricetag for me – an emotional price that I’m prepared to trade in, so to speak. For me, it means that I’m prepared to recognize what happened, how I allowed it to happen, and to pay that price to see that it never happens, again.
And….when they were handing out the “Handbook Of Life,” an entire chapter was missing about why life is so stinking complicated! 😀 You know, I think that cavemen had it squared away: you hunt, you eat, you sleep, you reproduce, and you work as a team for the betterment of the group. There wasn’t time to develop elaborate machinations because life was too short, too precious, and too precarious!
The pricetag is the path of healing, and that can be very painful, there is no doubt about that.
As for the cavemen… They had little or no epidemic diseases, joined in at gathering and hunting only from a skilled age (around 16-17), and were as tall as the people of the 2nd half of the 20th century because they had the richest diet, and a lot of leasure time. Life expectancy only lowered with the coming of agriculture and children became part of the workforce and diet was monotonous. And as the reference about the Inuit indicates… they too knew of sociopaths.
Life does knock us about, doesn’t it? If it isn’t a spath, it’s an accident, or a close loved one dying from cancer, etc… Just this weekend I learned that one of the birthday partiers was recently diagnozed with cancer on his arm muscle. The operation went well and it hadn’t spread yet, and he’s lucky the tumor wasn’t so big they had to amputate his arm. He’s 35, conquered coke addiction several years ago, and the bf of a very good friend of mine. She lost her mother last year to cancer, and had started a company with him, which is going well, but they had decided to wait with health insurance…
What I learned with the spath experience and the aftermath is that it NEVER ends. When the man, who now helped me heal my perception of damaged goods with regards to intimacy, broke up with me 11 years ago I ended up in an existential crisis that lasted for months. I was even pre-suicidal. I fought my way out of the pit and rebuilt my life into something that made sense to me, which made me happy. The last thing I expected was that some spath could have such an impact on my life that it would be destroyed again, if it was the right life for me. I thought ten years ago that if I made the right choices in my life, my ‘calling’ that it could never be destroyed, that I’d never end up in a hole and feel like a loser again. I was wrong. I joked at first when I started to pick up myself and the pieces again, “Will I have to do this again by next decade? And again? And again?” Now, I realize that nothing is sure, and that yes in another decade I may fall to pieces again and have a mental breakdown and horrible pain for the losses in my life. It is’t fair. The only thing I can be sure about is that the previous experiences were a worthwhile training in “picking up the pieces of myself again and putting myself together again in a way that will make sense to me then.”