UPDATED FOR 2024. Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following e-mail from a woman who we’ll call, “Cybil.” She was married to a sociopath, and is now raising two toddlers, paying 75% or more of their support, and being run into the courts, stalked, threatened and harassed.
Today I was thinking about this comment I get a lot from the supposed “resources” I have. What I have found is that there really is not much in the way for resources out there for abused women. Even my family, who have been helpful and are starting to “get it” little by little, can be a little backhanded in their support.
The comment goes like this: “Well, you chose this guy. You chose to have kids with this guy.” It is always said after they are frustrated at your upset or stress, or after they have gotten stressed, or when they realize they really can’t help you. I guess it’s a kind of guilt deflector. A way of saying, ultimately it’s your own damn fault so take the drama somewhere else. Even if the drama is externally created and you’re trying your best to have the boring, drama-free life that is SO attractive now. I would love boring.
I did not choose this guy
The thing is, I didn’t “choose” this guy. He chose me. I chose a different guy, the one he was pretending to be. Yes, maybe I got involved too quickly. They are good at moving things along. So yes, I made a bad decision. It’s true. I would undo it if I could. Some people make hasty relationship decisions and have it all work out fine, like my parents did.
But is that one bad decision I made as bad as all the things he has done: the emotional and physical abuse, the con, the isolation, the crazymaking, the fact that I had to give up a great career, my life savings, my car, the fact that I am being run into court on an almost monthly basis, the fact that my good reputation is now sullied with the lies he tells.
No, I didn’t choose this. I was smart, successful, maybe a little vulnerable, but not stupid. And I was nice. That’s why he chose me. That’s what people don’t get. I am not this psycho-bitch he keeps telling people I am. If I was, he would have moved on to an easier mark. The reality is that I was a semi-Pollyanna, who believed in helping people, giving the benefit of the doubt, being NICE.
Only a little bit my fault
So, no this is not my fault. This incredible nightmare that has become my life since I met this man, is not entirely my fault. It is a little bit my fault. I am more cautious now. But his behavior is not my responsibility, as awful as it is. And nothing I did was so bad that I deserve what has happened and is happening.
No, I didn’t choose this. Even though my mother said it today. Even though the cop that was supposedly on my side (after I received a death threat) said this after they brought him in for questioning, and then reduced the whole thing to a “domestic matter.”
I didn’t choose this guy and this nightmare. It chose me. I was just a little too naive to tell. I am not anymore.
Learn more: Sociopathic seduction—how you got hooked and why you stayed
Lovefraud originally posted this story on Nov. 16, 2010.
Dancing as treatment for depression
Have to leave library now….thanks for all the wonderful posts to let me know for sure I am okay, and everything I am going thru is normal, and it will clear up and out in its own time. SOme tears tonight…
gypsydi
I am glad your friend is there for you! It was actually a friend of mine that identified my spath to what he was and it was the best thing that happened to me. I also lost my dearest bestfriend by being with the Spath and after I left I sent her a message to say I had left not thinking I would hear back but desperately hoping.
She came to me with open arms and quickly got our friendship back on track, she is actually coming over for dinner tonight! Good friends are everything, especially ones that understand!
The high’s and extreme lows are normal, just protect yourself from the triggers. He has nothing to say that will benefit your life or your recovery so dont listen to a word as usually it is just BS anyway.
In regards to the money, I lost everything and was so pissed that he had every intention of walking away with anything we had and not giving me a cent… He tried putting every asset we had in other people’s names.
I spent 18 months and $25,000 of my parents money in the courts. It was the most depressing, anxious, scariest time I care to remember being face to face with him in court all the time and reading all the court documents that he had written without 1 word of truth but that is another story.I wanted to give up many times but my parents said even if you come out with nothing hopefully we will have a moral victory over him. I was the very first women out of many that had made him accountable for the $$$, possessions and broken lives he had taken. But it was extremely taxing on me. I was lucky I came out with enough to pay my debts, buy a car and put a little away in savings, he of course did better, it was hard to prove a lot of things but the ones I could prove the judge reversed the sales on!
Anyway what I am trying to say you need to work out the emotional cost of trying to re coup some of your money and in the end is it all worth it. Is there enough money there to be constantly exposed to the triggers and the frustrations. Probably something that you don’t need to look at today anyway and can wait until you are a bit stronger.
All the best wishes 🙂
Dear gysydi:
WE have ALL thought that we would NEVER climb out from under the pile of rocks. Most of us are still trying to get there, but we can at least see daylight now and there are way less rocks weighing us down and every reason to believe that things will continue to improve. I suspect one or 2 of us are sitting on the pile, marveling that we got out alive. Maybe even others are standing somewhere down the road, looking back at the pile of rocks and thinking, “Well darn it if I’m not the cleverest little rock-climber ever! Look at that there pile of rocks that I managed to get out of!”
There is no fast fix with these monsters but there are lots and lots of little fixes we can slowly make along our way to the top of that pile; ways that we can wriggle around and give ourselves a bit more breathing space and things we can leave behind as we go if they are making our journey to where we need to be too difficult.
This is so very do-able for you; you need to trust your gut and know that if you had the strength and courage to move that first big rock, then you also have the strength and courage to keep moving. Onwards and upwards!! xx
Good advise aussiegirl….onwards & upwards! gypsydi you will get there I promise x
dani: you said: ‘He has nothing to say that will benefit your life or your recovery so dont listen to a word as usually it is just BS anyway.’
thnx for this. i had to visit a online place the spath is, just for a second, when i was working with the internet security specialist. i caught a glimpse of something written. it’s bugging me, but i will just let it bug me until it stops bugging me. no way i am going back to read it.
Dear Aussie girl,
Your ROCK PILE ANALOGY is GREAT!!!! And you get the SILVER SKILLET AWARD for that one!!! Boy, you are GOOD girlfriend!!!
And I will add this to your analogy is that sometimes (our) family and “friends” are recruited by the psychopath to heap more stones on top of the pile, but we just have to keep on wiggling to find space to breathe until we can tunnel out! Or the friends and family unknowingly heap more stones on us instead of removing them, thinking they are actually helping us by saying “oh, just move on with your life.”
Glad you are here Aussie girl, you have some good advice!!!
Dear One step! I am not sure what your spath wrote that bugged you but when you are not with them they will say,write despicable things….. I had contact with my ex spath husbands girlfriend after me, whom he also ripped off. The things he told her not to mention muteral friends or anyone else that would listen to his BS were disgusting, extremely hurtful and untrue about me.
What was a little bit funny was what he said about me was the exact same thing he said about his partner prior to me to me! same language, same words, all made up in his mind to make us look bad and poor pitty him!
You cant take a single word they say seriously, not one! because anything they say is only for self purpose at that time to get what they want!
Dont let it bug you One Step as it is just there demented mind talking! dont step into the triggers because it will do your head in . much lv:)
Dani is right!!!
Don’t do it!
a year ago I looked up spaths classmates and what I found was his complete admission to his sick self. He didn’t realize it. He said “he was done trashing her” meaning me. and that he would like to find somebody to share his life with. Why would somebody that promised me the world and then some…. admit to trashing me? S/PATH!!!!
His grandioasity has him thinking he has a life to share! He can’t keep a job, no priority to living conditions vs. hobbies, hypercritical, can’t keep reliable transportation running and sure can’t stay off internet porno! WOW…. that’s Prince Charmimg that I can’t wait to be with!!! LOLOLOLOLOL! That’s the reality to the mask he wears! They are experts at lying and having a beautiful mask to wear!
ARRRGGGGHHH!
Why thank you Ox Drover! Don’t quite know what comes over me at times – these things just seem to spill out of my brains and onto the keyboard. I make most of it up as I go along but I must say how gratifying it is to have obviously insightful and knowledgeable (that word just looks so wrong written…) people think that I make some sense. For so very long I couldn’t even manage an entire thought without losing the thread of what I was thinking about, or string more than two words together without stuttering (and I was never a stutterer pre-spath). Isn’t it amazing (in a bad way, not a good way) what PTSD can do to your brain and your mouth?
Spoke to the spath’s OTHER ex-wife today (the one before me)(she, too is apparently a drug-taking bunny-boiler….he’s just sooooooo original!) Two very interesting things – she says that the entire 14 years they were together, he complained of a sore lower back and had regular chiropractic/physiotherapeutic sessions to relieve the pain BUT THAT’S NOT WHAT HE TOLD ME WHEN WE MET!!!! I was told that he had NEVER had a problem with his back before “the accident at work” (for which he was paid compensation). Also – she reckons he used to say to her stuff like, “If I hurt my back at work, then I would get a payout and we could buy a house and live up in ——-” (where he and I bought a house and where he still lives). She was understandably suspicious when we DID buy a house and move there and then again when she heard there was an insurance claim being processed. Now the house wasn’t bought with any insurance money; the property market was starting to move out of our reach so I suggested that we grab one before it was no longer do-able. I paid the deposit too. Still, isn’t it funny how I am not surprised by these revelations?
PS: I like your rock stuff too. x
PPS: I’m kinda glad I’m here too.