Editor’s note: Lovefraud received this letter from a reader who we’ll call “Abigail.” She relates how she felt bonded to a man, even after he brutally assaulted her.
I grew up very sheltered in an ultra-religious family; I had no knowledge whatsoever about deceitful liars. I should have because my also very innocent and trusting mother was misled by one man like that, who deceived her, promising her marriage, just to end up getting her pregnant (with me) and then leave her and us for good. My family, however, preferred to deal with this issue by keeping it as much secret as possible, so unfortunately I couldn’t learn from my mother’s mistakes.
I have been sheltered in a “glass box” all my life; my family tried to keep me away from inappropriate relationships and people. In the meantime, however, my family was also very unhealthy, being very respectable on the surface with many nasty buried skeletons beneath. I have been lonely, suffering from the emotionally abusive and hypocritical atmosphere at home, and the lack of father figure. My family was even jealous of my female friends.
I never had interest in boys my age. Somehow, I was always looking for a man I could look up on, almost like looking up at a father. Truthfully, grown men used to notice me, too, by the time I was 12-13 because of being naturally curvy on certain areas. I totally innocently flirted with them, looking for no sexual relationship but approval, acceptance and love above all.
My best friend’s uncle
I remember when I was 13, my best friend’s old uncle started to inappropriately touch me, trying to seduce me into sexual relationship privately at his own home, but being so naive and innocent about all sexual matters, I had no idea what was going on. All I knew was that I was enjoying the situation and felt thrilled about it some unknown pride crept into my life, where I felt I finally had the ability to gain affection from people.
Thankfully my family discovered it before it was too late and that put and end to it, including my friendship with my best friend. I don’t even know how I managed to avoid exploiting sexual relationships through my high school years, but actually loving to study and excel at school might have had something to do with it.
Sorry for the long intro I wanted to explain what background I am coming from.
Mr. Charmer
I was still a “kid” at heart at age 20, longing for a “Dad” to look up to, when I met Mr. Charmer, completely coincidentally. The attraction was mutual and immediately overpowering. He was all I have ever fantasised about: tall, dark, handsome, masculine, enchanting with the eyes and voice of a snake charmer mesmerizing from head to toe. I was hooked. He was very affectionate, extremely romantic and caring and I was in heaven.
Read more: Sociopathic seduction — as long as it takes
He didn’t live very close to me, so in between being able to meet, we kept in touch online/over the phone. It felt like we hit it off right away and he seemed like everything I’d ever hoped for. I told him very early on that I was a virgin and I wanted to stay that way until I met that special someone who will be my husband. I thought I must have sounded like a weirdo for him, but much to my surprise, he was extremely relieved about it, and voiced admiration about my strong morals in this crazy world.
I knew he had many girlfriends before (with his Greek god-like looks, I wasn’t surprised at all, plus I always found experienced men “thrilling,” so I didn’t care) but he made it very clear that he was tired of girls that play with his emotions and he’d been disappointed a lot. All he wanted was a serious relationship with me, who was a very good and faithful person with a touch of wildness in my heart. He admired my looks, too, and seemingly everything about me. He was a great listener and a great support when I felt I needed his sympathy and “protection” when things went bad at home or I felt insecure. All said and done, I adored him. I idolized him. He seemed to really enjoy it which I noticed, but gave him excuses for being a little vain who wouldn’t be with his inner and outer qualities, after all?
Mask starts to slip
Months after meeting, and after lots of romantic talks and intense romantic involvement, we started to talk about marriage. It was like a dream come true. I was walking on clouds and so was he, seemingly. Unfortunately, at this point I started to have some serious doubts and nagging questions about him. I don’t know when the “mask” started to crack, perhaps when I first started to discover (and experience) his extreme mood swings. Then he started to be less affectionate and more demeaning. He even started to lie and when he was called out on that, somehow it turned out to be my fault.
He claimed how much stress I caused to him, and how hurt he was that I didn’t trust him while he was so loved by everyone else; I didn’t even deserve him. He started to criticize me and “naturally” I never questioned the validity of his words. He was experienced, I clearly wasn’t I believed he knew much better, he must have been right, after all, I was so young compared to him (he was 10 years older).
Begging myself to leave
Nevertheless, my bad gut feeling started to grow by the day. I often felt so hurt, so heartbroken and lonely. I remember writing in my journal about him practically begging myself to wake up from this dream that was about to turn into a nightmare.” Yet every single time when I started to feel strongly about running from him, he charmed himself back to my heart. I often chose to close my eyes and turn the other way, since I was really afraid to lose him and the emotional investment, engagement and so forth.
I also learnt to be afraid of him by then, not that he ever hurt me physically, but his anger outbursts and our arguments were extremely exhausting and I wanted to avoid them at all costs. I knew I wasn’t perfect (he let me know over and over in case I’d forgotten) and I thought to myself: “Well, he’s not perfect either, after all, but just as much as he sticks with me even though I am imperfect, so will I.” I am a very faithful person and I always took pride in that.
Now he wants sex
In the meantime, somehow, he lost his appreciation for my virginity. He now became demeaning about it, and he heavily worked on me to give in to have sex before we got married. He achieved it by a lot of erotic talk and I have to admit I was really not immune to this at all. I was bouncing over the walls from the (sexual) frustration by then, and the pressure and fear of letting him down and making him angry with me. I needed to prove to him that I was able to keep him and satisfy his needs, because I am “good enough of a woman” for him. So I gave in.
On that special day I found him to be a little too ADHD and hyper, but I thought it was just excitement on his end. He seemed to “burst at seams” with an almost unnatural excitement, he was grabbing me, suddenly pushing me up against his car in public, circling around me like a lion that’s about to eat its prey, staring at me with predatory eyes, licking his lips — it was unnatural. It was a turn-on too, of course, to experience such a wild and demanding and overpowering and sizzling masculinity, all directed at me. But it still made me feel very uncomfortable. I even started to wonder if this was such a good idea, and I contemplated telling him, somehow, to wait, but I couldn’t work up the courage for that.
No affection or love
Once in his room, Mr. Charmer was gone. I didn’t notice it right away it was a very exciting and “sacred” moment for me, and I didn’t think of anything bad right away when he started to “make me” please him in all kinds of ways. It felt degrading and without love, so I got a little confused and eventually, scared he had no affection, love or gentleness for me at all.
After me pleasing him for a while, he immediately wanted to have sex, which I tried to stop, realizing that this is just too much for me, being extremely confused and hurt because I felt all of a sudden as if he didn’t care for me romantically at all. I stopped him and he withdrew, became extremely cold, emotionless, and his anger started to build up. I was scared. I tried to calm him with hugs and kisses, tried to explain that this is not what we talked about, but he told me to make up my mind to decide what I want, if I want him at all or not. I tried to explain that I did want him, but this was not how it was planned, so much without love and gentleness.
Brutal and animalistic
Well, he made up his mind that we would have sex anyway. I will spare you from the details of this torturous, horrible experience. Multiple times I asked him to stop; he didn’t care, he did it anyway. It was as brutal and animalistic and unbearably painful as anyone can imagine. He would also make me do things to him for his pleasure, and he didn’t take “no” for an answer. He didn’t look at me or touch me, he was lost in his own world where he dominated and he was the best lover, probably, because after he was done he asked me if it was indeed great and what I liked best.
I wanted to vomit. I was frozen, emotionless, torn apart physically and emotionally, in an extreme amount of pain with severe bleeding. I felt like a slave with “her master.” Reality became surreal and I flat out didn’t even know who I was anymore. This torture went on for the whole weekend. I had the “physical” ability to leave him, since he never locked/bonded me, but I did not have the emotional/spiritual ability to leave, if that makes sense at all.
I still “loved” him, I was extremely hurt and scared, I had nowhere to go really (not physically but emotionally — he was my everything and now that this idol was torn, I really felt like there was nowhere else in the world where I could go anyway.) I immediately felt extremely bonded to him physically, even though this made me nauseated. (I knew nothing of betrayal/traumatic bonding back then.) I realized by then that this is all that he wanted from me, and all his love was fake. He even told me that he’d teach me how to please a man, because I was young and I needed to have fun and skills. Yet I still believed somewhere inside that if I was willing and obedient, then somehow I could regain his love for me.
Dumped and isolated
All said and done, after these tragic days/nights, it didn’t take long for him to dump me. Better to say, he really didn’t dump me, he just stopped talking to me. I had to provoke it and kept calling him, etc. to try to make sense of all that has happened, to try to come to terms. I couldn’t let him go. I didn’t want to. In a sick way, I couldn’t imagine that I could ever live without him. My religious beliefs also made me feel very guilty; I felt dirty, shameless and like a “slut.” Some of my also religious friends (once they figured out that I had sex with him) also treated me that way, so I became completely isolated. This isolation made me feel bonded with him even more, because of what we’d shared in the past, and because of the physical connection that was a very strong bonding power for me, despite of the torturous and brutal nature of it.
After a month or so of such a weird “relationship,” he decided to not to pick up the phone anymore, nor answer back, throwing me into a hysterical crying fit for days. I begged him to return, even though deep inside, I wanted him to be gone as if he never existed. But I couldn’t live without him and the “security” that he represented to me.
Lonely burden
I don’t remember those weeks afterwards; it was all a blur. I have no idea how I survived, especially that I haven’t told anybody about this at all. I was so lonely, so extremely lonely with this burden to bear alone, while having to try to pretend that all is well in my world. We had one final talk about a month later, where I tried to be civil (so did he) but it turned into a nasty argument immediately when I tried to call him out on all that happened. He claimed nothing happened and he did nothing to me that I didn’t want, and if I ever tried to find him or talk about it, he’d kill me. He also called me dirty wh*re and it was like a final punch on my heart. I was now “dead.”
How many months passed when I tried to repress, forget, pretend that I was okay, hide the real reason why we broke up, and so forth — I don’t know. The human mind is awesome. Half a year later, I really believed that I was all better, despite the nightmares about being chased and raped, panic attacks and so forth.
Thought I recovered
Years passed, I finally never even thought of him and I thought I recovered fully. I got married (to my “real” prince who is an amazing, wonderful, supportive man), had a family, lived happily. Of course I’ve always experienced problems (nightmares, panic attacks, snapping at people, all kinds of aches and pains, unexplained fears, depression, lack of true enjoyment of sex) but despite of all of that I was still very happy because I was very much loved and safe and appreciated.
A major traumatic event the past few months, however, triggered a complete outbreak of reliving my memories for first time in my life. My husband — who only knew a little bit about all that happened — finally heard what truly happened and I am working on opening up more and more. Details flood my mind, and some days it feels like I am going crazy.
The most twisted and sickening detail — my unnatural, nauseating “bonding” to this man finally came up, and I was able to admit that this trauma didn’t go away at all just because I hid it. I was scared of it, feeling extremely dirty — until finally I got my hands on some reading material (Women Who Love Psychopaths, etc.) and it dawned on me finally what was going on.
Psychopath narcissist
He was the perfect example of a psychopath narcissist, such a frighteningly perfect example. As much as it was a relief to finally understand that what happened wasn’t my fault and failure as a woman, it became unbearable for another reason. For so many years I believed that I must have meant something to him, even if he was a jerk, he still must have loved me at some point. The realization that I was nothing but narcissistic supply, an object to use and throw away that is ripped another hole in my chest.
My feelings were so true to him, and that was the only thing that made me feel better for years. I was not a slut; I loved him! But how could I love him if I didn’t even know who he was? I will never have an explanation, an apology, or any type of closure! He betrayed me on such a level, not only physically but more so emotionally and spiritually, given that he was my everything and I trusted him with my very life as if he was my father and he used me and threw me away, walked away without a second thought, just like my father left me.
A new chapter
I have major trust issues. My husband does not deserve for me not to trust him and rely on him because he is awesome, and now he suffers too. My relationship with God suffered a lot because I even lost my trust in Him to some extent. I don’t have a lot of friends and I can count on one hand how many people I trust. Yet I have a hard time trying to not to be naive and not proving my “worth” to everyone. I get depressed and hurt when people don’t see me for who I really am, even if I don’t let them close so they can get to know me at all.
It’s a new chapter of my life now. After 10 years I am finally starting to deal with the aftermath. It’s going to be hard and I realize it won’t go from one day to another. I now have hope that it will get better, because I am now not afraid to take a good look at what happened and admit that I was a victim of emotional and physical rape and violence. To experience it from somebody whom I trusted and loved so much is devastating. To realize that I am not alone, that there are many of us suffering from the aftermath of psychopaths, is very redeeming, however tragic it is. Next step will be counseling. Being able to open up and talk to strangers is a good first step to practice so I don’t chicken out talking to somebody in person!!
Learn more: Free! The Basics — Love fraud and how to avoid it
Lovefraud originally posted this story on May 6, 2010.
Hamas terrorists: Psychopaths or brainwashed
Cats and dogs read your body language like loving little terminators.
If you sit down, well, its obvious to them.
I think I feel an analogy coming on about what the S’s and P’s see that triggers the “BINGO” response…….
But, petting cats and/or dogs is really good for people.
Where’s the mutt? Ain’t nuthin like a best friend!
Hi Witty – good to see ya ~!
Pilgrimage:
I trust you will find your way ‘back’. It does take a looong time (i’m over 3 years out and well……still working on it). But eventually, the tides do turn.
Take good care of yourself and try to at least smile at YOURSELF in the mirror for a moment and remind yourself of all your good qualities.
maybe we have to go out of our heads to get to the other side – maybe that’s part of the answer.
I am going out of my head.
Shabby,
Don’t know if it helps you, but I found the POWER of NOW by Eckhardt to be a great comfort.
What helped me was listening to it on CD.
When I was going out of my head. I spent hours and hours pouring it all out onto paper, into the computer, onto this site – creating a river of emotion and thought and fear and loathing and grief and letting the river roll on by after a while.
EMDR therapy was a real answer. And work. Burying myself in it.
And reaching out to friends and relatives I haven’t seen for 20, 30 40 years.
It all helps. And it is a driven by the determination to be free.
We have to fight our way through the bramble patch and I wish I could say to you that you’ll come through unscathed. Can’t. But I can call to you from a farther place along the road and say I hear you, keep coming. You can do this. You must.
I know you will.
Dear Silvermoon and Chic,
I also found EMDR therapy (rapid eye movement) VERY helpful, much more so that talk therapy and I have read somewhere (CRS can’t remember where!) that talk therapy with PTSD is actually counter productive because it deepens the paths in our brains that cause flash backs and other things, because there are really NO WORDS for what we are experiencing or feeling. Something along those lines. My CRS is still here, but better, but I have come to realize it is part of the CHANGES that the PTSD has made in my brain.
Over all I think I am in a much better place NOW than I ever was in the past as far as boundaries and living a healthy life and having better and more functional and fulfilling relationships with the people I do love and that love me, lower stress in life etc. but there ARE some changes that are different now. My memory has swiss cheese holes in it, but my judgment is BETTER—that’s a good trade off I think! My sleep patterns are “crazy,” but I do know as we get older it is NATURAL to not sleep as deeply as you did when you were younger, but I do take care of myself better now, and allow myself to ask for help on physical tasks I am no longer safe (or sane) to do.
And, I no longer “stress out” about things not being perfect.
Accepting the CHANGES in ourselves, both positive and “negative” I think is important to our healing as well.
I was talking with a friend of mine the other day and his vision is like my son C’s, BETTER than 20/20 like 20/15 or 20/10 which means he can see at 20 feet what a “normal” or average person with good visiion could see at 10 or 15 ft.
Now his is ONLY 20/20 (so not quite as good as it used to be) but still NORMAL but to him it “feels like” he needs glasses.
Since the aircraft crash which will be 6 years ago this coming week, my reading speed has slowed down remarkably, directly after the crash I couldn’t read AT ALL–literally, and now instead of reading at way above average speed, I read at “average speed” and it FEELS LIKE to me “I need glasses” like my friend feels about his eye sight. It is DIFFERENT than I used to be, but still well within the NORMAL range.
I have “word finding” problems now that I didn’t have before, on simple words like “tree”—I can see a “picture” of a Tree but not find the word for a second or two. It is FRUSTRATING to me sometimes, but now I am learning to laugh it off and say to who ever I am talking to “ah heck, brain fart” or “CRS word finding problem, I’ll get it in a minute.”
I have no reason to think I am getting senile and quite likely I won’t, as all of my ancestors, even the psychopathic ones, were very bright and kept their wits about them until they died at over 80 years old. My egg donor has some short term memory problems now and she’s over 80, but at the same time, most of her problem is DENIAL and dysfunction about enabling, not her brain not working right and she’s been that way since she was young.
I also realize that too many times our “activity” level and “socializing” level is EMPTY runnning around. Like the Scoccer mom taking the kids to every kind of class and activity so that there is never an hour of the day that isn’t filled up with some kind of activity.
I think that some “down time” or “relaxing” time is necessary to good mental health. We have to have TIME to “contemplate the lint in our navels” in order to heal from this. We have to be able to really GET IN TOUCH with ourselves and you have to have time in order to do that, to turn inward and look at your thoughts and feelings.
I feel fortunate that i have had the LEISURE to do so, and not to have also had to have a professional job to function at (I couldn’t have done it) and kids to raise and nurture (I don’t know how you young mothers cope!) and so on. So I realize I have had PROFOUND BLESSINGS in being able to retire and still keep a roof over my head, and NOT having others to look after and nurture. I accept that I am not really ABLE and safe to practice my profession with short term memory swiss cheese. I can function in LIFE fine, but not when other’s lives depend on my professional and accurate memory. I may forget and boil a pot of beans dry on the stove, or lose my car keys, but no one dies as a result of it. So accepting that I am NOT SAFE to practice advanced nursing/medicine any more is the rational and reasonable thing. It wasn’t easy to do, because my profession and the satisfaction I got out of helping others professionally and being good at what I did was a big part of my self esteem. But recognizing REALITY is necessary to live a good life as well.
Each of us has a journey to make, and each of us finds different pot holes and rocks along the way toward healing, but the knowledge that we CAN do it, we can negotiate the potholes and rocks and broken glass, and even if we hav eto CRAWL part of the way, WE CAN DO IT. That is what LF is all about is encouraging others as we have been encouraged, and paying it forward. Unfortunately we will never run out of people who do need our encouragement, and those of us who have negeotiated some of the hazards and survived can be and should be I think compassionate enough to reach out to those in the abyss. It helps the person in the hole, but it also helps US that reach out. That’s why I’m still here at LF after nearly 3 years. (((HUGS)))) and God bless us all.
Oxy….the first sign of senility is when we think our ‘brain farts’ have an odor.
🙂
Or, we think our others don’t! LOL ROTFLMAO There’s some joke about an old man and old woman talking about that and the punch line is “Ethel the batteries are gone in your hearing aid” but I can’t remember the REST OF THE JOKE! LOL WHEW!!!! It is getting deep in here!
I used to have this printed off list of “names” for different kinds of farts, and I gave it to the doctor I worked with and I thought he was going to have a heart attack he laughed so much, ALL AFTERNOON cause it took him 1-3 minutes to read and laugh between each one and there were 100s of them!
My favorite was the “gambled and lost” fart! LOL ROTFLMAO
Maybe I’ll dig that list out of my “stuff to keep” pile cause a few good rolling on the floor laughs are always good for us. The comic relief you supply me EB is priceless, I want you to know! Right now COMIC RELIEF is VERY important in my life! I mean that seriously because there are just some things that you can’t change and you MIGHT AS WELL LAUGH AT THEM because if you don’t you are a gonner! That’s why I LOVE MAXINE CARTOONS AND JOKES, I wanna be just like her when I grow up! I’m working on it as hard as I can. I also loved Erma Bombeck! God rest her funny soul! You are right up there with Maxine and Erma EB!!!! ((((Hugs)))))
My kids and I laugh all the time!
I have always been able to make them laugh….I think it’s important. Especially during trials and tribulations that test every cell in our body.
The past few days have been VERY stressful, dealing with the foreclosure issues.
I’ve had to go apeshit on the mortgage co…..and I called my senator who is aiding me. (I’m pulling an Erin Brockovich on em).
the company is just PATHETIC, and like dealing with a spath. Disorganized, makes false statements as facts…..you name it.
Thank god I’m a documentor……and me and Mr. senators rep and another rep have been lighting fires at the bank.
GET THE FRIGGEN THING DONE!!! It’s been over a year and a half! A new sale date of next thurs was posted.
So….anyways…..as I was running out the house yesterday (after staying up 2 nights in a row) and, Jr (on crutches) puts his arms out to stop me and give me a hug and tells me to breath……I said…I gotta go it’s 4:38 and this has to be iin by 5. He said…..mom…you need to stop and breathe….i briefly hugged him and said….I’ll breath in the car.
His reply……I forgot to take the trash out of the car…..it stinks in the car, breath with me here!
The kids ‘get’ the importance of a quick laugh in a hard situation…..and it was reflected in this quirk.
I’ve always told my kids…..”I can always make you laugh”…..since they were little, and they say the same back to me.
Sometimes Oxy…….finding humor and laughter is all we got and it’s all we need!