Editor’s Note: This article was written by the Lovefraud reader who posts as “Snow White.” She previously wrote “He is not Prince Charming, and you are not Snow White.“
After months of pursuit and ultimate seduction by a psychopath, which eventually lead to an affair with this man, I can now honestly see that I am making my way down the road to recovery. When I first started to open my eyes and began noticing red flags in the psychopath’s behavior, coupled with the deep sadness I was experiencing about ending my marriage, I took the first gigantic step of actually listening to MY feelings. Even though the love bombing was so intense and the psychopathic bond well established to the point that I completely believed his declarations: “We are destined to be together. You are my future wife. We are soul mates. You must leave your husband—¦well you all know the routine”¦. my gut instincts persisted, increasingly telling me to get out.
Although I didn’t know if our marriage could be saved at that point, I did know that I could not end my marriage because someone was telling me to do it. If my marriage is to end, it will be because he and/or I decide we cannot be married, not because someone else is pressuring me to do it. The control he had over me was so powerful that it rendered me helpless in thinking for myself—that is until I woke up and saw through his hollow eyes, the soulless person he is, the strange behavior, manipulation, and lies. Reflecting on the last five months of recovery, a pattern in the healing process has emerged, which I’d like to share.
First few weeks
The best way I can describe the recovery process so far is to separate it into months. During the first few weeks, I was in emotional turmoil. My weight was at an all-time low. I was so confused as to “what” he is, what had happened to me, who I had become, and if my marriage would survive. After much prayer, the first step I took was to refuse to see him and ended the relationship. But I needed answers. I contacted the psychopath’s ex-girlfriend. She was the one who educated me on his personality disorder. I had no idea what psychopathy was and began researching it. Over the next month, I read everything I could get my hands on such as the Love Fraud site and books. Claudia Moscovici’s work, Dangerous Liaisons, profoundly described what I experienced. Additionally, Red Flags of Love Fraud precisely delineated the process of the relationship and his characteristics. He exhibited all the traits except for defrauding me out of money.
I started simultaneously educating myself and working with a marriage counselor. Although I sought help from a counselor before my affair became physical, I was too far gone to stop it. In retrospect, I can see how the luring and honeymoon phases played out. He innately moved me through the process. While in the midst of it, I did see that what I was experiencing wasn’t normal and continued to see a counselor. However, either I wasn’t accurately articulating what was happening, or the counselor wasn’t schooled in psychopathy, or I was already too emotionally controlled to really hear her advice. When I learned I had been involved with a psychopath, I told her about the books I read, but she was not interested in reading them. Even though she wasn’t able to point out the possibility that I was dealing with an emotional predator, I do credit this counselor with helping to save my marriage. Fortunately, the marriage counselor we are working with was open to reading the books and resources I listed above to better understand what I had experienced. Never having sought therapy before, I now know that it is a process, and there isn’t a quick fix. It simply takes time.
Month 2 cognitive dissonance
During the second month, I continued reading and posting on blogs. On one site, I met a woman from the UK who experienced exactly what I did and was much further along in the recovery process. She spoke with me about her experience and provided so much support. I also began phone counseling sessions. Within the first five minutes of our session, I realized I had finally found someone who could explain what I was experiencing psychologically. There was a name for it—Cognitive Dissonance—and it doesn’t happen when normal relationships end. There would be no closure from him. He is simply not capable. I have to come to terms with it and create my own closure. Most importantly, I must know and feel that what we had and who he presented himself to be is not real.
Month 3 learning about me
While the first two months were spent on learning about psychopathy, by the third month my focus shifted to healing. I continued to read, but whereas before I gravitated toward reading about HIM, now I started reading about ME. Some might say it is unhealthy to continue researching, but I find that the more I educate myself, the more empowered I become. I also continued working with my counselor. Her goal for me is to eliminate any doubts about whom I was dealing with so that I could develop a clear picture of the dangerousness of this man. She had me complete a checklist of his behaviors. One would think that even after seeing it all in black and white and living it, there would be no doubt—not so simple. Cognitive dissonance is a tricky thing.
Month 4 feeling peace
By the end of month four, moments of feeling at peace within myself and my marriage are more frequent. I learned that I must practice mindfulness, or living in the moment. Focusing on the past leads to depression. Focusing on the future generates anxiety. Being present is the path to peacefulness. Learning to live in the present is a gradual process for me. Like learning to play a sport or an instrument, I must practice it. The moments of mindfulness are becoming more frequent. This is what it looks like: When I’m out with friends and it hits me, I look around and say to myself, “Wow! Look at me. I’m actually having fun surrounded by people who really care about me. I am not tied to my phone having to answer his incessant texts anymore.“ I started noticing myself enjoying the moment. For me, the moments of “noticing” my enjoyment with my husband, children, and friends is practicing mindfulness.
July 4th
The intrusive thoughts have not entirely ended. I still have nightmares about how I drank the Kool Aid and was so brainwashed and manipulated by some manufactured, fraudulent fairy tale. However, they are lessening. While watching July 4th fireworks on the dock overlooking the lake near our home I felt at peace, truly living in the moment. Last year on the fourth, the love bombs were exploding, I was being held captive by his texts, and the emotional control was well underway. This fourth, I said to myself, “Look at me. I actually feel peaceful and am enjoying the evening with my husband. I am at a good place. I’m free!” I don’t know why I have these internal conversations with myself, but they help.
The night before the fourth as I was lying in bed, I actually said to myself as I felt the breeze blew across the room, I’m ready to let this go. I asked the wind to take the intrusive thoughts of him and our relationship and blow them out of my mind and life. They say that psychopaths intuitively know when you are letting go. If that’s true, I’ll never know for sure, but that fourth of July, just as the fireworks were about to start, I received a friend request on my phone. It was from a man I do not know. I hit ignore. Half an hour later, I receive another request. The next day, I received a third friend request. The first two may have been a coincidence, but the third??? So I looked at his page, which was public. I know that looking at the page could be considered breaking No Contact. I got weak. I looked.
It was a fake page. The photo of the man was taken off the Internet. There is a website where you can match photos to photos posted on the internet, called Tineye.com I was able to identify that a fake persona was created using someone else’s photo. Other signs of a fake page I noticed were that he only had one friend, a Russian woman, sketchy biographical information, and the time of the postings corresponded within minutes of the time the friend requests were sent to me. The most disturbing parts of the page were the postings that directly related to our relationship. Two that smacked of misogyny and the other two were pity play tactics.
Minor setback
Fright was my first reaction to the FB postings, and I thought about deleting my Facebook page. Doing that would disconnect me from my family and friends. I refuse to live in fear. I learned how to lock down my page further so it is not searchable to strangers. I blocked him and will block any strangers who send friend requests. Should it happen again, I must simply click ignore and NOT look at the page or risk staying embroiled in his sick mind games. This was a minor setback for me, bringing more intrusive thoughts and nightmares. When the experts say maintain No Contac ”¦ they say it because they know that it is essential to our recovery.
Process of recovery
While I am not proud that I allowed myself to succumb to his pressure, cross boundaries I never imagined I would, and hurt the person who has always been there for me, my husband, I am committed to doing to the hard work necessary to getting back to the person I was before my involvement with the psychopath. The process of recovery involves:
- Awakening to the dangerousness of the person and his pathology and ending the relationship
- Educating yourself on psychopathy
- Leaving no stone unturned in your quest for knowledge
- Reaching out and seeking help from people who “know”
- Working with a trained counselor to learn the strategies to break free of the memories of the idealization phase
- Rebuilding the relationships in your life that matter, and
- Living an honest, healthy lifestyle.
Most importantly, it is not enough to just “know” what he is. The knowledge I’ve obtained about psychopathy and my feelings must be in synch, and therein lies the work to be done. Periodically, the cognitive dissonance surfaces, and when it does, I take some time to keep myself in check by reading from the Love Fraud articles or Claudia’s blog. Slowly my outgoing, energetic spirit is returning, and I am rebuilding the bond with my husband. Thanks to the work of Donna, Claudia and others, my questions have been answered. I must now use the strategies I’ve learned to continue moving forward.
Snowwhite,
It seems like much longer than 5 months since you came to LF.
The healing process is kind of crazy fast at first. it doesn’t feel like healing but you begin to have revelation after revelation. Your mind becomes almost plastic again, the way it was when you were born. Then it starts to settle down again, but never quite like it was before. I think this is what’s called “Positive Disintegration”.
Everything you knew before had to be dismantled so that you could fit the new information into the old. The only way to do that is to increase the size of your universe. And so we do.
I guess in a way, we had stagnated and missed the growth we needed and this spath experience is like a renewal of the growth spurt. It’s painful for sure. That’s why the spath will never experience it. They don’t handle pain well.
After some time, I think you’ll find that life begins to seem a bit normal again. As normal as it will ever be after that experience. I’ve been out 3 years and I’m still learning about it, still experiencing cog/dis, and still learning to take care of myself better. They say we are a work in progress. That’s a good thing, I think.
Hi skylar
You are so right! It has been revelation after revelation. So I hear what you are saying….It will take time, but it will never be totally forgotten. I hope that at some point I will be able to accept that it was something we had to go through for whatever reason to get to a better place in life. Of couse I’m just being the eternal optimist that I am., but no longer to a fault:)
Snow
Snow white,
sounds like my wife went through the same thing and i have been searching for someone who has made a marriage work after being predated. i found out that her s-path mirrored not only her but imitated me in a lot of ways. it has been really hard for me to be patient and have to watch her struggle with cog-dis. looking back, all my mouthing off about the whole affair got me no-where with her. she had to discover it all herself. ugh! i think she needs me to be calm. and cool and patient. as her husband, if i had not come here a year ago or more, and not begun to understand, i’d be divorced right now. but understanding this for me has been both a blessing and a curse. on one hand i see that i was not so bad a husband,cause he’s fake. and i know her intellect gets it. but i also knew that her heart would fight for the good crap, not wanting to see cause it would hurt. it was so hard to have to sit by and watch her fight through it. i had so much self doubt. he played so many games, planted so many bombs. i feel like he stole EVERYTHING from us. i wish i knew more clearly what she needs from me. i know that i have my work to do, and she has hers. and i feel little bits of the US coming back. i’m not some stoic cowboy here. i’m a very emotionally open man. do i need to suppress this a little?
Hi Rgc
You sound a lot like my husband what saved our marriage is that my husband never gave up on me. We are seeing a counselor and it’s hard because all this “stuff” comes up that I didn’t even know was in me. But it’s normal married issues that can be resolved. My husband said that he now understands and that if some woman came on do utterly convincing, promising everything he ever dreamed of, he sees how it could happen. I am so leary of who I let into my life now.
As time goes on I feel like we are getting it back. I hope you are too. I think that if we didn’t have strong marriages, we wouldn’t be able to overcome the nightmare of a psychopath invading our lives. My counselor calls it emotional rape. When I started coming out of the spell or psychopathic bond as they call it, it’s as if the whole process started reversing itself and I started seeing what a good man my husband is and knew I couldn’t let our marriage go. With that said, had the psychopath continued to retain the mask, I don’t know where I’d be right now. Only targets truly understand the emotional control part if it. Fortunately for me, I started questioning his behavior and my gut instincts screamed louder and louder. that’s when I believe he started securing his next target….unfortunate for her. He still attempted his mind control via Facebook, which only reinforces my belief in his mental illness.
i don’t how much time has passed since it happened to you, but in five months I am light years ahead of where I was. Be patient with her, try not to ask any questions, show you trust her, and get out with people you enjoy…basically do the things you both like. Eventually I think in the grand scheme, it will be just a blip on the radars of our lives:)
I hope you and your wife find peace and happiness. I am planning a trip atound the time of the worst part of it so that we will be ralaxex and alone in paradise somewhere :))
it started in the fall of 09 and i think she started seeing in the fall of 10. he is a sex offender that molested his own daughters and neices. he convinced her that the parole system was testing his urine for evidance of sex and she says she felt so much pity for him thats why it got started. we are in counseling but they seem to have to tiptoe around things so much. she is digging though and on her own. i feel mixed about that cause while i know it will help in the end, it hurts her when she discovers new lies. i can see it drain her emotionally but it seems to suck less out of her each time. i trust her physically. but my self esteem internally is pretty shot. he made sure i saw all the things she told him about me and most of them she exagerated or made up to shore up his tiny ego. my intellect knows this but my emotions sometimes have doubts. she still says that it is hard to understand how someone can be so cruel, callous, selfish. i know he is a shell with only fear inside. wish id met people like you and mo mac a few months earlier. i wont give up on her though. she is the most beautiful person i know in this world. she is a true empath. its so amazing to watch her with a young child. its like she can read their emotions. I can feel her love in so many things she does. and she taught me how deep intimacy can be. it took a long time for me to realize that her strength would free her. i thought she was a gonner till i shut up a little and saw tiny little signs that she was coming back. there is so much rage in me and i have to be carefull not to let her think its directed at her. i get a little of it out every so often though. i know i have to rid myself of it. it has to go.
My healing process has evolved over 40 years of dealing with sociopaths; first my “ex” to whom I was frustratingly married for 23 years, and recently by my beloved, now-grown 5 children (one of whom is a doctor!). It began with my research into psychology, at the library, to try and figure out what was wrong in my marriage. (He naturally claimed he was perfect and refused couple’s counseling.) After all, my husband had SEEMED so normal at first and I was an only child. Despite what the experts warned, that the ailment was highly genetically transmissable, I thought once we were free of my ex’s influences, I could salvage my abused, innocent children. They grew up to be near perfect individuals: physically healthy, happy, conscientious, intelligent kids and I was proud to present them to the world upon their graduatiions. However, slowly, over the decades, the symptoms began appearing and though shocked and feeling increasinly alienated, I excused them all for various reasons…mostly out of a mother’s deep love.
After being physically and psychologically threatened by them last year, I was advised to go NC with all of them. Facing reality has been a living nightmare, but one from which I never awake.
Briefly, NC is the first step…to clear one’s head of all the years of instilled emotional and mental propaganda. It began with my constantly asking myself “what do I want”?, not what others had imposed on me. This took years of rediscovering the true me. Second was educating myself about psychosis, it’s symptoms and how it completely devastates an individual. This lovefraud site has been of invaluable support as so few know about the disease…it’s total lack of empathy, perpetual lies and distorted perceptions, feelings of entitlement, superiority etc. In the process, I have adoppted the calming wisdom of the Serenity Prayer and my favorite poem, “The Man In The Glass” for at the core, I need to be true to my own conscience.
Thank you for this wonderful blog…I would highly recommend it to all who have been victims of psychotics!
I believe the basic symptoms should be taught in every high school and throughout the legal system. It is surely a growing illness in our times and as important a subject as any math and science in the educational system. Stay the course, be strong and my lovingest wishes to all.
Dear Snow White:
Thank you so much. I loved especially:
“I learned that I must practice mindfulness, or living in the moment. Focusing on the past leads to depression. Focusing on the future generates anxiety. Being present is the path to peacefulness.
Good job and thanks for your sharing your experience.
snowhite,
Its really comforting to know that there are other men out there that feel their wives are worth standing by after this thing happens.
to you guys. you have steel balls for hanging around waiting to see her strength overcome it all when she no longer looks like who she was. (hope that doesn’t offend anyone but im sayin it!) I truly admire you and the incredible strength you have built with these amazing women.
oh and likewise the other way around for you amazing women!
RGC,
I know I wasn’t even the same person after the psychopath….my friends and husband didn’t even recognize me. But it was a slow and gradual destruction. Slowly I am becoming myself again, and my husband recognizes this. There are so many couples who have survived this. When I look back, months before the love bombs started, he would casually make derogatory comments about my husband. Those comments are meaningless to me now. Thanks to the P, I now know what a kind, honest, compassionate man my husband is. I’m sure your wife feels the same way. You are real men!
Obviously you and your wife both love each other enough to work on it. If you didn’t, it would have been easy to get divorced. My husband and I cried everyday at the thought of ending our marriage. We just couldn’t do it. He blames himself…..but I truly believe that even the strongest of marriages could be rocked by a P. No where have we been taught to look out for emotional “charismatic” predators. I didn’t even know these cluster B personality disorders existed. Why was I chosen, who knows. I did feel sorry for him, and he used pity play tactics relentlessly until he got me. I remember while it was all happening, I would lay in bed next to my husband and think, “I’m safe. He hasn’t gotten me”. Yet I was to weak to stop it from happening. All so confusing. Then all of a sudden, the bait and switch occurred. I thank God every day that his masked slipped before I destroyed my family. It saved our lives.
It sounds like you really love your wife. There is nothing unmanly about that! In fact, in makes you so much more of a man than the hollow, empty, deceitful, fraud who preyed on your wife!
I’m happy and encouraged by your success to wellness. Thank you for sharing your journey with me.
Depending on what type of demented crap the twisted mental emotional retard (sociopath) puts (through hell) their unfortunate victim through. Takes much time to heal from crazy world in which they force us to live in to be with them.
How awesome you’re doing better, feeling alive, in control of your happiness, and destiny again.
Well done sister….