Editor’s note: The following article was written by a Lovefraud reader who uses the name “Transcendence.”
I had not received so much confirmation or documentation of being in a “relationship” before. The biggest problem was that he managed to rarely see me in person and he had a habit of cancelling and sometimes even “FORGETTING” dates. My first intoxicating Romantic Narcissist occurred 4 years ago and I had never experienced a suitor so sexy, seductive, intelligent, well written with poetic prose and boyishly handsome with seeming innocence.
I remember waiting desperately for a return txt ”¦ or phone call ”¦ obsessively ”¦ this man could send me to heaven or throw me into the black abyss. The euphoria of the sexy banter ”¦ the wanting and being wanted. But nothing can compare to the depths of searing pain of being abandoned ”¦ of the broken promises”¦and the crushing of the heart.
Reeling me in
He blew up my phone with fun and provocative texts ”¦ and he could sense when I was beginning to pull away and analyze the situation and he would reel me in with a challenge or an enticing promise. When he knew I was hopelessly enamored and committed he would suddenly drop out of sight and string me along for days”¦with me at times desperate and broken hearted ”¦ begging for some small offer of contact if only to know he was “okay”.
How I yearned for this illusive man ”¦ and how I anguished over the tumultuous bewildering pattern”¦trying to keep my head above the dark deceptive waters of exploitation. What is so ironic about these crushing relationships is the jealousy of others as they witness the attention we get by these handsome, intelligent, charming men.
After 5 weeks I figured out that he was cheating and lying about it ”¦ I mean CHEATING ”¦ serial obsessive sex. I broke it off ”¦ which was so hard as I was already crazy for him. I thought he was “the one” and I was going to help him raise his kids. It was so difficult ”¦ I cried so much I missed work the next day. He was so persuasive in txts and emails but I held my ground.
Fell harder than before
I had not had sex with him but had spent a few languishing nights in his arms with him wrapped around me and I was “hooked”. After the break up I had a number of dates from online and was getting hit on quite a bit ”¦ so that helped somewhat. The break up was early November. But by the end of December ”¦ we started txting ”¦ and I thought I could just mess with him ”¦ and it took him a solid month of epic txts but he was so convincing that I fell harder than before and longed desperately to see him! All these other things seemed to fall into place magically as if to bring us back together! His New Year’s Eve txt rolled in “Lucky is the guy who gets you at Midnight”
Thus began again another electrifying, confusing, romp where after 5 months I made love with him after only being with one man in my life (my exNhusband) and being celibate nearly 10 yrs! Then he abandoned me AGAIN right after ”¦ and me putting in so much effort to try to have a relationship with him”¦he would have me wait for his call and he would stand me up ”¦ and sadly and woefully I only actually got to see him maybe once or twice a month. And in hindsight ”¦ he had probably had sex with someone before and after he saw me!
After investing so much and him playing games and hurting me and breaking promises”¦I would try to break it off with him again. I wrote, “No relationship could survive on the crumbs you offer”. He was so good at blaming his job where he travelled and taking care of his kids. (I never even MET the kids) To be honest I feel like such a fool ”¦ and I was so good to him ”¦ and caring ”¦ he asked me not to give up on him. I do know that he was truly hurting and his family treated him like crap ”¦ and he was sexually traumatized within his family. That is what was so hard ”¦ I understood where the obsessive sexual behavior came from ”¦ the revictimization of self and then the predatorial behavior all wrapped up in one man.
More narcissists
In the end he abandoned me ”¦ kept my stuff ”¦ and left me with no closure ”¦ and a huge broken heart. He was very cruel”¦and I cared very deeply for him. I went on to 2 more serious relationships with N’s that lasted about 5 to 7 months ea. The next one was a cerebral N who had slight Asperger’s ”¦ and he was also very seductive and pursued me hard. And he was so very self-centered and arrogant ”¦ and full of RAGE! He cruelly abandoned me and treated me like CRAP! Then 2 months later was my last N ”¦ who was the pinnacle of exploitation ”¦ I literally ended up under his thumb ”¦ and somehow I ended up LIVING in a hotel room with him ”¦ and eventually seduced into having sex with him and my life was kidnapped ”¦ within 5 months I thought he loved me and we actually had a good relationship! And he was cruel and deceptive ”¦ punitive ”¦ critical ”¦ threatening ”¦ and he actually used abandonment at opportune times to break me down, literally.
He left me devastated and shattered 2 years ago ”¦ broke every promise and I had allowed myself to compromise so much of my integrity that I had lost much of my identity ”¦ it only took him 5 months to almost get me to the point that 1o yrs of marriage to an abuser did!
All in the phones
Back to the phones ”¦ I was trying to find an old phone to “activate” while I waited for a new phone to arrive. My old phones hold whole relationships ”¦ all with N’s ”¦ and I had enough juice to read the txts of the first romantic N ”¦ and after working hard at recovery and grieving the losses and coming out of denial ”¦ I could literally pinpoint all the seduction ”¦ how he worked on me so smoothly ”¦ and got me to send him sexy pictures ”¦ so intoxicating ”¦ and how he got me to want him so badly. How he convinced me that he cared and that we had a future and he was faithful. I really wasn’t stupid ”¦ he was really good at deception ”¦ and I wasn’t an easy target ”¦ it’s the challenge the smart ones love. At one time my whole phone was full of his vm’s and 100’s of txts ”¦ and I had emails too! I would go over and over them in bewilderment! How could it not be real?
I did still cry a little bit ”¦ but I probably sobbed for a number of months when I was getting to the nitty gritty of all those disordered destructive relationships ”¦ that would never yield a healthy bounty.
It is hard to metabolize the lack of care they actually have for us ”¦ how shallow their emotions really are. And how they can just flip a switch and be rid of us ”¦ and we are left with gaping wounds ”¦ and they turn and walk away.
I have learned so much and come through so much grief; old and new ”¦ and life is much fresher ”¦ and I am overall more content. I was fully addicted to those familiar relational patterns ”¦ and that chemical cocktail of romance that literally floods the mind and body with endorphins, oxytocin, and dopamine ”¦ whether one has full on sex or not. I have still been attracted to a few predators ”¦ but over time I am becoming more acute at diagnosing the situation when it arises ”¦ and am so thankful the formerly powerful lure is growing weaker and weaker ”¦
Transcendence
Ana:
Thanks for the laugh! 🙂
MD:
I should clarify…I like the holidays also. It’s just that I haven’t liked them much since my dad died and spath threw me for a loop. I didn’t want to sound like a Grinch.
HA, yeah I relate about not having much to offer. My life is boring, too. I don’t cook, sew and do all those domestic things that men like so I feel like I don’t really have anything to offer except sex and we all know that’s not happening with me…haha. It would be worth the wait though.
MD,
People use an eye pillow when relaxing or when getting a massage. You drape it over your eyes..it’s relaxing. But not a smelly one from the dollar store! Pew
Yes, MD, you do have a lot to offer. A nice walk aroung the lake with dogs…no drama rama. Very nice indeed.
Louise, your welcome!
ps. her sisters got her earings for her birthday and xmas every year. Problem was, she didn’t have pierced ears lol.
OMG-this author stepped into my life! The whole first part of this about the 1st guy is literally the carbon copy of the relationship with the N who brought me to this site. All the stuff he did and everything documented on the cell phones-thousands of txt messages. It’s unreal how two stories from different people can be so identical.
Hi ladies: I am Transcendence : ) It is uncanny how parts of our stories match up with each other. I remember finding “Sanctuary for the Abused” and reading about “Romantic Narcissists” and I just couldn’t come to grips with reality. The pain of being in that abandonment abyss…cycling the relationship…over and over again. It is so hard to face being duped…not just pride…but how much we invested and truly loved someone…and they weren’t ever even capable of it! One thing I can say for myself is that at least I confronted things…in efforts to resolve them…(lol) and generally it busted the deception wide open. That first guy…all his women started calling each other…and it started with me figuring out these comments on his FB page when it fell into my lap one day! I could look at the dates of wierd txts on my phone and when we had a blowout…and when he had sex with that particular sociopath…she was a horrible woman…and she stalked me and tried to get her hooks into me because she was jealous that me and him had some real feeling between us! At any rate…now I can read through blogs on this site…on diagnostic sites…and I see txtbook narcissism…and my last one as I said was a SUPER PREDATOR…and sometimes I want to physically vomit…what I thought was “love” was in the end severe exploitation…and I drive by places where events and seductions occured…over 2 years ago…and see them for what they were…and it scares me. How did I get to the point of being “controlled” like that after 10 years of singleness? I believe part of it was that I spent day and night with this man…and I had not done that since the “Marriage” to another abuser a decade before. And he was really really good at coersion, seduction, emotional blackmail and finding vulnerabilities and regressing me to a powerless state! Never again though, I’ve had 2 solid years of deep recovery…and I haven’t “arrived” but I certainly have completed the most challenging part of the journey!
Moon & Louise, the “holiday season” is touted as the “time to be together” by advertising media and so forth. It doesn’t HAVE to be a time to “be alone” or lonely. For my part, the exspath NEVER celebrated holidays and I can recollect over the years that he devalued them (and, important events) more and more. Cards, well-wishes, and famly gatherings were discouraged, even if it wasn’t a blatant out-and-out “HELL, NO, we’re not having my grandparents here for ____!” Suggestions at hosting his family were always met with, “We’ll see. Let me think about it.” Which was invariably followed by silence. Any attempt to encourage a response was met with, “Will you stop nagging me?” LMAO!!!!
One of the things that we can do is to host a needy family or military member for a holiday. Or, if we live near an urban area, volunteer at the local homeless shelter to serve those who have no place to call “home.” Visit the hospital or a nursing home on Christmas Day or during whatever festival appeals. Spaths love nothing more than to imagine their discarded targets sitting in a darkened room with a glass of bourbon and weeping about being alone. FARK them!
Transcendence, spaths target qualities, values, and vulnerabilities. Someone who is independent and successful is a challenge to bring down, and the challenge provides an almost sexual response in the planning, plotting, using, and discarding. If I give ANY information about my past to a potential partner, that person can use that information to their benefit. I will not disclose my past relationshits unless (and, UNTIL) that person has clearly earned my trust. Period. Even then, I may opt to never disclose anything.
What you will probably identify with, as time goes on, is that nearly every spath uses the same tactics. They don’t always use their tactics in the same order because they are busy feeling out their targets for the most vulnerable “In Road,” so they’ll alter their course of actions, accordingly.
So, I’m grateful that you’re on your own Healing Path. And, the journey is quite a challenge, to be sure!
Brightest blessings
Welcome Transcendence,
After your first encounter with the psychopath (of course not knowing what he was) you were still open to another one because you lacked the knowledge. Knowledge is POWER and in order to regain our power we must first learn about what THEY ARE and then learn about ourselves. Why were we vulnerable to their manipulations? Why didn’t we recognize the RED FLAGS of their fraud and RUN? Once we know all of those things we are SAFE-R. Not SAFE entirely, but safe-er.
It is sort of like using a condom for sex it makes it SAFER, but only totally doing without makes it totally SAFE. LOL
Thanks for the Welcome : ) Truthspeak I agree that the more cunning Spaths believe they are entitled to a worthy prize…and enjoy “taking down” or gaining control of a person of character and confidence. I have been on a healing journey for some time. My exHusband turned out to be an N/Spath with increasing destructive behavior and it ended with me writing up my own restraining order as he had a lawyer and I did not at the time. I am 12 years out of that marriage and 2 years ago ended that last super exploitive man. Ox: yes knowledge is power…however for me…I did not have the tools to know who to “allow” into my life…and repeatd engrained childhood patterns of trauma bonding to people who weren’t good for me. I had to grieve my losses and take in many resources in order to peel away the denial that was fogging up my ability to comprehend full reality. Then I could apply the knowledge and understand what had been occurring in my life. I was the key player and held the gate to my heart open for these predators. I had to become a student of myself and see how and why I fell for lies and fantasy. Part of that was the pattern of chasing after love from an unavailabe person…and wanting that focused attention/affection. I can see the “dead eyes” of a predator…and I “toss” their “word salad” which evokes quite a frustrated response when they can’t hook me! I have been without a relationship now for 2 years…and I am quite satisfied…back in college…and open to meet someone good…but not desperately so… I know I’m not “iron clad” but I am quite a different person than I was 2 years ago…and all this painful yet freeing work on myself…has been well worth it!
My ex-spath was a failed spath.
He was a liar through and through (no remorse, no empathy, highly impulsive)…….yet he had TERRIBLE ANXIETY. He fretted over everything because he didn’t want to be noticed. He knew he was a spath, and was terrified that people would look at him and instinctively know what he was, and he wanted to hide it.
Despite all his effort to “fit in” he didn’t. Because once he opened his mouth, the secret was out.
People who knew him called him Mr._Snuffleupagus (a fairy tale character) because they KNEW whatever he said was FAIRY TALES. LOL!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Snuffleupagus
Transcendence,
LEarning about them and then learning about ourselves is the key! Good for you! None of us are bullet proof but as we learn we grow, and that helps us keep safer at least.