Lovefraud recently received the following email:
Hi Donna,
I’m a huge fan of LoveFraud and can’t thank you enough for making it happen. I know from your story that you’ve found a wonderful man. So have I, and we’ve been dating about a year. He’s an upbeat, nurturing person with a great sense of humor and good boundaries!
Still, I’m finding it difficult to let go and love him. I’m really surprised how long it’s taking me to let go of my fear. (I’ve been out of my marriage 4 years and did a lot of healing before I met new guy.)
Could you address this in one of your articles? I see a lot of info on how to recover, and how to spot a spath so you don’t hook up with another one. But what about when you find a good guy? I’d love to hear about other people’s experiences, how long it took them to relax into love, and anything they did to facilitate the process.
First of all, I am very glad that you have found someone special. So let’s address the situation that you’ve brought up letting go of fear so that you can fully enjoy your new relationship.
Here’s the most important concept to understand: The key to finding and enjoying a good, healthy relationship always lies within ourselves.
If you’re still feeling fear about the new relationship, it means that you have more healing to do. This is not a bad thing. Keep in mind that when it comes to our emotional lives, another word for “healing” is “growth.” So as you move forward, you’re getting to the deeper issues that may still stand in the way of emotional fulfillment. When you address them, you grow.
Whatever you’ve been doing to get to where you are now, keep doing it, focusing on the last remnants of the fear that you feel:
- If you’ve been working with a therapist, ask him or her to help you.
- If you’ve been journaling, ask yourself what you’re afraid of, and write the answers.
- If you’ve been processing your emotions, allow yourself to feel the fear, until it is released.
- If you’ve been meditating, focus on the fear, and let the cause come into your awareness.
- If you’ve been using EFT tapping, state the fear as the problem you want to resolve.
Emotional growth is a lifelong process. All relationships are opportunities for growth.
Interim steps
Sometimes there are interim steps between getting rid of the sociopath and finding a true life partner.
If you’ve read my first book, Love Fraud, you may remember that I started dating a man, John, seven months after I left my sociopathic husband. John was a normal, affectionate, caring man. We had a lot of fun, and I truly felt love with him.
The relationship ended 10 months later. Quite frankly, the end of that relationship hurt more than the end of my marriage. My ex-husband had betrayed me. I grieved the loss of my money, stability and self-esteem. But I no longer loved him; I was glad to get rid of him. When John and I broke up, I was heartbroken. We did share a love, and it was gone.
Eventually I realized that my relationship with John was never meant to be permanent. We were both taking the initial tentative steps out of emotional disappointment. We cared for each other and supported each other for almost a year, and then it was time for both of us to move on.
Our partner’s problems
Even with Terry, who is now my husband, there was a time about a year into our relationship when it almost came apart. The problem wasn’t our relationship, but other issues in Terry’s life that made him feel like he couldn’t continue.
Sociopaths, of course, often have problems in their lives. So how do we tell the difference between a healthy person with a problem, who deserves our love and support, and a sociopath who will be an unending source of turmoil?
The difference is that when a sociopath has a problem, we’ll feel manipulated, deceived or bullied into fixing it. When a healthy person has a problem, we won’t feel used when we’re offering support.
I knew that Terry had to face his issues. I hoped that we’d be able to stay together, but there was a chance that our relationship would end. I knew that if that happened, it wasn’t because I was deficient. I’d be unhappy, but I’d eventually pick myself up and start again.
Always risk
Keep in mind that there’s always risk involved in entering a relationship, whether or not you were previously betrayed by a sociopath, and even if the other person is relatively healthy. When you reveal the contents of your heart, there is a chance that your feelings may not be reciprocated and you’ll end up with a broken heart. In short, that’s life.
If a relationship doesn’t work out, it doesn’t mean that there is something wrong with you. It may mean that you and the other person were only meant to travel together for a short time. It may also mean that the person was just a stepping stone to the real love of your life.
Love is a leap of faith. As you heal, you’ll be able to find the courage to make the leap.
Sunflower, you are learning to set boundaries FOR YOURSELF and to not allow yourself to get too close to men (people) you know are toxic no matter HOW ATTRACTIVELY PACKAGED THEY ARE…..TOWANDA!!!!! GOOOD FOR YOU!!!! HOOOOOOOORAY!!!! Big HIGH FIVE!!!
Thank you for your kind and loving support 🙂
Truthy, I feel contaminated by the expath’s sexuality. It’s not my sexuality, that was null and void. I felt like the lovebombing had emptied ‘me’ out , made me a vessel for him to fill with his sexuality. That;s going to take a VERY long time to get rid of. Sexuality is such a complex and highly intimate mix of the physical , the emotional , the psychological. For ‘normals’ anyway. Bad sexual experiences, or a partner with a paraphilia that you discover and are repelled by, that’s a very complex trauma to work through.
Truthy, are you perhaps in some way carrying a feeling of being responsibility in some way for his sexual acting out ( of his hatred of / fear of women – or his mother, perhaps) ? Do you think maybe you feel your own is tainted by association in some way? x
Tea Light:
That is what I try to tell myself…that I know I am better off without him than with him. Thank God I AM past the part where I feel if I go back, he will make me feel better. I USED to feel that way, but not anymore. I learned after getting burned many, many times from him that he was only going to hurt me more so at least I am past that part.
I do still feel that way though that she is the chosen one…that it wasn’t meant to be for me…that he met her 20 some years ago and it wasn’t me. I even told him this…stupid me.
Me, too. I was always so independent and strong, but he saw this and wanted to break me down. I was just a HUGE challenge for him and once he conquered me, he was done. I know this because can you believe this…OW even told me that he asked her what he had done to her to make her fall for him and it was in context to me…he was asking her what he did to her so he could do the same thing to me to make me fall!…can you believe it? Well, yes, I know you can and so can I…he is a bastard. He knew that I would be hard to break so he was even asking her for tips.
He is no good, I know. x
Sunflower:
Good stuff. Good for you! It really is all about just removing ourselves as soon as we feel what we felt BEFORE when we were being duped. That is why I feel confident that I won’t be duped again. If someone is duping me, I know I will feel it…I just know I will and I will remove myself from the situation. Hell, I removed myself from my job…left it all behind because it was so toxic…I think I will be able to do it with just a silly man. I hope I am not sounding arrogant. I am not. I just feel confident that this won’t happen to me again. Perhaps it’s because I didn’t date much before Scousepath either so there is not much chance for me to even be duped. He was just a special circumstance and that’s why I feel it’s so hard to get over. OK, I am rambling now…sorry.
Lou, that man views women as prey, and it seems like men like that, who are married, want the mask of a ‘stable’ family life, the ‘cultural capital’ of being married as the sociologist Bourdieu puts it, view the wife as an object, like the house, like the car, like the wardrobe of clothes, like the cute , high acheiving kids, a status symbol, another one to check off the list. That structure has to be preserved, so they try and keep their infidelity and predatory behaviour quiet, or lie if they are caught, or worm their way back in if she threatens divorce. So the OWs are treated to the ‘real’ them, the them that hates women, and wants to punish them by proving how stupid and emotional and easily led they are etc. So it may look to the OWs that are discarded and treated with open disrespect that his wife is ‘the chosen one’ but that is a mistake. She is a dupe, and a possession, and his infidelity is an act of extreme hostility and contempt for her. They hate and fear women, is what I’m saying! And we have to stay away and not regret staying away.
Yours is a particularly nasty specimen Lou in that he openly used one woman to plan his seduction of a second woman, whilst no doubt his wife thought they were working on rebuilding their marriage. x
Sunflower, you sound like you’re doing great, well done to you for coming so far! x
Thank you Tea Light- hope you are doing much better 🙂
Well, not doing great exactly, it’s very hard and VERY painfull work. BUT the reward is worth it. It’s something about the sense of achievement.
Louise, sounds to like you are having a hard time nowadays? Stay strong, you’ll get through it. You are very right. One may not smell what’s in the air, but when the body refuses by getting really ill, something bad is cooking…
Tea Light:
Exactly! I couldn’t have said it better. You bet he wants the facade of the family man with everything to show for it. The wife, house, kids. He wants that. It gives him stability. I know when he was separated, he was miserable. He wanted his life back. So that makes me have cog/diss, but I have to tell myself that he only wanted it all back for his selfish reasons; not because of them and that is sad. He hates ALL women including his wife and I feel bad for her. Although he did say to me one time, “I don’t hate her.” Hmmmm. Yeah, he should be kissing the ground she walks on for putting up with him!
OMG…exactly! I KNOW that his wife thought they were rebuilding the marriage while he was still out philandering. BIG SIGH. He may be better now, but I doubt it. I keep telling myself that perhaps he is being good and staying faithful? Do you think there is even a slight chance? x
Sunflower:
Oh, I have been having a hard time for quite awhile. It comes and goes. Hopefully, it will all work out in the end. Thanks.