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.
breckgirl:
I am so sorry for your loss, but you made a very good point about how it’s an easier loss than a loss with a spath. So true. I have also had “normal” breakups and they hurt, but not like this. HUGS to you. You will be OK.
Tea Light:
Very good point about the wife seeing the day in day out evil of the spath. So true I am sure. In my case, I was only around him for a short time. I have absolutely NO idea what he is like to live with. Of course from what he portrayed, it seems like it would be great! Haha! Yeah, right. I am sure it is far from great. Or a better guess is that it is a BIG roller coaster ride…great times followed by horrible times…him being charming and loving and then turning into that cold, silent, stonewalling person that he was with me. I can only imagine. No marriage is all fun and a marriage to a man like that has to be even worse.
Yes, I am six months into my second long bout of no contact. It was six months just days ago on February 9. The last text I ever sent him was August 9. So I am on my way. HUGS to you. x
skylar:
Great stuff! Yes, HE wants all the attention and instead the women are getting it…haha…I love that!
I did read that book by the way, “The Descent of Woman.” I just returned it to the library yesterday as a matter of fact. I couldn’t get into it. I was a bit bored. It really wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. I remember reading what you described above though…extremely interesting! And it all makes sooooo much sense.
Yep, I think my grey rock devastated him and once it did, he never looked back. I tried after that, but by then, he was done. I think he was trying to get me back by then devastating me…stonewalling me. He knows how much that was hurting me. He was loving it.
Louise, congratulations on 6 months of No Contact!!!! That’s a major accomplishment and, although you’re probably not “feeling” so terrific, these days, you will. You really will.
What is so important to remember is that EVERYONE is on the back burner on the spath stove. The only person who gets attention is the spath – through coercions, drama/trauma, or the chase. At no time do they “value” their legal spouses, other men/women, or even their offspring. Everyone exclusive of themselves is simply a means to an end – whatever that “end” is.
I’ve had my moments of pining for the illusion – I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t. But, the illusion is what I would grasp at, and the truths and facts were always far stronger than the illusions, once the exspath left and the Dance Of The Warthog ended.
We will never know what really happened inside the lives of the spouses, or outside in the lives of the partners (in my former situation), and attempting to imagine this is a distraction – it’s a distraction from recovery and part of the depths of evil that these people perpetrate.
At some point, Louise, in the not-too-distant-future, your personal recovery is going to turn a corner and enter into the realm of “Mind Over Matter.” You’ll wake up, one day, and actually “feel,” in the depths of your mind and soul, that you dodged a terrible bullet. You will no longer “mind” because he will no longer “matter.”
Brightest blessings of encouragement
Louise,
I used to think something was wrong with me when certain men did not want to have a relationshit with me. I had a reactive commitment fear, so while we had sex, and I actually did develop hopes and beginning feelings for them, I never showed them. For years I lambasted myself for losing out of my commitment fear. And yes, I would suddenly show it all and be dramatic about it when I thought I had chased them away, without result.
The thruth is that it did actually protect me for several years from these men. They all had serious red flags, and one at least can be regarded as a spath based on the account I have from his ex-gf who came after me.
Had I not grey rocked them because of my commitment fear then, they would have abused me while I was far from ready to learn the lessons that come with a relationshit with a spath.
So, for me the conclusion is that I had commitment fear foremostly towards spaths, and that’s certainly not something to feel guilty about or lambast yourself over. You acted the right way to this man, because your intuition was right not to trust him with your feelings. That gets a TOWANDA from me!
Thank you for this topic of finding a good relationship after a sociopath.
I want to attract a really, really nice man. I believe if we can see in our minds what we want, we can attract it to us. I think it is that simple and that is what I am doing for myself.
What is helping me the most in conjunction with my inner work, is listening to Steve Harvey everyday. He is an advocate for women and discusses each day what to look for in a decent man, and what not to accept early on from date one.
He recommends a book called: The Magic of Thinking Big. The book stated that it takes the same amount of effort to think big as it does to think small. Go big or go home.
Harvey goes on to say, where humans get stuck is in trying to figure out your goals the entire way through. He says Inch by inch everything is a cinch, And if we can see it we can achieve it.
Steve has turned my life around and has taught me so much about how to be treated like a lady.
I highly recommend watching his show you will learn so much. I wish I had learned all of this stuff at a very early age. He wrote his books for his 4 daughters so that they would find good men. He had no idea this book would touch millions of womens’ lives like it has. He says he cannot believe the things women do wrong in finding love and what they will put up with. He has changed my life.
Truthspeak
You are SO right about waking up and feeling relief that we dodge a bullet. I would have NEVER predicted that I would find such JOY at getting my divorce. What a SHAMEFUL episode of too many years foolishly sacrificed in my life.
To all those who drool over my husband and can’t wait to get with him, HAVE AT HIM! He’s permanently sexually diseased, cold, calloused, petty, vindictive, vicious, dishonorable, nose picking, underwear striped, bad breath breathing, ridiculing, bigoted creature for whom nothing is ever enough, no attention is ever enough, no control is ever enough, no domination is ever enough, he is ALWAYS WINNING yet it’s NEVER enough b/c YOUR job will be to entertain him and any lapse at any moment is his entitlement to seem entertainment elsewhere. He is truly the BOOBY PRIZE. THANK YOU for competing for him. YOU WIN! (hahaha!)
I MEAN it! THANK YOU! For without you women lining up to beg for his attention, he would have NEVER let me go. WHeeeee. From terrible heartache to impossibly free joy and relief, I am SO happy now, b/c NOW I have the possibility of LOVE in my life and the enjoyment of the company of GOOD decent people.
Loiuse, Yes, I agree that the spath decided that you wouldn’t be an ideal source of supply, because you wanted a real relationship. And, possibly, like Skylar said, you gray rocked him.
I have some of the same feelings and fears that you do. I intuitively gray rocked my husband, but I have to tell you, he gray rocked me first. I felt alone for a long time, and of course this was just his particular spin on “devalue and disgard”. I had to find something to put my energy in; something that made me feel good about myself:something productive. I got into therapy and went back to school. I entered a support group, and I started to get myslef back.
Then I found out about his affair.
It’s such a long story with so many banks and missing peices and WTF moments, and questions I will never get answers to…..Even after all these years it’s still mind boggling.
I have been a little obsessed with the whole experience this last year or so, and at times I beat myself up for it, but you know, I think it’s just a matter of breaking through the final vestages of denial. This is what I couldn’t deal with in the past, so I am dealing with it now. I have no real evidence, but am quite sure he was cheating our entire marriage. I used to think it was only the one girl.
The only thing that gives me any peace….that it wasn’t my fault is accepting that he is at best a narcissist and, at worst a spath.
It all rolls neatly up into a ball, when I study narcissism. Sexual addiction, erectile dysfunction, multiple affairs, torture by triangulation, entitlement, physical, mental, emotional, and verbal abuse….being made to feel voiceless, and invisable.
The strength of the trauma bond, while physically gone persists psychologically, though. I have to continuiously remind myself that he wasn’t a good man, and that what I felt for him wasn’t love…well, at least not in the end….it was a psychological entrapment that was very real, and very hard to break free of.
I hope you are having a good day, Loiuse, and I wish you a day free of rumination.
thedoorisclosed,
I agree with your recommendation of Steve Harvey. It’s an old cliche but so true about his show: Steve Harvey is a breath of fresh air. He’s a man telling women what they NEED to hear, that it’s NOT playing hard to get when you walk away from jerks, it’s being an ADULT who is taking responsibility for their relationships. It’s NOT smart to try to make a jerk turn into a prince, Instead the jerk turns a queen into a bag lady (although we can recover our dignity, THEY will ALWAYS BE A TOAD.).
Thanks for the information about Steve Harvey, closeddoor lady. I will look for it.