Saturday night, the Lovefraud reader “rriinnaa” posted the following under Heeding the Exploiter’s Earliest Warning:
I cant stop crying .. and I dont know what Im crying over ! Im crying over the happy-go-lucky joyful loving warm Rina.. the woman I once was .. THAT I POSSIBLY won’t be again ”¦. i want to be held and rocked until this pain goes away, but i have to work, i have to pay bills,i have to bring up my children ”¦ all the PROMISES HE MADE TO ME, “when you cry Rina, I will cry with you” ”¦.. “I would die for you Rina—¦. “such simple things make you happy Rina”.. “Rina, you are the light in my life—¦ “Rina, you are strong and I believe in you” .. AND AND AND AND AND AND AND .. oh my god AND I BELIEVED EVERYTHING HE EVER SAID TO ME”¦ I believed him .. he hated me because I was strong and he did everything in his power to crush that.. he didnt have that sense of fun, that wacky sense of humour, that friendliness that everyone fell in love with THAT WAS ME, THAT WAS THE GIRL HE MET”¦. and I have lost that girl i once was.. i want it back, i want to live and laugh and be happy .. he has turned me into his apprentice monster ”¦ oh my god !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
TELL ME THERE IS KARMA.. TELL ME HE WILL HURT ONE DAY PLEASE TELL ME THAT HE FEELS .. yeah right ”¦”¦”¦I still can’t get it in my head THAT HE IS A SICK SOCIOPATH.. I STILL CANT BELIEVE I FELL IN LOVE WITH THAT THING ! IM GOING CRAZY .. i cant get my head around it .. i saw a psychologist.. it was the worst thing i could have done last week ..IS THERE A GROUP MEETING WHERE I CAN TALK TO REAL PEOPLE IN MELBOURNE ABOUT THIS MONSTER ????? can someone guide me to somewhere, someone that understands what I am going through ????????????????????
i am sorry”¦ i am ranting”¦. maybe i have finally gone over the edge ? nooooooo NO NO .. i never will. I will find the strength.. .again .. im up and down and my kids are suffering.. as much as I try to hide it ”¦”¦. they feel it, they see it and I HATE HIM FOR DOING THIS TO ME I HATE HIM ..
I remember feeling like this. In fact, when I read Rina’s message, I got that old tightening in my chest, that inability to breathe, that constantly-on-the-verge-of-tears feeling again.
I remember the rage, the hatred, the utter despair.
They’re normal reactions to the betrayal of a sociopath.
Why it’s so bad
We’ve all had romantic relationships end before. Why the end of a relationship with a sociopath so much worse?
First of all, the scale of the deception is beyond what most of us have ever experienced. These people don’t just lie about where they were last night. Their entire lives are lies—everything they ever did, every human relationship they ever had. In my case, as I started to unravel what was really going on, each day brought another fabrication, another betrayal. Recently, nine years after I left my sociopathic ex-husband, I discovered yet another lie. It never ends.
Then, the degree to which we were used is unbelievable. My ex-husband wanted a place to live, reliable sex and someone to finance his dreams of grandeur. All his love notes, his little gifts, and his forever promises, were designed to make me provide those things. It worked. Then, two and a half years later when I was used up, he moved on.
But perhaps the biggest reason why it’s so bad is because sociopaths steal our dreams and use them against us. In those heady early days of the relationship, as the sociopaths listen intently, we’re spilling our guts, telling them what we really want, what is really important to us, what we want out of life. We think they’re listening because they truly want everything that we want. In reality, they’re listening to discover the deepest places within us where they can set their hooks.
Sooner or later, it all collapses.
At that point, we lose our trust—trust in other people, trust in ourselves, trust if life itself. And as Karin Huffer writes in the Legal Abuse Syndrome, “the most profound loss is loss of trust.”
Dealing with the pain
We’re left with the emotional wreckage—along with very real problems like physical illness and injury, financial devastation, caring for children and legal issues. And all of it was caused by someone who supposedly loved us. What do we do?
The only way out of the pain is through it.
People often call and ask me how to cope. I suggest that you hold yourself together while dealing with the practical, financial and legal issues. Somehow, you have to keep your emotions in check so you can think and make decisions.
But after those concerns are handled, and you are alone, let it rip. Allow yourself to cry, yell and curse. Get physical—stomp your feet or twist towels. My personal favorite was envisioning my ex-husband’s face on a pillow, and punching the crap out of it. (For more information, read Releasing the pain inflicted by a sociopath.)
Why do we need to do this? Because emotions are physical. They are not intellectual concepts that will dissipate upon discussion. They are physical sensations, and must be dealt with physically. The tears, yelling and punching are the means by which the emotional pain is drained from the body.
What you’ll find is that there are layers and layers of pain—you’ll release some, and more will rise to the surface. So you do the exercise again. And again. And again.
Older, deeper pains
Then what you’ll find is that older pains—injuries not inflicted by the sociopath—will also rise to the surface. Perhaps they were injuries from your family of origin, or other relationships, or profound disappointments in your life.
When you find these pains, you have struck gold. These are the pains that made you vulnerable to the sociopath in the first place. They too, must be released. When they are no longer buried within you, you will be able to move into a new life of peace, contentment and happiness.
It’s hard to believe this when you are in the midst of the trauma. But it is true—you can pass through the pain and come out the other side. The process is not pretty. A therapist, if you can find one who gets it, may be able to guide you, but you alone must do the work. And it will take time.
Many of us on Lovefraud have talked about how we’ve become stronger, wiser individuals after our run-ins with the sociopaths. This is how it happens. We persevere through the pain, and then we are set free.
another thing…when is it that we stop allowing these jerks and their wrongdoings creep back into our thoughts and take control of our minds? I’ll experience long periods of time where I just don’t care nor give the whole mess a lot of thought. Then, something will prompt thoughts of him!!! Usually, it’s yet another left over mess or personal item of his that I find myself still having to deal with after a year and a half! He never even came to collect his belongings after the divorce and I’ve had to deal with removing all his junk from my house–I’m now up to 13 pickup loads that went straight to the landfill. God forgive me, but I even threw his Bible away!
BEVERLY…When I read your post it’s like re-reading mine. For me I realize I was being used, he set out to use me before he actually moved in. He was literaly kicked out of his former BF’s house in the middle of the nite, and came here because I was his only option. I would of helped him regardless, but he just started pretending to be the guy that I wanted. I have to except my responsibilty in this. I am embarrased and ashamed that somehow I knew with out a doubt I was being conned but continued to let it go on. I had been single 20 year’s pryor to him. It’s the way they peel away your indentity and self and slowy methodically become what you have always looked for, that is not fair. But we let evil in our lives and survived and hope we have learned from it. I felt sorry for him, wanted to help him, and I did, he is with a new victim now. Dancing the same dance he has done his intire life, someday it will catch up with him, but I can’t consume myself with hate. Just having my home back is great. The evil that he left behind is fading. I even for a moment thought about selling my beautiful home and acerage to escape the memories. But as time goes on his memory will fade and my garden’s will grow and new life will bloom. I think change is good and your plan’s to move from a bad place to a better place, there is nothing wrong with that. Yes Bev my X thought he was the prize, what he doesn’t understand is it was pity and compassion on my part that kept him here.
TAmi,
It IS DIFFICULT to getout of the hate and rage, and when things do trigger us, a newly discovered vandalizm or whatever, like a week or so ago I discovered that the Trojan HOrse Psychopath (who is now in prison) had done about $25,000 damage to the engines on some equipment here on the farm that are only intermittently used or started–but he ruined the engines and when we tried to start them, it turned the stuff he had poured into the oil into the cylinders and locked them up tight! Never to be repaired. That was a little “gift” he left me that he knew wouldn’t be immediately discovered. It answered why he was smirking in the court room after his arrest for trying to kill my son.
Yesterday I met my X-DIL-P at the bank to cash the checks from the IRS and the “stimulus” payment to give her her half and get the half belonging to my son—we had been suing the TH-P for the title to the vehicle he had conned mhy mother into loaning him the money for and also conned her into NOT putting a lien on the title, and DIL and he had conned her into letting my DIL have access to mom’s papers, so she tore up the promisoary note he had signed…anyway, I met her, we got the IRS money divided, and then I mentioned that she had a Power of Attorney that the TH-P had given her so that when SHE got out of JAIL for her part in the crimes, that she could use it to get possession of his truck, she had also a POA for his bank account, which contained ONLY money that she had stolen from my mother and given to him. So I suggested to her that we sign over the title with the POA and also go close out his bank accounts with the POA, so we did. I gave her $100 for signing the title, and half the proceeds of what little was left in the bank account, but at least he now will walk out of Prison in 2010 with nothing but the shirt on his back and no vehicle, and my mother can sell the truck and try to recover some of her lost money.
I have worked HARD at getting rid of the rage, anger and frustration at the things they did to our family without the slightest bit of conscience at all…I know the bitterness will eat at ME if I don’t get rid of it, it won’t hurt them. I got some satisfaction about the arrest of my DIL and the Trojan Horse P, and some satisfaction about keeping him from getting parole in May, and proably keeping him from getting parole at all since he has no where to go when he gets out, no one to take him in, and they will not parole him on to the street, and it is against my state’s laws to parole him to a half way house as he is a sex offender. (the parole board was going to do this knowing he was a sex offender and that it was against the law until I raised a public fuss and threatened to get the media involved and to protest on the steps of the state capitol) At that point they CANCELED his already approved parole. So I got some justice there. And yesterday I got some justice in getting his former girl friend to turn on himm and LEGALLY take back what he stole with the POA, and of course even though SHE was the one that planned my son’s murder and bought the gun for her lover, it was what got her in jail for 8 months and on probation for 5 yrs so it is of course HIS fault and she enjoyed getting “even” with him.
I tried to keep an emotional distance during this encounter to help my son by doing the taxes for them, having the check mailed to me so I could meet her to get it cashed (he lives out of state now) and that netted him several thousand dollars, and dealing with her netted my mother the truck without another (4th) futile trip to court. Yet, it took its TOLL on me, I can tell that I am ANGRY today, I can feel the tightness in my throat, the lump in my stomach, the tightness in the muscles along my spine.
In addition to dealing with the DIL in person, and the TH-P in thought, I also had to have an encounter with my mother, who I call a “psychopath by proxy” as she is such an entrenched enabler that she might as well be a psychopath for how she has treated me. Without her enablilng the DIL and the TH-P and my P-son would not have been able to cost ME $50,000 total lost equipment and cash in one year. I am retired and on a fixed income now so that is a BIG chunk of my assets which I needed to live on, so though I am not destitute as many victims are, I still have taken a heafty “lick” in the pocket book.
Looking back though, I wish now I had just told my son, suck it up and not had anything to do with the tax refunds, but Iknew he had also taken a huge financial lick and debt caused by the X-WIFE and her BF, as well as a huge emotional lick too. And, in retrospect, I shouldn’t have messed with the small claims law suit against the truck for mother, except I didn’t want the TH-P to be able to have a vehicle when he got out of prison–and that was a safety thing for me. But, I DID do those things, and I paid a price for it. My anger is back, and I will have to deal with it again.
Breaking NO contact for any but the most important reasons is a no win situation. I thought I could handle it better than I did handle it. I have paid a price for it, and I know it.
My enabling mother also hit another lick at me yesterday to try to guilt me into playing “let’s pretend I didn’t stick an ax in your back” and “let’s pretend we are a nice normal family” but I think I finally got it through to her that I WILL NEVER PLAY THAT GAME AGAIN. It didn’t change the fact that she will never admit that what she did was WRONG, or that she chose to “trade” me for the DIL and the Trojan HOrse Ps or that her enabling allowed all this to happen, or that my P-son wasn’t going to fulfill her dreams and get out of prison and come home to live a happy and law abiding life with her.
For my whole life, no matter how much her enabling of the family monsters hurt me, or how much she guilted and abused me, I always eventually gave in and played “let’s pretend that none of this ever happened” but NEVER AGAIN will I play that game. But she will never acknowledge that she did anything wrong—it is still ALL my fault because I objected to the abuse and homicidal intentions of of my P-son and his minions. The lies she told me, the horrible things she said to me were of course “excusable” for her, especially because I have “lied to her too”—yea! 40+ years ago when I was a teenager! So she has no insight, no willingness to admit her own part in any of this. I can’t have a relationship with her because I will no longer have a relationship with people who feel there is ANY EXCUSE to abuse me.
So anger rears its ugly head and I have to deal with it again, but it isn’t as bad this time as prior, and the grief won’t be as bad either as I KNOW that I have to deal with it, that there is no changing the situation. I can’t change others, only my reaction to them. I will deal, but it is just more pain right now.
Dear Henry, I had been single for over 16 years and I was definately not up to speed in the world of dating, where tactics have changed dramatically. Like your x, mine constructed a charade and he ‘became’ the type of man I wanted. I told him that I admire good personal values in a man, like reliability, trustworthy, good personal integrity and he pretended to be like that. I called him decent with rough edges, my knight in rusty armour and like you I felt sorry for him and wanted him to have a better life. I even said to him ‘use me as a platform to improve your life’! But things did not stack up. He said things, but his actions did not support his words and I was the one constantly putting in all the effort and he was mean mean mean with every aspect of our relationship, infact I would say that he was deliberately keeping score, so that he never gave more than he got in ANYTHING and infact he got way more than he gave on all levels – that is the con.
I think on one level we ‘know’ we are being conned, but there is a part of us that cannot possibly believe that could be so, especially as they are so good at acting genuine.
I had to get his vibes out of my place, I binned the pillows and for a while my place felt tainted by him, but my place has returned to how it was. In the end, when he realised I was onto him, (if you had read my posts last year, I said how I almost became like a detective to catch him out, because I knew he was up to something and I knew it was only time) he had already set up a network of other women and when I found out for real WHO he really was, I sent him a letter telling him he was a deceitful coward. I have no doubt he tailors himself to each new partner, and some of them (married women) he just uses for sex – the details of which I found on my phone (this is a man with 12 mobile phones). It was shortly after I finished with him, that I had the shock, much like you and many have had to realise that he was a total fraud. But they can never have a sincere genuine loving relationship and at least we have the potential of that, even if we have to learn hard lessons to get there.
Henry, I also felt really embarrassed about introducing him to my friends, and he met one or two, 6 months into the relationship and I smoothed the way, saying he looks very gruff, but he is ok. I have never been embarrassed like that before. Even whilst he was creating a kind of silent ‘drama’ I was on the phone constantly to my friend, asking her what she made of his behaviour and she is intelligent and couldnt make sense of it. After we split and I realised he was a Narcissist, all the pieces fell into place so clearly – around his weird behaviour. Yes Henry, things will change for the better. I broke with him last August and found my way here in October last year. Thank God I was only with him a little over a year (I dont think any of his relatinships have lasted more than a year), but boy did he do some damage.
bev, my (P) was here 2.5 years. the most drama filled time of my life. I can’t describe in word’s on paper the anguish, anxiety, the pain that I indured to try and give him a better life. He said he had looked for me all his life, that I was the best thing that ever happened to him. But as time went on I realized I was losing myself. He became bored very easily, I spent alot of time keeping him intertained and letting my life dissapear. Someone posted earlier that the man we miss never existed. That is the way I see it, so I am missing him less and enjoying me more. I missed me so much. I still hurt alot but the hurt is not as bad as having him here, stealing my life. I keep thinking I should go out and try to meet someone, at least for a deversion, someone else to focus on. But I need to focus on me, I don’t trust my judgement yet, and I don’t need to meet another predator. It has been almost a year scince you ended your relationship with him and I can still hear the hurt and the pain. We need to mourn the loss and re-evaluate our priorities. when no one else is around, we are keeping company with a human being with a soul, our own soul.
DEar Henry,
I think you came to the good conclusion in that post above. Tooo many times people rush out to find someone new to take their focus off the loss, and the loss never gets resolved, no lessons are learned and they repeat the same mistakes and take on a new disordered partner and the cycle continues without them ever learning the WHY they are open to those people in the first place.
How can we be a good partner ourselves right now until we heal, until we are whole again? (if I ever was? LOL) How can we trust our judgment when we know our emotions are in a turmoil going up one day and down the next? Almost like WE are bi-polar off our meds?
There was a poster on another blod who had had a horrible experience with a p, and then she met a man a month later in a bar or internet or somewhere that she just knew was her salvation and was going to be her prince in shinning armor and rescue her–it was obvious to us that he had been hooked by another P and so it was—there was no getting through to her, she was still in the FOG, and I presume she will contnue in that FOG until she is ready to face herself and not look for extermal solutions. The solutions are INSIDE OURSELVES. There is NO ONE who can rescue us from our own poor choices to pick or stay with a psychopath. If we jump from “relationship” to “relationship” we will not learn. It is only when we LISTEN TO OURSELVES in quiet contemplative solitude without turning our focus outward that we can even HEAR OURSELVES, get to KNOW ourselves, that quiet wonderful person inside of us that just wants to be loved. We have to get to know that person and to love that person with all our might, and THEN we will be safe from the predators because we will listen to the voice inside us that warns us that there is a predator in the area or stalking us for the next victim. When we listen to ourselves, we will protect ourselves, as long as we don’t listen to ourselves, we will always become victims–again and again because our inside person will be so love deprived that the inside person will grasp at straws like a drowning man, desperately.
Even though right now I am feeling anger at my mother for being so blind, for discarding me for the psychopaths she thought were “more valuable” to her, I realize the ONLY person I can truly count on to love me is ME. While I would like to have a mother that I trusted to value and love me for me, I dont’ have that choice, it isn’t in my power to bake up a ginger-bread mommie that will become real and love me, I have to accept the enabling “pseudo-psychopath” that she is as the REALITY that isn’t going to change. I have to let go of my disappointment and anger and move on…and I WILL get back on track. Back to NO contact with her, it is the only way I can move on and not be triggered when I see her. What business I have to transact will be done by e mail and nothing else discussed. I think she is getting the idea that I will NOT EVER AGAIN play her game of “let’s pretend I didn’t betray you completely” and resume a “relationship” with her until she betrays me the next time she thinks someone else is more important than I am. I can’t EARN her love and respect, I have proven that by trying and failing to do so. I can’t reason with her and receive love and respect, because she projects her wrongdoing onto me. I lied to her when I was 15, so it is okay that she lies to me NOW. Makes sense to her, but not to me.
After her enabling behavior of the Ps and her dismissing of me as a liar, which cost me about $50,000 (adding in the last damage discovered) and a year of hell by her refusal to listen to me before the damage was done and I had to flee for my life, she has still never apologized or in any way made any acknowledgement of her wrong doing, or that she was even wrong to behave the way she did, or that she was a liar to protect them, yet she wants “forgivenes” with no apology, no acknowledgment, and full trust restored. NOPE that DOG WON’T HUNT, THAT BOAT WON’T FLOAT, THAT AIRPLANE WON’T FLY, THAT HORSE WON’T RUN and she has NO idea why.
You are right, Henry, we are keeping company with someone who had a heart and soul when we are with ourselves, and getting to know ourselves without distractions from others is a good thing too. Humans are “herd” animals and we need companionship, but we also need to get to know our own souls as well. You are making remarkable progress Henry! Hang in there! Sorry I’m having a negative day, but I’ll get over it!
MY Sweet OXY, Don’t opologize for having a bad day. I think some bad negative feeling’s for people (your mom) is healthy. When I rehash all the bad thing’s my (N) mother has done to me, how she has robbed me of most of my life, and I hold her partly responsible for my sister’s death. We can change our lives but we can never forget the injustice, and having a bad day dealing with those reality’s helps me keep perspective. YOU have alot on your plate OXY. Hang in there and tomorrow will be a better day. And thanks oxy for being encouraging for everyone else and me even when you are feeling down. You send out positive energy to me…….
Thanks, Henry,
I called a friend and he and I are going to go out to an auction tonight and then eat supper, so I’ll have a good time with my friend. He’s an old college buddy I ran in to a couple of years ago andhe lives near me now, and we are hanging ot again–just friends—but he is someone I can trust and have a laugh with, or cry with if I need to. I am so fortunate that I have so many good friends, GOOD FRIENDS and I treasure each of them like GOLD!
Like Scarlett said “Tomorrow will be a better day” or something like that anyway. LOL
Dear Henry, I did what you did. I put myself on some dating websites, but really thinking back, how could I possibly load the new person with all that baggage – that would be so unfair. Henry, I am no longer in pain and angry about it anymore. I told a couple of guys about it and they wanted to punch his lights out!! Ha! He still occupies a fai amount of my thinking time, but as far as emotions are concerned, I have none for him at all and I have seen him a number of times and I just ignore him.
After being single for such along time, I really missed the company when he went, even though he was such a bad boy and I wanted to fill up the space with someone else, but i know that is not the right thing to do. When and IF I go out with someone, I want to be able to give them my headspace and emotional attention unhindered by him, otherwise it is not fair.