A Lovefraud reader asked me what I thought of advice offered on a website called “Womensdivorce.com.” In a post about relationships after divorce, the website says women should start dating as soon as possible. It also seems to advocate that women engage in brief sexual affairs, and find a transitional partner who can help a woman heal, but whom she shouldn’t marry.
Read Your first relationship after divorce, on Womensdivorce.com.
My reaction is that this advice may be okay for someone involved in one of those amicable divorces, where the partners simply grew apart, are still on speaking terms or even friends, and want what is best for their children. The advice is terrible for someone who has been heavily damaged by marriage to a sociopath.
People who have endured marriage to a sociopath need time—perhaps a lot of time—to rebuild themselves. Healing may have two distinct dimensions.
Recovering from the sociopathic relationship
First, you need to recover from the sociopathic relationship. The difficulty of the recovery depends on the psychological damage done.
I now know that I was relatively lucky in the type of predator that found me, although it sure didn’t seem that way at the time. My ex-husband, James Montgomery, only wanted my money. He lied to me, he used me, he betrayed me—but he didn’t try to destroy me. When my money was gone, he just abandoned me.
Many Lovefraud readers had experiences that were far worse than mine. Some of you endured physical and sexual violence, gaslighting, threats and brainwashing. Some of you continue to suffer because you have children with the sociopath, and your ex purposely tries to use the children to hurt you.
If you are raw from one of these extremely damaging relationships, the last thing you should do is try to find a new partner. Instead, you need to focus on personal healing.
The first step is to take care of yourself physically—eat well, find time for exercise, avoid drugs and alcohol, get enough sleep. You also need to rebuild emotionally. There are two different paths of emotional recovery. One is allowing yourself to grieve, and feel the anger and pain. The other is finding ways to bring joy into your life, however small. Nourishing encounters with friends and family whom you can trust will help.
You’ll find many articles to assist you in this section of the Lovefraud Blog: Healing from a sociopath.
People often ask, how long should it take to recover? There is no standard answer to this question. Recovery takes as long as it takes. But until you are feeling stronger and healthier, it is best not to get involved in another romance.
Here’s an important reason why: Sociopaths target vulnerable people. If you are not yet healed, you are vulnerable, and a prime target for another sociopath.
Recovering from deeper injury
Many Lovefraud readers, as you make your way through recovery, have realized that the marriage to a sociopath was not the first damaging relationship in your life. There was an older, deeper injury that made you susceptible to the sociopath in the first place.
Some of you recognize that a previous romantic relationship was exploitative. Some of you realize that one or both of your parents were disordered. For you, the games sociopaths play may have seemed normal, because that’s what you grew up with.
The pain caused by the most recent partner may cause you to realize that you have a long history of mistreatment. In fact, sometimes recognizing trauma in your past helps clear up one of the big mysteries of involvement with a sociopath. It answers the question, “Why did I allow this predator into my life?”
There may even be spiritual reasons for the dangerous encounter, which I talk about in my book, Love Fraud—How marriage to a sociopath fulfilled my spiritual plan. So before looking for love again, you need to recover from the sociopath, and you need to recover from any deeper traumas as well. Thankfully, you can do both at once. The process is the same as described above—slow physical and emotional healing.
So as you walk the road to recovery, be careful about listening to advice from others. As we well know, most people have no clue about what it’s like to be involved with a sociopath. They have not walked in your shoes, so however well meant, their suggestions may not be helpful or healthy for you.
Donna, I can say a BIG AMEN!!!!!!!! to YOUR article above and call BS on the magazine article advising women to get out and date as soon as possible, and maybe find a few “friends with benefits” which IMHO is the WORST thing a survivor of a psychopath can do.
After the devastation of the psychopath rendering us wounded spiritually, mentally,and emotionally maybe also physically and financially, and if we have children with them, those children are also wounded and need comfort from the nurturing parent (us) the last thing we need is to have a few shallow relationships with shallow sex as recommended by this very shallow article.
Sure there will be a time when we may need or want to get out with people and “party” but for a while we may need to just curl up in a corner and quietly lick our wounds with only very close, caring people aware of what is going on with us.
For the gravely wounded victim of a psychopathic predator we need a lot more than some shallow advice from a shallow article by someone who does NOT get it—-in fact, I don’t think her advice is good for ANY newly divorced person, no matter how “friendly” the divorce was.
I think that advice is horrible even if you haven’t been with a sociopath, and it certainly opens the doors for one to enter your life, since they are probably out “hunting” too. Especially for hurt women and brief sexual affairs.
What good would a transitional affair do? It might even hurt somebody if you aren’t caareful to draw the terms out for them to see. Then again, these magazines and websites make tons of money off of hurt women, so I can’t be too shocked.
Hey, I think my dad gaslights. Not too sure. He’ll deny ever saying things that I know he said, or tell me I’m sick or crazy for bringing it up. Not too sure, but I think it is. It feels like we have to keep notes of what is said or video it, just to show him. He might even deny it then. So gaslighting is in the “far worse” category, oh boy…
Ox Drover: Fantastic advice, especially because you have the children in mind. Something these sites seem to sweep under the rug or bury in the attic.
I stumbled across that site when I was trying to figure out if I was ready to date… or even dateable and not still a spath magnet. (I may have been the one to send site to Donna as I was horrified by the advice given. I spent many yrs having shallow, meaningless sex with my “husband”. I think I’ve had my fill of that! snort.) FYI – I didn’t do any dating for nearly 4.5yrs, post spath.
I still think I’m dating a “normal” person. Whatever THAT truly is. 😉 I have baggage. He has baggage. Sometimes, just like at the airport, we pay a little extra for it. A few months ago, my insecurities and past experiences took over and I sort of broke it off with the guy I’d been seeing. I was just sure that he just wanted something from me and not ME. I’m sure everyone here knows what I mean. One trigger leads to another, doesn’t it? I can go from 0 to 60mph freak-out in 2.4 seconds sometimes.
Whenever I do freak out, he’s all calm and soothing and wanting to talk and work things out. Ugh. Like I haven’t seen calm and soothing before. oh wait, sometimes that IS a normal reaction… hmph. I think that has been one of my biggest hurdles… back to the trusting myself thing. The spath had all the “normal” reactions down pat… but it was just an act. Normal people do react somewhat normally- for real and not just to mess with your head without ulterior motivation. What a novel concept?!?!?
During this particular freak-out, I decided I’d date someone else. Ok, a couple someone elses. (DATE, not sleep with, just for clarification here.) One (we’ll call him #2), I only went out with a couple of times. I just wasn’t interested beyond friends. That felt pretty normal. The other one, I went out with several times- even while seeing/talking to the first one. I didn’t intend it that way. #3 was to be a “replacement” to #1… but I missed #1. Not my finest moment… but I DID say I was in freak-out mode, didn’t I?
Frankly, it was kinda stressful. There weren’t any promises of exclusivity being broken… but it still felt deceptive. It got to the point where I knew I needed to make a choice… I started cooling things off with #1 and was surprised by something with #3 that I couldn’t deal with. I almost decided to just NOT date either and get a puppy. I’m not kidding. (the reason to stop seeing #3 is a post in and of itself. wow.)
So, in an odd twist that kinda surprised me, I’m still seeing #1, and exclusively now. I think this is what I wanted and perhaps was a little afraid of. There’s no official commitment. No pressure from him (or me on myself). No “L” word. No talks of “our future”. We’re just spending time together- and not sleeping with anyone else. I am content. The doors on my baggage filled U-haul are closed again… for now. lol
PS- being with someone who isn’t pretending to care for you is amazing. I don’t think most spath victims are shallow enough to “appreciate” the shallow relationships as suggested by the article of discussion.
I will need a lot of time to heal from this last relationship disaster.
“Many Lovefraud readers had experiences that were far worse than mine. Some of you endured physical and sexual violence, gaslighting, threats and brainwashing. Some of you continue to suffer because you have children with the sociopath, and your ex purposely tries to use the children to hurt you.”
This is the hardest part of everything I went through. I sometimes think that it would have been easier if I had money stolen or a definitive moment of evil doing to say, “Ah Ha, you are unhealthy and it’s time for you to go!” Not to say any betrayal is at all easy because it is awful but the underlying stuff, the crazy making will take years of therapy and deprograming to become whole again.
It was the insidious nature of his proposed love. The way he would stroke my arm or hug me and say he loves me more then anyone, “but if the doctor finds something wrong with you, you’ll listen…right? Because I really think you have something wrong with you and I say this only because I love you. Lets re-new our vows because I love you. If you could just admit that you need help we could go forward and heal our relationship.”
The endless professions of deep love and wanting me to be get better when I HAD NOTHING WRONG WITH ME, will take a very long time to heal from.
I happen to love being in a relationship, I love the way I feel when I have a partner to share things with but I will not be jumping into the sack or into a relationship with someone soon. I don’t trust myself enough to make a good decision.
My children also need time to heal and son has to deal with spath every other week. Son is still under the influence and I can’t imagine bringing another factor into this mess.
Right now I have a hard time thinking that all men aren’t freaks. It’s wonderful that Donna was able to processes and heal and help all of us, she even found out that all men aren’t freaks!
I recently did a really stupid or really smart thing, I wrote to spath’s sister and told her everything. Even sent her my documentation. My daughter has been discluded from the spath’s family functions and I think it is cruel. She wasn’t invited to her cousins graduation party and didn’t receive any card of anything for Christmas or her birthday. Spath lies hurt her and continue to hurt her so I tried to tell them it’s not her fault!
We’ll see what the fall out is, I sent it last week and have been nervous ever since.
WOW, I strongly disagree with the advice given in this article!!
I would never NEVER advise someone to jump from one failed relationship of ANY kind right into dating again!!! There is no way in HELL that is a healthy choice to make. A person needs at least a little time to reflect on the failed relationship, before they are ready to move on.
The time it takes to achieve emotional balance again, of course, depends on how devastating the break-up was. Then, in the case of post-spath exposure, I would direct them to this site with recommended reading for at the very least, several hours.
Whew! Jump right back into dating again?? Ridiculous advice!!
Glinda2: That’s fantastic you have found a “normal” relationship. I guess it’s kind of easy to forget what normal is after years of the abnormal. It’s also a great sign that both of you are taking it slowly. The spaths usually want to rush into something, and that’s a bad idea in general, even with no spaths involved.
Oh, a getting a puppy is one of the best choices! Maybe you should still get one! ^_^
Hopeforjoy: Take as much time as YOU need to heal. Don’t let others pressure you into something you aren’t ready for. I know it’s cliche advice, but it is true. ^_^
Ah, I agree with you completely. Most people here probably wish their spaths were thugs who just stole the money and ran, but they appear as the false friend or lover. It must be pretty hard for you. I’ve never been through the relationship with one, but my dad is this way. With his false concern and shallow love. Even when I was in the hospital, it was all about him. I’m sorry. *hugs*
Relationships are fine, but you should be whole by yourself before going into one. For yourself and your future partner. You both deserve to be whole before the relationship. I think partners should be like a icing on the cake. The cake is fine without it, but it adds an extra layer of tastiness to it! ^_^
Aw, having children involved makes this hard. You definitely need to avoid rushing into something. No reason to affect your son with snap decisions. My dad was a spath, so I know what it’s like for him.
I’m a man and I’m not a freak. Well, maybe just a little. ^_^
I hope I didn’t offend you guys by giving my thoughts on all this. I know unwanted advice can seem critical and blunt.
Sending the letter could help or hurt. Like you said , we’ll see. Come us informed. No contact is harder with children involved, and it is cruel. Just continue on and be a good mother. ^_^
No offense from me, Near. I agree that unless you’ve let the “transitional” date know they are merely a depot on the train route, it has a potential for hurt. It’s kinda spath-ic, don’t you think? A parasitic situation where one uses the other. I certainly wouldn’t have felt better treating someone as I was treated… ick.
Dear Near,
So glad you are not a freak and I’m sorry if I offened you in any way! It’s simply the circumstances of my life right now.
How did you find out your dad was disordered? I am trying to be the healthy parent but son doesn’t see that dad is a narcissist/sociopath. Is it something that took you some time to figure out and did you know something was wrong when you were a teen?
I hope I’m not being too nosy, any helpful advice on how to make sure I am doing all I can with son would be much appreciated! Thanks a bunch!
Donna
BRAVO. Great article.
I think the other thing that differentiates a spath relationship from a normal relationship is the addiction that forms – given the uncertainty and periodic rewards granted by the spath. It’s so unhealthy.
Normal relationships – they end. Respectfully.
Spath relationships — they just go on for FLIPPING ever, a slow terrible painful death.
Thank you.
Superkid
Glinda2: I agree, it does seem to be spathy behaviour. Although, I know people have spathy moments when they are hurting or stressed. That’s natural to have some thoughts or bad actions, like lying, but it’s still not right. ^_^
Hopeforjoy: I’m wasn’t offended in any way. I laughed. No worries. It’s very hard to offend me. You’d really have to try. ^_^
I saw the signs of his behaviour and thought what he was doing was wrong. I LOVE Psychology and Philosophy so I researched online while in middle school. I connected the dots and informed my mom. I was the first one to spot it. ^_^
How old is your son, if you don’t mind telling me? Is he old enough to know? Does he know what a sociopath really is? I was around 13 and 14 when I noticed, and by 15 I knew.
I hope I wasn’t too nosy! 😛