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.
I grew up in a very narcissistic household [except for my wonderful father, who was always gone working to support the demanding brood] who were much older than me. My brother was a unmarried task master of supreme tyranny, whose acceptance I tried to win since I was a toddler. He disliked females greatly, so I was dead in the water from the get go. My mother seriously controlled him and he was angrily devoted to her till his tragic death. This set the stage for my skewed view of acceptable behavior. I was conditioned to being verbally, emotionally and sometimes physically abused [my brother called it: standing in for dad with discipline i.e. beatings with a belt]. My father never struck or abused me in any way. Being a very kind/generous man, he was victimized also. Mom was in her own zone of menopause and depression coupled with control issues. My first marriage was to my high school ‘sweetheart’…a P looking to escape his P father and I was looking to escape my P brother. He bolted after a few years to become what his father demanded; a college professor with NO children. I’m then left raising the kids alone, with no support as I let him out of the money to get rid of him, so my kids could stand a chance to grow up w/o the P influence. Which, they are so much like him as adults, I feel he beat me anyway…..genetics wins.
Married my second P, had a child with him, went thru nearly 30 years of spinning hell. Kid is wonderful till late teens; she’s just like him now.
So, for me, I’m shot. My adrenals are shot to heck, my nerves are frazzled beyond and the thought of another relationship sends shock waves thru my entire being. All I can see/think is: another round of demands I can no longer meet.
I’m at peace alone with my animals and friends I can distance myself from when they are creating stress I cannot handle.
My mind is intact, my health is iffy, but improving, but I can say; I feel great because I’m FREE!
He also kept, in the background, a female “friend” who was, I think, the first woman he lived with decades ago (he only lived with her for about a year..I don’t think she had time to learn what a spath he really is/was)..he snowed her into remaining his “friend” .. they remained, as far as I know, platonic, after they split up. But he invited her to MY place, the place I had on my own before I moved in with him to another place, to stay the night at my (1st) place when she was in town. Because I wanted to show him that I was not jealous of her former relationship with him (I was not jealous, either, not in the least), I let her stay the night. When I was in process of calling a few of his exes, to find out their stories, years after our breakup, and spoke to her on the phone, it seems he still had her snowed, apparently she had met his new “victim” after me, he had her convinced he had “changed” .. how sad. Sometimes I wonder if that time she spent the night at my place, if he did not sneak out of my bed when I was sleeping, and have sex with her on MY couch. He also kept (or tried to keep) photos of his “conquests” .. just like some sick rapists do of their victims. I found out from his 2nd wife that he had “lifted” a baby photo of her (she told me she never gave it to him)..the one he kept at the base of his lamp, in his work shop. I did not find out that the photo was of her, until years and years later. I always thought it was probably a baby photo of him or one of his relatives, but he told me it was a baby photo of his first wife. Just freaky.
The “irony” about those photos he kept, was that he said to me, after he called it quits, after I asked him “then why do all those photos of us show that you were happy with me?” ..he said, “pictures are only pictures”…just creepy.
My mistake..correction..I meant to say that the baby photo he kept was of his FIRST wife, not his second. His first wife was the one who told me that two of her gay friends said they’d had sex with him.
The creepier thing about him “lifting” that baby photo of his first wife, then keeping it at the base of his lamp, seemed like a “reminder” to him of how he had stolen her innocence..her BABY SOUL..her “child-like wonder” .. her very shadow! Don’t ya think?
shocknawe: Your path on physical health right down to the book is where I am today. I am celiac now, have adrenal exhaustion, am thin and cannot gain weight. I have all the health issues that stem from the domino effect of depleted stress hormones. Low blood sugar, immune responses, low blood pressure, food allergies and intolerances, chronic fatigue, etc….on and on.
I eat totally natural organic whole foods, drink pure water, it’s going on four years since I left and still I feel badly several times a day and get colds at the drop of a hat. Add any stress to that…and I’m totally bedfast. All the P’s in my life have almost physically killed me. NOT mentally, I held the reins on that by the Grace of God! So, I have a wise mind, emotions are healing well, but physically am still blown. I sure hope I can recover. I just read on a health blog by a Doc that all the other stuff combined is not going to heal adrenal exhaustion without MUCH rest/sleep. Get most of that sleep from 10PM till 2AM. Go to sleep as close to dark as possible and rise with light to replenish the adrenals. I’ve not been doing that and don’t sleep well, better than before, but still sometimes have anxiety over my younger daughter and GD which robs me of sleep.
All of you have great strength, insight, advice, and support. Being alone is not being lonely. It was a relief to have him arrested and taken away. The last thing I want is another relationship right now. I just got through crying because it was hard to stand up to a psychopath. In the 11 months we knew each other thank God he was in jail most of the time, and still is. I just want to be left alone, and surround myself with good friends. Also, I want to go back to school and become a lawyer. That’s what I told Mr. Psycho on several occasions. I go to the law libriary a lot for different issues I ‘ve had to deal with. It was awful, but I made his life hell too. Like I keep telling him “I’m your worst nightmare.” Yeah…a lot of crying, healing, and maybe one on one therapy again. God Bless you all
Twice Betrayed —
Hang in there; I’m right with you; I’m totally organic, too. Here’s a sample of my nutrient regimen: Breakfast: three eggs, SOFT boiled, with some salted almonds. (It’s very important to increase your salt intake when you’re suffering from adrenal fatigue as it will help raise your blood pressure back to a normal range — sea salt or Himalayan salt is best). Vitamins/ Herbs: Aswaganda, licorice, milk thistle, lipoid acid, vitamin B complex with extra Pantothenic acid (B5) 500 mg. twice per day, 4000-10,000 mg of vitamin C with bioflavinoids, holy basil. Before bed: sublingual B12 — make sure it’s METHYL-cobalimine (I take 1000 mg), magnesium, and tyrosine. All Beef and lamb must be grass fed. By cutting out so much of my old food list, I can afford to pay for non-antibiotic, non-hormone meat.
You can Google each nutrient to get background data. I’m also taking Chinese herbs — adaptogens to get my organs in balance with each other, as adrenal fatigue throws everything out of whack. Exercise is vital, of course. It doesn’t matter what you do, just do it. You’ll be surprised how this diet will improve your mood, sleep and energy. Good luck —
Thank you for this article. I am in the middle of a custody battle with my sociopathic ex and I have taken the past year to BEGIN to heal from the horrors of finding out he was leading a secret life. Everything feels like a lie now. The love letters he wrote in massive quantities – the looking me dead straight in the eye as he professed his never-ending love and commitment to me… all of it.
I figure I need at least one more year before I even entertain the thought of being open to someone new.
Any advice on how to handle seeing your ex three times a week during custody exchanges??? He still makes my skin crawl and hanging our daughter over to him is so difficult.
TB – check out health pursuits reading/ study group online.
i have used the lendon smith test kit they describe, it has helped me create an accurate (and always changing) vitamin regime. I do take desiccated adrenals and they have made a huge difference, and so have infrared saunas. I wish i had known about them 20 years ago when i first got fibro. sending you a big big hug. i know this is a hard road you are on.
i know that sleep is key to healing. i wish i had known that years ago. I had bad insomnia from the fibro. i would never take anything to sleep. it took years to get over it. i have been having trouble again (mostly related to anxiety) since the n ex, the n ex boss and the spath. i take a very small amount of anti anxiety medication before bed most nights, and will do so until i no longer need to. i am too compassionate and too experienced (aka tired out) to fight that one anymore.