By Ox Drover
“The Road Not Taken” is always out there beckoning to us. I should, I could ”¦ Why did I do that? Why didn’t I do that? Regrets!
Having been involved with a psychopath, and reeling from the devastation in the wake of the relationship, leads us to ask ourselves what might have happened if we had made other choices.
I question myself—if I had chosen differently, would the relationship have been a success? If I had dated John or Frank instead of the psychopath, would I now be happily married in a solid relationship? If I had just done things differently, like I started to, would it have been better? If I had just gotten out of the relationship sooner, or later, would I now be better off?
With our regrets, we beat ourselves up for being so stupid to put up with the abuse. We saw the red flags of suspicion early on, felt the sting and pain of his words, his disrespect, yet, now we regret not paying attention to ourselves back then. How much better our lives would have been if we had only listened to our own intuition, to the things we really knew, really saw, but brushed aside, thought we could fix.
We searched for the words, the perfect words, to explain to him how he was hurting us. Why couldn’t we find those perfect words, the ones we were so sure would make him treat us better?
Regret is normal
Regret in the past choices we have made in life: Go to work and get married, or go to college and get an education. Have children, or wait. According to those who study regrets, having regrets as we mature is a normal, natural and a universal human emotion. Neal Roese, Ph.D., a psychology professor at the University of Illinois says, “Regret is a very complicated emotion that involves all these things (pain and fear) coming together—it’s raw feeling plus all the complicated imaginings of future possibility.”
Another psychology professor, Carsten Wrosch, Ph. D., at Concordia University in Montreal, has linked regrets to many physical and social problems, which include sleeping problems, headaches, migraines, panic disorder and even skin conditions.
Henry David Thoreau said, “To regret deeply is to live afresh.”
Letting go
If we continually dwell on our past mistakes and missed opportunities, this consumes our ability to live and enjoy the present. Letting go of regrets though, is not a one-time event; it is a process of disentangling ourselves from them.
One of the ways suggested to start to let go of our regrets over past decisions is to consider it final. I find that when I have a decision to make, once I finally decide that decision is final, anxiety about making that decision seems to go away. Looking at that decision later, whether it turned out to be good or bad, I am more able to accept it.
People who study regrets and decision making also note that if we can “fix” a past mistake or correct it, our regrets tend to hang on longer and be stronger, but if we accept the fact that we made a bad decision that can’t be fixed, we tend to let go of it more easily.
Having regrets for past decisions, and especially regrets related to our relationship with the psychopath(s) in our lives, is normal and natural. As long as we hang on to those regrets and try to second guess ourselves, though, it impedes our healing and moving on.
Letting go of those regrets, the self-recrimination for our part in the relationship, for not finding the perfect solution, for not leaving sooner, or any of a thousand other choices we made, will be an ongoing process. But it will lead us, if we let it, to using those choices to make a better life for ourselves now and in the future.
Oh. MAATTTT!More BAD news.
Copied from above
From my attorney:
“The papers were filed and signed by the “on duty” judge. He did not award any immediate relief because he did not believe that there was a threat to you of physical harm. (Remember I had indicated to you that to get an order of protection, the Judge looks for physical abuse”.) There is a hearing scheduled for Tuesday, November 24, at 10:30. You must be there at that time.
A warning that your bill next month is going to be high due to the work on the papers that were just filed, (which was roughly 24 hours).”
I am wasting my money and time.
You guys know how abusive these S/Ps can be.
ANY ADVICE before Tuesday Eastern time would be great.
Dear Sara,
As long as you keep contacting him, or responding to his contacts, you will lbe in this lower level of HELL.
I think the thing that is frustrating you the most is that YOU CANNOT HURT HIM.
That is true. YOU CANNOT HURT HIM, BECAUSE HE DOES NOT LOVE OR CARE ABOUT YOU.
The ability to hurt someone is = to the amount that they love you.
You love him so HE CAN AND DOES AND WILL CONTINUE TO HURT YOU.
He DOES NOT love you, so he ENOYS HURTING YOU, BUT KNOWS HE IS IMMUNE FROM BEING HURT.
He has the best of two world, and you have the WORST of the two world.
The ONLY way you can get out of pain is to stop PUTTING YOUR HAND IN THE FIRE.
Until YOU take responsibility for your ACTIONS you will continue to hurt.
Your ACTIONS are keeping in contact with him. Right now you may not be able to “control” your emotions (that will come later after NC) but you CAN control your ACTIONS.
Like Witty said if this was alcoholism, it would be taking another drink—contact is like taking that drink, and then crying because you got drunk and got hurt—DON’T TAKE THE DRINK. NO MATTER HOW BADLY YOU FEEL YOU WANT TO, it will RUIN your life. YOUR CHOICE.\
ABSTAIN FROM THE ADDICTION, and get better.
KEEP ON IN CONTACT= stay right where you are, in pain and depression.
Thiose are your only choices, Sara. I can’t say it any plainer than that.
TAKE YOUR hand out of the fire and the burn will eventually heal, but as long as you keep sticking it back in the fire and burning it some more, it will never heal and the wounds will only be WORSE.
I’m sorry you feel so down, but FEELING down and ACTING down are too different things. TAKE CONTROL OF YOURSELF, Sara, take back the control you gave him to demean and devalue and to use you. IT IS TOTALLY IN YOUR POWER.
I can cheer you on, I can give you logic, but I cannnot solve your problems with yuour emotions, and it takes TIME to do so, but that time doesn’t start until YOU START TAKING ACTION. ((((Hugs)))))
Oxy and Banana,
Yes, I recently bought the Betrayal Bond and started reading it. Only the beginning bc the more he talked to me and opened up (like I had wanted him to for so long), like Banana, I thought “What if it’s not him? What if he’s not an SP and something is wrong with me??” I started rationalizing all of his excuses and they seemed to make sense. It’s all a blur now but I kept thinking – it will be ok. But like ErinB once said, “every time is worse than the time before.” Every time he comes around, he says the right things to get in the door – then he totally changes his tune. Now he tells me…..”the sex is great but it’s not worth the craziness”. He wants no strings attached…..just sex…..no emotions.
He just called and started yelling at me for getting angry bc I “expected” him to text yesterday. Is that irrational to expect to hear from him if we are in an intimate relationship?? Well, anyway I let him have it. I told him that he was a Sociopath! I told him that he was a worthless piece of shit and he thought he could pick me up and play with me like a toy whenenver he wanted to – but that wasn’t going to happen. And that if he ever contacted me again I would file harrassment charges against him and tell all of his friends what he was doing. It won’t hurt him…..but it sure the hell made me feel better. Oxy – mayb that’s what I needed.?
Oh and my favorite part was when I told him that my hope is that one day he is rotting away in some prison cell! It was all very liberating. I have NEVER been hateful or mean to him. Never yelled at him or said anything that indicated I WAS ENDING the relationship for good. Bc I always held out some crazy hope that he would change. I see that will never happen and it felt so good to be the one to say those words. TAKE CONTROL of the conversation instead of listening to him yell at me…..me YELL at him and then say “and you aren’t hanging up on me bc I’m hanging up on you….I HATE U!”….click!
Dear Sara,
It sounds like you are getting ANGRY (finally) rather than hurt about all the things he has done and the disrespectful way he has treated you.!!! YOU GO GF!!!!! Listen to that anger, that anger will make you start to TAKE ACTION, TAKE YOUR POWER BACK.
NOW—you have “told him off” to never call you, to never text you, to not contact you. SO NOW STICK TO IT.
When the desire comes to tell him off again, SIT DOWN IN A CHAIR, AND PUT AN EMPTY CHAIR FACING YOU, and sit in one chair and yell at the other, like he is in it. Tell lhim everything you wanted to say to him. It will be just or more effective than saying it to his face (or in a text or on the phone) but cause his head is just as empty as that CHAIR across from you. He could hear the sounds your mouth made, but you might as well be speaking GREEEK for all the “understanding” he would have. The chair at least won’t talk back. LOL
A blogger who was on here a lot at the beginning of this site, Alohatraveler, and I were blogging once and we talked about how w3e would drive down the road, alone in our cars, and YELL at the Ps like they were in the cars with us. It got to be a joke about how other drivers must have thoguht we were CRAZY driving down the road beating on the stearing wheel and yelling and crying at the same time. Actually I don’t think going down the road that way is a safe way to drive, so I think the chair is better.
We get all tehse pent up angers, these pent up frustrations, these feelings and we have to vent them some where. But we also CAN EXERCISE control over our emotions as well.
If you are say, driving in a hurry to get some wehre and you are on a curving mountain road with NO where to pass, and there is some very slow old man in front of you doing 30 and there is no way to get around him. What are your choices?
You can sit there in your car doing 30 behind him and curse at the old man for going so slow and incoveniencing you because now you will be late and get angry, frustrated, and upset.
OR
You can say to yourself, there’s no way around this man, I will be late, but I can’t avoid it. NO sense in stewing over this thing I can’t change or fix, so I’ll just sit back and enjoy the scenery. Now you are calm and feeling well.
You CAN make those decisions on controlling your feelings. Feelings are NOT jsut from external sources. We can pick and choose what we feel in any situation, or change the feelings if they are not productive. It takes committment and work, but we can do it. It is what will FINALLY AND COMPLETELY set us FREE of the control of the psychopaths and the external lenvironment. Hang on, you have made a GREAT START!! TOWANDA!!!! (((hugs))))
BTW…someone here once told me that he would do the other woman just like he did me and then there would be more and more to follow. Well, guess what. The other day when we were together he was trying to prove to me that he was no longer with the OW so he let me listen to this 5 min message she left on his voicemail. I asked him why he saved it and he said he might need it someday as evidence. Well, the point that they were no longer together was neither here nor there but the words she said sank to my very soul. Why? Bc they are the VERY SAME words I’ve said to him. How can you say you love me then do this to me? Why won’t you answer my texts or my calls? Why….why….why? But it was like listening to a recording of myself. God, how can these people really exist?
But the important thing I took away from that was that he REALLY does do the EXACT same thing to each and every one of us. For her, she was giving him money. And then he would go MIA…..for me, it was sex. And he tells all of us he loves us and cares, yada, yada, yada. But I feel like it was a good thing. Even though I had to go through the pain to get it – I learned a very valuable lesson by listening to that message. It was like a light at the end of the tunnel, saying, “see, they told you it would happen, you knew in your heart it would happen bc you know what he is, but bam here is your proof in the sound of her words on the other end of that line…begging him the way you have…..to no avail.” BC he doesn’t care about any of us.
Dear Sara,
I am glad that if you had to endure the pain of contact one more time, at least you did get a TAKE HOME LESSON.
That take home lesson may be the thing that turns you around.
He WILL treat them all the same way he treated you. He is after something with each one of you—may not be the same thing from each of you, but it is something FOR HIM and he does not care how the woman suffers to get it for him.
I’m glad you are on the path to healing now, Sara, sometimes it takes falling off the wagon a few times before we get it, so don’t beat yourself up for not getting it sooner, just pick yourself up, brush yourself off, hold our hands here, and let us all journey in the same direction—toward HEALING. We can support and encourage each other when we fall, and that is what LF is all about, but you have to walk or crawl along the road for youself. Some days you may stumble into a pit of emotions, other days skipp ahead for miles, but NEVER NEVER LISTEN TO THE SIREN SONG OF THE P telling you to come to them, because they will pull you off the road into the swamp of pain and despair. Listen to the support and “prophecy” you get here. READ and learn from ALL the archived articles. The articles about them, about us, and about healing. Memorize and take to heart all the good advice in those articles. It is FOOD for your starving soul! IT WILL MAKE YOU STRONG!!! ((((HUGS))))
LOL Oxy! I read your post after I hit submit on mine. Our connection here is a bit slow so it doesn’t update often. Yes, I’m feeling better already. The puzzle pieces start to fit everytime…..and everytime they do, the get jumbled up when he returns for another blow at me. But each time I learn more and more about him and see his much uglier side, even though he tries to hide it. The side that he showed me in the beginning is gone….bc it never existed. He can’t keep up living a lie….bc he was never really that way. It was just a show. And every time I see that more and more.
What has shook me to the core, is that each time he comes and goes, he ALWAYS has gotten the last word. He would tell me I live in a fantasy world, that we cannot ever be together the way I want to be with him. Primarily bc he is always shuffling through women and then trying to save his failed marriage. And then he would disappear and not respond to my calls or my text. Making me crazier and crazier. It hurts when you give and then someone acts like you don’t even exist. But he’s the joke! And FINALLY – today – I got the last word!!!!!! Oxy……I did it!!!! I got the last word and it felt GOOD! It felt good to say to him what I thought of him and tell him that HE is the crazy one….not me!!!! To throw in his face the things he does that are outrageous and not even sane! I FINALLY got to say those things – I yelled at him and said them and hung up on him and it felt GREAT!
Sara..I understand where you’re coming from. I too, never had the nerve or desire to be hurtful or mean to him. But this man brought it out of me. And it was so powerful for me to finally have control of my destiny and stand up for myslef.
“I have NEVER been hateful or mean to him. Never yelled at him or said anything that indicated I WAS ENDING the relationship for good. Bc I always held out some crazy hope that he would change. I see that will never happen and it felt so good to be the one to say those words.”
You’ve taken a page out of my book! I relate 100%. And the last night I saw him and was able to FINALLY stand up for myself…I literally coulnd’t control the words coming out of my mouth anymore. I was SOOOO ANGRY and everything that I had held onto for 4 years…the hurt, the anger, the sadness, all came spewing out at once. I think I knew it was FINALLY OVER for good. There was no reason for me to hold everything in anymore. And I wish I could have had a video camera for the look and reaction on his face when I said some of the things I said to him. Remember now, I had never had one mean or resentful thing to say to the man, and some of my last words were, “If you’re laying on your deathbed, don’t call me, because I won’t care.” “If one of your children dies, don’t call me because I won’t care.” “You don’t deserve the air you breathe and the day you die is the day I will sleep with peace because you will no longer have the capability to HURT anymore.” There were some other choice words too. But he just stood there, with his jaw hanging down in disbelief. He cried and cried. (I doubt any of the tears were sincere.)
So remember how powerful you felt in that moment and never look back. It’s your turn to be happy and healthy. The longer you stay in contact, Ox and EB are right, the farther into the depths of hell he will take you, the more soul he will drain from you, it will not get better. It will get easier with time. Just don’t allow him to come back. You have the power to stop your pain and suffering. If he can clearly tell you that all he wants is sex, with no strings attatched, don’t give him the satisfaction. Ox is right when she says we’re addicted to them. I heard a song on the radio the other day by Rihanna and it’s about a relationship with a bad man and she’s addicted to him so she has to check into “rehab.” The song really hit a nerve with me and since your story is so similar to mine, maybe you’ll like it too. I looked up the lyrics and thought I’d share them with you.
http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/r/rihanna/rehab.html
Hope you continue to feel your power and your worth and stay true to yourself. He is not worth your happiness anymore. HUGS!
Sara…where are you from?!?! if you don’t mind me asking. Seriously, your story of your ex is like deja vu for me. It sounds like we dated the same man. Failed marriage…lots of women…whole life if a total act….disappearing acts….if you’re from southern CA…lol…I swear we dated the same man!! HAHAHA!!