Recently, I ended up in the hospital twice over a short period of time. (Which accounts for why I have not posted here in awhile.) The first stay was to have surgery to remove my gallbladder. The second was a week later when they had to perform an additional procedure to remove the stones that were left behind.
The man in my life was there. He supported me. Held my hand when I was in pain, rubbed my back. He drove me to hospital. He spoke with the doctors. Involved himself in my health care when I was too sick to care to ask the questions I needed to ask. He ensured I was well cared for, ensured I had what I needed to recover. He came to visit me in hospital. Sometimes I’d awaken and find him sitting by my bed, reading the newspaper, holding my hand. He brought me what I needed and when it was time to come home, he picked me up and tucked me into bed at home. He cared.
What a different reality than the surreal world of being with the sociopath. When with the sociopath, I had to have knee surgery at one point in our relationship. He promised to drive me to the hospital, and never appeared. I took a cab. He promised to pick me up and bring me home from hospital and I had to call a girlfriend to come and get me as they wouldn’t let me take a cab by myself (which I was insistent I could do). Whenever I was sick, he’d promise to bring me ginger ale and I’d go thirsty. He’d promise to take care of me, and find 1,001 excuses for why he couldn’t turn up. And I let him off the hook every single time.
The reality was, his words were empty promises that never translated into healing action. And in my blind faith, my misplaced love, I’d deceive myself into believing his inaction was not his fault. I’d make the unacceptable acceptable by telling myself, ”˜it’s okay. He’s got lots on his mind. He’s busy. I shouldn’t feel hurt by his inattention. He loves me.’
To quote Sir Walter Scott, ”˜Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.’
In that relationship I desperately wanted to believe what he was expressing was love. I desperately wanted to believe he was my shortcut to happiness and so I convinced myself his inaction was not important. His assertions of undying love were what counted most. Truth is, lost on the road to hell, I was blinded from the truth of what he was doing and what was happening to me because I was fixated on believing he was my Knight in Shining Armor and couldn’t see he was truly the Prince of Darkness.
In healing from that debacle I know, promises mean nothing unless followed up with action. All the empty promises in the world cannot make dreams come true. Empty promises cannot turn up in times of need, they cannot rub an aching back or hold a trembling hand. Empty promises cannot be filled with love.
Once upon a time, I gave my heart to a man who was untrue. He is gone. In healing, I have opened my arms wide to the joy of loving a man who turns up when he says he will and is there in times of need. I am blessed.
neverneverland, OxDrover:
I love the list and your categorizing it.
Here are a few others, some of which I have gleened from Tricksters http://www.infowest.com/business/g/gentle/tricksters.html
They have few (if any) friends
They seem “too good to be true”, overly kind, generous, and offer to loan you money (and as you mentioned in #1 above, the immediate push for exclusivity in a relationship)
They don’t have much of a sense of humor, and if they do they seem to laugh at other people, never at themselves
They cannot tolerate ANY suggestions or criticism; their authority must never be questioned.
They are are often fitness oriented, as they need to maintain their image.
They love to draw up and sign agreement contracts as a way to help “protect” you, i.e., wills or life insurance
In addition to lying (#8 above), they tell half-truths, and/or evade direct questions.
They rarely accept responsibility for failure. They are always the victim, it was always “somebody else’s fault”.
They spend a lot of time on the phone and the computer, and you are allowed access to neither
They seem very secretive or paranoid about business/finances and personal matters
Nothing about a S surprises me anymore.
I wish I had had all of these lists before. I am absolutely not ready to date yet… but I am thankful I will have such great guidelines when I am. Thank you to everyone!
I am working through this slowly. I love being able to come to this site whenever I feel weak. He started pulling out all the stops the past few days, bringing up songs we used to listen to together, parts of movies I loved, and tons of flattery. Where was all of this while we were dating? I have been writing down all of the nasty things he said and did to me… reading anything that gives me hope for a normal future is really appreciated. Thank you again to everyone posting, it gives me strength.
Finally free–
DON’T LISTEN to a word he says. NO CONTACT. No conversation…you know it is all a lie, all a bait to catch you back into his web…STAY STRONG, he only has the power you give him. Don’t give him any control over you….take it ALL BACK! (((hugs))))
LilOrphan,
I am glad my words speak to you. It helps me to write them. :o)
Dating… OH DATING! Not really doing it but I should.
Who was it that said that they write down the bad things that their Sociopath said? That’a great idea. I saved a few horrible emails from the BM and specifically, I saved a nice little sequence he sent after I left. One was a long letter about how he “get’s it now” about how people “do life”. He was big on framing things as if he was somehow learning to lower himself to our “pop culture” standards as he saw himself way above this being a former Minister. This, of course, would make me go nuts! Like he is learning my skanky ways….ARGH!!! The whole email was some kind of back handed… I don’t even know. Then, a few hours later he sent a complete FLIP FLOP email attacking me and I believe one of the lines was something like… NO NO NO NO… NEVER NEVER NEVER.
He is SOOOO Borderline. I swear.. I think the Bad Man is ALL three with nothing left out: Borderline, Narcissist, Sociopath. My first “diagnosis” pointed to him being an “extreme” Borderline because the literature said in “extreme” cases, rages lasted days but usually only a few hours. His rage fits lasted 48 – 72 hours. For me this meant for several days, a barrage of hateful, vicious email.
BAD MAN! YOU ARE SO BAD! YOU REALLY SUCK!!!!!
I never said that before. It was childish and yet… Fun!
Anyway, I am being silly.
It is a great idea to write down the horrible things they said. We want to forget them but part of the struggle to get over them sometimes is that we do have lapses in our memory where our mind tends to drift to the fanstasy they created and we start to forget the reality of it.
I have a little story about this. It just so happens that shortly after I returned home from Maui, a friend of mine was breaking up with a guy that I think was BM Junior. She started revealing stories about the relationship and I was recognizing that his tactics sounded quite familiar… hmmmm? She had to leave her “island” too. She had been living in a small mountain community and had to leave it because she was afraid. This was devastating to her and she still misses her mountain life. One of the things her Bad Man did that mine didn’t do was punch things and use aggressive posturing that scared her… now fast forward to at least a year later. My friend is visiting me. We are in the kitchen and she is at the table. She is starting to go down that road of missing him. She is over there at the table blah-blahing about how much she misses this psycho so I did something… While she was yapping away about missing her psycho, I suddenly slammed my fists on the counter and shouted, “F—ing Melanie!! (not her real name). She jumped in her seat and then after a moment of silence she said, “Oh yeah. I forgot about that.” I said, “I know.”
Her Bad Man wasn’t as verbally vicious but she was physically scared of him. But she had a tendency to forget about that. This moment I re-created was a moment that she had told me about long ago.. One where he slammed his fists on the counter and shouted the exact same thing I said.
Anyway… I still have a file with some horrible words he wrote to me. I haven’t looked at them for a long time. For a very long time, I wouldn’t let go of his bad emails because I was still trying to figure out if he did something illegal to me and/or would my emails serve as some kind of evidence for someone else… to back up their story. I don’t worry about that anymore and the Bad Man seems to have gone silent for awhile I haven’t seen an ad on CL for a long time. Perhaps he has finally found another woman that will put up with as much as I did so he is busy happily abusing away.. or he got his butt kicked by someone’s big Samoan Uncle.
One never knows.
:o) I can dream.
Aloha
Okay… that was mean. I don’t like to think of anyone getting beat up… not even the Bad Man. But I wouldn’t mind if he was in jail.
Woke-up about 20 minutes ago thinking the same thing you wrote: that I need to reread my journals because the craziest thing happens…time passes and I completely stop seeing the bad. Like it just didn’t exist, emotionally, though logically I still carry vague recollection.
That makes me feel brainwashed, somehow.
You, or anyone else, find this bizarre phenomenon to be your reality, at times? That you almost utterly dismiss the bad things without even batting an eye?
My closest friend hasn’t been around much the past few months. We did reconnect over the weekend, though. She was always good for reminding me of the bad…like you, slamming your fists against the table, she’ll often mimic the things he said to me. Over the years she got tired of me trying to figure out what this hold was…I know she, like my kids, just wishes I would meet someone who is consistently good and kind to me and leave this memory in the dustbin of history.
Life can’t have been meant to play out this way, wasting all this time and love on an illusion when there’s surely someone worth giving it to who will reciprocate fully.
ox drover and never never; and others thanks for your replies though ox dover i think you adressed my questions answers to free but its cool i got what your saying which is the main thing. i agree with the list and yes i dont really want to test him that was not the right word to use. the only thing i was not agreeing with was that they want sex right away cause my s path was onto that, and he made out he was not in a hurry cause i wanted to wait till i was sure so that one doesnt work they just pretend its ok to wait for sexual intimacy. i am a bit scared of getting to know this new friend, that is what the s path has done to me made me a bit paraniod. which is a shame. i would say having there phones locked would be a big sign. and if they dont like their parents much or dont have good relationships with them doesnt seem normal to me. i am concerned i got a phone call this evening and was rushing out so didnt answer it no number was showing on the caller id it was my home ph not many people call me on it but the s path does. i hope it was not him glad i didnt answer in case it was, he often would get in touch on the long weekends and public hollidays. now i am worrying. i got caller id put on my ph fo rthis reason so i could tell when he called me and know it was him. but now i think maybe he blocks it. probably not hes too busy conning the new victim. thanks all great blogs.
I am of “mixed emotions” in many ways when I have a friend who is a “repeat” victim..who goes from Bad Man to bad man, and if you lined up 10 nice guys and 1 bad man would go for the Bad Man like a homing pigeon.
I had a friend once who did just that, and when her bad man started beating the crap out of her, she would send him to jail, then come over and cry, then bail him out the next day.
Eventually, I told her “I am your friend and I love you, but you are chosing to repeatedly go back and take back this man after repeated abuse (and prior guys just like him) and when we are together we WILL NOT talk about how he has treated you.”
Our friendship went down the tubes when I would no longer commiserate with her about what an A-hole he was (when he was in jail) and agree with her (when he was out) what a nice guy he was. Looking back now, with 20+ years of Ps under my belt and me doing the SAME thing, just with my P-son, instead of a BF, I actually don’t know any more how I should have handled that situation.
She eventually quit her secure and great job of 22 yrs, married the creep and moved with him out of state. Since then I lost even information about her.
I look back on her situation in light of what I know now, and I still don’t know if I did the right thing or the worst thing I could have done to her under the circumstances. Of course she didn’t want me to really “help” her and nothing I could have said, I believe, would have made her see the light as she was deeply in the FOG. I do think though, that is why many people say “oh, well if she didn’t enjoy being mistreated she wouldn’t stay”
I KNOW for a fact, she didn’t enjoy the abuse, but like me, there was something I thinkk there that kept her in the fog for so long—one P after another. I pray for her and hope that she eventually got and stayed out of abusive relationships.
LilOrphan,
I know exactly what you are talking about. Sometimes I feel like things are “normal”… normal being I am with him and pretending nothing is wrong. I used to “compartmentalize things”. I would “put things away” instead of dealing with them. I could move on from anything. I caught him in bed with another woman our second year into dating, and it was like I dis-attached from myself when we got back together a month later. Looking back I don’t know how I did that! Why I did that… He was my first love, and I had fallen hard. I was a mess over him, and desperate to make it work. I would overlook things like they never happened. By this year (after five years with him) I knew I needed to finally break free and be myself again. Get away from the shell I had started to become.
I visited a palm reader this year after I broke up with him in September (before I lapsed in January). She looked at me and said the man that you just got out of your life needs to stay out, he is making you dead inside. I felt so sick. She hit it right on the head. You can’t supress pain like I was doing, like I am sure we have all done, for that long. It eats away at you.
He complimented me on my resilience once… I was like one of those punching clowns.
I can appreciate your closest friends role in your life. I am that friend for a lot of my friends… I remember every little bad thing their men did. If they start to fall back I remind them. Not in a “shove your face in it” way, but a “you’re better then that” way. Its amazing that I went through so many awful things with my s. But I would be in any guys face in a heartbeat if they did what he did to me to any of my friends. I am very protective of the people I care about.
Sometimes as I am working through these feelings after breaking things off, it is too much. I find myself floating above it. Then I quickly pull myself down, I can’t risk being in that state anymore. He would always talk me down into his reality… instead of mine.
So to say I understand what you are talking about is an understatement. And you are right, life is not meant to be lived this way. We will find that great guy! I know it… 🙂
OxDrover-
Thank you for your support the other day… it was just what I needed! Its like he knows when I am starting to heal, but I am fighting it now! I feel stronger every day.