Every week, a chapter of my book, “Husband, Liar, Sociopath: How He Lied, Why I Fell For It & The Painful Lessons Learned” (available via Amazon.com, just click on the title or book cover) will be published here on Lovefraud. To read prior chapters, please see the links at the bottom of the post.
I’ve also just released a new ebook titled Narcissists, SOCIOPATHS & Wolves: Lessons From Little Red Riding Hood. (Just click here to find it on Amazon.com Narcissists SOCIOPATHS & Wolves.)
Chapter 53: The Puzzle Pieces Finally Fit
With my mind solving puzzles that I should have pieced together years earlier, I fixated on two final pieces that had never made sense. If Paul had set me up to move to Utah not only to isolate me but also to get me to put in all the work so he could get divorced out where he wanted to be, why had we bought the house? Wouldn’t it have been to his financial advantage to rent if he planned on disposing of me once we got here? The other thing that confused me was the degree of Paul’s hatred for me since the separation. Now that Linda was out of hiding, it was clear that Paul was the one who had cheated and manipulated, not me, so why was he so angry with me? Why was he spending so much time trying to hurt me? Why not just move on with his new life?
Unbeknownst to me at the time, part of the answer is that sociopaths have a long history of going after ex-spouses, ex-girlfriends, and ex-boyfriends. They are vengeful, sadistic beings, even when they are the ones doing the betraying and hurting, and they thrive on inflicting maximum damage and pain on their victims. It is as if once their victim is no longer of use to them, the sociopath feels that person has no right to live. The now “useless” possession must be destroyed.
Insight is an interesting thing. Why it comes at some times but not others is unclear. Maybe I had to be ready for the answer. Maybe I had to shed assumptions that were blocking a better understanding, but one day, the answer just happened. The house only made sense if Paul had been leading a double or triple life all along. He had wanted to continue the charade of our marriage, but in Utah. Perhaps his motive was to distance me from another ongoing relationship that would be too risky if we continued to live in Connecticut. Why not get me to relocate to a place where he’d rather be—where he could enjoy his favorite sport, skiing, and where he wanted to be when he retired? He could continue seeing Linda in Chicago and Anne-Marie in Connecticut, and I would keep up the legitimacy he craved by continuing to play his dutiful wife. Maybe his initial plan was to continue with his double or triple life in Utah, where I would be isolated once again and easier to control.
But I wrecked everything by disengaging and refusing to play Whack-A-Mole any more. That’s why he was angry with me. I had ruined his perfect triple life, making it more complicated and potentially much more expensive. Even without ever being able to label what I had been experiencing as emotionally or psychologically abusive (and it was), I had stopped allowing Paul to abuse me by refusing to play Whack-A-Mole. When I refused to be cast as a puppet, Paul could no longer play abusive puppeteer. It wasn’t fun anymore, because he was no longer able to feel the power and gain the satisfaction of putting me down and gaslighting me, and he had already extracted everything else from me that he could possibly want. Lacking the enjoyment of lording over me and hurting me, there was no reason to keep me around. It had to end.
I can only imagine what he told Linda—what a bitch I was (the usual story sociopaths give about their exes), how unloving and unsupportive I had been, and that he would have left me years ago if he was not such a great guy who was concerned about his children and the vows he had made. Paul would marry Linda if he could, but his conscience would not allow him to divorce me. He may even have told Linda that the move to Utah was my idea and that he had tried so hard to accommodate me, hoping against all odds that moving there would make me happy. Alas, I was still a shrew, and he could not go on like this any longer. He deserved happiness.
Just like years ago when I heard the story of Jenny’s alleged betrayal of Paul, Linda probably felt that “Paul deserves so much better—he deserves me.” Although Linda was probably an unwitting conspirator in providing a home that allowed Ella and Jessica to be taken from me and huge amounts of money to be squirrelled away, I felt sorry for her, for I had a crystal ball into her future—a future that was cold, soulless, and black
Start from the beginning:
Go to previous chapter:
Notes
Identifying names, places, events, characteristics, etc. that I discuss here and in my book have been altered to protect the identity of everyone involved.
After the Sociopath, Find the Gift in Your Pain