Editor’s note: The following essay was submitted by a Lovefraud reader.
Snapshots
By AlohaTraveler
In our lifetime, we hope to capture the best moments of our lives in pictures. We keep albums of our family events, weddings, births, first dates, proposals, holidays, vacations, and so on. There is another kind of snapshot that keeps many of us longing for our sociopaths. These are the “snapshots” we hold in our minds. They are the ideal moments, the perfect words, the heightened romance that so many of us felt when we were being seduced by a sociopath.
Browsing through my mental album, I see a snapshot of myself and the Bad Man, as I call him, passionately kissing in Safeway next to the tortilla chips. It was romantic, it was silly, and I felt so in love. Never before had I done a thing like that! It was just a kiss but it was so ideal, so out of the movies. I recall during our first kiss, he embraced me as if he were Fabio on the cover of a Harlequin Romance novel. Who wouldn’t swoon for that?
Here’s another snapshot. This time, I am at Home Depot. Why all the retail?! On the radio, Dan Fogelberg’s Longer Than is playing and I start to weep tears of joy. Suddenly, I felt as if I had a deeper understanding of this song about lovers. I know, it’s c-o-r-n-y! This happened during a time that I have referred to as “the happiest two weeks of my life,” or like I said before, “Relationship Crack.”
Another snapshot I have in my mind is spending an hour choosing just the right birthday card for my budding new romance (and more weeping over drippy love songs being piped in over the sound system). God, I was a sap! I ended up with two cards. I saw this as “the first card I would ever give the love of my life” and it had to be perfect. So what’s more perfect than two?
Yet another. This time I am sitting next to my Captain as he skillfully pilots the craft and gives an enlightening spiel about the marine life over his microphone. The guests were rapt with attention as was I, goo-goo eyes and all. I always had a thing for islands, the water, the whales, which were out in full force that day, and of course, the Captain of the ship. Isn’t it perfect?!
I remember looking at the Bad Man with his tanned skin and his Indiana Jones hat. He looked exactly like Harrison Ford back when Harrison Ford still looked good. It was all too perfect. I was living in Hawaii, I had a hunk of a man for my new boyfriend and of course, he had already told me what a “quality woman” I was, asked me to be his exclusive girlfriend and told me he was “seriously considering” me as a “potential life partner” after only a few short weeks! Considering that my move to Hawaii was my idea of an “alternate” life plan since, at 35 years old, my marital dreams had not come true, you can imagine how ecstatic I was to have such a lucky break in love. I had only been on the island 10 days when I met the “man of my dreams.” It appeared to me that my dreams were coming true after all. I looked at him and thought to myself, “We are going to be one of those couples that everyone wants to be like!” and I was on top of the world. I thought I had beat the system by letting go of the quest-for-love and reaching for my dreams on my own… and BINGO! My prayers were answered.
Sadly, the signs of danger were already present but my ideal moments, my perfect “snapshots” were clouding my ability, or perhaps, my willingness, to see them. The Bad Man had already mentioned that he had been called a “cult leader” in the newspapers back in Seattle during his days as a Pastor for Assemblies of God. He had been “sort-of excommunicated” because he was an “out of the box thinker” and he had “thrown off the templates” of the traditional hard line thinking of his former Church. He was a “rebel” and a “hero.” He had a “permanent restraining order” against him and all women’s health clinics in the Seattle area. He was “honest” about the “B.S. restraining order” his ex-wife had against him. He told me mournfully that his ex “stole the children” (escaped under extreme duress, I am sure) and that the court would issue a restraining order to any woman that said she was afraid. “The court wouldn’t even question it” he told me, with indignation in his voice. He called her a “gossip” and talked at length about how couples should be able to work out their problems in private or go “up the food chain” for advice and not down. Now in my defense, this was confusing. That seemed like good advice coming from a former Minister. Perhaps his ex was a gossip. I mean I was keeping all our problems private, just like he told me to. Why couldn’t she? I know as I write this that it all sounds ridiculous but alas, the kiss… the kiss! Now, I say, “Alas… the red flags, the RED FLAGS!!!”
Never before had I been so taken in by someone, so consumed by a man. I thought this was the big love that I had been waiting for. I thought it was finally my time. These were the things I was telling myself in those brief moments of heightened romance. As I write this, I realize that my snapshots were just my thoughts. In fact, in some of the snapshots I describe, the Bad Man isn’t even present… just me and my thoughts of LOVE. I was in denial of what was really happening and I let a few highly romantic moments, snapshots, overpower the truth. My own thoughts about what this relationship was going to mean for my formerly-empty-before-him-life were seductive enough for me to all but ignore the truth before me.
In my mind, I have burned up these snapshots. I recognize them for what they are now. They are my own fantasies, and my own dreams that I pinned on someone else. Why are all my dreams riding on someone else? Now when I am asked, “What are your hopes and dreams?” I feel sad and empty. For some reason, I keep getting asked this question lately. I can’t think of anything. I have plans that are solid and based on reality. I am working toward some goals. I have named the steps to achieve my goals and I am ticking them off as I go. But there are no dreams.
When someone loves you, they don’t set out to destroy you. They consider your wellbeing and they consider how their actions affect others. This is what is normal. They don’t terrorize you until you feel like you are worthless. I knew this but I sort of forgot. I forgot because he said the magic words”¦“I am seriously considering you as a potential life partner.” I became a slave to those words and would do anything, endure anything, ignore anything, because of them. It’s like I was on Survivor. I formed an alliance with him! I bought in to his strategy to destroy me and I joined in the plan. Hey, in the end, I even voted myself off the island! I guess you could say, I escaped the Bad Man by leaving while he was at work, kind of like the way he described the day his ex left him with her 5 children in tow. God Bless her.
If it seems that I make light of my encounter with a sociopath, I do not. My story is lit up with red flags, more than I would like to admit. My lessons from the Bad Man cost me some money, some time, many tears, a few friendships, and maybe one thing that needed to go, like a baby tooth needs to go to make room for the emerging adult one. Perhaps my fantasies of love, and being in love, and what that would mean for my life, were a bit girlish. Now, I have a plan for my life beyond loving and devoting my life to someone else. Where was I in all that, anyway?
I have a real snapshot of myself from my time on Maui. It was taken by the Bad Man. When I saved it on my computer, I gave it the file name, “pretending to be happy.” It looks like I am having the time of my life but the truth is, I was sleepless, anxious, afraid, and miserable. I was being emotionally battered, manipulated, terrorized and stalked. I had been called a long list of names your Mother wouldn’t want to hear you say. I was never good enough, never knew what he wanted or didn’t want, could never guess how to make him happy, because it changed minute by minute, nor could I keep up with his ever changing relationship rules that always applied to me but never to him. I was crumbling under the stress of it all.
I guess it’s never too late to be truthful with yourself.
Author’s note: The concept for “Snapshots” was introduced to me by my friend, Susan Bradley, RN. Susan is a Relationship Coach, and author of “Irresistible Prescriptions for Love.” For more information, visit her website www.lovinguniversity.com.
Valentine’s Day can be tough for victims of love fraud
Peggy:
My confidence level in “Won’t get fooled again” vacillates. Extremely. Most of the time, I’m sure. And, well, I’m definitely sure a DIFFERENT S won’t suck me in. But…this guy had quite the hold on me.
Lies by omission. You know, I spent years telling him that not telling the truth by being silent was lying. He disagreed, openly. It is, though. His hiding the ongoing dialogue he had with his other woman was a lie of omission. Changing the goal posts was a lie…there were no real goal posts for him, in terms of “our future.” There was no future as far as he was concerned. All of this is unethical, a sign of no character.
But my feelings were real. So I go back and forth, mourning the illusion, accepting the reality, trying to stop my feelings from being too soft. It’s been five months. Am ten times better after five months than I was all the other times he left….but still not convinced that if he were to come back I wouldn’t buy in, even momentarily. That’s frightening.
I wrote it all as it happened, this time, kept copious journals on every crappy thing he did or said. Even told some people close to me as it happened, because they pledged to “be my memory” when these moments came where I doubted the depth of his badness. When I remembered only the pieces of him that seemed loving and kind, the part of him that maybe doesn’t even exist but at the time felt like where we connected. When I felt sad and confused as to what was real and what was illusion, like now.
Maybe it’s that the fog has lifted, I’m doing better, and forgetting the bad stuff, because that’s what’s familiar?
By tomorrow morning, I’ll feel better again, maybe for weeks on end. Or months. Or forever. Sooner or later, all the softness will be gone.
LilOrphan:
After 6 months, I miss my best friend, the thoughtful and generous man I thought he was but not the raving, enraged lunatic he became, or always was and hid from me. I have read that NC is not just physical contact, but in our minds…we need do go NC in our mind…have some other thought that replaces the spot on the hard drive in our brain that is the memory of him. Sometimes I wish there was the magic “something” to “fix” him. But there isn’t. One of his sayings was, “it is what it is”. And that is true. We bought into an illusion…it’s like putting a down payment on a dream home in your selected destination, and when you arrive to view the property there is … nothing…because it was only a concept, there was nothing tangible, and nothing real. We bought into a dream that never existed, with a person that never existed, and never will exist.
Sometimes I relate to the song “If I Could Turn Back Time” by Cher, and wish I could just wind the clock back, and things could be as they were before. But then, when I look back they weren’t that great…we got along most of the time, but I was always on eggshells…in my own home (not his) and waiting for another thunderstorm, knowing it would come, but never knowing when. And then the temper and the threats of leaving, and having a fit, stomping around, screaming and yelling, acting like a juvenile delinquent and leaving the house or sleeping in the guest room or sleeping with all of his clothes on and I wasn’t allowed to even hug him. If he left, he’d scream at me, and hang up when I’d call him. He got upset over NOTHING. I acquiesced to him and kissed his a _ _ most of the time to maintain peace and harmony, only twice in 3 years did I tell him ‘no’. And these escapades became more and more intense over time, as his “real” self was revealed during these episodes. Who needs THAT? So I am glad he’s gone. Our lives will be better, and richer by far than living an illusion…there is no safety, security, happiness or peace with a Sociopath. None. YOU CANNOT TRUST A SOCIOPATH…EVER.
Sociopaths are playing the game of life, and they play to WIN. That means YOU, and anyone in their radar, loses. You can lose your money, your heart, your emotional stability, your health, and sometimes…even your life. Read the Ann Rule books, they’re strewn with Sociopaths. Read “Dead By Sunset” or “The Stranger Beside Me”. These books are powerful, and characters are terrifying. Stay strong.
Peggy…
“It is what it is” was also one of his phrases, and he did not like being touched unless he initiated and it led to sex. He was almost robotic in movement: stiff, unnatural when it came to displays of affection, except when we were snuggly on the couch watching tv. Ouch, that memory really hurts. Am working really hard not to look at emotionally powerful good memories, because they trigger really sad feelings for what I wished it was and the cycle of questioning continues…What was it, really? Why was he like that? and the one that shows my own co-dependency issues, and is ridiculous but comes out anyway: “Could loving him more have fixed things?”
Nope. I know better. As a child, loving my family more didn’t fix anything. And even if I had enough love for him to fill a football stadium – and long ago, I did have that much – it never seemed to matter. He still left. He just hid from me the really bad aspects, all those other periods of time we were seeing each other. I never got to see how truly messed-up he acted.
When you say “he got upset over nothing” was it literally NOTHING? I mean, nothing had happened between you two and when you asked him he wouldn’t explain and said nothing was wrong, but still he punished you by being mean or saying crazy stuff? Once, mine was doing that and I decided to pack the stuff I’d brought over and talk to him about calling it a night. He was walking the dogs. I took my stuff to the car and he walked up and threw a hissy fit! Couldn’t even tell him that I wanted to talk about leaving – he just assumed I was and later said stuff like I abandoned him…WTH? He was being mean and dismissive all evening and said nothing was wrong.
Are there really guys who aren’t like this? I’ve had so little experience dating since getting divorced 12 years ago, and he is my only real long-term yardstick. I worry sometimes (irrationally, probably) that they’re ALL gonna be like that.
We have never lived together. When I brought it up after my divorce last year, he said that it wouldn’t look good for his grand-children to see him living with a woman who he is not married to.
I have learned a lot from this website. My goal is to confront him on Monday, the 31st when we are both off work. This is not something that can be done over the phone. I need to look him in the eyes when I am speaking.
Yes, definitely the affection seems robotic now- an obligation.
I hope that I can salvage some of my dignity because I will eventually have to discuss this with my adult children. I hope that they don’t think less of me because I let a man control and manipulate me.
I guess I should have realized a long time ago that his asking me to call him when I got home at night was more about control than it was about caring.
Do any of these men care about anyone?
He seems to care about his widowed mother and his family in Philadelphia whom I never have met.
LilOrphan:
Funny that they use the same phrases. How about “done is done”? Mine was also stiff, and almost unnatural…I thought it was his rough-tuff construction worker attitude. He would hug me back, but I don’t believe he ever initiated a hug.
He was like that because he doesn’t “feel”. and nothing, NOTHING you could have done would have changed it. You’re lucky you didn’t get to see the extreme ugliness, because it is not like anything I’ve experienced, and I never plan to experience it again. It’s like they are invaded by an (evil) alien. It’s horrible.
He’d get stressed out of we were leaving for a flight, or if I accidently got the wrong sandwich, or he told me something about his business and I asked what about this and he’d say nunya, he once lost a court case and blamed ME although I had nothing to do with the parties or events whatsoever. Nothing bad EVER happened between us, we never even had an argument because I don’t like to argue. He would be extremely juvenile, stomping around, yelling, leaving the house, hanging up, nasty nasty nasty. He kept saying “I need my own house”…I think it bothered him (he didn’t have control) that he lived in MY house. I never pulled rank on him about this and never said it was “my” house, I’d say “our” house or “our” bedroom. When he did move out, that’s the only time I ever said, “you know what _ _ _ _ _ _ this IS MY HOUSE!!!”
There ARE guys who aren’t like this. I am dating one right now that I HOPE is decent, but hey, I have trust issues so time will tell. We got stuck with the dysfunctional 1% if the population. Lucky us!
Oh, but peggy I did experience the bad side. The cold, distant, non-empathetic, happy-to-watch-you-suffer-and-twist-the-knife side. The raging, screaming, violent over NOTHING side he exhibited towards some kids smoking down in the hallway where he lived, outside the bar they were visiting. His slamming a door closed as I was walking through, hitting my face, and completely ignoring me when I asked him why he did that, was it an accident…he pretended not to hear me or acknowledge it at all for about five minutes until I would not let it go, but kept gently asking why, saying that it hurt me, asking if he didn’t see me right behind him. That must have amused him mightily.
I got the silent treatment or a rage for asking “the wrong” question. I got mimicked, made fun of, cut down, mistreated if I said “the wrong” thing. I got ‘accidently’ shoved or injured, talked badly about in front of my face to one of his friends and then he denied it, right then, right there, as if I didn’t hear exactly what he said.
All that, and more, gaslighting, craziness. Everyone deserves so much better. How is it I can still feel love for any person who would treat me this way? I saw so much good in him, too, some of the best qualities human beings have…and yet all of this other stuff…
I believe he can’t feel. It was weird, but all his ’emotional’ responses, even down to laughter, were all wrong. They were too loud, too vehement, a few beats too late or too soon. Does that make any sense? Like he would laugh really loudly and falsely at something that either wasn’t funny or wasn’t funny enough to elicit that response, and it would be a beat too late. Even his anger seemed over-the-top but felt unreal.
So weird…I sensed all these things but never put them all together until learning about S’s and N’s. Then…click. Everything in place.
This all sounds so familiar. If he got angry at me for some small thing, he would not call or answer my calls for a day or two. I guess this was some form of punishment for not agreeing with him.
Once he told me about a friend whose wife bought him a new van on a whim and he asked me if he asked for one would I buy one for him. I hesitated because I was making car payments on a Buick at the time and he practically hung up on me and wouldn’t talk to me the rest of the day.
I should have seen the red flags at this time as well but thought that somehow it was my fault for being insensitive.
I also have a hard time understanding his using his grand-children as an excuse when he must have had the other woman at his house. When I saw women’s underwear and lingerie in his hamper, he said that it belonged to his grand-daughter.
LilOrphan: S is for sociopath, what does the N mean?
hummingbird1418:
N is Narcissism, from which P and S both spring. Heard it said that all S’paths and P’paths are Ns, but not all N’s turn into P’s and S’s. Just that if a person is a P they are also an N.
Google Narcissism. You’ll likely be shocked at how many traits and characteristics of one match the person you were with.
I’m at that point right now, am sure it will pass, but am unfortunately mired at the moment, the point where you look back on everything YOU did or didn’t do and wish you had reacted differently. Objectively, it’s pretty crazy, because all I did was hide because I kind of knew this was the route we would take, and if I opened up this time, it might kill me. He wouldn’t, directly, physically or whatever, but loving and dealing with him might.
I’m at that point think we all go through where part of me is like, hey, give it up – he just didn’t love you like you loved him. It’s not some pathology or whatever…if he really loved you, he’d still be around, and you were just an idiot, self.
About the worst damage they do, if they’re not super violent or out to scam your money, is leave your head totally fucked and your confidence in the toilet. You can spend the rest of your life going back and forth, back and forth on what exactly happened and blaming yourself from time to time.
Right now, I just feel a whole lot of pain, like I screwed-up just as bad as him. But later when this passes I will look at it again and see the things he said and did, the lies, the promises he never planned on keeping, and all the times he did this stuff before when I WAS totally unguarded and open to him…
and once again will know that I could’ve behaved much differently, much better even, but the end result would’ve been sitting here on a Friday morning at 9, feeling terrible.
LilOrphan:
You MUST look at these websites below. I believe it explains exactly the phenomenon you are referring to, and they have some other fascinating articles. I will also include an interesting link about rats that I believe applies to ALL of us here at Lovefraud:
The Poor Narcissist Feels Threatened
http://narc-attack.blogspot.com/2008/03/poor-narcissist-feels-threatened.html
The Rat Game
http://narc-attack.blogspot.com/2008/03/rat-game.html
These articles really brought to light the situations we face with S’s, “why” we keep going back, and the confusion of their attacking us.
I had the same experience “click, all in place”. Without a clinical diagnosis, one cannot “prove” that someone is a S, but we KNOW, as much as we know our own birthday, or anything else that is provable.
LilOrphan, YOU didn’t screw up! HE did! No matter what you did, the results would have been the same. A big hug to you.
Thanks peggy, for both the links and support. You’ve been really wonderful…everyone on here has. Bit embarrassing to be going two steps forward, one step back so much lately…thought I was doing better, overall. Maybe it’s just a short phase…
Will be back later – have to go to work now.