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
Hi I’m new here and I must say that I feel overwhelmed with the similarities in many of the comments made which are so like my own experiences.
Beverley I can particularly identify with much of what you say. It is earily chilling, your man sounds so much like my ex, who was a solitary single man too, and valued his privacy to the extreme. Right from the start he would drop hints into our conversations letting me know that he didn’t like being questioned too much. He was very deep. He told me that previous g/f’s hadn’t trusted him enough (red flag), and that he had got rid of them because they were too inquisitive. I learnt from very early on to be wary of what I said to him in case he thought I was prying. He accused me of being insecure, which I am not, and never have been in previous relationships. He played cat and mouse with me until I was too confused to work out exactly what on earth I was dealing with. Of course he was well ahead of the game having played it and won out many times before.
Yes it is all about control. They love to push all the buttons and make us dance. But should we dare to question them then all hell breaks loose.
Hi Marie, Yes it was done all done with a subtle stealth, a hint here (usually when he was going home) to allow me to stew over his comments, a warning there – done ever so subtlely, like yours – a warning- bounced off the back of his previous girfriends. My exN said, I would stand for any woman who went through my pockets or phone. This was an obvious warning to me and believe me I couldnt get into his phone. I even bought him a kids book as a joke, it was called ‘A Cat and Mouse Love Story’.
My intuition was firing on all cylinders, I just didnt know at the time what it was all about, but I certainly fell in with his rules, never openly checked up on him or called in to see him and darn it – I wished I had done that, I would have caught him off balance alot earlier than I did.
Marie, Hello and welcome.
To both you and Beverly I say, there is a BIG difference between “privacy” and “secrecy” and people who are too secret about their background or their business sort of are “off” some how. What is it that they are hiding?
As Secret Monster says (paraphrase) though, if you APPEAR open but aren’t really, it is easier to fool people.
If I had a romantic relationship with someone I would expect to know where they lived and visit there, and them come to my house. Early on I would expect to call before I went or expect him to call before he came, but if the relationship deepens to where it was an “important” and “close” relationship I would expect he could drop by my house anytime and vice versa.
In more distant “friendships” or whatever, I would expect that someone would call before they came to my house, but my FRIENDS are welcome at any time…if I am busy I will tell them and they say “no problem” and the same with them. If I am near a close friend’s house and have time and think they are probably home, I may drop by. If it is inconvenient, I move on, and my friends so the same for me…no problem. I know that some people though are not comfortable with the “drop by” thing with their friends, but if you have a “relationship” with someone why would you have a problem with it unless you are hiding something?
Beverly, I think all of us had “intuition firing on all cylinders” but we didn’t listen. Laugh
At the earliest point of our meeting and considering dating, we had this little joke about me coming over for a glass of wine and a game of Go Fish. I’m the one that brought up the card game, but I dont recall how it became that particular card game or what it all pertained to. Soon after that I found this really cool artsy looking deck of Go Fish cards. We had not dated yet at this point, so I left them on his desk, basically a hint that yes, I would like to take you up on coming over for a glass of wine sometime.
Now – its a grotesque memory – as little did I know I was just one of the dumb fish in his deck and as he paired off with fish after fish – he apparently was the winner of the Game with the most pairs of cards (women).
Never thought of that till Beverely mentioned the kid book of Cat and Mouse. Same feeling she has I’m sure. euugh.
“Intuition firing on all cylinders”…….yep I had that too but ignored it to my detriment. My intuition was screaming at me, telling me that things weren’t right with the guy but I made excuses and refused to listen!
Beverly I too wish I had checked up on him instead of going along with his idea of keeping his privacy. He was kind of shifty right from the onset, if I hadn’t been so taken with him I would have realised that he was hiding so much from me. He never sat opposite me, always insisted that I sit right next to him. With hindsight I guess he was trying to prevent me from seeing the real man behind the mask. He didn’t realise that the rose tinted glasses I wore only saw ‘Mr Perfect’.
Hi OxDrover, you are so right in saying that there is a big difference between privacy and secrecy. As it turned out my ex had many awful secrets of his past life that he did not want me to find out about. He was so guarded that I once jokingly commented on his invisible suit of armour. It was like he wanted to hold me, yet was also keen to keep me at arms length – very contradictory and confusing behaviour.
Early in our dating, we were discussing the fact of not dating a bunch of people at once… and that I dont generally date like that. He said he didnt either etc.. but later in the conversation he told me never to come over without calling. That he wouldnt do that to me so I shouldnt show up at his place unannounced.
I could have nipped this 2 year waste-of-my-time, in the bud had I really LISTENED to my intuition when I heard that! But no, I just figured he was having a hard time committing to someone after having been married so long. And that, yes… its common courtesy. But he set it up early as a rule.
He cheated on his wife of 22 years the entire marriage, and on every woman he dated for the 5 years after her.
Of course they dont want you showing up without calling ~ you never know what you might find. I kick myself for even allowing myself to let that comment get by me. Where was my head!
Below is a website for identifying Narcissists (from what I understand, not all N’s are P’s or S’s but ALL P’s and S’s are N). This list is somewhat different from the identifiers of a S, i.e., Personality Profile. (see the last 1/2 of the article)
http://www.narcissism.operationdoubles.com//metingouttrust.htm
Peggy,
Thanks for that link. I read several of her articles and most of it I totally agree with and she explains things in simple words and examples. Her examples that I read were great!
Some of her “deeper” writings about the causes of NPD I don’t totally agree with but it is one of those areas where she isn’t claiming to be a scientist, and in spotting red flags and other things it doesn’t make a great deal of difference HOW a malignant Narcissist (which I think is closer to a psychopath than an Narcissist Personality Disorder) In other words, “a rose by any other name…”
Thanks for a good link, Peggy
Good Evening,
I’ve been working at my second job todaya and don’t have access to a computer. I like reading all the comments made on this blog because now I feel that I am not alone and can discuss this destructive relationship with someone.
I also was accused of being insecure when I commented on the women’s lingerie in his hamper. He said that they belonged to his grand-daughter. He also constantly gets calls from the four mothers of his godchildren. I personally thought that this was very odd. He was giving them personal advice all the time.
I already mentioned that he didn’t want me going to his house unless I informed him first because of the neighborhood watch – baloney.
I went to a girlfriend’s house last night and the six of us had our fortunes read by a Tarot card reader. One of my cards was the Devil (upside down) and the Knight of Swords.
The interpretation was grief at the hands of a male figure. Arguments and finally an end to enslavement after a fearful period. Eerie, wasn’t it?
hummingbird,
We can see through all those weirdo excuses of that man. I don’t know anyone that has 4 godchildren. Are you sure these aren’t his children by all these women? That seems quite likely in this context.
Glad you are here and finding some comfort here.
Aloha…