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
LilOrphan, Oxdrover, All:
Below is a link to “The games narcissists play” whereby there are 22 sub-links for manipulation techniques N’s (and/or S’s) play. It’s kind of interesting.
http://www.cosmicwalk.co.za/games-doubt.html
Orphan,
You also have a WAY WITH WORDS–
” I have such a great capacity for both love and stupidity” LOL ROTFL
DON’T WE ALL!!!!
I’m like you said a couple of posts ago, Orphan, if I’m upset with you, I will tell YOU directly to your face and why—and actually I thought of myself that way, though I didn’t always practice what I knew was right in all relationships—in a romantic relationship however I did though. If my husband and I had a problem we took it to each other and up front. I tried to be that way with the P-BF but obviously it didn’t work…he lied.
Thanks for the links.
LOL, OxD. Words are my stock in trade. Part of the time, anyway, they pay some of the bills. Now, if I can just get my heart and words to always align, we’ll be cooking.
With the Wolf, I could *never* speak my mind straightforwardly. Never. Always felt like literally being strangled, the words wanting to come out but shoved down, choking. When I did get the nerve to address things it made my heart race. Could not figure that out. I’m no shrinking violet…well, I never used to be a shrinking violet. Used to be one of the most outspoken, brash, sometimes annoyingly self-confident women in any room. But some of that he took with him before 2001…and the rest just sort of followed out the door. Now I seem like that with everyone, namby-pamby, mealey-mouthed, scared of my own shadow.
Think a lot of it was conditioning. Half the time I tried to talk to him it was shot-down in flames. Other times, it was ridiculed. Still others, it was ignored.
So I learned not to say anything and get my words out elsewhere, in writing, or with others.
What I want more than anything else in this period of recovery and healing is to return to that level of integrity, confidence and fearlessness, being one of the most straightforward women in any room. We have to first relearn how to hear our own voices, then trust them enough to use them. Regain our confidence and some feeling of a benevolent universe surrounding us. Not the naivete we had before about all of life being good and kind, but to walk again in trust with the world.
Peggy : thanks for the links. Could never understand why, when things seemed absolutely fine, he felt compelled to ‘stir the pot’ with some outrageous statement or accusation. Once I texted him jokingly about a bet we had, saying “I won, I won…” to tease him and he texted back some bizarre, mean, hurtful thing making fun of me. Out of left field. When later I asked him what he meant by it, he said: interpret it any way you wish.
WTF? The nicer I was to him, the meaner he got. Finally, one night as he was falling asleep, I said, “Do you love me?” and he said, “Yes.” Then I said, “Do you hate yourself?” and he said “Yes.”
I honestly believe that may have been a moment where he was telling the truth, being unguarded right before drifting off to sleep. There were so many signs he hated himself and sabotaged his own life and happiness, over and over again. Think I wanted to love him enough for both of us. To “fix” his soul, somehow – more than I was willing to love myself and probably, underneath it all, to keep from having to fix my own life — not selfishly, just subconsciously.
It’s odd, my P-XBF seemed to have BOTH arrogance AND low self esteem. He grew up “poor” and felt that people with money looked down on people who were “poor.”
I grew up “poor” but never realized I was “poor” or ever thought that people who had more things than we did thought themselves “better” or that I was financially inferior tol anyone else. So didn’t equate me with $$=good 0$=bad
He was very bright but only had a formal education of highschool, though he had read and educated himself so that he could hold a good conversation on many subjects.
However, because he didn’t have a “college degree” he had a low self esteem and if anyone with a college degree (a woman) knew something he didnt then he felt that they were “talking down” to him if they told him something he didn’t know.
My late husband and I used to learn from each other continually, and it was fun…he had his scope of knowledge and I had mine. It was really fun to learn new things from each other–but the PBF resented me knowing anything he didn’t, even if it was in my “field,” like medicine.
He would sometimes jump up and run outside in the middle of a conversation—apparently he had become so enraged that he thought he was going to lose control. When he came back inside in a few minutes, he was still angry and cross and would accuse me of “talking down” to him.
I think in some ways he was “happy” when we were together, but his own demons and desire for control, domination, and the reassurance of his “manhood” with multiple partners sexually, and his internal rages kept him on the brink most of the time.
I’m just glad and thankful that I didn’t marry this jerk before I wised up and realized that he had a harem on the side.
The person that I thought I knew was never that person. The decitful, lying man that I have discovered is not the man that I thought that I loved.
He said that he cared for his mother and his siblings. He said that he had a strong faith in God. He was always preaching to others in our office about taking the high road and not getting involved in discussions about others (gossiping).
He was never violent , but he did anger easily. When I didn’t do things the way that he wanted he would get angry and not talk to me for a day or two.
I think that I may be co-dependent. I felt that I needed to take care of him. I was there for all his illnesses and hospitalizations. I made him meals, ran out to get things, and generally took care of his needs. Why would I allow someone to treat me so badly and still do so much for him? That is a question that I need to answer for myself.
Thanks for all the feedback. This website has really helped me vent and read about others with similar stories.
It is more difficult to recover from a relationship with a S than a normal breakup. The relationship was like a “house of cards” that you were building. All it took was a little breeze to take it down. A relationship built on lies and deceit will never survive.
One partner is doing all the work. I was the one providing financial support (two jobs). I was the one providing the vacations, the car, the food, the medicine and the care. I was the one sitting in doctor’s offices and in hospitals while he was recovering from surgery and illnesses.
He did make my Christmas special every year with a lavish display of gifts. I could never understand how he could afford this considering his financial issues, but I didn’t question it. Maybe he borrowed money from other woman for this extravagant display of affection.
OxD
Same way…low self-esteem AND arrogance. What the heck?!? They say these disorders are caused by internal emptiness. He seemed to have a grudge against me long before we even met, when my dad would tell him good things about me he was annoyed and said that I probably wasn’t all that. My dad and I had just met when I was mid-20’s.
He had no reason to be that insecure, except maybe that he wished he’d had more education, but he had taught himself all sorts of things and wasn’t dumb.
hummingbird
They present themselves as moral, ethical, one women kind of guys but….then the reality is so jarring, isn’t it?
LilOrphan, mine was EXACTLY the same……low self esteem and arrogance, although he tried very hard to hide it. He fooled me into thinking that he was a nice gentle friendly guy, full of good morals. He said he wouldn’t cheat on me, though he did say that he had female “friends” that he talked to on a regular basis! He was full of contempt a lot of the time, and deep down was a very angry, jealous person. He would stop at nothing to get what he wants including back stabbing, and dissing his so called friends and members of his band. He was the total opposite of the man I thought he was. A huge disappointment in fact, with a shocking past that made me feel sick to the stomach when I found out the truth about him.
It is hard to come to terms with the fact that he was one big fat LIE. The man that I loved never really existed. How are we supposed to move on from this? It is so difficult.
Marie:
Maybe it’s the same man. Mine was very arrogant and acted so moral. He also has a lot of female friends who are constantly calling, asking advice, etc. He has these four mothers of his godchildren – the woman he is involved with is one of these.
I am also so disillisioned by this man. I loved him but he is not the man that I thought that I knew.
I think that he may be starting his games with our office assistant. She is married but has health issues and seems very vulnerable. He is flirts with her -“Hi Gorgeous”. She is now confiding issues that she is having with co-workers with him. Should I warn her? I have to work here for a long time yet.
HOlywatersalt,
You treat him like a plant? I LOVE THAT! That is so funny! And you say the feelings are “gone.” YAY! Me too!!!
So it does happen. I just wrote something about that yesterday… about when you fully and completely accept and see what they are, it changes your whole perspective on things. I keep mentioning the movie: TRUEMAN SHOW. It’s like that. I was a dramatic character playing my role perfectly and I didn’t even know it. Now it makes me laugh thinking of myself crying over love songs and stuff like that. What was I thinking!!!
I am happy for you Holywater!