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
very pretty – the Easter Egg tree. It says it symbolizes the new life of Spring… maybe it can symbolize new life ahead for all of us.
Aloha
I somehow missed your previous response! My job isn’t very “caring” but many others have been in the past. Life overall, is. You hit on something with the composite; I think most of us, as N/S/P magnets are very caring, accepting (I’d say naive, but we’re not that, exactly…we just prefer to see the good in people) and tend to have very flexible – if any – boundaries with everyone.
Which isn’t so bad except when people take advantage of those qualities. In fact, I still like those aspects of me, as long as they are respected and also…retractable.
Still think the Bad Men want the things in us they see but will never authentically own: empathy, compassion, love, ethics, morals and a genuine life with very few masks.
Oprah? Oh my…only on car give-away day!
Your posts make me smile because they’re so direct and pull no punches about anything. No masks. Maybe it does make us vulnerable to N’s…but it also cuts through so much of the clutter in life caused by superficiality and artifice. Who has time for that stuff when we could be on Oprah or reading?!? 🙂
Well… I have been known to speak my mind in a fairly plain and direct way. People love me for it, or, they don’t. I am working on this. :o)
Thank you so much for your note. I love being a part of this community. I think of everyone as “My Ladies at LoveFraud” (and a few guys too) HI, GUYS! I am sorry for saying “Bad Man” too much. I hope it doesn’t offend our men folk. :o)
Oh.. that was to LilOrphan.
Aloha!
Aloha — Speaking your mind isn’t something to work on – it’s great! It’s how I always was, before, in between and after the BM. Somehow, with him it wasn’t like that.
Question for you and anyone else who may have experienced this: do you still wonder about all the secrets your BM was harboring? When he got back together with me he told me that he’d been sleeping with a married woman – called her family “the white trash” of this suburb where I live (he lives in a bigger, more metro community). I was shocked. Seemed he’d forgotten how he mirrored my values for all those years before, going on and on about how he’d NEVER sleep with someone married (because I wouldn’t).
THEN – I started seeing weird things showing up at Craigslist for our larger city – pictures I was 99 percent sure were him with someone else and posts about this lost love…not even weeks into seeing me again. The first one I wasn’t sure, but the second group I was. Everything down to the writing style and word usage. Of course, he denied and kept saying how he loved me and wanted to marry me.
I think she knew about the whole thing, the OW (the S’paths love to have multiple women) because she would call him and i was the weirdest calls – he would only say hello, she’d say God knows what, he’d mumble and then close the phone – no goodbye or whatever. Like she dictated to him his every move.
To this day, I find myself intrigued by that mystery and sickened by the fact he either didn’t care that I knew about his little games or thought he was so clever and nobody could possibly know.
It boggles the mind. All along I could FEEL he was having this secret, other life. I ran background checks, ran court records, marriage records, trying to see if he’d married while we were apart or changed addresses.
For all I know, he’s got multiple spellings of his name or aliases. There’s nothing I’d put past this man…and what really amazes me is the difference between who I thought he was and who he turned out to be.
Wish I didn’t care, but part of it is just the intrigue and the revulsion.
Wondered if any of you guys ever caught up with their secret lives, more than I did.
am going to speak my mind today. I have been up all night penning a letter which I will send to someone very close to him. Someone he used to finish off his dirty work (abuse by proxy) by warning me off – someone who told me to forget about him and take no further action. It may not be the right thing to do, but if I am going to get any sense of closure over this I feel I have a right to have a voice, to put my side of things into the ether, even if no one is listening – Ive expressed it and after all I have been through, its the very least I deserve. The letter is not directly written about him personally but rather in the sense of tying together his behaviour with that of someone who has NPD.
I deserve someone close to him to really witness the seriousness of it all and to stop enabling him through a sense of loyalty. Is it worth it, am I just stirring things up – am I breaching the no contact rule – possibly. I look at the people here as my ‘invisible friends’ and would value comments please.
Beverly
I won’t tell you what to do, but I will say that N/P/S have rages and can go utterly psycho when confronted. If you think this man is at all the least bit dangerous it would not be in your best interests to send that letter.
Even if he is NOT dangerous, a letter like that will FEED him. It’s as good as the very best supply of attention. Free is 100 percent accurate in what she says.
You know what most hurts the N/P/S’path? Ignoring them. No further contact. Refusing to get involved.
This removes their power. Naming them helps you to regain your footing. Naming them – to them – has no effect like that. Either they know already what they are and don’t care, or they are too blind to ever know. The only effect a letter will have is to show him how SUPER IMPORTANT he is to you. You’ll be validating his every belief about his own greatness and your alleged weakness.
Good luck. If you do send it, be very very careful.
Thank you Free and LilOrphan. I have just returned home and Ihave not sent the letter. I can be quite impulsive and I ran it past a friend of mine, who said it was a well written letter, but she was afraid that the N’s sister (who I was going to send it to) might also have an abusive streak and although in the letter I asked for her not to tip him off, she might be tempted to. Also I am trying to move away, so I do not want to jeopardise the transaction with broken windows or the like. I will put a transcript of this letter on but it felt good writing it out. thank you all – you mirrored the right action in your reply. I think at times, I am still stewing over the injustic of it all and as a person I hate injustice.
This is the letter I was going to write to his sister. Its a long one! He sends his sister round to finish his dirty work, by her saying if I contact him ever I will be done for harrassment! I only sent him one letter when we split as he ran into hiding, not wanting to face my questions.
Dear X, I understand your loyalty to your brother, but whether you realise it or not, he has NPD which fits perfectly with his behaviour. NPD is part of a cluster o personality disorders and since researching this and listening to the testimonies o other targets, who report the same behaviours and even the same phrases, I am in no doubt that I was one o his targets. Targets are often caring, intelligent women and sometimes single parents. When the man doesnt want to become emotionally involved or wants the added thrill, he will often hook up with married women with whom he can dispense with fairly quickly without fear of being exposed. It is all about narcissistic supply.
I realise that I fitted perfectly as a target and I keep asking myself why I allowed him to return to me after the 10 of so breaks we had in a year – I never once asked him to come back. If you read about NPD, there are certain personality traits and behaviours that they carry out to seduce, confuse, punish, demean and subjugate their targets. At times I thought I was going crazy, imagining things, being jealous, making something out of nothing. I realised that his behaviour was designed to throw me of balance, create confusion and chaos to skew my sense of reality, to the point that I wasnt sure what was real and what wasnt. When a target gets to this stage, they are vulnerable to being under the N’s spell and are no longer a person with their own self control and perceptions. At one point I am sure he took great delight in setting up and introducing me to one of his women (unbeknown to me).
When I finished with him, it was shocking to think he had betrayed me, but to realise that I had also been conned was shocking. This explains why he was a master at pretending to be in a caring relationship whilst keeping his exits and options open in secret. As he was gathering Nsupply at work, gathering phone numbers from married employees which he had at different levels of play. When I became too much, for the return, he discarded me like rubbish. I am sorry to say that they are in it to take and use, maybe even using more than one person for -attention, money, sex, power.
I was very naieve when I first met him and gave too much of myself, not realising that his agenda was not what he was pretending. He hid his delusions from me but gave me some warning signals at the start, which I couldnt make sense of. Mistakenly, I loved him, felt sorry for his bleak life and cared for him, even offering my absolute support for him to use me to improve himself. I think he probably did care about me in his narcissistic way but I have had to question myself as to why I allowed it to go on and on. This does not excuse the fact that he pretended to care about me, but in the background he subjected me to cruel manipulation and abuse and that is serious. This is not something that can be swept under the carpet and has long lasting repercussions.
People with NPD act in stealth, they watch people, assess their vulnerabilities and what they can get, they are very cunning and plot their actions. Whilst they are emotionally under developed, they give the appearance of being very charming, in control – they are masters of spin and charm. They are skilled liars, often believing their own lies and can spin stories so convincingly, even fooling those closest to them. When things get difficult, they discard their targets, bad mouthing them to others in order to be free of remorse of responsibility. They usually skip off with the next target, which they usually already had lined up. No remorse and no regret and no closure for the target. In short, they are emotional abusers and they often, they are careful to leave no evidence or bruises – as he did, so outsiders are not privy to what is happening. They manipulate the minds of targets and I now understand much of what he did and said – although I didnt understand then.
I was left feeling hurt and angry by the way he punished me over and over – I did nothing wrong, but he enjoyed seeing me plead with him. You will never know the details of what he did, but I can assure you he knew exactly what he was doing and had probably done variations of this on others before me. They are predators (a word he used) and when he told me he was a ‘watcher’ I now understand that. He also told me he had ‘demons in a box’ I took this to mean childhood abuse – he meant something else.
He played many tactics on me, distancing, detachment, hints and insinuations all to throw me off balance, create confusion and focus on him. I have since realised that he gave me the evidence of his betrayal on two phones, because he had no further use for me. I also believe he plotted to punish me months after I pushed him over. ‘An eye for an eye’ he once text me! It is difficult to know with him, what is bluff, what is fact and what he is actually thinking. I realised that he edits the answers to my questions and evaded many others to make himself look ‘clean’.
He may have thought that I didnt notice at the time, but I was well aware of his bizarre and nasty bits of behaviour designed to humiliate and insult me directly. I am relieved that I am no longer the butt of his sadistic pleasure (he was into S&M – permission to abuse physically). The echo of what he has done, not only to me, but to others will be hanging in his karma.
For the letter above (Beverly) – GREAT letter – Great analysis…Don’t send it!! It’s meaning will be twisted and create MORE emotional baggage as you then feel you need to defend the letter…Lil Orphan is 100% correct. Type to your hearts content, get it all out…But to send it would be contact-by-proxy. Don’t do it.
Every once in a while, I would like to believe I might be able to get through to the S…So I will reply to something he sent me, starts out peaceful but eventually he begins his con, and I reply with a “Not interested..not buying…not stupid..see right through you…” He begins his rants that I am ‘fat, ugly, no man would ever want me, I am obsessed with HIM, I have lived my life for him, I live my life through him, I don’t know what I am missing as he is a changed man, and I could have his perfection if I just stopped being cruel to him….’ literally, it starts out insulting and ends up pleading for me to recognize how great he is and how great it would be if I would let down my guard….
Anyway, my point is, whether you talk to him, or convey information to a family member it is contact by proxy and will end with the same sort of tirade. Or completely bash you and get turned around on you. I don’t want to think of that happening to anyone.