Editor’s note: The following article refers to spiritual concepts. Please read Lovefraud’s statement on Spiritual Recovery.
As I was wondering what to write about for my blog article this week, Southernman429 did me a favor and provided a topic. He posted the following on Dr. Leedom’s most recent article:
I’d like to pose a question to Donna, M.L., and Dr. Leedom”¦
Is it normal to go on with your life”¦ develop new relationships”¦ have new goals and new ideals”¦ years go by”¦ basically move on from the sociopathic experience”¦ but yet”¦ still feel a emptiness in a part of your heart, or a tugging at your soul”¦ a sort of grieving”¦ maybe partly for them, or about them, but also about yourself”¦ even though in hindsight, you have gained so much because of this experience and have used it as a springboard to a new life with a new mindset”¦?
Donna, I know that you have since re-married after your sociopath experience”¦ Does that bad relationship ever come up in your thoughts, affect your emotions or thinking”¦ even though you are happily married?”¦ At what point does this “go away—¦ or does it ever?
My experience with a sociopath
Let me answer the question by providing some background. I met my sociopathic ex-husband, James Montgomery, in July 1996, married him in October 1996, and left him in February 1999. In a short two and a half years, he cost me about $300,000, put me in serious debt, had affairs with six women that I know of, and had a child with one of those women. Ten days after I left him, he married the mother of that child. It was the second time he committed bigamy. I suspect he married her to get health insurance, because he had diabetes and I sure wasn’t going to be carrying him on my insurance any more.
I was divorced in February 2000. The judge awarded me all the money that was taken from me, plus $1 million in punitive damages, plus attorney fees. For the next year I conducted an international asset search for his money so I could get back on my feet financially. I never found it, and in May 2001, I had to bite the bullet and declare bankruptcy.
Those five years were the most emotionally tumultuous of my life. Fear, anger, betrayal, dismay, hopelessness, doubt, rage, numbness—I was wracked by every negative emotion under the sun. My stomach was always knotted. I couldn’t sleep. My face, arms, back and chest were covered with zits. Yet I had to hold myself together to deal with the divorce, get my business going again, keep my few clients happy. Frequently it all became too much and I collapsed into a puddle of tears.
I begged God to help me; I yelled at God for letting my ex get away with his crimes; I prayed to God to take away the pain.
The larger purpose
God didn’t take away the pain—at least not right away. I worked my way through it. Luckily, I had a wonderful therapist, a woman who I refer to as an energy worker. She helped me process the pain and see the spiritual reason for the journey.
I haven’t written this on the Lovefraud Blog (although others have), but I believe there is larger purpose for our encounters with the sociopaths. These traumas are opportunities for deep, profound healing. When our hearts and souls are ripped open by the sociopath, not only are we given a chance to release and forgive the betrayal of the predator, but we are given a chance to release and forgive the buried pain within us that made us susceptible to the sociopath in the first place.
But it requires work. The only way past the pain is through it. We must allow ourselves to feel, in all the gory agony, the traumas of our past that were brought to the surface by the deceit and betrayal of the sociopath.
It is a physical experience. It isn’t pretty. I spent many hours in the privacy of my meditation room, crying, raging, and finally collapsing when a piece of the burden was released.
In time, however, the pain within me dissipated. What replaced it? Love and joy.
Starting new chapters
To directly answer Southernman429’s question, in the past two years, there has only been one set of circumstances that triggered the old pain. It came each time I started a new chapter in the book I’m writing about my experience.
To draw up an outline for each chapter, I’d review my files, with all those massive credit card statements. I’d look at old e-mails, in which I tried to find solutions to my problems. I’d re-read my journal, where I wrote with raw emotion of the moment. Reviewing the materials brought back the knots in my stomach, and the incredulity that I let my ex-husband con me. But as I got going on each chapter, the knots relaxed.
I met my current husband, Terry Kelly, in 2001, about the time I finally decided to give up the financial battle and declare bankruptcy. I told Terry my sorry story on our first date—armed with the information that my ex was a sociopath. On our second date, Terry brought a copy of his tax return to prove that, unlike my ex-husband, he actually had an income.
We’ve been together seven years, and married for three. I have never been so happy. My life is full. There is an aliveness within me that I never experienced before. And it never would have happened if all the walls within me hadn’t been shattered.
The title of my book, by the way, is Cracked Open: How marriage to a sociopath led to spiritual healing.
Gemini,
What a coincidence. I have been told many times that I was supposed to have been a high priestess in a past life. I feel about as noble right now as a piece of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of someone’s foot. I think we probably all have some karma with these sociopaths, and possibly it could be from past lives. That would explain the bond we feel with them. But I believe they have come into our lives not to ruin us but to teach us something. The greatest lessons can be the most painful. I wholeheartedly believe that if we make the healing about ourselves, we will come out of this stronger.
Right now, the pain of losing him is unbearable. But I will bear it, and I will go through it. I am determined not to be ruined by this. You, too, are grieving. And grieving has to have an end some time.
Hi Ox: He texted that he will pick up the stuff tomorrow and leave it alone. I texted back that it is outside today and gone by tomorrow morning. This is the control ploy…he wants to get his things when HE says he’ll get his things. That sh.@.......#(! is in the dumpster by tonight. 5 months. .5 months of having his stuff in the garage for free is enough.
Ox, why the hell would he bring his GF to the store EVERYDAY knowing I shop there. He has to go out of his way to go there because they live across town. I know I shouldn’t let this get to me but it does.
Yea OxDriver, you are right about the stuff. Like I said though his stuff is going in my fireplace. A few books and some clothing. I’m not a book burner by any means but they’re all about the Mafia (his dreams of being a big crime boss one day I guess) so I don’t feel too bad about it.
One of the reasons I left my restaurant is because the girls there would like to let me know what they had heard about him or whatever. As far as my friend. I’ve told him that I don’t want to hear anymore about stuff he used to say.
Yes, you’re right – physical NC is so much easier than emotional because here I am on my laptop fairly often and I have to constantly keep myself away from MySpace and Facebook and google searches. I find too that when I was looking – as I was after I put him out I was only MORE depressed and anxious because I was seeing stuff that confirmed his lies and deceit (for example he and the 18 year old becoming Facebook friends). No sense in making myself miserable. IT IS SO HARD THOUGH!!!!!
Plus folks, It’s a fact that the OW or OM aren’t competition, they are the latest VICTIM to your EXs. What he/she did to you is what they will do to the OW or OM … no one will satisfy your EXs – NO ONE.
You watch, months or years down the line, the OW or OM will be blogging on here soon.
Peace.
Gemini_Fairy: I remember the guy I dated after my divorce. Everything was great … even that morning over breakfast. I came home to a post-it note (yes, like Carrie got in SITC) … that it couldn’t work, but we can try in the future, I promise.
Anyway, long story short … when I was doing the NC and the waffling … I stopped myself and said “this is stupid Wini, you’ve been through breakups before … it only last a few months of down in the dumps … then you are back enjoying your life again and he’s a past relationship … way in the past and you won’t even think of him again … So stop it Wini, why are you making yourself go through this … when you know that you’ll get over it and it’s not the end of the world … and of course I was saying, why me, why does this always have to happen to me when I want to be in a good relationship …
What I’m saying is that … we all have gone through breakups before … so why do we act like we’ve never been through them … why do we act like we’ll never recover, when we do recover.
It’s a matter of realizing we always have gone through breakups … since grade school. Now, can you imagine being with your first love from 2nd or 3rd grade?
Hey, I know this didn’t help the pain … but, it’s a fact that this isn’t the first breakups we’ve gone through. We got through all the others and we’ll get through this one too … and guess what, we’ll get through the next one after this.
Peace.
Dear Wonderwoman,
Darling you answered your question yourself. Why would he bring her there across town to shop? Because he WANTED you to hear about it. What a $hit! Of course! It gets him “off” to stick bamboo splinters under your fingernails.
Quit sticking your hands out for him to grab and stab another one in. That IS HARD. I know it is.
AFter my X-BF-P was kicked to the curb I wanted to know who he was with, and so on, now I DO NOT CARE. He is out of my heart and my mind and my “circle of give a chit” At first it was SO HARD because I was SOOOO crushed.
Wini, is right, “we’ll get through this.”
Wini: You are correct and these hurts will be put behind us. But I wouldn’t take a new boyfriend purposely to a place where I know my ex will be. Actually going out of my way to do it. It’s just annoying knowing my ex is doing this. The motivation is just vindictive and mean. I won’t go shopping where I used to go knowing they both will have the satisfaction of it. My ex will get the satisfaction that he screwed me over and the OW will think she is the winner who stole my man from me (even though she is the loser.) I don’t want contact which is why I have to shop somewhere else now.
Wini,
You are right. I remember my first love and I thought I would NEVER get over him. I guess it’s just so hard for me to believe that everything was a plot to just get over on me. I mean before he moved in with me he and I would just hang out and he would make me laugh and laugh and laugh and we had such good time.
It’s so hard to believe that it was all just a subtle build up/plot to hurt me. I can almost guarentee that he told my friend about my woundedness way before he moved in.
I tried to end it when I realized it was going anywhere. Next thing I know he came to me like “can we still be friends” and then suddenly he was living with me and it just all came undone. I wish I had never met him.
Gemini_Fairy: Unfortunately, they are All like that. They don’t realize they can do for themselves … that’s why the desperation to use everyone. I think deep down they are really insecure little children … with this mask on that they are bad asses … yes, I believe they have zoned out their emotions from whatever pain they endured (real or their own imaginations) from childhood … and yes, they do seem to look down their noses … but I know for a fact, if they had done to them what they do to us … they’d be screaming it to the courts/cops anyone that would listen. So, they do know the difference … but I think their insecurity runs so deep for never doing the work along the way. Think about it. When we do the work, we learn the lessons … we’re now up the next wrung of the ladder to do the next set of work … learn those lessons … move up the next wrung of the ladder. After we learn something, it’s no big deal to us anymore … we have the knowledge of how to do something or similar routines. Not them … they have no knowledge how to do … except for conning folks … because they’ve been doing that from such an early age … that’s all they know how to do.
I know there is a lot more to this … but that is one of the reason’s they are so insecure … actually, they’re all messes… and it would take half their life time (what ever age they are today) to fix them with a competent therapist … plus, since it wouldn’t be a quick fix (instantaneously) they are off down the road shaking their heads … this was all bunk, nothing changed … that’s another problem with them …
That’s why they need to be incarcerated in romper room for a few years … one, to keep them in one place so they can’t scoot on down the road … and spoon feed them therapy.
Peace.
Hi Ox. He texted he is borrowing a friend’s van to get his stuff tonight. I guess he didn’t tell the OW he has stuff here or he’d borrow her car. A.H.
Gemini: I also wish I had never met this S. He has a system. When we met he asked if I was ever truly in love before and asked the guy’s name. Then he asked how this person hurt me. This was so he could find out my vunerability and how i could be hurt the most. He used that information to manipulate me. He always brought up that other guy and how much better he was than him because he wouldn’t do what he did. It was a cover up. Underneath he was doing worse. This is why he hurt me the most. He made sure he hurt me more than the first love of my life hurt me. He’s sadistic and evil.