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.
I can’t tell you how many times he said to me “What’s wrong with me?” He has said “I became addicted to your love, I’m sorry I can’t return it, I wish I could but I can’t, you deserve better” or “I don’t want you to love me” and numerous times “I’ll be happier without you,” but then always came back after days. But, was any of that real? Are there times, even very rarely that they KNOW what they are doing, like when he would ask me “what’s wrong with me”? He told me, after I said to him that he treats women like s**t and it wasn’t me, that several women he “dated” (but really just used for sex) in the past told him that he will end up alone. So it is a pattern, it’s not just me. So why can’t I get enough confidence to just shut him out and say I DESERVE BETTER! Why can’t I just let go?!? WHy do I keep fooling myself that he will wake up and REALIZE someday/ Why should I even CARE? TOO little TOO late, right? But I feel like I would totally give in if he called me right now. I just feel lost.
Letgoletgod, You do deserve better!!!! We all do! What we need most is the better part of ourselves back. I am failing in the resistance of men of this sociopathic character. Just as you would give in to the phone call, I too would do the same. It feels shameful and degrading, stripping yet again a layer of you.
I am working on the realization, understanding and once again the strength to overcome the pull, the hold and brake from the chains. Getting the confidence to just shut him out comes in time, it is a difficult process. Believe me I know, this isn’t my first time around, unfortunately. And I think it is just that…we fool ourselves, coupled with their aluring ways to keep us stuck and wishing that they will change. They won’t and we have to!
Thanks change06.
It’s just so unfair that he is consuming my life, my happinesss, polluting the air i breathe. Its so unfair that i have wasted sooo much time on him, thinking about him, revolving my life arund HIM, and i was jsut NOTHING but a mere flavor of the week to him. And yet, I CONTINUE to spend just as much time, still, considering how much is already wasted, I just want it to go away! I just want the memory of him to just go away. I wish I never met him, and I hate to say this, but i regret a lot of the past year. Sure, I am learning alot, and maybe this is what i needed to become stronger and create boundaries for myself, but geez, what a waste he was and still is. Just takin up space in my mind, heart and life. Actually, he is the only stress i have in my life, when it comes down to it. So, that leads me to think maybe, since I enabled it so willingly, I was the one who loves the drama? Sure, they suck, but am I just doing this to myself because I am the one who needs the craziness because I am bored? Maybe I am the one who is twisted. I would hate to thinks so, but i KNOW I deserve better, so what the heck is MY problem? What is wrong with ME?
Letgoletgod, What is wrong with you is what is wrong with many us. We believe the lies, we are conned, we are manipulated and we are always left reaching for what was a facade created. It happens to the best of us.
However, if we are to be true to ourselves and look in the mirror not only on the wall but within us then we can heal. Understanding why we allow to be in the predicament helps. Realizing that we do deserve a better us in order to receive a better someone is the start. Work on what is good for you.
I am no expert and I am actually opening my eyes to another situational pit fall, yet again. It is hard but it does get easier. I am hoping for myself that I gained some strength and knowledge that I am recognizing the red flags early enough not to get myself in a state of insanity, disppair, my head spinning and my heart aches so much to the point of sickness.
With the healing process you must try to find the answer about yourself and why. What association of need was there, or is there? I too question my obsession with these men who just keep me in mental, emotional bondage until I am gasping for air.
Don’t allow him to consume you any longer and take back you. In turn you will be able to be happy again, realize the wasted time was time you learned and be able to breathe again, a good deep breathe.
“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.”
**
thank you for that, for that is what happened to me. in therapy, i learned what had made me susceptible. it took several years, but i am a much different, much more content person today.
content.
last night, for the first time in years, i used that word; content. i actually felt completely content. i didn’t need one thing except what i had … a fluffy pillow, clean sheets and a warm blanket, the debate, and a bowl of popcorn
10 weeks with NC … good riddance!
Good for you LG! it sounds ideal and nice 🙂
DEar LIG,
Hang on to that contentment, it is what will bring you through this, bring you to PEACE. Today I celebrated my CONTENTMENT, I counted my blessings. My blessings so outnumber the things I could even wish for that I am determined to FOCUS on the POSITIVE, to celebrate the good in my life.
The book I am reading now, “Self Matters” is so uplifting and validates the way I have been working for the past few weeks, focusing on the positive things. Takeing responsibility for having a good day or a bad day. I have a choice and I CHOOSE to have a good day–today—and not worry about tomorrow or worry about yesterday or anything in the past. Today is the ONLY important day in my life. If I take care of today then I am happy and I am content.
It’s a while new way of looking at things for me. I’ve always been a worrier, tryhing to figure ot what to do, but not focusing on my own happiness, my own needs, but focusing on and worrying about what to do to make others happy, to meet their need, to fix or take care of them….hurry hurry hurry like a rat on a wheel. I won’t hurry any more, I won’t guilt myself for not “Doing enough” or “Not accomplishing enough” IT WILL WAIT. I will only do what I can do, and the rest can wait.
It’s all about attitude and I can take back my POWER TO CONTROL MY ATTITUDE. If my attitude is good, if I feel the power to take back my life, I CAN TAKE BACK MY LIFE. I HAVE TAKEN BACK MY LIFE.
Tonight my son D and I were talking and he has noticed a difference in me over the last few weeks, that I am more upbeat, etc. That I laugh more, care more about my surroundings, about life…etc. So it is even apparent to those around me.
D and I talked about the time in the past when I wouldn’t/couldn’t focus and take back my power. I felt hopeless and helpless, but slowly I gained strength and kept on the bumpy road to healing, got up when I skinned my knees and kept on plugging. It wasn’t instant or easy, but now that I am POWERFUL again, more powerful than I have ever been–LIFE IS WONDERFUL, LIFE IS GOOD. I thank God for holding my hand through the “valley of the shadow of death” and brining me to “green pastures.”
LIG Way to go!!! I like lot’s of butter on my popcorn!!!! It get’s easier – even if I whine alot on here it does get better. Orvill Redenbacher is a nice man……he is always good!!!!
Ox: You always have a good book to read. Maybe you can list all the titles and authors in a blog so i can print out the list.
I do believe in what you wrote about deciding the kind of day you are going to have. It worked for me in the past. I remembered what I used to do and will start doing it again. I used to say to myself in the car in the morning on the way to work “no matter what happens today. no matter who tries to rain on my parade or whatever difficulties are thrown my way, I WILL HAVE A GOOD DAY…NO MATTER WHAT.” It always worked.