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.
Iwonder – I should put his picture up too. I’ll have to check theh site out.
He does seem to have a pattern of 1-2 year relationships I’ve noticed. I only know about the last few. I had plently of red flags. I remember once he told me that he hit an ex-girlfriend of his because after she found out he was cheating on her, she cheated on him back and he was upset about it.
I actually saw with my own eyes an e-mail he showed me from his ex-wife where she basically told him – get it together, get me my money for our son or you don’t have to worry about ever seeing him. She even mentioned him being too busy out with some girl. He made a joke about it like it was funny. He and his mom actually thought it was funny.
I drove myself crazy looking at my phone bill (he was using my phone) I found a ton of women’s numbers – most of them lead me to women who were advertising themselves on craigslist. I still cannot believe he put the 18 year old’s number in MY phone as “Fun Bunny”.
I have a question if anyone knows the answer. If they do not want us to know thier lie why is it they sometimes show us stuff. Like my ex calling himself a sociopath or showing me the e-mail from his x-wife???
Gemini: I think it’s because they just do not care. Your ex would probably make something up about the ex-wife like she’s the crazy one or tell you some stupid excuse about the phone numbers.
My ex turns his cell off at night. This way, when women call or text you don’t know about it. He took that phone everywhere, even if he went into the bathroom. Sometimes, he’d leave it in the car and lock the car. Very sneaky.
REV . DR . jere in the House ! :)~
IWonder – Mine didn’t even turn his off. and had it with all of the time.(except the one time when I found the 18 year old’s phone number) He used to always say he didn’t need it and I could take it away at anytime if I didn’t trust him. One time the phone got turned off and he actually got upset about it. I knew then ….It got so where he didn’t sleep in the bedroom with me so he would just keep it on all night. I saw and found calls as late as 3:00 a.m. Ingoing/Outgoing, all hours. If he was with me or not.
I give to you insight
Does (it ) Imagin ?
Does it imagin that we will not see through the lies?
Does it Imagin that we will not see through the Pain?
Does it Imagin that we will not see through the Torture?
Does it Imagin that we don’t have backup ?
Does it Imagin that we don’t have legions of angels at our beckening! ?
Does it Imagin that our Creator has forsaken us?
Does it Imagin that our loved ones have given us up?
Does it Imagin that We are forever in its control?
Does it Imagin that we will never see through its shell/transparancy?
Does it Imagin that the battle has not allready been WON?
Does it Imagin that we are less than it?
Does it Imagin that some how it even has a hope of conquering us?
Does it imagin? does it think? or is the hopeless ness of its existance tourture it eternally? it choose its path and it has nothing!
LOVE jere
my ex was addicted to his cell phone. it rang non-stop and i would make him turn it off when he was over. then he would find some excuse to go out to the corner store or go to his car and i would watch him out the window checking it. every time it rang it was ‘his boy.’ he had about 90 phone numbers of females and would tell me it was this one’s cousin, or that one’s aunt. sure. he had a line of girls waiting to ‘get with him.’ his favorite line was ”put me in a room with a female and it’s a wrap.” nice, huh?
gemini, i think they tell us things like that because they want us to know that if we don’t stay ‘in line’, they can easily move on. when my ex used to ask me for money and i’d say no, he’d say, ”that’s okay, i know where i can get it.” that meant, of course, that he’d just go to some other girl. so, of course i would relent and give him what he wanted just so he wouldn’t be with another female. omg!
talk about control. i’m SO glad to be rid of him. today at church, my minister said that when you are confronted with a situation where there is an enemy chasing you and your choice is to be cut down by them or jump off a cliff (he was referring to bad dreams/lucid dreaming, but related it to bad situations/people as well), you turn to face them/it and say, ”if you don’t split, i’ll dismiss you!”
we are children of god, and as such, have infinite power to control who will be in our lives and who will not.
those who do not do right by us and our ideals are to be dismissed if they don’t leave of their own accord.
and so it is …
DEar Lost in grief,
Yes, we are “children of God” and we do not deserve to be abused. “Are to be dismissed if they don’t leave of their own accord” ABSOLUTELY.
A friend of ien called today and I talked to her about my angry moood last night. The people in our lives who “try to hurt us” don’t deserve a SECOND CHANCE to do it again. If someone hurts you even ONCE “on purpose” then there is no reason to give them a second chance—a lie (that is a definite purposeful act)—if you love me, you do NOT lie to me, if you respect me, you do NOT lie to me–ever, for ANY “reason”–if you neither love nor respect me, I NEED YOU IN MY LIFE, WHY?
We are in control of our power if we take that control, I let it slip last night for a little while because I got pissed at a “fresh injury” that I knew was there, I knew the smear campaign was a “standard operating procedure” (SOP) so I shouldn’t have been suprised. And I care about my neighbor’s sister’s opinion, why? Nah, I don’t really care about her opinion, I see her maybe once or twice a decade. If I let (allow) my mother’s behavior, her smear campaign, to make me angry, then I am angry because I ALLOW IT. I have a choice, and I choose to not allow her behavior to influence my day! I’m still saying that and feeling otherwise, but soon the feelings will come to meet my own expectations of myself. I am strong. I am powerful, I will not allow it. I can control myself. I cannot control her. TOWANDA!!!!
LG,
I think you’re right about trying to keep us “in-line”. He would say it about the phone, my letting him use the car, even having a place to stay. And I would be just like a puppet on a string and let him stay and let him use my car so he wouldn’t leave.
He had such mind control over me. He used to say that his girlfriend “may know about what I do but she never calls me on it.”
Going back to what you said about the S doing stuff so that don’t care. Would that explain why he also let his girlfriend have access to his e-mail and voicemail. I used to wonder about that all of the time bc before his phone was turned off and he started using mine he used to tell me she had access to these kinds of things.
I am grateful EVERYDAY he is not here – don’t get me wrong. I just still feel so twisted up about everything. Like before I knew what he was I used to say to my friends that even if I were to take him back – he would NEVER come back here to leave. Obviously I know now what he is so I know it’s NC all the way but it’s hard but I am trying with some effort to move past him and get back to my own life because I miss it.
insert cell phone in microwave – press 4 seconds – press start – remove cell phone and replace where he left it = When he says cell phone not woking – just look puzzeled – hmmm
MY (it) has no problem with NC it’s us that pretend/see a soul, a valueable person hidden in there that we want so desperately to help to nurture and love (it) feels none of this ,despizes it, sees it as a weakness and a fault something to be taken advantage of, to use aginst us.
If there is good than it would make logical sence that there is evil.
This is so simple that it has become obscure to Modern man !
I am loveing kind conciderate forgiveing passionate giving humble all the things that make for a real relationship a Healthy relationship ! (it) is the compleet opposite !
Like banks the people who need money get the higher interest rate. the poor get blead dry!
like Phone service
like cable
like internet service
It is backasswards because of Greed because of $$$$$$$$
We could let the poor be forced out of their homes and do nothing!
We could let the poor be put on the street w/children and babies!
But as soon as the Corporations of Power where at risk of demise at their own bidding our govt. steps in to help them?????/
we can spend trillions on policeing the world and space exploration but we cant have national health care or take care of those who gave their limbs for us in worthless police actions
we call It anti terrism and when 2008 CIA intelegence turns up freaking retarded and un-intelegent WHY do not HEADS FLY esp BUSH ???????????? Impeach! Remove from power!!!!!!!!! You should not be allowed to wage WAR on A HUNCH! Get rid of this !
But that is only me love jere