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.
Thanks for the recommendation “tobehappy” and you are most welcome “fearlesspeace”. It’s nice to give back the inspiration I HAVE found on this site.
I found this article today about the art of detachment and I think it might be helpfull, especially for those of us that are still being actively spathed…Although it does focus on US and what we can do for ourselves in order to be “happy, joyious and free.”
http://www.livestrong.com/article/14712-developing-detachment/
kim, thank you so much for sharing this article!
I love it!!!!!!!! 😀
You are very welcome shabbychic! It makes me feel good to know I shared something good.
Donna, Callista, et al,
You are so right I think. The healing MUST BE a “spiritual journey” or it will not succeed.
I truly believe that mankind is more than just the biology of the physical body within which we dwell. Maybe that belief is totally untrue, and when my body dies I will cease to exist as a life force, my body will return to the separate elements out of which it was made and that is that. In the meantime, though, my spiritual self and my faith that there is more is very comforting to me.
So, what Have I got to lose in Believing in something greater than myself?
What do I gain by putting down or persecuting someone else’s spiritual beliefs?
Our paths all converge into one greater path as we move from being wounded to healing, and to helping others to heal. Whatever spiritual light someone follows is not the point, the point is that they are following A LIGHT that shines toward healing. Putting out someone one else’s candle doesn’t make mine shine any brighter.
Just as physical exercise strengthens the muscles of your body, and mental exercises and stimulation increase the ability to think, working through challenges in dealing with the yin and the yang, the good and the evil, the left and the right, strengthens our spiritual selves. As the Bible says “tribulation worketh patience”—if we never had any problems in our lives, what would happen the first time we got a “hang nail”? We’d fall apart for sure.
I am convinced that the people here at LF now have the faith and ability to “move mountains,” even if the only tools we had to do it with were spoons!
OxD, Donna…framing this experience as a spiritual journey is on the mark! I have always believed in something greater than myself, but I always had the luxury of not “needing” to truly put faith in that “something greater” because I was more or less comfortable with my lot. I am grateful of the many gifts in this experience including: prayer (although nondenominational), wisdom (in its infancy:), and a new found ability to read a person, listen to my soul and protect myself from those who are a danger to my better being. I am exceedingly grateful to have you all to share this experience with and to share in yours through triumph, tragedy, success and confusion this has been a great place to help me through.
Now I’ll share my success: xpath’s lawyer finally forwarded the paperwork and we are now officially in the system and I should have my court date soon. He was holding out signing the papers. Two strategies that contributed to my success, I believe: praying for him (just saying something, anything, positive in wish/hope format, “I pray he experiences some warmth in his heart for a truly kind act of humanity”) AND, most importantly, putting the FEAR into him. Hinting without threatening to have him served at work. It’s great to keep the upper road, to keep my cool and stay in control. Best! Fearless 🙂
It has almost been three months since my S and I broke up. We’d been dating for 16 months and planning out wedding for next February when I discovered that he’d married the mother of his youngest child. He claimed that the mother of the child had forced him ino the marriage by threatening to have him arrested for back child support. Why was he scared of that? Because he was going to be faced with doing jail time and because he was currently out on bond for a burglary of habitation case, going to jail would violate that. So he marries her and I was heart broken, but considered it as a blessing because I didn’t want to marry a man who didn’t take care of his kids not to mention he was literally sucking my savings dry with all of his financial issues. For a month he constantly apologized for hurting me, expressed how much he loved me and that he wanted me to wait on him because he was having the marriage annulled. He expressed how unhappy him. Honestly I’d started picking up on the S traits early on, but I was in love and dismissed the traits on the fact that he was insecure and felt unloved. So as weeks go by, I grow distant and start dating. I’d started feeling at peace and grateful that he was no longer a major part of my life. Because I was the signer on his bond I had to keep in touch with him on a regular to ensure he went to court. As my healing began I regretted signing for that bond because I now wanted nothing to do with him. One night he sends me a pick and included another number as the recipient. When they responded the message came to me and that is when I’d discovered that not only did he have a wife, but a girlfriend who was expecting his child. I informed her about his recent nuptials and the young woman was heart broken because he’d begged her to keep the baby when she wanted to abort it. Turns out that they’d been messing around for 2 years. Ofcourse he denied the marriage when she confronted him and he bad mouthed me. He then goes to jail for probation violation for another burglary charge and I was happy because I knew that I’d get a break from him. Fast forward to a month later(now) and I receive a call from his wife asking if I could assist with having the attorney forfeit his bond to speed up his case. I was upset that she called because I felt like she too played a part in seducing him back into her life. The woman is so far gone in the head. She informed me that when they dated 3 years ago he’d practically “cleaned” her out of her home, but said that God told her that he was going to be her husband. She goes on to inform me that she knows about his baby on the way and infidelities and that she has forgiven him and says that God has a calling for him. Hearing all of this brought back pain that I’d started healing from and now I honestly don’t know what to do because I am ready to be over all of this! I want to be healed and get this man out of my life!
Dear Breathless, & Fearless
Breathless, There is someone who has a “calling for him” but it is NOT God. ou are NOT responsible for or to this woman, she is responsible for her relationship with him.
TAKE CARE OF YOU! Let the law and the universe and God take care of him. GET THIS MAN OUT OF YOUR LIFE.
Fearless,
I am glad that you are sharing your journey here on LF and that this wonderful place that Donna has given us to support each other has been helpful to you.
I truly believe that our spiritual journeys are what makes us strong, and that these adverse circumstances help us to become stronger and better human beings. Those who have rejected the spiritual part of themselves (I think even a person who does not recognize a higher power can still be spiritual) have become psychopaths and there is no hope for them. Regardless of the amount of gentic tendency there is in the condition, there are still CHOICES that they can make.
I would rather be one of us than one of them! I would rather have a spiritual core than an empty void!@....... (((hugs))))
Absolutely, Ox! I am so happy to be coming back into myself. I feel more whole than I have in my entire life. This seems to be a good morning, there’s lots of back and forth as you know, but LIFE IS GOOD.
Interesting point about rejecting spirituality–xpath told me he’d go to church with me, my denomination, (I am more of the holiday church goer, I’l admit) and did before our marriage. After he refused to go, when we were having trouble in our marriage and for holidays. When I started going more frequently (to find peace and pray for us), he further rejected the idea and said he wanted to bring our daughter to his own denomination that he knew I was strongly opposed to before our marriage and he’d agreed!
Glad to say goodbye to the games. Looking forward to my NC days, even if they are 16 years away.
Thank you Ox Dover. I am feeling MUCH better today. Last night I sent his wife a message asking that she no longer contact me regarding my ex S’s legal affairs and that I wished them both the best of luck. The crazy thing and I am ashamed to admit this, but when she mentioned God having a call for my S and that God told her that my S was going to be her husband, I was a little hurt because I knew that I was a good person, a Christian to add so why would God allow me to go through the pain that I did to bless someone else because that is not how HE operates, but its clear that she is confused and like I once was, wrapped up in his lies and manipulative ways. I am now better and I pray that the liability I have in regards to the bond ends soon because I will truly be free from this situtation.