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.
Dear Aloha,
I’m glad that you are “too busy” and active to have time for LF. Having time for LF is one of the advantages of being my age and retired. I do a lot of work around here but after a couple of hours of hard manual labor I like to sit down and drink another cup of coffee or some lemonaid and I sit at the computer for a little while while I do it, then back outside.
The lovely fall weather is wonderful, low humidity, perfect temps, not too much rain, and I noticed just this morning that a very few leaves are starting to turn. There are some tiny (about the size of a dime) violet colored flowers out my bedroom window that have been blooming for about two weeks now. I’m not sure what they are and need to get the book out and look them up, and my white climbing rose vine had two small white roses on it today. I’m taking time to “smell the roses” as I go about my daily activities, and I am loaning my stationary bike to a friend (it has a chair seat and she can’t ride one with a bike-type seat) because I am getting plenty of exercise walking and working, climbing stairs etc.
The last few weeks things have sort of clicked together and I’m ready to quit feeling sorry for myself (about time I think) and things are on the upswing emotionally and mentally. I still have CRS and my joints still creak and moan and at night I climb into bed with ARthur-itis and wake up with Lum Bego. LOL but otherwise I’m happier and more satisfied than I’ve been in I can’t remember when.
Have to meet the X-DIL-P tomorrow to cash a check that is made out to both her and my son C (more tax refund) and actually I think that’s been kind of a downer for part of the day, but no DEEP depression, just a bit of discomfort, but I think I can handle it ok.
I’d love to have you come visit the farm, Aloha, I’m back living in the house now, not in the RV and that was a big step for me I think. I think I am finally feeling safe enough to come out of my “portable cave” “Abdullah” (that’s the name of the cave King David hid from King Saul in.) It did seem odd and the house still seems “huge” compared to living in the RV.
Getting a year and a half’s worth of dust bunnies out from under the beds and the cob webs out of the corners has been a big job though. An empty house is not a happy house and so it is starting to look nice again and be. emotionally comfortable for me again as well. I notice I still avoid going close to mother’s house even from the back side of the pasture and as I get closer to her house I feel a bit of discomfort (anxiety?) like maybe she is peeping out the window at me. So I know I still have some work to do, but I’m getting there and am so much much MUCH happier than I was a year and a half ago. The blogs that you posted were very comforting and supporting to me Aloha and I want you to know that. Blessings
Hi Unwilling,
My ex S was living with me and not paying anything. I got the car back and after 5 months got him to sign the deed to my condo back to me but I also lost $20,000 in savings we lived off of because he quit his job for 6 months. We lived off that and my unemployment check. Is there a way legally to get any of that money back? He doesn’t have anything and all I would get is a judgment. I think I should just let this go. What do you think?
Iwonder: IMHO, let it go. pursuing it would allow him to say it was all a gift … that you WANTED him there and no one had a gun to your head to take care of him financially. they will make it seem like you deserved what you got … after all, you were living with him and he wasn’t your husband. it will mean CONTACT … and will allow him to get under your skin either with looks, words or just knowing that if you don’t prevail, he won again.
even if you are awarded something, as you say, you will still get nothing. what you do have is your car, your condo and your sanity.
no small victory.
unwilling: please change your phone number.
everytime he calls — whether to be nice or to threaten — sets you back in your healing. or at least use caller ID and never answer a number you don’t know. if it’s important, the caller will leave a message. if he leaves threatening messages, record them and report it to the phone company or the police.
he will continue to harrass you as long as he gets the ‘charge’ of power over you.
over the 20 yrs i loved my ex-s/p/n, i probably gave him upwards of $40,000. helped him pay his mortgage (his wife lived in the house), helped him pay child support (four kids/three women), bought him whatever he conned me into buying for him, gifts for his kids (who i felt sorry for), etc etc ad nauseum. i blame myself to some degree, but i sure did believe he loved me since he never actively cheated on me (as far as i knew –yea, right!) or had a child with another woman while we were together.
i spoke to the police once about whether i had a case and they literally laughed and said this happens all the time and women should NEVER give money to men they aren’t married to.
live and learn.
we are all here for you. we understand what you have endured.
use LF as a lifeline … that’s exactly what it is!
peace to all
and TOWANDA!!!
p.s. to all who helped a few days ago when i was weepy and being sentimental and wanted to know why the jackass did this to me.
i did NOT call him or his brother to find out anything.
i’m over it and back on track.
thanks!
LIG: Glad you are back on track. You are right. I need to let it go and be just thankful I recovered the things I did and no one is sucking the life out of me anymore.
My sister is going through what you are..almost. She was with her husband 20 years. 15 years ago she discovered he was having an affair. She confronted the OW and him. He went to therapy and she took him back. 7 months ago to all our amazement she discovered he never broke it off with the OW. He was seeing her for all this time. 15 years. Now she has him back in therapy and is hoping that will fix him. She is probably going to take him back again .. and the cycle continues. Unbelieveable. Who are these OW who think it’s ok to be with someone elses’s man? She is also married with kids now. Her husband is blind..no Joke!! He really is! He depends on her and here she is..sneaking around on her husband and kids with my sister’s husband. Makes me ill.
The OW who got my man has a prize. He has no car and she has to shuffle him and his kid back and forth to school during the week and to take the kid to the mom’s every Fri night and turn around on Sun to go pick him up. Her car. Her gas money.
I’m so glad I contacted the woman who was with him before me and validated that he abused her verbally and physically like me. It wasnt me..it was him who has the problem.
My life will go on just fine. His will suck and so will everyone else’s who comes in contact with him.
I just applied for several p/t jobs on line. I will do what I have to in order to get out of debt. It may take several years but I have what it takes.
LIG, at least we can look at ourselves in the mirror and sleep at night.
Iwonder: exactly. we sleep just fine at night!
i never blame the OW. they have their reasons and their agenda like everyone else. my man was the one who cheated. i feel that whatever the OW did was beside the point. my ex didn’t have to go be with her, right? it was HIS decision, and his alone. and he lied to BOTH of us. she’s no better off than i was.
enjoy a P-free day!
LIG~~ You are so correct, about not blaming the OW. you and i think exactly alike. women need to stop blaming the ow..its the guy who is the messed up one, always playing many women. they play there games and try to pin two women against each other. i never will blame any women that came into contact with my x.
blondie: and besides, the OW is going to be one miserable female in the not-to-distant future.
Blondie & LIG: I know. I know. You don’t know how hard I’m trying not to blame the OW. I just think about those nights my so-called “Fiance” would lie about where he was going and left me home to babysit his son. And the money I needed for bills he used to take her out. Not once did it pop in the OW’s head, gee, this is not right. There is a woman at home whom he is lying to, etc. I think of those things. If there is a guy who has a woman, I couldn’t be with that guy no matter what. I guess every woman is different. Every woman wants to believe that she is the special one…that he must be cheating because it’s her fault…she is not treating him right…I can be better than her, etc. etc. Shame on the OW out there.