Many Lovefraud readers experience the phenomenon of “losing yourself” in the sociopathic relationship. Before meeting the sociopath, you may have been, for the most part, happy, confident, successful and financially stable. You had a network of people who cared about you. Yes, there was some kind of vulnerability—perhaps you were a bit lonely—and the sociopath used the vulnerability to infiltrate your life. But, for the most part, you were okay.
Then, either suddenly or slowly, your life disintegrated, and the problems you face are so immense, and so interconnected, and so overwhelming, that you don’t know where to begin unraveling them. You don’t have the energy to start. Rather than the happy and confident person you once were, you are anxious, depressed and fearful. You don’t know how you are going to survive.
And you don’t know how it all happened. Trying to figure it out, you describe the individual’s behavior to friends or a therapist, and someone mentions the word “sociopath.” Or you do a Google search—perhaps on “pathological lying”—and end up on Lovefraud.
You are in shock. The description fits, and you realize that the individual never cared about you, that you were targeted, and that you allowed yourself to be scammed, either financially or emotionally. You’ve lost money, or your home, or your job, or your support network—or all of it.
Blame game
As you realize the depths of the betrayal, the blame game starts. And whom do you blame? Yourself.
You are furious with yourself for not seeing it sooner. You didn’t listen to people who warned you, or to your own inner voice that was telling you something was amiss. Instead, you believed the silver-tongued liar, the crying and pleading actor, whose real intention was to drain from you everything he or she could.
Besides everything physical and financial that you lost, you are most upset because you no longer have your sense of self. You feel like you lost your soul.
Now what?
The sociopath is responsible
First of all, recognize that you are not responsible for the abuse you experienced.
The sociopath may have blamed you for his or her actions, saying, “You made him (her) do it.” Understand that statements like these were all part of the manipulation. The terrible words were spoken specifically to throw you off-balance and break you down, so that the sociopath could maintain control.
He or she is responsible for the hurtful words—and for all abusive actions.
Commit to recovery
Next, know that you can recover. The key to recovery is recognizing that the fraud and betrayal is NOT WHO YOU ARE. The devastation by the sociopath is something that happened to you. The betrayal was an incident, an experience. Do not allow it to define the rest of your life.
Make a decision, a commitment to yourself, that you are going to heal.
This means you need to allow yourself to experience the deep wells of pain, disappointment and grief that the experience caused. You have to get it out of your system, and the only way to do that is to allow yourself to process the pain, which means feeling it.
Finally, you need to let the experience go. How do you do this? You accept that it happened, and that there is nothing you can do to change the past. This does not mean you excuse what the sociopath did. But you do recognize that the betrayal was an INCIDENT IN YOUR LIFE, and NOT LET IT DEFINE THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.
It is true that you will never be the same after the experience with the sociopath, and you may have, in fact, lost yourself. But by facing the pain, processing it and letting it go, you can find a new “you,” one with a richer, deeper understanding of the human condition, and more capacity for love and compassion than you ever had before.
You can recover. You can grow. You can acquire wisdom. And you can move on and find happiness—perhaps sharing the wisdom you acquired to help prevent others from going through what you experienced.
Tami,
Your situation is so heartbreaking and yet I am holding you in high esteem as I see you start to accept the inevitable.
You know she won’t stay with your son forever. At some point in the future she’ll get bored, find a better enabler, probably use the baby to trap her future target.
It’s just nuts that a father’s custodial rights aren’t recognized because his child was born ‘out of wedlock’. In Belgium these days 45% of children are born ‘out of wedlock’. So, nearly one in two children are born with parents who are a couple but aren’t married (but legally living together, or single women who find a man who’s willing to be a father and sperm donor to their children, …). It’s a ‘normal’ thing, and these children have as much right to both their grandparents and their father as kids born to a married couple. Children don’t choose their parents nor choose what union they are born to nor the child protection laws.
So it’s incredibly unfair, but at the same time, this is the reality. We can cry ‘it’s unfair!’ as much as we want, but it doesn’t help us one step further. And you are personally coming to terms with that fact. It takes strength to move beyond the ‘it’s unfair’ stage and into ‘it’s how it is, nothing I can do about that, so what can I actually do?’ And it takes even more strength to realize and accept that for a major part the answer is still ‘Not much’. Unfortunately we all need our own time in coming to both realizations. And your husband apparently needs more time. Has he much experience with spaths? If he doesn’t, it’s not uncommon for him to believe for far longer that somehow the situation can be controlled or some cooperative solution can be found. And if needs to deal with the whole chaos the spath creates constantly less directly as you have the past months, he will also experience the effects of it less on his own system. It sounds more like he witnesses what it is doing to you, and empathizes with it. But it does sound that you are a good team and that in time he will realize the inevitable as well.
I’m sorry. I hope you both come out of this stronger though.
Tami: I feel for you. I truly do.
Having lost a 2-1/2 year old Grandson to a vicious murder,
along with a couple of children, I, personally, have lost because of medical conditions, along the way, I see that you still have HOPE that your Grandchild will be alive and breathing somewhere. If I were you, I would fight tooth and nail for that baby. Because, it sounds to me like YOU and YOUR HUSBAND are the only ‘saving grace’ that child has.
Remember: YOU still have hope.
The only hope I have now is that I will see my Grandson and my two dead children (at birth) in the next life….My Grandson would be 22 years old this year. I often wonder what he would have been and how he would have been….
I have dreams of what my dead children would look like or become in this life.
I will never have the chance to know.
Hang onto what YOU DO HAVE.
My prayers and wishes are with you.
Dupey
Tami,
QUOTE YOU: I would feel very guilty if something happened to the baby due to their irresponsibility
YOU have a CHOICE in how you feel, you are not required to “feel guilty” because of someone else’s irresponsibility.
As far as getting your husband to “go along” with detachment…YOU can detach even if he doesn’t. His failing to detach from the situation does not require that YOU remain in the fight.
This is a case where you have to grow a back bone and stand up for what is RIGHT and what is NECESSARY no matter what someone else’s position is. It won’t be easy, but you CAN do it.
Yea, GF WILL eventually break up with your son and take off for parts unknown or shack up with some wino and there is not much you will be able to do…except realize that YOU HAVE NO CONTROL over what she does, only what YOU do. It is a crying shame that the child is the one who must suffer, but ulltimately that is what will happen no matter what you do. You can only protect yourself (as best you can)
By the way, did your son ever get a DNA test to even see if it is his child? Or is he just accepting her word…and we know what that is worth don’t we? (((hugs)))
http://www.ehow.com/facts_6771333_tennessee-children-born-out-wedlock.html
http://www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/laws_policies/statutes/putative.pdf
Tami,
this says fathers have rights even to children born out of wedlock.
Not sure who was telling you differently or why.
one more:
http://www.kidwellsouthbeasley.com/Family-Law/Juvenile-Law-Paternity.shtml
That was my understanding of national law, as well.
That every father (DNA substantiated) has parental rights.
He can force her to a DNA test.
I especially agree with what Ox said, let me quote:
“This is a case where you have to grow a back bone and stand up for what is RIGHT and what is NECESSARY no matter what someone else’s position is. It won’t be easy,
but you CAN do it.”
Absolutely.
In this lifetime, we must all eventually stand for that which we know is right and just and the honest thing to do no matter who agrees or not. Sometimes taking the ‘right stance’ means having to stand your ground and not let others tell you what you are doing and what you are not doing.
It’s all about US, standing there, by ourselves, making these decisions, whether we are in a relationship or not. It’s US standing up for the person we are and standing our ground for ourselves no matter the confusion and hurts that may come with it.
I tell my children, all the time: “When you are small, the stresses are small. When you grow up, they get larger and larger and the decisions and choices we have before us become harder and harder. Just because we make a choice that we know is absolutely right, that does not mean there isn’t pain that comes along with it. That is part of making the right choices.”
I know what your heart must be coming through right now.
I wish I could just hug you and take it all away. But the pain we feel inside our hearts is the very fiber of WHO we are. That is a ‘price’ we pay for doing the right things and not just the whims of our hearts. We anticipate the outcome of our actions carefully, with forethought and conscience.
That is something ppaths/spaths can’t understand.
And they can’t because they don’t want to.
It’s all the way YOU want it, Tami.
YOU are the CAPTAIN of your own ship, My Dear…
Blessings from the heart,
Dupey
Although I think you should follow up and educate yourself some more, Tami, I also think you will have to protect your heart.
Unless you can have your son “fixed” so he can’t have more babies, he will always be able to put you in this position: legal battles, worry, drama.
So fighting for this baby, only sets the stage for more of the same. It gives him a hook.
I don’t think you should inform him of anything you find out. Play your cards close to your vest. If he knows you are researching, then he’ll know you care.
Get a good lawyer who specializes in these matters. The links above include one in Tennessee. Keep the lawyer in your back pocket. Eventually, if you keep your ears and eyes open but your mouth shut, you may get an opportunity to take custody of the baby and the lawyer will be ready to advise you.
For now, gray rock, no emotions, do not let them know you care about the baby. Make them think you are only babysitting when it’s convenient, you don’t change your plans for them. And you stop believing their stories.
Tami, I agree with Skylar on this and I am writing a very long response to your predicament. Here’s a true story from the expsath’s side of the family:
17 year old girl who was emotionally abandoned by her parents became pregnant. Everyone in this family “pitched in” to help. She was unfit, as I had hinted might be the case, and the baby was removed from her. She immediately became pregnant, again. Same scenario. Drama/trauma, court, stupidity, and the baby is removed from her because she was unfit. She became pregnant, AGAIN – yes, three children before 20 years of age, and each one taken away. After this third child was removed…..you guessed it: she became pregnant, again, by a drug dealer and only god knows what’s happened since then, as that’s when my marriage ended.
The point of this being that the dysfunctional family that raised this young woman up to be wound up fostering and adopting these children. They got a whole lot of money from the State to do this – and, they continue to receive benefits in the forms of cash, medical needs, etc., etc., for the “sakes of the children.” This young woman was found to be UNFIT (caps for emphasis) on no less than four occasions, and each child was taken away from her.
What Skylar has pointed out is accurate. The spath mother may be as evil as the day is long – I agree. But, the son is culpable, as well. The addictions of this pair didn’t just spring up, overnight – they were both using LONG before she became pregnant, and neither one of them are responsible, nor will they become responsible, probably forever. As long as someone is waiting on the periphery and wringing their hands in fear and legitimate concern, both of these adults are going to use every avenue to exploit your precious virtues of empathy and conscience.
From Merriam Webster Dictionary:
exploit – verb ik-ˈsplȯit, ˈek-ËŒ
transitive verb
1: to make productive use of : utilize
2: to make use of meanly or unfairly for one’s own advantage
The second definition applies, here, Tami. Your care, love, concern, empathy, kindness, and sense of “right” are all being exploited to the Nth degree, and done with deliberacy and malice.
Giving either one of these people any information about what you are “feeling,” thinking, doing, or planning is a screaming No-No. They (both of them) are going to “Exploit” anything that they can, and it’s time to get angry an set aside the rampant fears of what “could” happen.
Yes….”the hook.” That “hook” is a barbed and poisoned one and you are not responsible for their choices, decisions, actions, etc. You cannot alter any of these, prevent recurring stupidity, and the whole lot. These are things over which you have no control. You cannot control this situation any more than I can control the situation that I’m facing. You can’t.
Having said that, there is one thing over which you have complete control, and that is your Self – “Self” is that part of you that nobody else can touch and makes you unique in the Universe. If you believe in the existence of souls, then “Self = soul.” You have control over how you will proceed, respond (or, not), react (or, not), and recover from this (or, not). You have choices, and you have control OVER (emphasis, not yelling) those choices.
Coming to terms with the fact that the son is involved in this and unable to speak truthfully is difficult, at best. It’s hurtful and painful – you didn’t raise this man to make these choices, and it’s a punch in the gut, on every level. Reconcile this fact: he is dishonest, irresponsible, and he’s also using his offspring as a tool of manipulation against you and your husband. This is harsh, but it is truth.
Where I’m at, personally, I have to face some very, very hard truths that are not only grossly unfair, but very, very harsh. I have lost everything that I ever had as the result of a very long con, and the exspath is not going to face a single consequence for his actions. This is unfair. This is outrageous. This is unjust. But….it is true, and I have to sort out some way to accept this and move on.
Tami, I cannot tell you what you “should” or “should not” do. You are going to have to decide these things for yourself. I can recommend that you and your husband seek some counseling to help you through this process, and seek the counsel of a Family Law Specialist, but it will ultimately be your decision whether you want to live out the rest of your life in resigned peace or buy into the drama/trauma surrounding this child.
I wish you the brightest blessings
Dupey, Skylar, Truthspeak and Others:
Thank you, again. Dupey, so sorry to learn of your losses. I feel a bit selfish because it seems that I spend most of my time seeking advice and support here on LF rather than giving it. I honestly don’t feel that I could offer any GOOD advice while in this state of mind anyway. I’ve had all these past experiences with spaths but each and every situation has been different. I guess I learned more about how to deal with the carnage left by a spath in a romantic relationship. Somehow that felt a lot easier to remove myself from than the situation with the baby.
At any rate, I’m starting to believe that my son really is more immature and naive than anything else. Also, I’m beginning to wonder if he even knows about the recent drug run the gf made. Then again, he may be getting better at being a con…I don’t know. Since he started his new job and learned that the gf is getting transferred to day shift, he seems to truly believe that the entire situation is going to change. He expects that he will be able to keep the baby at home during the week while he is not working and I will only be needed to keep the baby when the gf is working on the weekends because his job schedule is 12 hour shifts worked Friday thru Sunday. He’s been working his rear off to lay carpet on the currently tile only floors because the baby is beginning to crawl. I, personally, can’t see her wanting her there. She’s worked a few day shifts before and called upon me or asked me to continue to keep the baby because she will have to get up early. With her, the reasons for me having the baby have always either been while she is working or sleeping or has to get up early or needs to rest from work. He’s lined up a preacher and asked me to check out a set of wedding rings that he found for her on eBay to see if I feel that they are “real” and check out the seller’s feedback scores and such. I do a lot of buying and selling on eBay and he never has so his request of me is a reasonable one. He keeps talking about how everything is “looking up” now that he has a job. He’s also asked my husband to let him know of any decent available rental properties that he might run across in his line of work and he’s been checking the newspaper, too. He seems to believe that the gf’s excuse of the apartment not being fit for the baby to live in and the shift(s) that she has worked are the reasons they have not been able to have the baby in their presence. He NEVER seems to question why the gf has never kept the baby alone or says that she’s coming to our house to see her but never shows. She just told me last night that she deleted her FB page yet he asked me to tag some pics that I took of the baby yesterday to his page and make sure that I tagged them to hers, too. When I told him that I “thought” I understood her to say that she had deleted her page, he said to tag her if she still had one. It seems that he should know these things. By the way, I think I could have at least been nominated for an Oscar for my performance with the gf last night. She came to “spend some time with the baby”. She spent her time here laying in my tanning bed and talking TO me while my husband and son had the baby in garage with them and worked on her car. She gave her a quick kiss, said something to her about knowing how much she missed “mommy” and was gone.
As far as the DNA test? It’s not my imagination nor anyone else’s, the baby looks exactly like me and a little like my son. My baby pics and hers are identical. It’s a bit scary! She’s a mini ME from head to toe!
I understand the confusion about the Tennessee law…read conflicting things myself but finally learned why. Tennessee didn’t have this law until 2010! Before that, the unwed father had as much right to the baby as the unwed mother as long as he had signed for his name to be on the baby’s birth certificate! The 2010 law is Tennessee’s way of protecting fathers who have been led to believe that a baby is their child, paid child support for years and then learned that the child is NOT their child. We do everything backassward here! But, Tennessee.gov spells it all out. That is a THE place to go for Tennessee laws. It even lists the section code, blah, blah, blah, that the law is listed under.
I have expressed my fears to my son about his not having any rights and that she may refuse to marry him. He swears that he will not allow her to hurt him or us like that and will take her to court to get his custodial rights even if she just tries to stall. In the meantime, I guess we’ll just continue to keep the baby. He’s trying to marry her FAST by giving her the engagement ring on her bday August 1st and having the preacher marry them with a the necessary witness that same week. The privacy of the marriage plans alarmed me a little at first but then he asked if I thought our cousin who has been around the baby a lot at my house would serve as the witness so she can bring the baby and tend to her while the vows are exchanged. And, this particular cousin is certainly not going to go along with them faking getting married.
Tami, as much as you want to explain away the son’s immaturity and naievete, it doesn’t fly with me. How old are these people, anyway? If we were talking about 15-year-olds, I might be inclined to agree. But, we’re not. We are talking about drug addicts. What the son thinks, feels, and might believe (or, know) are things over which you have absolutely no control. None. Nada. Zip.
Yes, whenever innocent lives are involved in spath entanglements, the reactions and responses are compounded tenfold. This is the primary reason that counseling therapy might be indicated – it is entirely too much emotional torture and manipulation for any human being to process in any healthy manner. You’re trying to distance yourself from this ugly situation and the cog/diss is kicking into ultra-high-gear. I’ve watched many well-meaning grandparents and family members tumble into that spath abyss, never to recover because they allowed their empathy to be warped into a weapon against them.
The son isn’t “doing anything” as far as researching his own rights because you’re doing it for him. Sharing your concerns with him is really, really not going to spur him to do anything other than carry away fuel to add to this conflagration. You see, the spath mother is not the only culpable party, here, and you have 2 choices on this. 1: Accept that the son is in as deeply as she is. 2: Or, not. With all of these hours that they are both supposedly working, they should be able to afford to pay a nanny to keep the baby in her own home.
I am not intending to come across as scolding or to make you feel hurt even further, Tami. I can read the emotional pain in your posts quite clearly. I can also read that you’re clearly being manipulated and that these two adults are using a baby to tie onto your tail to keep you spinning in circles. Whether or not the son is a victim or participant is not your place to determine. It doesn’t matter because the End Result is the same: you life is thoroughly disrupted and in a constant state of drama/trauma.
I would be interested in reading more about what you are doing for your own protection and recovery, Tami. What steps are you taking to help your Self? Self is equal to that which makes you priceless and irreplacable in this vast Universe. And, I’m not talking about your researching Tennessee Family Law or pretending that caring for the baby is an inconvenience so the parents “allow” you to continue providing care for her. Those are spath games and not positive steps to recovery.
I feel deeply for you, Tami. I really do. I found this site because I had to surrender my belief that my eldest son would get help for himself to the hard fact that he won’t. I forced myself to go NC and it has taken me years to manage this process. My former daughter in law aborted my grandchild because of the spath carnage and I cannot take on another person’s child in an attempt to “fix” what ails my son vicariously through another chance in the form of a baby. I just can’t facilitate this and I won’t torture myself to try.
Brightest blessings to you
So your son is now planning to marry the spath girlfriend? Peachy. Sounds like you are in for a lifetime of drama, as you don’t seem to be willing to stop rescuing your son. Girlfriend will now be entitled to half of whatever your son has, including anything you give to him and will now be in a permanent position to manipulate you. The baby seems to be a perfect tool for manipulation. At best, you can only be an occasional presence in the baby’s life, while the baby is jerked around. How is this good for the baby or for you?
Tami, save yourself. Get out now while you can. Haven’t you had enough? I feel stressed out even reading your posts. Therefore, I can only imagine the stress you’re feeling. I will venture to guess that eventually, the stress of this will make you sick if it hasn’t done so already. Where is your breaking point? I know people who were so embroiled in toxic family situations that they actually died to get out – literally. They ended up with terminal illnesses from the stress and died. It was their way out. Is this really worth your health?
At what point do you feel you deserve the right to live your own life?
Let your son and his fiance raise their own baby. If you feel the baby is being endangered, call CPS and have them investigate. Maybe a foster family will be the best shot this baby has at a stable home environment. This is probably the best you can do for the baby. The system doesn’t always work but it’s the best we have, short of your kidnapping the baby and moving to a foreign country, which is not an option.