Editor’s Note: The following was posted as a comment by the Lovefraud reader, NewLife43. I thought everyone should see it.
I had a small epiphany today while driving back from the grocery store. What, exactly, did the spath give me that I find so difficult to let go? I have been married twice before and when those marriages were over, I was sad and wished that they hadn’t ended the way that they had. But neither one of them was like this 8 year relationship! I was still the same person, what was so different this time? Why couldn’t I release it and move on with my life?
Neither one of my ex-husbands were like the spath. In fact, NO ONE had ever made me feel like he did. And by that I mean, no one had ever made me as physically sick, scared, confused, bewildered, ashamed, lost, financially devastated”¦well, you get the picture. Most of us on here have been decimated, humiliated and degraded by this sub-human species. What is wrong with us that we cannot LET THEM GO? We shouldn’t just be glad to kiss them good-bye, we should be kicking them goodbye! And instead, many of us would take them back in a heartbeat.
Why? Because they gave us something we so deeply needed, that the world ended the same time that the relationship did. I don’t know what everyone else received from their spath, but I do know what I got from mine. He made me feel loved and accepted in a way I had never been before. He made me feel beautiful on my worst days. He shrugged off my bad moods and laughed me out of them. He ignored any insults I hurled his way and didn’t hold them against me. I could be my most terrible self and he still called me “His Queen”. Since he couldn’t possibly make a mistake in his choice of romantic partner (in his mind, anyway) I was the perfect woman for him. In a way, he did create the world we lived in and so much of it was wonderful, fun, interesting and never, never boring. But. The price I paid was tremendous and I will have to pay it for a while yet. I know that this relationship, this world of his, wasn’t ever real, but you know, it sure felt real. More real than anything I had ever experienced in my life. Those are pretty special feelings and he doesn’t them own, unless I let him.
My spath must have said “I don’t care” at least a thousand times over the course of our time together. And he meant it. What would bother a normal person, he was able to simply shrug off. It was a lesson to me to lighten up my very serious view of the world. Sometimes, things really don’t matter. (Another of his sayings). When I would get upset because something had broken and I would now have to spend the money to replace it, he said, “Things break, they wear out. Why are you getting so upset?” So I would stop and reevaluate what was important. I appreciated that viewpoint and still remember to tell myself that when yet again, something breaks.
I loved his sense of fun, it was so child-like. And although his version of fun would wear thin sometimes when it was inappropriate conduct, I tolerated it because I was thrilled by it. He really lived like somebody left the gate open! I couldn’t have been less like him if I had tried and his way of approaching life helped swing me more to the middle of the road than constantly riding the bumpy shoulder. How sad, for him, for us, that he had no idea when to stop pushing the envelope. Not realizing that what he was doing was hurting so many people. And it caused so much legal trouble in his life. How I wish that he could have kept that sense of joie de vivre without spinning out of control. Sigh! And one day, he didn’t care and I didn’t matter. My heart was broken.
I loved him very much. I still do. But the point is, I have the capacity to love someone and he doesn’t. He never will. Good for me! That means even if I don’t quite know how yet, I will be able to move on. It’s so very, very hard.
So what did he give me? He gave me complete acceptance and what I believed was love, in a way no one had before. And I had an opportunity to explode with genuine love for another person. He made me feel beautiful, no matter what and I am grateful for that.
And even if it was all an illusion, who here wouldn’t go back just for a day when we were first being love-bombed by our spath? Unfortunately, we can’t go back. The good news is, we can find a way to give deep love and acceptance to ourselves! This IS good news!
The spath uncovered our deepest needs and showed us how we can feel about ourselves, through their eyes. Who says we can’t feel that way again? Now this is my goal which I will reach for every single day for the rest of my life. And I have him to thank for that. I didn’t know before I met him that I could be wholly acceptable in someone’s eyes. Only now it’s my eyes. I can love-bomb myself.
If you are old enough, you may remember the poem, “Desiderata”. The best line was: “For all its pain, drudgery and broken dreams, it’s still a beautiful world. Strive to be happy”. Because if I give happiness to myself, then no one can ever take it away from me again. And it can’t be that hard to help myself feel that way again. If the spath can do it, then ANYONE can! What I finally understood is that it’s not him I miss or want back (he comes packaged with too much pain), it’s those amazing feelings. You know they’re already in you. He (or she) doesn’t have a copyright on them. Go get them, everyone!
dear oxy,
got your email. have sent one now, we criss crossed on email. will go to sleep in an hour’s time. the resting and breeathing helped, made me clear some crap from my mind and pinpoint on what was bothering me and have sent that in the most recent email.
thanks so much, you are my rescuer.
petite
petite Hi,
Sorry you are having a rough time.
Your Big Toe technique
How to deal with Anxiety and Stress in 90 Seconds!
http://hypnosisbunbury.com.au/stress90seconds
The other one is to put your tongue on the roof of your mouth. It stops the thought process. Hard to think in words.
petite
The other thing you could do is to follow the technique at this link and be done with it.
http://www.lovefraud.com/blog/2012/08/30/what-did-the-sociopath-give-me-and-why-is-it-so-hard-to-let-it-go/comment-page-1/#comment-168977
spoon
petite, about the text – I replied to someone else who’s post has dissappeared it seems.
as for “while waving an imaginary dust from her shoulder and continue her way with her head held high”.
Imagine some type of powder fell from the ceiling and lands on your shoulder. What would you do? You would move your hand to your shoulder and whipe it off. That movement is what I meant 🙂
It signals to a person they are NOTHING to you: something dirty that you can get rid off with little attention.
Petite, what he is doing – putting himself in your presence but not pursuing you – is a power play. It’s a classic technique from the spath tool kit. He wants to know you have feelings for him so he can have power over you. Don’t fall for it. Try to focus on anything besides him – go to a movie at night or something to just refocus until you can go NC again. Meantime, like everyone says, just ignore him. He is not good for you. If you can break the addiction, in time you may find that there are truly kind and decent men out there who get your attention. Then you will look back and wonder how you wasted so much of your life suffering over this scum of the earth.
Star,
power play. interesting choice of words. I heard them from a young man recently. He said his divorced parents are power players. Thanks for clarifying the meaning of that.
It’s also a definition for the typical borderline/spath behavior: idealize, devalue and discard. Whipsaw, rollercoaster, horse training –it’s all the same. Who the heck THINKS OF THESE THINGS?
Makes me want to go run for the hills.
Petite, I hope you’re feeling more in control, today.
This guy you’re describing may be at a professional conference, but he’s a parasite of the worst kind. Perhaps, if you’re able to view him as deadly as Ebola, you can put his behaviors into context and actually laugh at him. He’s a virus, plain and simple. He finds a host, dismantles that host’s system of beliefs and psyche, replaces them with diseased emotions, and moves on to the next host.
And, if he does have someone on his arm before you are able to sever all contact with him, so what? She’s just another host organism as far as he’s concerned. She probably deserves your pity – and, gratitude that it’s not you that’s being dismantled, again.
He’s a virus – a parasite. He’s inhuman even though he walks around in a human shell. Go back to microbiology and recall what viruses do. That’s precisely what he is.
Brightest blessings
dear sky, Oxy, darwinsm, truthspeak,
feel much better today. have not seen him today at all.
he did not come for my presentation, it went very well and I got lovely comments from the audience and senior professors.
one of the elderly professors, came and kissed me on the cheek and said – do not be nervous, you are lovely and you are very good and thorough in your work.
and the jerk B was not even in the audience.
I felt very strong after all yor messages, thanks so much my pals.
I will remember his being a parasite.
thanks again.
petite
dear sky, oxy, dmom, truth,
feeling stronger today. still going back and forth thinking how he can be such a parasite and how on the exterior is a a “total Price Charming” “a dream come true”
thinking of him as an addiction is the best way to de-addict ourselves.
if we see even the slightest good in him, which is fake, we stop making progress.
thanks for all the timely advice. he is such an A star actor.
does the “mask ever fall”
petite
Petite, it’s so good to read your strength!
Yes, the mask falls, eventually. Spaths are, after all, mortal and their “power” and “control” are legends within their own minds. They are fallible and, regardless of HOW adept they appear, they make mistakes – sometimes, those mistakes are enormous.
So….you are doing just fine!!!! WOW!!!! See there?
And, the back and forth thing is simply our psyche trying to fit spath behaviors into our own systems of beliefs. Someone that I loved and cared about would NEVER do ________, so I must be mistaken in my perceptions of what he/she is.
BRIGHTEST BLESSINGS!!!! TOWANDA!!!