Almost three years ago, Lovefraud published the story of a man from the UK whom I called Tom. Tom’s wife left him for another man, took their children, had him arrested on false charges nine times and wiped him out financially. Here is the original story:
UK man says sociopath stole his life
Now, three years later, Tom still hasn’t seen his children. His ex-wife and her new husband, who also sounds like a sociopath, have removed the children from the UK. They live in France, at a small town near the Swiss border. “My heart bleeds every minute for the loss,” he writes. “It is a living bereavement and a nightmare from which I may never awake.”
I asked Tom if he was taking care of himself. Here’s his reply:
I have taken care of myself and for the most part I am okay. Some days are worse than others. I do have my very depressed and painful days ”¦ but I close my eyes, dream of days and memories of long ago, sleep and they pass.
I have to deal with my health and look after my parents. My mother phones me and cries about her grandson all the time. She has post-traumatic difficulties and says she cannot connect with her other grandchildren because of what she feels for my son. She feels a deep loss and is constantly worried about the kids. Every open discussion starts with them [opening the scar] and ends with them.
I am holding my own and my health has deteriorated but I am stable. I hold my family in the balance on many fronts. I am keeping it together but the pain is immense at times.
I am working and seem to have bounced back somewhat to where I used to be”¦ the years have been tearful, painful and costly. I don’t think that I will every really recover.
Releasing the pain
How do you cope when there is no resolution in sight?
I asked Tom about how he is taking care of himself because that may be, for the time being, all he can do. Emotional pain weakens us and makes it difficult to continue the battle. So somehow, Tom needs to alleviate the pain, even though his circumstances have not changed.
This seems counterintuitive—how can he feel better when his children are still kept away from him? The solution is to deal with the pain directly. Pain can be processed and released, even when the source of the pain has not changed.
Pain comes from wanting things to be different. The solution is to accept what is, for the time being, reality. This does not mean giving up hope. It does not mean quitting the legal battle. But it does mean letting go of the internal upset that keeps us trapped, and makes us ill.
How do we do that? We allow ourselves to feel the pain and grief at our loss. This is best done privately, or perhaps with a skilled counselor. We allow ourselves to cry, moan with the anguish, perhaps pound pillows in our anger. We continue until we feel a release, and then we stop.
Tom will probably have to do this many times—the well of his pain and grief is deep. But each time grief is released, it makes room for healing. And from a place of healing, it is possible to find the internal resources to continue the battle.
I think Tom’s situation is every parent’s worst nightmare. Living a nightmare could probably kill a person.
I cannot imagine the pain Tom is suffering. My two children are the PRIMARY REASON I pull through and keep me working to find my way out. Maybe for him the hope is when they are grown he can re-establish a relationship with them.
My children and I are under duress from the threat of the N/S/P that lives 4 blocks away and is currently in jail for stalking me and threatening me and my children. He has been bailed out over 15 times in the last 18 months for various violations of the TPO and spent 3 two week visits in the psych hospital.
For various reasons I am not able to move away or I would have so I face the “fear” daily. I am regularly blindsided by events that bring back up all the trauma and horror and I have to maintain my composure as so many people I work with, and the parents at our school have no idea – I do not want a stigma attached to my kids.
What has helped me is coming to terms with reality – what is versus what I wish it was. Taking rational steps to protect ourselves has also given me peace. Alarms installed – check; Guns purchased – check; Training at the gun range – check; Neighbors and police department alerted and updated as needed – check…
He is the last in a long line of narcissists and maybe sociopaths to be allowed to affect my life. I am so done with other people’s selfish bs – I have through this process come to realize how much of my life since childhood I have spent trying to please impossible to please people – people who rarely if ever expressed any concerns about what would please me or my children.
The healing from this monster has affected how I view my parents – and allowed me to finally and fully emotionally detach from them and others. I am in the latter half of my middle years and my most fervent hope is I teach my children well so they make healthy choices for themselves and their lives.
Inventories, learning what my part is in the messes I have been a part of, grieving the losses I have had – even those from childhood -( both my parents are N’s … ) have been part of the process and I am finally beginning to wake up happy to be alive again. It is truly wonderful.
Part of the healing has been all the wisdom I have found here and various places online. Knowledge is such a powerful tool as is acceptance.
The Co-dependency labels that get tossed around I rejected out of hand and I think the blame the victim psychobabble really delayed my being able to get to the emotional resolution I needed and grow strong enough to go to No Contact as he was willing to exploit me as long as I was willing to be exploited.
For a long time – years – I did not know what was happening – but once I learned what the dynamics were and that it is what is good about me that had me enmeshed with him (and harmed by others close to me) – instead of some fatal flaw in me that caused me to – well I could never figure it out really – was there something wrong with me and I was never going to be treated with love and kindness or was I being treated properly and I my expectations were just too high for how others were supposed to behave – (even though I certainly had to meet high standards….)
When I read Dr. Carvers article on Love and Stockholm Syndrome – http://counsellingresource.com/quizzes/stockholm/index.html
that really accelerated my recovery.
Anyway – I pray Tom finds some emotional healing. I still have a hard time with short term memory and the physical toll the stress has placed on me is just now becoming apparent and so I am trying to focus on my own physical health as another source of healing my emotional and mental health.
By the way – pretrial court date is the 22nd of this month and then there is another date not yet set – if I am “lucky” he will get a year – one year for everything he has done
– and he is still trying to call me from jail so doubtful a year is enough … This is the second trial
– he plead out to the first sets of charges so a trial was avoided. He was given 3 yrs probation and anger management and in the first month was kicked out of anger management, pee tested dirty repeatedly and eventually stopped showing up for his probation officer – he is so so special he should not have to do these things see… And he will maybe serve 6 months of anything he gets if I am lucky – but any respite is better than none.
Elizabeth wrote, “I think Tom’s situation is every parent’s worst nightmare.”
I agree because it is mine, too. I’ve lived mine for 7 1/2 years and JUST yesterday one of my four adult children called me and I am overcome with JOY. One daughter, the youngest, has been calling me every week (and every day of the month of March I was hospitalized) for 14 months. I have suspicions that she is the “family” sleuth as she is a surgical nurse and she knows I have been in ill health since I left so suddenly to save my own life from their father’s attempt to kill me. (Actually I had been ill for the 10 months before I left, also, which my GP told me was due to my toxic (his word) “marriage.”
Because as Elizabeth also wrote: “Living a nightmare could probably kill a person.” I have experienced the pain of losing a child to death but as severe as that was NOTHING compares to the pain of “losing” my adult children due to a terrific and completly unexpected smear campaign. Our children were ages 46, 44, 38, and 35 when I packed a suitcase, took my laptop and took a plane to a city 1800 miles away. Each of the children were married with children of their own and all lived within 5 miles of us, now their father.
But I won’t dwell on my continually failing health. I found Lovefraud AFTER all the vindictive divorce and settlement was over, not even knowing such online support was available when I really needed it. I did get support from a local chapter of National Domestic Violence for 14 weeks. PTL
I have been on this board to try to help others, since I understand the ramifications of living with a disordered person. BUT, the major reason, perhaps selfish, is that I didn’t know anyone who had experienced parental alienation,
(Tom, that is what it is called) and although I didn’t want to hear of another’s similar nightmare and its pain, I had an inner hope that someone could “identify” with me.
My story is so long but I’ll tell Tom what my emotional experience of pain has been like. First, there was no let up or lessening of the pain for 5 long years. A couple of times I tried to have a doctor prescribe anti-depressants but neither doctor would give them to me. They said I wasn’t depressed but grieving (as was normal for my situation.)
My solution was (and is) to try very hard to put them all (and the 11 precious grandchildren — the youngest was 12 when I left — into God’s Hands and leave them there. My faith is strong but I couldn’t do it more than a day or two at a time. I always “took” them back from Him!
At one time, a few years ago, I did try to set up a mediation between the children and me, but the lawyer, very knowledgable about DV, told me he wouldn’t take the case. He said, “You have to accept that you won’t get your children back until your EX either dies or moves away.”
He, a doctor, is in good health and will never move away from his practice, so I had no choice but to ACCEPT the unacceptable. I finally accomplished this about a year ago when I learned that my weekly emails and cards to each of them was causing them grief from their father — and me as he continually found ways to try to destroy me emotionally and financially for DARING to leave him!
The No Contact has been helpful to my healing. Therefore, the JOY of one daughter contacting me a little over a year ago and then YESTERDAY, another of our 3 daughters called me! I truly had given up, remembering the lawyer’s harsh prediction.
So, Tom, I don’t have any real advice for you. BUT, I can offer you my truly heart-felt empathy and caring.
No, I guess I can echo Donna’s advice: Take care of yourself, especially your health. This experience is really a killer! I don’t know the age of your children but I feel sure that their attachment to you is permanent — even though they are in France.
Perhaps try to accept that you won’t see them again until they are of age — but don’t give up your back of your mind hope that you will see them again sooner than that.
With all the hospital bills, doctor’s appointments, and medications I am almost financially destitute. I do wish I had the money back from my lawyer, a friend, who did try to help me solve this problem earlier on. NOTHING she did, with supreme effort, was stronger than my Ex’s desire to destroy me.
I have no idea whether or not anything I have said is helpful to you — our domestic situations are obviously different. But, you are still young. You can recover. At 72, I’m not currently sure that I can.
May God’s strength and comfort surround you every day. He IS real.
Dear Donna,
QUOTE: “Pain comes from wanting things to be different. The solution is to accept what is, for the time being, reality. This does not mean giving up hope. It does not mean quitting the legal battle. But it does mean letting go of the internal upset that keeps us trapped, and makes us ill.
How do we do that? We allow ourselves to feel the pain and grief at our loss. This is best done privately, or perhaps with a skilled counselor. We allow ourselves to cry, moan with the anguish, perhaps pound pillows in our anger. We continue until we feel a release, and then we stop. ”
The above statements are so right on and so IMPORTANT I thinik we should each have them tattoo’d on our palms where we can read and re-read them every hour if necessary!
For so long I was caught in a vortex of MALIGNANT HOPE that kept pulling me downward into the abyss of pain, darkness and defeat. Losing a child (children) I think is the worst nightmare that any parent can face, and many times I felt like my P-son’s face as a small child should have been on a milk carton that said “If you have seen this missing child, please call 1-800-missing” There is more than o ne way to lose a child.
Unfortunately, even after I saw my child was “gone” I held on to a milligant hope of denial that he was REALLY GONE TODAY…it was only accepting that (1) what IS is REALITY and (2) accepting that reality as something I can NOT CHANGE was I able to put my pain aside and to accept that what I wanted was not possible. In Tom’s case, his desires are not possible TODAY but maybe in the future his children will be returned to him. I don’t have that option to even continue to hold out “hope” as mine is just as “dead” to me as if he physically died.
The stresses we dfeel with the continual grief over our losses does have a big negative impact on our health, and my health deteriorated markedly. Now that I am taking care of myself, my health, both physically and mentally is better, but it takes some time for our bodies as well as our minds to recover and heal.
God bless each of you here on this journey to accept WHAT IS REALITY, rather than continuing to abuse ourselves FOREVER with THE PAIN OF LOSSES WE CAN’T CHANGE.
I always believed that losing a child through their death is something I could not imagine, as it would be so painful, and something one would NEVER recover from… even in a lifetime.
Now that my three children are grown, (my daughter is a psychopath aged 30, my middle son is damaged from being brought up by his psychopath murderous father and is aged 27 and my youngest son has just turned 20 and has a different father.) I have only just realized (since i came onto the LF site a few months ago, (after years of torturing myself in the F.O.G.), that I actually only have one child, ( my 20 year old). The other two have been dead to me since they were about 12 years old and I was in denial. I have given up hope of ever having my daughter “back”. I have accepted it with her and I am grieving it badly. I have some days where I can accept it with the 27 year old son but then the FOG still engulfs me.
But God has given me my youngest son, whose love is greater than anything I have ever experienced in my life. And for that my life is worth living. His father was a narcissist addict. Thank God we got rid of him when my youngest was very young or my youngest wouldn’t have stood a chance.
I tell this because it is my story. We are all so different, but this is my truth. At this moment my youngest son is driving around my 30 year old psychopath daughter and his cluster B girlfriend. Serving them with his generosity and kind heart. Unaware that they don’t have the capacity to care about anyone but themselves.
I keep my mouth shut now, because Oxy taught me that that is what I have to do at this point in time. And I believe her – only because she has been through it and I can tell its the truth.
Who knows what will happen with Toms psychopath wife and her psychopath boyfriend ? Anything could happen!
Why, if Tom told her he wanted nothing to do with the kids ever again because he was happier than ever before, he could be “stuck” with them all by tomorrow !!
I feel for Tom. To not see your children grow would be heart ache. I pray that his children r able 2 come 2 him and fight for a relationship.
I know first hand what stress can do to ur health. Some days I know it’s the Grace of God that keeps me going. I feel anger, loss & heart ache. I’m working everyday to try to brake away from the toxic person in my life but everytime I feel that I am close to walking away.. I get sucked back in by fear of rejection.. I am reading Betrayal Bond and I know 100% that this is the kind of relationship I have. I know I am a strong person. I take care if three small children by myself daily. With one of them having special needs and another one an infant. I just wish I could be stronger and completly let go of the junk the S brings in my life.
I hope Tom finds peace soon..
Tilly:
“I keep my mouth shut now, because Oxy taught me that that is what I have to do at this point in time.”
I am also doing that in my own situation , and it is the hardest thing to do on an ongoing basis.
Sitting idle while the psychopaths run the show SUCKS!
It’s like letting a monkey loose in your house and just sitting there while it trashes everything in sight.
All I can do is cry…. I read these stories and totally can relate. I’ve lost my 3 children and hurt so badly. It is so painful. There is no way to explain or compare. It is total despair. Hope is my enemy. I’ve hoped and hoped only to be let down time after time. There are times where I truly think I’m going to go crazy! Like I’m just on the verge b/c I can’t handle the pain and injustice. I’ve learned that you can’t beat them. YOU WILL NOT WIN!! THEY ALWAYS WIN!! So therefore, even though I am away and have no communication with my ex, he still controls my life!
It’s been 4 years almost 5 my kids were 11, 14 & 17. they are now 16, 19, & 22. He created little mini me’s. They are just as bad as their father if not worse. Yesterday, I decided that they are dead. I had kids at one time but they died in a plain crash w/ their father. I have mourned for almost 5 years and I KNOW THE PAIN WILL NEVER GO AWAY, but I have to move on. It is so debilitating and hopeless. It is crushing and devastating. It is truly unbearable. But there is nothing that can be done. NO HOPE. NO SOLUTION. I just have to accept it.
To me this is like being raped repeated over and over again. Day after day. knowing that its gonna happen again. It’s gonna continue forever and nothing can be done to stop it. You just have to lay down and take it. over and over again. But what is even more horrifying is that people all around know that this is happening and continue to allow it. It’s like they are sitting an watching the rape going one. Every day they see it and do nothing about it. Everyday they know that it is happening and in their minds it’s ok. That is the way it should be. There’s nothing wrong with that. HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN???? Somebody please tell me!!! HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN?
Dear Ninalinda, i feel ur pain and ur post made me cry, i feel like holding ur hand now and lay ur head on my lap 🙂
Do not give up, there is always some hope for (maybe) lost children. Maybe not all of them are the same, and let us keep a faith and hope that at least one of them will wake up one day, but NOT NOW at the moment. He has done his job, and all u can do now is to WAIT untill they grow up and have own children.
I personally experienced similar situation, together with my recent husband. He devorced from his N/P wife, boys were 11 and 15. He could not do anything to win dirty battles with her, but he kept trying, year after year, day after day, crying, hoping, trying…
It took us 20 years…baby steps, one step forward, 10 steps backward, but we kept trying.
In the mean time we got a daughter, and i taught her to love her brothers UNTIL they prove that love is not deserved.
Today, after 20 years, boys are having own families, they ran away from evil mother, and today they are having own children, they love each other and every day situation becomes better and we are happy that we did not give up.
I wish ur story ends the same way. Just wanted to tell u that IT IS POSIBLE, not all hope has gone!
Blessings!