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.
Dear OxDrover,
You are very strong! Yet, you still reach out to others! Thank you for your words of kindness.
My kids are very well adjusted socially, all three have very high IQ’s and are in responsible high ranking/paying jobs. They have many friends and are well liked. However, their intimate relationships consist of those they can dominate and run over. They are cruel and controlling emotionally. No empathy. And their money is number one!
Dear Betrayed,
My son also has a very high IQ (99th percentile) and is very very talented, had scholarships out the wazoo and could have had anything he wanted. people liked him, he was charming when he wanted to be, but he pattened himself after my P-sperm donor who was a violent man though he was finally very very successful in business (Forbes 400 one year) but my yson ended up in prison at age 17, and got out after 2 yrs. then murdered a girl who ‘snitched” on him and would have sent him back to prison.
In a way, your situation is I would think at least emotionally “as bad or worse” as mine, but at least mine is easier (now) to deal with. I kept hoping that he would at least turn out like your kids have, at least outwardly a half way “normal” person, but alas, even if they are not Ted Bundy, they are still NOT NORMAL and their lives will be spent causing pain and chaos for others, usually including any children unlucky enough to be born to them.
Fortunately, mine is not likely to have children for me to love and see “ruined” by pain and control, or to marry a spouse that they turn into a victim.
It took me DECADES to be “strong” enough to accept reality, that there is nothing good in any psychopath and that even the “successful:” ones who make money and get status are as toxic as the ones like my P-son and my P-sperm donor.
Glad you are here though, you will find out lots of good and comforting information, and it will help you come to grips with the grief abouthaving kids “just like their father.” There are others here who share our pain with their children as well. We are NOT ALONE. (unfortunately) (((hugs))))
I know… It’s a real heartbreak for me to have raised my children into highly functional [in society] adults only to find they do not love or care about me. They are kinder to strangers than me. I just cannot really deal with this………….
Thanks once again for your welcome and kindness. I wish none of us had this pain………………….. *sigh*
CandyHarlau:
“i told him ‘you are dead to me’. he kept talking; i held up my hand and said ‘the dead don’t talk’. i waved him off. it was awesome.”
I am laughing hysterically at this!!! 🙂
The mental picture is too much!!!
Dear twice betrayed,
I am fortunate that not both of my biological sons are psychopaths, but the one who is NOT a P was side tracked for 8 years by marrying one. He was only freed 2 years ago this month when she and her boy friend tried to kill him (the BF was the one sent to kill me) they both went to jail.
She had separated my son C from the family and made his life miserable for nearly 8 years, but he was determined to “make it work” no matter how painful…I am glad he is FREE of her, and his P-brother. I have a lovely adopted son as well and I feel that God gave him to me to replace the son I lost.
I know it is difficult to give up your “blood” but you can still give your love to foster kids, or mentor kids or teach them to read, there are a lot of ways you can have “children” who DO love you and are grateful for the differences you make in their lives. Through my sons’ friends (who are frequently over here for days at a time sometimes) I have plenty of contact with young people who are wonderful and am able to influence their lives positively. It isn’t always “blood” that make a FAMILY. Unfortunately for me I have no sibs and only the one bio son, but I have a large “amily” of loved ones.
My home is filled with laughter and love and that means a great deal to me. My biological son has chosen not to have biological children because of the highly stacked deck of our geneology with psychopaths, and I support his decision though it means I will never have biiological grandchildren to love, but there are always kids who need love and attention and I will give my time to them. Plus, I do have some step grandchildren who are having children now, and I have good relationships with them, though they do live at a distance.
You did the best you could with what you had to work with, and that’s all anyone can do. (((hugs)))) God bless.
Dear OxDrover:
Thanks so much for the encouragement! I guess the hard part is they all seem so normal….but they just do not care about or love me. It’s so hard to come to understand this. When my P -X hub deserted me three years ago and took all the money and CC I had no support. I had to turn to my church and friends for food and money till I got a job. (I am a published freelance writer but cannot totally live on that money). My two older kids would not even answer my phone calls for help even tho I was pleading for temporary help. I own my own home so housing was not a problem. Ironically the kid by this P was the one that finally came to my aid with some food and drink. I finally got on my feet writing Public Relations info. Still, this kid was going to try to get part of my house money should I have to sell it…because she was part of the corportation owing the property. Well, anyway, here the P came back telling me he would break me in every way should I not reconcile with him so I was forced to reconcile. I worked and stashed back a fairly large sum of money for two years until I could get stable money wise. I then left/filed for divorce, got a hearing that got him kicked out of the house. I bought him out and I am finally at peace. I am w/o my kids but I am in contact with my younger daughter some who treats me pretty hard most of the time, but at least I do get to be with my beautiful granddaughter. 🙂
Hugs to you too!
Dear Twice betrayed,
I can so relate to you.Both of my daughters,{now 43 and 45}, are narc/sociopaths. Neither of them care about me one jot. I havent seen my younger daughter, in nearly 17 years, and despite me pleading with her,{by card and letter}, as I dont have her email or Phone no.] she has never relented to let me see her 3 kids, now aged 13,10, and one year old, not even as tiny babies. I last saw her on 25th Feb,1993,her Birthday.. I took her out to lunch,{smoked salmon, salad, strawberries,champagne] bought her lovely gifts, including A$1,000 from my late Mums estate, mums gold link bracelet, matching gold earrings,Mums amethyst ring, french perfume,{Rive gauche,her favourite,] a sheaf of tulips,and a lovely card.She then had a swim in the club pool, kissed me, thanked me for the lunch, and I havent seen her from that day to this!!. My other daughter only ever rings me if she needs money. Since I wrote to her over a month ago to say,”The Mum bank has now closed”, and set in place a couple of boundaries, [one being that she apologise for all the rotten things she has done to me,{and I do mean “Done’,} such as banning me from her wedding,trashing my art studio, {twice}, wrecking my home, trashing my tiny flat,{before I met my present husband}, conning me out of huge sums of cash, lying to me big time,beating me up and throwing an industrial weight steam iron at my head on1981,{I think she must have been on drugs then.} painting over my paintings,{some of which were sold, and waiting to be collected by the buyers}. Painting”F—B–ch “in letters 10 mms high, over a 7 foot panel which was a half finishe d mural of the resurrected Christ, a commission from a religious order of monks. I could go on and on. She has never ONCE apologised for any of the truly awful things she has done to me and I dont suppose she ever will. Now her life is unravelling fast,{Karma!} she has lost her job, had to give up her flat, rent A$500 a week,put her belongings in storage, her ex husband now has full custody of the 3 kids. She has no money, no car, no savings, in debt up to her eyes, {this despite me giving her over A$10,000 over the last 3 years alone. At the moment she is bunking down with a friend,-its a wonder she has any left, as she uses people and discards them like used tissues, when she is done with them. I have been in total NC with her for over 6 weeks, and it gets easier by the day.Like you, my girls were normal, loving little girls till they hit puberty. I cant believe what b-tches they have turned into. The younger one is living with a very rich jewish boy, his Mother bought them a 3 million home pays all the bills, including the school fees, bought her 2 cars, one for the live in nanny. So at least she wont ever have to worry about money, but she isa shallow, snobby, money grubbing,power hungry,aloof B—h. Im ashamed to have given birth to them!!
geminigirl
Dear Twice betrayed,
I am so glad that you are doing well now and have a stable home and are self sufficient. It must have been very difficult to go back with him, even for a time, just to survive. Actually, it has not been all that “long” in terms of months/years etc since you have gotten stable where you are out of the chaos. Being out of teh chaos and drama I think is so important to being ABLE to recover and to heal. NO CONTACT is most times the best option. Unfortunately, they use grandchildren and other family members as “clubs” to beat us into submission. “If you want to see your grand kids, you will…blah blah blah” or to punish us (us=victims) by, like Geminigirl’s daughter, keeping the children away, knowing it is a way to hurt her mother.
Having realized that I have lived in CHAOS for most if not all of my life with one psychopathic parasite or another attached to my heart, sucking my life blood out, it is comforting and peaceful to finally be P-FREE.
I’m developing a relationship with myself now, and it is no longer about THEM but about ME—getting to know me, and to have compassion and friendship for myself.
It has been a “long” road upward, and sometimes teh grade is steep and I have even had to “crawl through broken glass” before I could walk again. I am not a “perfect” person and have never felt “strong” even though I actually have been strong where setting boundaries for those outside my “circle” of family and close friends, I have allowed other’s approval or disapproval to dictate my own view of myself. I have let having “good relationships” with others (meaning I let them walk on me, and I walked on egg shells to keep from “hurting their feelings”) dictate my life.
I put others before myself to the point that I emotionally “bankrupt” myself. I did for others what they should have done for themselves, and then let them demean me for not doing it to their satisfaction. I took the consequences for their bad decisions and bad behavior. I tried to “fix” everything for them, while convincing myself that I was not an enabler…
The light of truth about my own part in allowing this abuse, about putting my own needs, not only on the “back burner,” but completely off the stove, has been a WAKE UP CALL for me to realize that “compassion which doesn’t include yourself is incomplete” (some one, I forget who, on here said that). I had “compassion” for everyone but myself. I tried to meet the needs of everyone in my circle and family EXCEPT myself, and felt “bad” and a “failure” when they didn’t appreciate it.
You sound like a very talented and resourceful woman, as most of the people on LF are…in fact, it is amazing to me and others the level of the intellect and understanding and talent that people on this blog possess. Yet, so many of us have let the psychopaths stomp us into the dirt, allowed them to pound our self esteem into the mud, and felt like failures, when in truth, we are ANYTHING BUT FAILURES.
I am moving from victim to victor, FINALLY! Some days I still waffle in my feelings, but over all the direction is positive and I can look back, even as little as a year ago and SEE the progress I have made. How setting boundaries for those close to me and for others as well has become much easier. How I can more rationally analyze a situation with a relationship that is “unhealthy” and I have been “weeding” my garden of associations and plucking out the briars without any backward glances or grief. Simply accepting that these relationships are NOT GOOD for me or healthy. It is just amazing how I can look at these things rationally now and not feel that if a relationship is painful that it is “my fault somehow.”
The odd/funny thing is that people who thought they “knew me” as a strong, confident and outspoken person before really did NOT KNOW ME AT ALL. Inside I was indecisive and felt inadequate and afraid to “hurt someone’s feelings” and scooped up “blame” for anything that went wrong in any relationship, but NOW I am learning to LIVE what I “pretended” to be before. It is a liberating feeling to not be keeping up a pretence and worrying all the time “what would the neighbors think?”
I realize that everyone who SAYS they love me doesn’t, and I now look at what people DO and how they treat me and others. I’ve set new boundaries for who I allow to participate in my circle of trust and whom I devote my love and care toward. Plus, I have given the running of the universe and teh world back to God, and it doesn’t seem to have imploded since I am no longer trying to “run it.” LOL
I’m letting people with self caused problems solve them themselves rather than jumping in to fix it for them, or allowing them to manipulate me into using my resources that would be better put to solving my own problems.
Where I am now is a LONG way from where I was, but I realize that GROWTH is a life long process and that when I stop growing and learning I will cease to be healthy. I will never (as I thought at one time) get to the point I can sit back, put my thumbs in my suspenders and say “I have arrived, i am healed.” Overcoming a life time of dysfunctional choices that allowed me to become a victim is a life long process, but each step I take in teh right direction makes the next one easier. I hope you will stay here and share this journey with this amazing group of people! LF has been my salvation! God bless.
Dear geminigirl,
Boy, you and I can so relate! You are correct!
I am not in contact with my son: his OCD Hitler wife rules him ironically.
I am not in contact with my older daughter after all that occured regarding my P X-hub. She has tried to use my younger daughter to open a superficial relationship with me…with no attempt to admit or deal with her behavior in any way. She has a high profile attorney as her boyfriend but will not marry him because she has such control issues she must always have her own everything. He is beaten down into such submission he posted his picture on her fridge and wrote on it: “Remember to be KIND to David!” Boy, he has my sympathy!
My younger daughter is married to a great guy [big money maker=is Captain of a large scientific ship] very intelligent and brave yet she treats him like an idiot and runs around on him to his face and treats him terrible. Get this: one of their crew members was killed in a tragic accident next to the ship. Of course this was traumatic for this Captain and when he came in from sea he was very upset. She would not listen or help him deal with it. She talked him into checking himself into a psych clinic for a week!!! I feel sorry for him but all I can say is: better thee than me…..cause she was trying to say [along with my P X-hub] that I was the crazy one when I filed for divorce. Called all my friends, my work-tried to get me fired, and even called my attorney! I had many friends including my counselor that came to bat for me. Everyone stood ground for me and told my X and my daughter that I was one of the most sane people they knew….so they gave up this game. What was so ironic was: both my daughter and my X were on meds themselves! This same daughter uses my granddaughter against me. If I do not bow to her every command and take her abuse I do not get to see my little granddaughter whom I worry about and love very much! I stood my ground this last week over some issues regarding my older daughter and now I am banished from seeing my granddaughter. I do not know what to do…I can never seem to be me or have a life……one of these p’s always finds some way to beat me down…..
Dear OxDrover,
Your letter is so very correct, well written and expressed!
Thank you for your well wishes and understanding!
I am so glad you are doing so much better and are being YOU!I am still trying to be me….and having trouble doing that. I do believe these types of people are life destroyers. I do. I have watched them take apart families, friends and coworkers. My younger/older daughter love to get hold of younger people and lord over them. My P X loved to get young people and work on them emotionally. To tell the truth: I have wondered if he was a closet pedophile. He liked to be with young teens. When he deserted me that time he ran off with a group of young teens. Paid for a house to keep them in and allowed them to come/go as they pleased. He was sleeping with a young girl [19] who was broke and needed money/help for her young baby. Also: he was totally controlling a young teen boy. After we ‘reconciled’ he thought he saw this kid everywhere. I don’t know what went down regarding this young male. I do know the young girl sneaked out of the house and ran off and left my x and that is why he forced his way back into my life. My daughter by this X told me he has been thru at least that she knows of 8 women since I divorced him. I saw on his facebook where one threw him out and posted all kinds of info on him. LOLOLOL! She said he was a liar and a cheat. DUH! But, you know….he did the poor pitiful me number on her. When she busted him…..she threw him out. [he was living in her house…..;);)
So: karma does come round…just slow sometimes.