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 have discovered that my X-P has three children (that people know of), and minimum of 5 others that are illegitimate due to “making certain their seed goes on even if they do abandon their wives/girlfriends.” Making another being shows dominance, control and power. In my Xs case he doesnt even recognize the child in any way (paying support, etc). Just plant the seed and run. he would probably deny the DNA test anyhow. Sick, sick, sick. my X-P continues to screw one of the girls (a regular), but doesn’t even acknowledge the kid. the chick(s) he’s screwing must really be a piece of work, too!
i wonder what he’s plotting next. no wonder he can’t sleep. he’s either skeeming (sp?), screwing anything he can get his hands on, or working his co-workers/boss. gotta be f’ng exhausting.
i shutter when i think of him. (the girl i last saw him with was a beast…at least that made me feel better?!?)
I DESERVE SOOOOOO MUCH BETTER! You all do too! Remember that! Keep saying it…over and over.
Dear OxDrover,
Your post is just excellent! Thank your for writing it….I hope you do not mind…..I added it to my favorites to read again and again.
I have Dr. Hare’s books and Women Who Love Psychopaths. I read and reread them. But, somehow I cannot seem to make this type of behavior a reality. I know it’s true, I can accept it in rationality but not emotionally. I know their games, recognize them, can understand how they go down , what the next move is……and still get caught because I love them. I must do what you said: give up hope. This is very hard to do with my kids…….oh boy. Is it ever. I have done it with my x’s but my kids loved me and were such sweet and loving little kids. I raised them with great love and empathy. My younger one was always with me….hardly with her dad and my two older ones were not even in contact with their father. My son did not even meet his father until two years ago. I am here to testify….genetics wins. [I taught my kids empathy….they were right by my side] From my personal experience genetics wins. But, here again……my mom/brother were P’s and I chose at an early age to never be like them. However, they did set me up to be a victim to P’s. Your statement that they are evil…..choose to do evil…..sums it up totally. This is the bottom line.
Thank you again!
candyharlau:
Ho boy, can I relate. Mine liked to ‘keep it in the family’ and apparently my family liked to ‘keep it in the family.’ Bwwaaahhaaaaaaaaaa! [Hey, I can laugh at this now; PROGRESS] The last few years I kept waiting for some kids and/or wives show up that he had on the side. So far: none. Nobody ever stays with him long enough to get pregnant. He goes for the really young ones and they won’t take the crap women from my generation would. Plus: he is having ED problems now after being a handsome ‘stud’ all his life. Karma can be soooooooo good! :p
PS. My p’s last gf that I know of: looked like a female impersonator [bad one, I might add!] Another hahahahaha!
Dear Twice betrayed,
I can relate, I am a retired medical and mental health professional and I KNEW THIS STUFF, and yet could not apply it to my own life. A friend who had a P son gave me a copy of Without Conscience, and I could SEE my P-sperm donor (out of 4 kids he had that we know of, only 1 was a P) but even after my P son started his criminal enterprises I could not RELATE him as a P until a couple of years ago. Even after he went to prison for murder, I still wanted to hang on to that malignant HOPE.
Oh, it was hard to let go of it and to FEEL THE PAIN—denial is not a river in Egypt, but I swam in it for SO LONG to keep the pain at bay. In reality though, it only keeps part of the pain at bay and PROLONGS IT FOREVER—like cutting a puppy’s tail off one INCH AT A TIME IS NO KINDNESS, neither is staying in denial…we still feel some of the pain through it, and it prolongs it until we give up the denial and then the FESTERED and INTENSE PAIN hits us—besides feeling so USED and in my case, feeling STUPID. I beat myself up for “letting him abuse me” for “hoping” and 100 other things that I blamed myself for. I never blamed myself FOR him, I realize genetics had the winning hand, but I did blame myself for not doing something about it sooner, and wasting my life.
Well, I eventually quit beating myself up, and quit crying and feeling so bad, and I decided to have a “memorial service” for my son. I got rid of every photo of him after he was 12 or so, and literally erases him out of the family tree/photoalbum. I don’t even think of him as the MAN who is so evil. The wonderful little boy I loved is GONE (as far as that is concerned my other sons are not the little boys they were) but the MAN just “inherited his organs” The hear still beats but it is not in my lilttle boy, the lungs still breathe but they are breathing air for a monster, not my little boy.
I actually felt afterwards that I had at last quit grieving for the little lost boy. My baby. Just as if he had a tombstone in the family plot. Who knows, maybe I will put him up a stone in the family plot after the egg donor is gone, with his birth and “death” dates. My other sons and I have decided though that if the state of Texas calls us to claim the MAN’s body, we will not, we will let them bury it in the prison yard, where it belongs.
Hang in there twice betrayed, it takes a while to get your emotions a4round what your mind knows. ((hugs))))
Oh, Ok, I feel much better now knowing this will come around! Thank you for sharing this with me. You have no idea how much this helps heal……just being understood and validated. I’ve never found this with any counselor. You know, it’s scary how most counselors do not understand this p behavior and scream that word CODEPENDENT! Ironically my older daughter that had [may still be going on in some form for all I know]the long affair with my X…..always cruelly passed it back onto me…..and was the first one to scream I was just a codependent. Well…..now that the cat is outta the bag I just cannot help but wonder what label she has for herself? [and him?] I have heard thru my younger daughter that now that my x is ‘free’ she no longer wants him………..why am I not surprised? Par for the course.
Breckgirl……I too am in my mid forties and have lost ,y relationship with my child and parents…….I had to do the work to realize my mother is a P and absolutely found joy in interfering with my son……that was the last straw….i have emotiontionally and physically detached and have nothing to do with her and never will again…..i still struggle with guilt about why i didn’t take action sooner….like before she had a relationship with my son….however i must go on and hope for the best….there are many signs however that my son is showing like his father and grandmother….all i can do is pray he somehow changes his perspective one day….take care
Dear twicebetrayed,
“Co-dependent” is a word that has been defined in several ways, as has “enabler”—but they are NOT the same. We must accept responsibility for our own staying AFTER WE SAW THE ABUSE, and that we did not set boundaries and enforce them, BUT THAT SAID–that does NOT put the BLAME on us for the ABUSIVE behavior of the Ps.
There are many reasons and excuses of why we stayed, until we couldn’t do it any more. The book THE BETRAYAL BOND is a great one to explain the way we are BONDED emotionally and literally our BRAIN is changed so that it is DIFFICULT for us to get out.
NO CONTACT —getting away from them and NOT having any contact with them is 99.9999% of the time the BEST way to start healing. Don’t talk to them, don’t talk about them to others, don’t anwser their phone calls, or e mails, or texts, and dont’ try to get information from another friend/family member etc. PRETEND THEY DO NOT EXIST. That doesn’t mean we won’t try to process it all, but just get away from their INFLUENCE ON US AND OUR EMOTIONS. You cannot heal when you are getting NEW WOUNDS DAILY!
Jordeeze, my egg donor (mother is a title to be earned and my egg donor didn’t earn that title) may or may not be a “clinically diagnosable” P but she is definitely a psychopath by proxy with my own P son, doing his bidding, pretending to be a caring Christian woman, etc. and she is NONE OF THOSE THINGS.
Guilt about “taking action sooner” is not a positive thing I don’t think, because we did the best we could each day, and pounding on ourselves about not doing it better, sooner, etc. is not productive. You have DONE IT NOW–that is all that counts. Heck I was 60 before I “got it” and “did it”—the majority of my life wasted in unnecessary pain. Can’t go back and do “overs” so will go on from here. ELIMINATING all of the toxic people in my “space”—get them out of my life and any new ones as they pop up.
I realize I have “enabled” my P son, by being his dupe, just as my egg donor taught me—-keep my mouth shut, keep the peace–yea, what peace-?– and keep the family’s name “respectable” by pretending “none of this ever happened” TALK ABOUT DENIAL! NOPE, NO MORE. It DID happen, our family is NOT “respectable”–it is filled with monsters, from egg donor’s brother, Uncle Monster, to my own P offspring. I won’t hide any more or pretend none of it happened.
I am going to stand up on my hind legs like a human being and TELL THE TRUTH and not lie and cover up. It is NOT MY SHAME—it is theirs. I will not enable them to live lives of viscious abuse of others and pretend that they are “nice guys”—they just abuse people once in a while, but we won’t talk about that unpleasant thing. We will just pretend it didn’t happen.
I know how to “act like a lady” and that a “lady” would never admit to knowing that Uncle Monster abused his wife and kids, held his mother at gunpoint for 3 days and wouldn’t let the 80 year old woman eat, threatened to pour boiling pots of water over her—a “lady” wouldn’t do that it would ruin the family’s reputation. Well, I’m tired of being a “lady” if that’s what a “lady” is, and I will get on my big jackass Fat Ass, and get my skillet and hit the SOB over the head! (well, I would if he wasn’t dead! LOL) Maybe instead I will go to where he is buried and take along the Boss Dog to pee on his tombstone! But A “lady” would NEVER DO THAT!
Or maybe the egg donor’s definition of what a “lady” is is not what it should be, maybe the definition of a “lady” is not someone who keeps her mouth shut when there is injustice in front of her eyes, maybe a “lady” is not a person who knows someone in her family is abusing others and STANDS SILENTLY BY and then covers up for the abuser, telling the victim that she “must forgive” (meaning pretend it didn’t happen)
Heck, maybe a “lady” is one who stands up for what she knows is right, takes action to defend and protect herself or others who are being unjustly victimized, and lets the chips fall where they may, and if the abuser goes to jail, she thanks the jury as they walk out the door for doing “the right thing.”
Heck, maybe I AM A LADY after all—-even if it took me a life time to learn what a “lady” really is. Maybe I’ll start wearing white gloves when I ride Fat Ass. LOL
Friends,
I need help once again. Here it goes: My P is playing the game of being good and a contributing member of society. It is totally a show. I welcome the change and hope it is for good, though a little voice inside is telling me that he’s only doing it out of hate for me and anger. Since you may recall my specific situation and I don’t want to dwell on it due to not knowing who is reading the blogs, I wanted to get some feedback: how long do you think the pretender is good for?
My S/P was fun, funny, and described as likable by everyone he met. He never killed anyone, left anyone in financial ruin, or physically abused the many woman in his life. He drove me to suicide…but God had other plans. It was so hard for me to apply the sociopathic label to this sweet charmer especially when so many others have had such horrific and brutal experiences with their “evil” ones…yet his brutality was that of emotional seduction. I want possible newcomers to LF to know that these “mild” type of S/P’s are just as dangerous, cunning, and addicting.
I struggled for so long asking myself the “why’s” often discussed on this forum. I think if you have a relationship with someone and you look back at all the hurtful times and ask yourself “why did he” or “how could he”…and NO answers ever make sense…not “that he just didn’t love me enough”, whatever…but if you look at their personality traits (S/P checklist) and think of all those times from the point of view that he/she is indeed a S/P…it all makes sense. Every piece of the puzzle suddenly fits…it wasn’t that he couldn’t love ME..he CAN’T love period…he could be with me one day and another woman the next, because he has NO CONSCIENCE…he never missed me when we broke up, because he can’t experience EMOTIONAL ATTATCHMENTS… I could go on and on describing the symptoms of this diseased relationship right up until it’s death, and as mentioned elsewhere on LF…the only answers are”because THAT is what they do”
I KNOW this is what he is…I have been NC for almost 3 mths…yet I can’t bring myself to erase his emails…and I miss him. Tonight I cry as I miss that fantasy man…
Hummingbird06….just wait. After more time, more and more things still will hit you. I’ve had no contact since a phone call in Feb. 2008, and not seen him since June 07. Yet, now when I read his emails, I see lies and manipulation that even 3 months ago I could not see. You think you see it all…but no, more keeps hitting you. It is nice to have the email trail, because it keeps us from rewriting history. So I have not deleted mine, but I rarely read any of them anymore. Just if I need a reality check.
I’m finally at the point that EVERY memory I have on him now smacks of P behavior….so it is more difficult to even miss the fantasy man, because a man now acting like that wouldn’t appeal to me!
At some point….you simply lose your appetite for that kind of man. Even the romance novels that I loved by Georgette Heyer no longer appeal to me! I know find the heroes unattractive.
Same thing with the P I was involved with …charming, intelligent, also rich, successful, etc. But dig deeper and I found a lot of highly unethical things he did and then once you are intimate, you REALLY see the weird stuff!