I have wrestled with this question for a long time. While with him, I sometimes wondered, ”˜what on earth am I doing here’? Since gaining my freedom, I have looked back on those 4 years 9 months and wondered, ”˜what on earth was wrong with me that I stayed so long’?
I know there are the physiological/psychological factors that compounded my convoluted thinking causing me to believe that I was incapable of leaving him. I know these factors attributed to my inertia and the resultant trauma bonding that held me pinioned in his unholy embrace. But none of these factors explain why an intelligent, well-educated, articulate woman did what I did — before the trauma bonding, the Stockholm Syndrome, the depression, the pain.
Why did I stay?
I stayed because in the process of burying my truth beneath his lies, I turned off my inner voice of reason. I quit listening to myself telling me I had to leave, I had to get away. I gave into despair, helplessness and confusion and gave up on me. I wanted the rosy sunrise of his promises, the gilded cage of his castle in the air, the perfection of his promises of happily ever after.
I stayed because I didn’t want to take responsibility for what was happening in my life, my daughters’ lives and to me.
I stayed because it was easier to stay than to leave. It was easier to take the coward’s way out by staying locked into his machinations than to take the leap into the unknown by leaving him and his lies behind.
I stayed even though I knew he was lying. I knew he was deceiving me. I knew he was manipulating me. I knew all of this but I refused to look at the truth because to look at the truth meant having to look at me — and I was too frightened to do that.
I stayed because I was a victim and I didn’t want to admit it.
As I write this I think about those who will say — but you can’t blame yourself. You didn’t know who he was when you first met him. You went into that relationship with your arms wide open in love and expected to have your love reciprocated in equal measure.
And all of that is true.
None of it matters though when I look at the reasons for why I stayed.
I could walk into a hundred relationships with my arms wide open and still find them empty — because my arms wide-open were filled with my own empty promises that I would treat myself with love and respect, truth and honesty. My lack of clarity in my beliefs, my values, my principles trapped me in his lies because I didn’t know what I stood for.
I stayed, not because of him, but because of me. My weaknesses brought me to my knees. My weaknesses kept me locked inside the web he wove around me.
On the other side of the relationship, revelling in my freedom today, I am willing and able to stand in the naked light and love myself as I state, unequivocally, I stayed because of me.
He abused me. He lied. He deceived. He used terrifying stories to hold me silent. He manipulated my mind and smothered me with his untruths.
But I am the one who chose to believe him. To let go of reason and accept his unreasonable words and actions. Accept his unacceptable behaviour and compromise on myself — not because of who he was, but because of who I was and who I refused to be — independent, strong, uncompromising in my belief in me and what I deserved from love and life.
In my world, post sociopath, I am 100% accountable for me. Post sociopath I cannot hold him accountable for what happens to me today —Just as he is accountable for what he did, I am accountable for what I did, and what I do today.
I stayed because I did not have the courage and strength of character to stand up for me without fear.
I stayed because I believed he could make up for the past. He could make my life all better.
Today, I let him go in peace. Holding onto resentment, bitterness, anger keeps me from living the beautiful life I deserve. Today, I stay away from holding him accountable for what happened to me because I have the courage to take charge of my life today, to be 100% accountable for me today and to make choices that love and support me today.
In stepping fearlessly into my life today, I leave him behind because I know that the past is gone, today is alive and tomorrow is just a dream away. A dream that will come true as long as I walk my path with dignity, grace and ease, 100% accountable for me.
I don’t get the lovemaking thing, either. At all. At first I though our sex life was great – and was real, connected, lovemaking. That was the first 3-4 months. Then it started to feel a lot more mechanical. It wasn’t so good any more. And then we broke up in march, and got together a handful of times before the final NC in early August. I think once in all that time it was lovemaking. The rest it was mechanical. I think he was having sex with so many women (gross – I was tested for every STD in Oct – clean slate, miraculously) that it wasn’t lovemaking with anyone. I have a feeling that if I took him back now, it would be lovemaking for a week or so, and then back to mechanical. I wonder how many people on this site felt like the lovemaking was real lovemaking, and not just sex, for more than six months in a row. I wonder if these guys (and women) are capable of lovemaking for an extended period of time. Or if they just can fake it for a while, and then can’t keep it up.
That’s just it–I couldn’t tell. Seemed very connected to me, but they are so good at faking things. The S commented that I was very passionate. He also noted early on in our friendship that I was very authentic and a hard worker. He made special note of these things, as if they were foreign qualities to him, which, apparently, they were. All the qualities that drew him to me were qualities he lacked. He thought I was very funny. He once commented how he was also funny, but I never once remember him ever making me laugh.
He did seem to have a very childlike demeanor. He seemed very present (at the beginning), showing joy in everything. The salad I made him was the “best salad he’d ever had”, and our first day together taking pictures for the reptile site was the “first time he’d felt alive in a long time.” He savored every bite of food he ate and seemed to be a very happy, fun-loving person. That’s why I liked him so much. I just really enjoyed his company. He enjoyed doing all the things I do–visiting cats at shelters, visiting snakes at snake shops, going on drives, going to ethnic restaurants….it was just so easy to be with him.
That lasted about 3 weeks before all the drama started. At least with the emotionally unavailable man, we had a 3-month honeymoon period before he disappeared into his office and his multiple other jobs/hobbies and never resurfaced till it was with another gf.
Well, I shouldn’t have said “passionate lovemaking”. It was NEVER that, I guess I just didn’t want to write “15 minutes after using my body to masturbate himself”….because regardless of how it was done, that is all it felt like to me and I never had an orgasm with him, my body was shouting at me…”get out, get out” and I didn’t. I stayed and pretended it was great….I thought with a little more time. …GEEZ. He was immature about sex, into porn, SICK.
This whole thing was SO not me. He even did what I would now call sexual assault once, where suddenly I was pinned down with him doing his thing in my mouth. No way to say anything, no way to move an arm, a leg….I thought I was going to choke! I had never done that and it frightened me. And I just told him it was great.
It truly now seems like I was insane, temporarily insane. I was so convinced he was a wonderful person, so convinced that we would be a life long source of emotional support for each other, that a love that had lasted 40 years must be special….that I simply DENIED reality to an astonishing degree, I MINIMIZED and EXCUSED what he was doing to me to an even greater degree. Just shows how deserate I was for validation and for an intimate love that would never go away.
And so the cure is to get strong within myself, to fall in love with myself, one therapist said. This is going to take awhile. To put back together my self respect and to get strong. This whole experience really rocked my perceptions of myself, who I thought I was.
With him, I was literally going back in time to literally recreate my past with the boy who had hurt me so deeply at 15 and this time I was going to make it turn out right. HA! So it was trauma recreation and also put me back in the mindset of the girl I was at 15 who had just been raped 3 years earlier. Ironically, he was my first love after that and got me to trust men again. Well, I’d rather be physically raped then live through what he put me through.Then, and now. But his adult success convinced me he was just immature at 15.
Ironic how so often they turn out to be the OPPOSITE of what we thought they were.
Stargazer,
I can see how all that was HIGHLY seductive. Very hard to see through also. I can just imagine how much it hurt….well, I know, I got hurt so badly too.
In fact, I think one thing that threw off the therapist (who at first didn’t recognize this as a toxic relationship, nor did I) was that he and I DID have interests in common, and it was not just all sex (thank god!). We went out and did things together that we both were passionate about and really had fun doing.
Well, the bottom line is, the most imporatant thing in a relationship is does the man show you, daily, that your happiness is almost important to him as his own, through his actions. Is he a good, kind loving person towards almost everyone? Is he ethical?
Had I just paid attention to that barometer…..oh well.
I really do need to stop obsessing and get on with my life. This has been healing but I need to stop rehashing.
Your posts are making me think, justabouthealed. We don’t often talk about the sexual aspect here, but it’s very telling. I only had sex with my S four times, as the relationship was relatively new. My overall feeling about it was that it was too soon, and my body did not trust him yet to let go completely. I’m thinking that even though my mind tricked me, my body didn’t lie. Once a relationship becomes sexual, it is really hard to break the ties.
Hey guys – yes, the sexual aspect is interesting – and I haven’t seen it talked about much – I guess this is sensitive area, particularly for trauma victims. But both of what you two are saying resonates with my experience. “Using my body to masterbate himself.” Yes, that is definitely what it felt like. Mine needed to get more and more gymnastic to enjoy it. More and more “dirty talk” which I didn’t particularly like. It was like two people, together, in love, was not enough of a turn on. It felt demeaning – but I would go along with it hoping that it would somehow help us get back to the original place of what I thought was lovemaking.
He told me at the beginning of our relationship that he had “completely lost interest” in sex with his wife before he left her. I felt that happen with me – and didn’t understand how that could change so drastically. I didn’t change – my looks didn’t change, my love for him hadn’t changed – but I felt repulsive to him after a while.
And I know of two women who he cheated with (ugh, that feels so bad), and I am much more attractive than they are. It didn’t make sense, and was just so painful.
And yes, SG, the bonds are there, so strong (for us, not them) once we get sexually involved.
I think for most women, most NORMAL people that is true. When I complained to my therapist that the sex was so bonding, her response was “It is SUPPOSED to be bonding.”
Even the horrible, bad, user, exploitive, all about him porn sex was bonding! I was only with him 4 times but he used my body about 21 times.
One last thing. Once, when he knew I was about to leave him, he did a really romantic move, and though my body STILL didn’t respond, he did some very sweet moves.
WELL,,,,,later I watched a movie that he said is one of his favorites……and there was the love scene!!! He had replicated it step by step. He could only act loving by following a script!!! When I asked him about it, he had the decency to look a little sheepish, but he changed the subject as he always did when he didn’t want to answer a question or couldn’t think of a good lie quickly enough.
Oh, Wow, that is so familiar. Every once in awhile I would call my ex S on his overly sexualized behavior – like if we were having what I thought was a romantic email exchange, and then he would make it pornographic (and not sexy, just dirty and demeaning), and I would say something, he would apologize and send me something very flowery and romantic. I would read it, and would be beautiful – but no way he wrote it. At times I got the sense that he might be cutting and pasting from other people’s emails, or copying from some literature. Spontaneously, on his own, he couldn’t come up with anything loving.
That’s funny, and true, what your therapist said about the sex SUPPOSED to be bonding. DUH! But like you said, the sad thing is that the demeaning sex is bonding too.
I’ve read many people on this site saying that the sex was amazing and that it pulled them back in, and that he made them feel better than anyone before. I don’t get it. I don’t see how these guys, (and gals) who are so intrinsically selfish and without empathy, could be good lovers? Maybe some have better techniques that others, but are they ever great lovers – or are they just good vibrators?
SG – about your body not trusting him – I got UTIs over and over and over with my ex S. My body went into “fight infection mode” almost every time I had sex with him. The body knows……..