By Sarah Strudwick
It’s just coming up for three years now since I wrote Dark Souls, in the hope it would help other women who have been though the same as me. In January 2010 I kicked out my psychopathic ex after uncovering a string of lies which included working for a job that never existed, feigning cancer, multiple sexploits on the internet, and advertising his services as a sperm donor. The list goes on.
Over the last three years I have worked tirelessly to get myself out of debt, educate others and, more important, heal from the abuse. Yet up until a couple of months ago, this person continued to stalk me. I’ve had to change my phone number three times as a result, and I lost a fair amount of business along the way. Whilst I now deal with it in a matter-of-fact way, I always assumed he was stalking because he hadn’t found any new narcissistic supply to keep him busy.
A couple of months ago an ex acupuncture client saw me a in the supermarket and asked why she couldn’t get hold of me for an appointment. I explained I had changed my number and directed her to my website.
Distraught text message
In my optimism, since things have been reasonably good for a few months now, I decided to put the number on my site again, Then voilà —a last week I was amazed to receive a very distraught text message from my ex’s current victim, asking me if I know him and when was the last time I slept with him. My first reaction, since my ex has gone under a number of different guises pretending to be other people in order to keep contact with me, was, “Is it genuinely her or him?” I decided to go on Google and look up the number, which took me to a website he owns.
I was tempted to respond with a comment like, “I’d be more concerned not about ‘when’ was the last time I slept with him, but how many other people he has been seeing during the time they have been together?” After all this is a man who sleeps with “anything,” whether it be women, men or transvestites. But I suggested he or she could call me if they wanted further information. I received a text back saying, “He’s with me now; I can’t talk.” The following day, the number was disconnected.
It goes without saying I was somewhat intrigued as to why she may have contacted me after so long. Although I had evidence about his “sexploits,” there had never been any substantial evidence he was in a “proper” relationship with anyone else apart from me. I was also intrigued that no sooner had I put my website number back up, she called me. I wondered whether he had tracked me down via the internet and used a bit of “torture by triangulation” in order to see what a reaction he would get from either of us.
With that in mind, curiosity killed the cat and I called the number.
The new target
I was shocked to discover that not only was this new target young enough to be his own daughter, but he has had two children with her, in the time we have been apart (one of whom whilst he was with me).
If there was ever a reason not to play “detective,” this had to be one of them. Also, knowing how keen he was to plant his sperm in any women that would be willing to take it, I felt sick seeing the smug look on his face as he smirked holding his new babies. I decided to give myself a big, big slap round the face for even bothering to look. It just goes to show how words and promises mean nothing to them. We should never play detective, no matter how much we have been triggered.
The last time my own family saw him, he had taken my teenage kids out to see “Twilight.” He was telling them how much he loved their mum (i.e. me), and was really looking forwards to sorting himself out and starting a new family with us, since he had left his “horrible” wife. However, I realise now that at that time his new target would have been well and truly pregnant. This probably explains why he wasn’t around at Christmas to support me whilst I recovered in hospital from an internal bleed from an operation. My own daughter had to cook the family Xmas dinner. When he finally did turn up, it comes as no surprise that I kicked him out a few days later in the New Year.
The Disposable Family
I believe psychopaths view their families are utterly disposable. This is a man who had two beautiful, lovely children from his first wife. They are under 10 and still need a father. I assumed he would continue seeing them whether we had had a family or not. However, with the ability to re-invent themselves at the drop of a hat, it comes as no surprise that he has a brand new family. It also doesn’t take rocket science to figure out that it’s only a matter of time before he messes up again. Even worse, and to add insult to injury to his poor first wife, he’s called one of his new children the same name as his son from his previous marriage!
This new woman would not have been able to get my number unless he had searched for it. As I said earlier, I took all phone numbers off my web sites for months. My guess is he’s either already on his way out, and wanted to shift the blame by putting both his current target and myself in a position when if his new partner were to leave him, he could then blame me for “spilling the beans”.
What’s even more interesting was that he would give his poor new, soon to be wife my number. Perhaps it was in order to triangulate and get her all upset. It’s the same as he did to me when he tried to push me to the point where I would tell his own “bitchy” wife that he was having an affair.
Either way, I doubt this woman will contact me again. He’s probably told her the same old sob story about his ex girlfriend being a bitch. He told me his wife was the problem.
Not my responsibility
Despite feeling sorry for his new target, it’s not my responsibility to take on her problems. This man has messed up again. Until he takes responsibility for his own actions, and grows a conscience, it’s only matter of time before he re-invents himself and starts another family all over again.
On a positive note, in January 2013 I celebrate three years being psychopath free. Whilst it’s hurtful to find out that he’s got a new family, I thank my lucky stars daily that I don’t have the legacy of having a family to raise from him to remind me of him.
If I would give anyone any advice after this recent discovery, is that it’s only a matter of time until your ex, or one of their many victims, will turn up again like a bad penny. Whether it’s three months, three years, or 30 years, it’s just one of the many ways in which they try their hardest to remind people (no matter how much you have moved on with your life) they will continue to do their best to remind you they are still there lurking in the background. It may be giving your phone number to new partners, or for whatever reason or making you feel responsible for their new victims. Either way don’t bite, don’t engage and most of all, however hard it is, don’t play detective ever again.
OxD, what a superb list of ideas! I especially identify with the suggestion to volunteer for the less fortunate. I’m one of the “less fortunate” and having to access the only foodbank for 50 miles, and it’s a horror show. Most of the people standing in the freezing cold and waiting for the doors to open are women. Many have children and infants in tow. And, the 2-week supplemental “groceries” are the worst types of foods imaginable – 100% starch, no fresh produce, and protein (if any) in the form of 4 frozen hamburger patties.
I’ve made a determination that I’m going to get involved in soliciting a better quality of donated foods for this food bank, whether I’m back on my feet, or not. I have a telephone, so I can make some calls, and I have a friend who has a number of CSA (community sustained agriculture) groups in the area. I can “DO SOMETHING” even if many people respond, “No, I can’t help.” Doing something for the benefit of myself and others not only takes the focus away from my own dire situation, but places it upon recovering by doing something instead of sitting in a freezing dwelling and “sucking (my) thumb.” LMAO!!!!!!! YES……I love that!
Brightest blessings
Truthy,
Too many times I have engaged in the “emotional thumb sucking” and pity party for myself….and it is not something that is productive or fun in any way.
Finding passion in life about something….anything…is, I think, very fundamental to having a life that has meaning.
Too many times we focus (and I’m including myself here) on the harm that has been done to us and we don’t focus on the things we have left, only what we have lost…pooooor me!
So taking the holidays and making them something special, something good, by focusing on new traditions and not sitting around feeling sorry that the “things we used to do” are no more.
OxD, your words are so affirming, and they are true. I’m working hard on focusing on myself and what I have to be truly appreciative of.
And, meeting some of the CSA farmers has gotten me onto a serious train of thought where the local food bank goes. Most people in dire need do not have access to proper nutrition. Some, by choice, but most by necessity. It’s WAY cheaper to pay for 10 boxes of mac & cheese than it is to pay for fresh fruits and produce. One of the CSA farmers actually has solar greenhouses that they grow incredible produce in, and she’s INEXPENSIVE in her own shop! Even her raw milk and grass-fed beef is very, very reasonable. Her porterhouse steaks go for 3.99 lb, and that’s just incredible. SO…..I’m going to approach her (and, other CSA farmers) to see if she would be interested in monthly donations to the food bank. Monthly, or every other month, or something.
It’s very, very easy and tempting to continue sucking my emotional thumb – it sure as hell is. But, I’m a whole lot stronger than that, and I know it.
You wrote strong words, ”
So taking the holidays and making them something special, something good, by focusing on new traditions and not sitting around feeling sorry that the “things we used to do” are no more.” I’d like to take those strong words one step further in that the “things we used to do” were mainly illusion-keeping. Either we desperately worked to keep the illusions alive, or we ruminate about the things we SHOULD have been doing. Just maintaining the fantasy was what made previous holidays such a dreadful drudgery. I wanted (and, believed) that the holidays are special times. The exspath could take them or leave them.
So, yeah……feeling pretty positive, today, and grateful as HAYELL that I wasn’t involed in the Black Friday chaos!!! LOLOL!! It should be renamed to “Black And Blue Eye Friday!”
Brightest blessings – and, hope you’re recovering quickly!
Sorry, Sarah, I’m confused on several points.
First you got a “distraught” text from a woman who is the Psycho’s “latest target.” (For the sake of a name, I’ll call this target “Tara.”) When you texted her back, Tara couldn’t talk because Psycho was with her. The next day, the number was “disconnected.” By “disconnected,” do you mean “taken out of service”? Yet later, out of curiosity, you called that number and apparently got a response from “Tara,” from whom you learned she was young enough to be Psycho’s daughter and they have two children together. I’m wondering how you got an answer from a number that was “disconnected.”
Second, Psycho had a “smug look on his face as he smirked holding his new babies.” I’m not clear whether you were just visualizing this “smug look,” or whether you saw this actual picture somewhere: possibly on the “website he owns” that you referred to earlier?
Finally, and perhaps most important, I’m not at all clear why you think Psycho himself had to be somehow responsible for the fact that “Tara” is contacting you now. Why does it have to be at Psycho’s instigation that she’s doing this? Did she tell you so? Why would Tara “not have been able to get [your] number unless HE had searched for it”?
Lacking any evidence to the contrary, my impression from your story is that it’s most likely Tara herself who dug up your number after you placed it on your Web site. True, Psycho himself may also have been trying to contact you for precisely the reason you gave: that he was still looking for narcissistic supply. Even though he had a new partner at the tme, people of his type like to keep as many strings to their bow as they possibly can. (I assume you do have proof that Psycho was the one trying to contact you, and not someone else?)
But as for Tara, she may well have known who you were all along. She just had no reason to contact you before, that’s all. The fact that she’s “distraught” now and wondering who Psycho has been sleeping with shows beyond question that she’s having serious doubts about Psycho.
As you pointed out, Psycho told you his previous wife was a “bitch” and any breakup was all her fault. I don’t doubt he’s been telling Tara the same thing about you. Tara may have bought his story up until now, but some recent development has opened her eyes to the way he’s been fooling her, and that’s prompted her to get in touch with you to compare notes.
I would personally have thought the LAST thing Psycho would want is for all the females he’s been screwing (in more ways than one!) to actually get together and start swapping their stories of what this guy is really like. That could only incur the risk that they’d all wake up to the truth about him!
I think at bottom, part of what’s bothering me is that you seem to be according too much power altogether to Psycho. Reading your account, it’s as if you think Psycho is the sole “active agent” in anything that happens: that if anything happens, it must be his doing, and nothing can happen without his say-so. Everybody else (including Tara) is a mere puppet jumping at Psycho’s command.
This is simply not true. Other people have power of their own, and the ability to act independently in their own interests—including yourself of course, but also people like Tara. Stop imagining psychopaths as some kind of All-Powerful Boogeymen, and that cuts them down to size; they instantly become far less terrifying.
Truthy,
Son D and I are playing “dress up” and have on our pre 1840 duds and are going up to the state park where our group is camped out. We went up yesterday but didn’t “dress out” just went in street clothes but I am glad to see that son D is interested in playing “dress up” today (he is feeling better) and actually I am doing better as well. The Physical therapy is helping both physically and mentally for us both.
It is nice to see our friends and just sit around the camp fires and tell outrageous stories…we have some of the best story tellers in the world that will make you roll on the ground peeing yourself laughing. We started this camp out 15 or 18 years ago with some of our friends from the group and one of the park rangers who was a friend and also a member of the group and it has grown through the years, rain, hail, cold, wind, lightening…or fair weather…until now there are 30-50 camps each year. We’ve only missed a few years of this Thanksgiving camp. One of the reasons I wanted to do it was to quit having TG with uncle Monster at egg donor’s and this was a good excuse to not do so without having a hissy fit on her part. Now it has become our TG “tradition”—last year son D and a friend camped up there and I came home at night to sleep on my warm bed. (we are only 45 minutes away from the park)
But I think making new traditions that are REAL rather than just trying to placate someone else’s idea of what TG or Xmas should be should be the order of the day.
I like your idea of asking the CSA folks to donate, maybe they have some left over produce that could be given to folks who need it rather than fed to their hogs or the compost pile. Unfortunately, too many people though, do not know how to cook fresh produce. Maybe you could give some cooking classes for the folks at the pantry. Back when I was in nursing school part of our public service for a class was to teach cooking to a group of women who got food from a pantry. They had a large supply of rice and beans etc but these women had NO idea how to cook it or make good meals out of it.
Rewald, nobody knows whether the teenaged mother was coerced or contacted Sarah on her own. The “reaction” to the contact is a visceral response to an attempt to explain and predict – that’s all. And, this is a very, very common reaction after spath entanglements.
When I discovered the full impact of what the exspath had done, I fully expected (and, attempted to predict) for an attempt to be made upon my life – it’s far cheaper to pay an ex-convict a few hundred dollars than a lifetime of alimony. Paranoia, irrational anxiety, fear-based decisions and reactions….they’re all a part of the carnages.
OxD, what a GREAT IDEA to teach preparation of produce!! Awesome idea! I’m going to explore this, ASAP. Seriously – it’s a very, very good idea.
Brightest blessings
My ex used to say ‘Revenge is a dish best served cold’, so although its nearly 9 years since I threw him out and have relaxed a bit, I’m always aware that at some point he could come back & have on several occasions thought I’ve seen him, which would be a bit odd as he moved to the other end of the country. I can usually tell if it is him by how my body reacts. If I start to sweat & my stomach jumps, then it might be him, if they don’t, then its not.
Whilst I agree in principle its not a good idea to play detective, I found, particularly in the early days when I was trying to work exactly what had happened, how much of what he’d said was true etc etc, I found I needed to KNOW. To know his story, to show myself that I hadn’t just wasted 10 years of my life on a low life who I’d believed was my soul mate.
I checked up on various stories he’d told & discovered that while there was some grains of truth in there, the story was not as he’d told me (what a surprise).
I found I had to construct a ‘history’/’story’ to make sense of what had happened. It may not be the right story, but given the bits i found out it makes sense and helped me move on a bit.
I do occasionally play detective. Whilst it disturbs me somewhat, I feel I am keeping an eye out for him & can be a bit more prepared if something happens out of the blue.
@....... Redwald It was a weird situation regarding my ex and his ex’s. He & I used to go & stay at one of his ex GFs places for our holidays. We would get it free, rather than have to pay. I also used to go and visit her with him. I later learnt that although they’d been friends for 10 years & he’d stayed at her place for most of that, they had only been BF & GF for 1 year.
He also introduced me to another friend, who had very briefly been out with him, but had remained friends. We would go on holiday with her to the other friends place, but when she wasn’t there. We would also go out to events etc together.
After I threw him out, it was the first one that made a couple of comments that made me realise that what he’d told me, had been a lie. She had been at certain events or knew certain things which he had ‘mistold’ me. Then the other friend as well told me stuff that I hadn’t know, including the fact that one of the stories that he told, was in fact HER story, but he had changed some details.
For a period of 10 years, we all at various times met, went out together or on holiday together and the truth never materialised.
It was the later friend who had some psyche training suggested that he was a spath. And when he threatened to kill her I decided enough was enough. We are still good friends now :-). She was a real support to him during the early days when I discovered exactly what he was.
WOW. I haven’t been on this site for a few days but reading about being a “detective” really hit home. It’s like a drug. My spath has blocked me on Facebook but (the only gift he ever gave me) but we still have mutual friends on Facebook. One of these friends posted his blog – domesticstud.blogspot.com on Facebook so of course I had to go on and read it. That is where I learned about his latest victims. It made me sick to read it. My palms got sweaty and my stomach churned but then I realized that I had felt that way our entire relationship. Every phone call, every text I was always wondering who it was from. He has very few, if any, male friends. They are all girls. One day we were in a store when “Janet” called. He told her he was with me and dismissed her to me as just a high school friend who lives with her mother and he had helped her out by taking her mother to the Dr. Well he never told me about that at the time and he was the one who insisted we tell each other every move we make. Well now on his sick blog he talks about “Janet” being more than a friend. I know it is her because he told me about her strange eating habits. This girl was obviously more than just a friend while he was dating me or at least there must have been mutual interest there. One night we had an argument because Janet called again. I thought I hit end on the phone but apparently I didn’t and Janet heard our argument and called the police citing domestic violence. Of course there wasn’t so the police asked a few questions and left. I was always frantic with this man because my instincts told me he was never truly “committed” to me. So yes, I play detective. But it doesn’t help me heal. It only keeps the wound from healing. I have had extensive conversations with his third ex wife – unfortunately she had three children with this monster and has to endure him for the rest of her life. I know what he is and who he is and that leopards don’t change their spots. Particularly Spath Leopards! They are incapable of change, feelings or emotion. And I know he will be just as unsuitable of a romantic partner for the rest of his miserable existence. He will lovebomb the next girl and she will either run away or stay like I did and endure the emotional abuse. He found me at the right time – single for a long time and emotionally vulnerable. But now that I am dating non Spaths I realize what normal dating is. Normal patterns. It’s not all lust and romantic words. It is showing up. Caring to ask questions about how your day was and listening to your answers. It is a sweet phone call just to say I am thinking about you. It is a cute text telling you to get your cute butt out of bed. It is taking you and your daughter and her friends out to eat so you don’t have to cook. It is picking up the tab so you don’t have to. It is holding your hand. My spath wanted to know what I was doing every second of every day, well until he got bored with me and began the “discard” process. But I never knew what he was doing or with whom. Well I guess I do now. His ex wife said he has never been with a woman he didn’t cheat on. But the point is – did I listen? No I took him back. The new victims won’t listen to us either because they are in the process of being lovebombed. The hardest part for me is knowing he isn’t capable of loving his three beautiful kids. He uses them as bait to “hook” his next victim. That’s why he blogs about them and posts pictures on Facebook so he can look like this amazing father. And those kids got attached to me and other women in his past. And they get attached and he discards scarring his kids just like he scarred his victim. I know I am doing better. I am thankful I can feel love and real feelings. I care deeply about people. And I hurt like any scorned girlfriend. Not sure why this one hurts more than any other breakup but it does. It’s harder to move on from this one even though I look at this fat, bald, unemployed loser whose full time job is working the welfare system and preying on women – it still hurts. Because my feelings were real and THANK GOD for that. Thanks for listening to my rant. All of you guys help me so much.
DLD: Such a thoughtful and inspiring post.
Very validating, for me, personally.
I thank you, so much for sharing your
‘rant’ with us.
I have shared quite a few, here, myself,
in the past couple years. This is the
‘healing place’ and although I don’t
say too much, very often, I do feed
my soul here, often and hope you will
continue to, as well.
Your story sounds so much like mine.
Fortunately, I never allowed ppath to
get that close and up into my life…..
Lied and lovebombed me for years
and then it just all came crashing down…
lies; all of it. Drama Kings and Queens.
It’s harder to move on from THIS ‘break up’ because
they have played upon our emotions and have struck
the very core of our being BEFORE THEY PUSHED US
off the cliff.
We all make mistakes.
The second chance is a choice.
We are not obligated to that choice.
Least not with them.
I have thrown it all out the window;
sealed, padlocked and have put up
such immense boundaries NOW, they
will never come down or be altered.
I can look back, at what I left behind,
and I can stand up, shake my head “YES”
and tell you: “ABSOLUTELY WE DESERVE
BETTER THAN THIS FOR OUR LIVES.”
Yes, I suppose we should be grateful
that at least WE can ‘feel’. THEY can’t
and never will. Everything, to them, is
automatic and it’s all narcissistic and about
them, all the time. NOTHING is going to change
that except for US CHANGING OURSELVES.
It is difficult to effect a change in ourselves.
But that is one thing that sets us apart from
them: OUR STRENGTHS. OUR REAL ONES.
I will keep you in prayer, DLD –
keep on, keepin’ on; hm?
This life belongs to us too.
Dupey