Tricky question. On the one hand, when I find myself brooding about the guy, I would welcome a NO CONTACT reminder from my key ring ... you're right, though, when I'm not thinking about him and his fractious ways, I would NOT welcome a little winking reminder from that same key ring!

UPDATE. The legal papers are flying around. My attorney is taking an aggressive approach, while JERK (henceforth to be identified as "JERK-1" or, affectionately, "J-1") and his fellow-psychopath attorney (let's just call him "JERK-2" or "J-2") are sending up a cloud of legal mumbo-jumbo. What's interesting to me is that I have been able, so far, to predict J-1 and J-2's reactions to our settlement proposal. Scary, but true. I'll keep you posted. Looks like this divorce could take until Christmas.

hugs to all
Melissa

I am new to the forum - 28 years married to a man with a 32 page diagnosis - anti-social. More later on that. In the meantime, this is the best advice ever - the "thought stopping." I thought I was nuts. I spend every second of my life thinking about this miserable, horrifying, surreal, gut wrenching, heart breaking and family destoying situation. I have never, not in 28 years - been able to relax, to watch tv or engage in ordinary recreation - my brain never shuts down, because there is no cure - no solution. I am a professional and as we call it "results driven."

In dealing with Psychopath's - there are no cures - just the dark hole they describe, the dark hole they pull us into to. Although by nature I am an upbeat, loving, gregarious type, I have in recent years faded into his world. I would call it "nothing" - absolute and complete nothing. Hopes, dreams, plans, goals, get-togethers - all gone. For years now, I find myself working as much as possible and then at 5:00 every evening, I collapse. The sad part is that I have fought this, with every cell in my body. I have joined health clubs, allowed myself anything in exchange, bought movie collections and on, and on. All in an effort to keep my feet grounded - to no avail. We are experiencing "Failure to Thrive" - life with someone who does not love. We are human, we love. How can any human deal with this?

I find myself reading about solitary confinement - it feels like this, only with privledges. Most advice - take it a few minutes or an hour at a time. More than that can be overwhelming - mentally, to deal with.

Details to follow - but thank you so much for the reassurance that I am not the only one feeling like this. I fell into this forum tonight - I think I am going to like it!

Psychopath/S - I don't see a spell checker in here - please overlook any typos.

Take Care,
Loj4ever

In my attempt to write PS: it defaulted to psycopath - I'll learn the program as time goes on. Please bear with me.

Hello, I'm back!

First of all, I really like the idea of a mug with a bird on it! A long time ago, a counselor suggested to me that, although I felt as if I were in a cage, the cage had been created in my own mind. If I could turn around and look, I would see that the cage had only three sides - the back was missing! I could escape!

UPDATE. Divorce final September 16th. The court date was first set for September 30th, and then the Psychopath had it moved back so that he could invite a date to his son's wedding on September 19th! The son and his bride said, "Absolutely not, Dad." He did obey the groom's wishes and did not bring a date, despite the fact he's already dating a woman in Denver [don't know how he met her, but he's been talking to her via phone since last fall when I was in radiation treatment for breast cancer]. I attended this wedding because the bride has been my daughter's best friend since they were in fourth grade orchestra together, and I have been long-time friends with her parents and siblings. In fact, the bride and groom met because of a "family gathering" sponsored by me and the Psychopath-husband 3 years ago. Here's what happened at the wedding:

At the Friday night rehearsal dinner (two days after the judge divorced us), the Psychopath-now-former-husband snuck up behind me, slipped his arm around my waist, planted a kiss on my cheek, and said cheerily (and loudly so that all could hear), "How about a hug and a kiss for old times??" YIKES! As I backed forcefully away and out of his grasp, saying nothing, he repeated, "It's gonna be all right. It's gonna be all right." Weird. Just plain weird. I left shortly after that.

Saturday night, at the wedding reception, I kept a close eye out for him so that there would not be a repeat of the hug-kiss-for-old-times action. During the cocktail reception, I saw him approaching across the courtyard so I sped away in the opposite direction, almost bumping into one or two of the sculptures in the garden in my hurry! When he saw me running away, he started bellowing my name! And not in a "Wait up!" kinda of voice but in a "Get back here!" kind of voice. It was really really creepy for me. It felt like he was attempting to rope me in again with the sheer power of his voice.

Buffet dinner was shortly after that - followed by toasts to the newly married couple. As father of the groom, the Psychopath offered a toast to the two dead grandmothers, and then he said, "Don't take love lightly. We all have - but don't do it. Don't take love lightly" to the bride and groom. A dreary toast. I left shortly thereafter.

NOW I AM TOTALLY DONE WITH HIM - the divorce is over and this family wedding is finished. I've taken him off all my accounts and am changing my name. Whew! No there's no further need for any contact at all. NO CONTACT really kicks in now.

What's amazing, interesting and a little frightening to me is the pull he still has on me - my son told me that his bellowing at the wedding reception wasn't that bad, that it wasn't like people were turning and staring at us - but it sure felt that way to me. It felt like he was yelling inside my head! Now, I did resist and did keep the upper hand all through the wedding festivities - I know in my rational mind that he has no hold over me any longer - the financial affairs are separated - the legal affairs are separated - and I know that his two sons respect and love me - all that's fine and dandy. But his voice, his presence, still scares me - or maybe scares me MORE now that I know what a manipulator he is and how badly he cornered me for 5 years. I suppose that will ease over time.

One question remains in my mind. One the one hand, I feel an ethical responsibility to call up Ms. Denver and give her a warning about the Psychopath. Hell, I have her phone number because it [and others!]was all over the cell phone bills October-March. On the other hand, I fear that it would be breaking the NO CONTACT rule - that as soon as she got off the phone to me, she'd call him and tell him what his crazy ex-wife told her because of course, for the moment, she's probably enamored of him and believes all he says. That would give him an opportunity to slander me for attempting to break up his new relationship and strut around. So, my decision is NOT to warn her. If she ever calls me for information, I'll give it to her with both barrels flashing, but I'm not going to initiate the contact. I sure do feel for her, however.

Maybe somehow we could anonymously e-mail her the link to this forum????

Thanks for listening. It's just so crazy carrying all this around in my head - there are so few people I can really talk to about Psychopaths - most people look at me like I'm crazy when I describe his behavior. I keep saying, you just can't understand it until you've met up with one face-to-face. I saw our former marriage counselor in the Post Office the other day - I don't know whether he continues to see her (he saw her a couple of times in April-May, right after I moved out), but I could tell by the look on her face that she still believes that he's a good guy who just needs a little counseling, and that I am the crazy one. Oh, well. She'll figure it out - or she won't.

Again, thanks for listening to my thoughts. I appreciate you being there!

Onward into the fog.
Melissa

Hello and welcome

You're the one who FEELS crazy, but you're not the one who IS crazy. Crazy-making. Gaslighting. Mirroring. All "techniques" used by Psychopaths to control you. Sounds like you, too, have been cornered/controlled for waaaay too long. I hope you read through this blog and find reassurances that YOU ARE NOT ALONE. You are not making this stuff up.

hugs
Melissa

Hello Melissa

It's good to see you back and still as positive as ever. It's always a pleasure to hear how you keep moving forward despite the obstacles thrown in your path.
I think a family wedding would be the worst situation I could imagine being in with the person you do not want to be anywhere near.

I can see you would once again have to subjugate your own feelings for the benefit of everyone else.....one of the things you have worked so hard to stop doing. Maybe all those years of practice get you through that?
How sickening he put on a show for the audience, so typical of someone like him using the speech to make it about himself. I can just imagine what it must have felt like to hear his voice 'commanding' you but you did it.....you recognised and rationlised what as happening so you could deal with it.

I suppose you can now add this huge step to your rise above all of this and feel proud of yourself.

It is very normal to want to help others but I'm pleased you decided against warning your ex's latest victim. She will probably still be in denial and as you say she would have 'confirmation' of the things he told her about you. As you found out for yourself, you have to come to your own conclusions and what decisions to make when you come out of the fog. She will have to find out that she is a victim before she wants to change anything and she may very well end up posting on this forum looking for support to help her do that.
Even though you can't help this woman (yet) there are others here that would benefit hugely from your help.

There is nothing like talking to someone who had first hand experience to give others confidence that it is possible to have life after a disastrous relationship. Many people seem to think they can't survive on their own and that any relationship is better than being on their own. The sad thing is a relationship with a psychopath is exactly that, being isolated from everyone especially those who care about about them. A psychopath does not have a reciprocal relationship with anyone.

I found it a huge relief not to have to talk about psychopathy with people who have no experience, they just don't get it and assume that victims are exaggerating or being dramatic.

Thank you for spending your time with us and helping others to see the possibility that they can do what you have done. I like the thought of being in a cage without a back on it, what a great way of looking at what is trapping you. The exit is obvious if you look around you.

I will look forward to keeping up with your progress.

Regards
Jan

Hi,

I am new to this forum. I have never been on one before. I am wondering if you had children involved in the divorce. I have just discovered what I am married to and I'm both relieved and terrified of what I have learned. I don't need to share all the gory details except to tell you that he's a 'white collar' psychopath and VERY clever and charming, humble, and generous with money to those that need it - but then there's the real story. We have a 5 year old daughter and he's already started manipulating her and is causing serious emotional damage. He has extreme entitlement tendancies - I am afraid that the courts will believe his monologue and give him his share of custody or worse... that he will somehow try to convince them that I am the problem and give him full costody. What can I do? How do I get us both out of there safely? How do I prove he's a psychopath? Please help.

Thank you for your response. I will try to answer your questions - I started the research because of two things: 1) a few months ago I started talking to my Mom about my situation. I hadn't done this before because he convinced me to keep 'our business' in the marriage and others didn't need to know 'our business'.

I mistakenly thought this was just part of being married. She listened to me and was concerned. a few weeks later she called me when I was on my way to an appointment - she said it was urgent and couldn't wait. I listened and she said as she was cleaning a word popped into her head and she looked it up and found the symptoms for narcisist. The list of over 40 behaviors was startling as they all fit his personality.

Before this I had nothing to go on to understand how to talk to him, my communication style wasn't working. A couple of months later I told him I wanted a divorce. We talked for hours upon hours and it seemed he was very concerned and promised to change, to stop drinking, and to stop yelling at me - I couldn't even ask to stop at the ATM without his screaming at me the whole day because of it - I was obviously still not totally aware of what the problem was. I told him I wouldn't leave. I thought it could be worked out.

A few months went by and I was starting to trust him again. Then he showed up drunk after he promised to quit. I was shocked and mad I told him he betrayed my trust...etc, etc.....then the old personality returned, he was yelling at me again irrationally over and over, he emotionally abused our daughter by telling her they were going to play a game together - he was going to discipline her for swinging her water bottle around, he told her to stand still while he swung the bottle around in front of her face and told her he was going to hit her with it, by this time she realized this wasn't a game and she ran/walked away and said no! in a scared voice. He was becoming more and more irrational - he drank again at home, he told me he'd drink behind my back, obviously he made good on that.

Later I asked him about it and he told me I was insane and that my mind was playing tricks on me, after I SMELLED it on his breath and told him so. He has always prided himself for not being a liar - well this was a blatant lie and he was caught. -

I started seeing a therapist, she listened for about 5 minutes and said he sounds like a psychopath. I looked it up on the internet and found many many more similarities in his personality and realized there is no cure for this and that everything I had tried was not only not going to work but was being used by him to 'get inside' my head so he could further use it to manipulate me. I have now started to take off my blinders and be more observant of his behavior and have become suspicious that he is somehow recording me so he could listen to my private conversations with my Mom, brother, dad, friend, whoever. I have said things to them that I haven't said to him and he somehow repeats parts of it to me in the form of a question, some of the phrases I used he doesn't use and he repeated it incorrectly.

I have since found that he hides alcohol in the yard and says he has stopped drinking. He tries to be very carefull about getting caught - he watches cops and those murder investigation documentaries and sometimes makes comments on how the person could have done things differently to not get caught - I've asked him who's side he's on anyway (back when I thought he was normal). I have found pictures of gruesome deaths stashed in his belongings from what appears to be the 50's?, why does a person have such pictures - these are actually slides not pictures - I don't know where they came from.

He is an artist and I think he would say he has them under the guise of having them as a resource for art subjects. Seems twisted to me. - these things and many more are what make me believe he's a 'Psychopath' - and what makes me terrified to just divorce him and hope the courts et al, don't give him custody of any kind - I am afraid of the courts and the people that are a part of that system as they don't know what I know, and they don't know me either.

What can I do to make sure the actual TRUTH is discovered?

Thank you, I am looking forward to hearing from you and others that have 'been there' and got out.

Hello, Helpout ...

My heart goes out to you. You are in a terrible situation, no doubt about it. Listen to all the advice Jan gave you - she knows.

What I would say to you is this. And you already know this.
(1) Stop trying to talk to him. Forget trying to reason with him. Don't tell him any of your thoughts/plans. He will only use them against you.

(2) Document all you can. Those slides of "gruesome deaths" gave me the creeps - that is NOT normal! Artist, my ass.

(3) GET OUT. Your daughter, too. Remember the NO CONTACT rule. Easy for me to say, as my adult children were not involved in my late-in-life menopausal marriage to a psychopath. I can't offer you specific advice on how to best take care of your daughter, except to document all that you can.

It will be a tough fight but NOT an impossible one. Remember, your counselor identified him as a Psychopath within minutes! My attorney did the very same thing during my first meeting with him. Yes, it's true that people who have not had any experience with Psychopaths are clueless about their lies/manipulations. But there ARE attorneys and judges and counselors that know very well who/what these people are. Get them on your side.

And keep remembering, YOU ARE NOT CRAZY. He's the psychopath (and the drunkard) here, not you. And not your daughter.

Big big hugs and lots of prayers. Getting out and setting up your new life with your daughter (and your Mom-she sounds like a winner!) will be difficult, but it will be finished in good time. You can do it. I know you can.

Keep writing. It helps to send it out there to those of us who have been there.

Melissa

Thanks, as always, for your thoughtful insight.

Interesting that you pointed out that I stomped down my own feelings for the benefit of others. You're right, I have been doing that all my life,long before I met up with Psychopath-ex-husband. My Mom was a flaming narcissist-everyone in the family took second place to her wants/needs.

In my two marriages, I found myself not speaking up about what I wanted - hell, I didn't even KNOW what I wanted a good bit of the time. After my first divorce ten years ago, I spent a lot of time pondering what I wanted for simple things like meals. Before I would read over the menu, I would close my eyes and think, "Now, what do I want to eat?" Good training. I am working on that again these days. What does Melissa want? I keep thinking that it shouldn't be as difficult a question as it is!

A year ago at this time, i was dealing with an unfaithful/spendthrift/lying husband, the death of my mother, and breast cancer - lots of drama. Nowadays, it's pretty peaceful around here. Curiously I'm finding that to be weird, not restful. I keep wanting to DO SOMETHING. But I'm worried about latching onto something just to fill the void. I have promised myself that I will continue to make no decisions (no new car, no new house, no new job) until at least 2010.

Thanks so very much for all that you do on this forum. You write with a clear head and a compassionate heart, and I know that you help folks.
Thanks.

hugs
Melissa