Last week, in part one, I explained about how placing too much faith in another person without their being solid foundations and indicators to justify it and seeing too much potential not only has us holding onto an illusion that prevents us from seeing and accepting the reality, but it can also end up being a disrespect to the other person.
Part of this problem of not seeing the reality of our relationships is that we get caught up in chasing a feeling, and trying to extract things from other people that are missing in ourselves.
We want people to have faith in us and see our potential and so we have faith and see potential in them in the hope that they will reciprocate.
We also refuse to let go of the illusion which is an example of what can be our own passive aggressive manoeuvre.
You don’t like the fact that things are not what they used to be or haven’t met the perception and expectations of what you think they could be.
Rather than accept the ‘new’ reality and reassess your position, you stand firm in your position and insist that they come around to your way of thinking because you like things in the way that they either used to be (even if it wasn’t even that great), or your vision of things appears to you to be the ‘right’ thing, even if the other person is resisting.
We project our rationality on things and scratch our heads in wonder.
We think that if we were messed up that we would want someone to be able to show us how messed up we are and help us.
We think that if we were messed up that we would want someone to believe in our ability to be better than we are.
We think that surely if someone is behaving like an asshole, they have to realise it at some point, feel remorse and strive to be a better person, in a better relationship…ideally with us.
Even if they are not an assclown, we can be inclined to take the intensity of our own feelings, project it onto them, and get so caught up in it that we believe that because we feel how we do, they should reciprocate and want things as much as you do.
As I’ve said before, you loving someone (or thinking you do) doesn’t create an instant IOU.
Even if they have claimed to feel the same way that you do, this can change. We have to be careful of thinking that people we’re in relationships with should think, feel, and act in the way that we think, feel, and act.
Their reality is different from yours.
In reality, if you habitually are involved with Mr Unavailables and assclowns, they have their own issues with reality to deal with so it’s a bit like a clash of the great illusions.
In their world, their behaviour is fine and even if it’s not, they’re OK with it, and even if they’re not OK with it, they have no real, burning desire to change, because they don’t do matching actions with words.
From the moment that you are willing to accept their poor behaviour, they interpret a signal that says that you can’t think too highly of yourself if you have so much faith in them.
It may feel like you’re two star crossed lovers, but these guys have danced this dance before. They don’t arrive in your life with no previous relationship history so they actually know what they are and aren’t prepared to do…even if they won’t admit or be direct about it with you.
Often you can be one in a long line of people who have placed their faith on them because you don’t want to accept the reality .
Irrespective of their behaviour, you still need to remember that by refusing to accept the reality and projecting your own version of things on them, you’re being disrespectful.
You wouldn’t like it if you were with someone who was always seeing anything other than the you that’s in front of them. It feels like being around the perpetually dissatisfied.
Respecting the reality of someone gives you the opportunity to re-evaluate whether what’s on offer is what you still want.
If you take it, you are accepting the revised offer and you then have to adapt and work with what you have. If you decline and they’ve already made their position clear, you’d need to cut your losses instead of continuing to throw more emotion into a bad relationship investment.
If you’re going to have faith in someone, make it evidence based. It needs to be based on the consistency of their actions and if they change their behaviour, you have to adjust your field of vision and ask yourself if what you think about the person and the relationship still stands.
The conditions have changed. When they were one way, you were operating under a different set of conditions. Now that they are a different way, you have new conditions to deal with and there is no point in pretending that they don’t exist and saying ‘This doesn’t suit me’.
There’s nothing that says that how you liked things in the past or what you see in them in the future is the right thing for them. It’s what feels like the ‘right’ or comfortable thing for you but that doesn’t make it right.
Remember that when we are habitually involved with Mr Unavailables and assclowns, we’re often comfortable with behaviour that we should be uncomfortable with.
Take the focus off them and bring it back to you and start trusting yourself and having faith that there is life beyond men who don’t want to be actually be in a decent relationship with us that has love, trust, care, and respect in it.
If they don’t have faith and see potential in you, and you don’t see faith and potential in you independently of them, you have nothing. You’re not nothing – you’re a valuable entity in your own right but start you have got to start believing this and behaving like it.
Your thoughts?
Add to favorites
“It may feel like you’re two star crossed lovers, but these guys have danced this dance before. They don’t arrive in your life with no previous relationship history so they actually know what they are and aren’t prepared to do…even if they won’t admit or be direct about it with you.
Often you can be one in a long line of people who have placed their faith on them because you don’t want to accept the reality .”
Good post Natalie. This is a point I’ve been using to get over what has happened – almost a mantra – this is familiar ground to one of us and it wasn’t me. As I’ve said on the Forum blog (mine), you’re very right about attracting different types of people once you change what you give out.
With that I bid you goodnight for a little while, as I jet off in the morning for a trip organised by a friend who said, verbatim, “You are always doing things for other people, so now for a change it’s your turn”.
You can sit and you can wish and want and cry and obscess as much as you like about potential and get nowhere cos potential is a fluid thing and if you are not living in the now … well … (another mantra that I have kicked my own arse with).
“We think that if we were messed up that we would want someone to be able to show us how messed up we are and help us.”
Exactaly,I was always trying to make his emotional side come out.I tried to turn a guy that doesnt show his fellings(a EUM) in a emotional guy.And not even once I asked him if he wanted that,I just assumed that he would since that is what I would like have done if I was in his place.
“In their world, their behaviour is fine and even if it’s not, they’re OK with it, and even if they’re not OK with it, they have no real, burning desire to change, because they don’t do matching actions with words.”
That is what I dont get,how they can think that their behaviour is ok? How they cant see all the people that care for him walking away from him and think that what he is doing is ok? I do think sometimes they do see it but just dont care since it fells comfortable for them being that away.And that is all they care about(how they fell),how that is making the other peson fell doesnt realy matters to them.But that will back fire on them because you cant have a relationship thinking on just you so they will sabotage all their relationships that way.Anyway not my problem and they chosing for that.
“Respecting the reality of someone gives you the opportunity to re-evaluate whether what’s on offer is what you still want.”
Very precious information.That is what I learned from my experience with my EUM,you cant change people.Look at the reality and if you dont like it just WALK AWAY,dont keep trying to change it cause it just wont work.
“Even if they are not an assclown, we can be inclined to take the intensity of our own feelings, project it onto them, and get so caught up in it that we believe that because we feel how we do, they should reciprocate and want things as much as you do.”
This is exactly the post I needed to read right now. He has never been less than totally honest with me about how he feels and where we stand, but it is me that sees the little white picket fences and the rocking on the porch together. I tend to hear what makes me happy and block out the rest because I seem to go off the deep end. Ironically, he has said one of the things he loves about me is that I accept him as he is! LOL!
I need to back off before I ruin our friendship/ love affair with the intensity of my expectations. ” These violent delights have violent ends/ And in their triumph die like fire and powder/ Which as they kiss consume.” I would die for him, but I will not live for him. Thanks for the reminder, NML!
“There is none so blind as he who will not see”
@ Anusha,
You said, “I do think sometimes they do see it but just dont care”. Mostly I think they really don’t know any better. People are creatures of habit; it hurts to change. For the EUM and AC, they may or may not understand that other people are happier, and have happier people around them. Just like the drunk, the gambler, and the drug addict, though, the moment to moment choices they make are the same ones they have been making – they couldn’t do any different even when they try. They may or may not accept that overall their life is harming them and those around them. But they cannot relate that to what they are doing.
Addicts do recover. But it takes “hitting bottom”. Usually they have to run completely out of resources – including people around them enabling their choices-of-the-moment – before they will address their own behavior in a meaningful and life-changing way.
Which gets back to the point that staying in contact, let alone in a relationship, *enables* the EUM and AC to continue, as painful as it might be, to continue doing the same old things in the same old hurtful ways. How is an EUM/AC supposed to hit bottom while anyone is still enabling him to “maintain”? It won’t happen.
They don’t change because they cannot see the harm they do, nor admit that the problem is theirs, not just “all the good women (or men) are taken”. (Ouch, what a divisive and dis-enabling statement that is.)
Brad-I see your point and I agree that keeping a relationship enables their behaviour.But I find very hard to believe that they wont notice all their love relationships failing and their friends distancing from them.Maybe they wont realize that it happened because of him and think the problem is on the other person but they can see it happening.And after it happens a few times you do start to see that something is wrong with you(like I saw I was a fallback girl after a few failed relationships).I understand not noticing it on the first relationship that goes wrong,after all is normal that things go wrong sometimes.But after pretty much all of his relationships not working,I guess it becomes obvious there is a issue there.And ok maybe he wont know exactaly what is wrong or how to fix it but then he can just look for information about it or for therapy(like we all doing here).So I do think that sometimes they do realize they have a problem but just arent bothered to do all the work to change it.
Natalie-
What causes us to keep projecting, not accept reality and opt out? Are we stuck in our own heads avoiding emotion or the thought of losing him rather than feeling with our hearts? Are we not feeling it first and then acting logically afterwards? Do we have the situation backwards?
That is the only thing I can think of is that we are over processing in our heads, to avoid the feeling altogether. The feeling of rejection, the feeling of hurt, feeling of abandonment. If we stay in our heads we never really have to “feel” it after all. We just continue to over process and spin circles about what we think we could have done different, could have said and just not accepting that his reality is different than ours.
How do we change the pattern? How do we feel it first to allow us to react logically in a way which is more loving and compassionate with ourselves. How can one break the cycle?
“If they don’t have faith and see potential in you, and you don’t see faith faith and potential in you independently of them, you have nothing.”
You talk a lot about loving yourself first in a lot of your entry’s and I’m a firm believer in it.
My question is, at what point do you actually feel all of this and accept it rather then pretending you’re loving yourself or trying to convince yourself that you are.
Better–The only way you’ll change the pattern is when you get sick and tired of being sick and tired of it. I’m happy to say that after several months of NC, I realize just how good it feels to be free of it all. I literally got my life back. And he wasn’t a bad guy, just totally emotionally unavailable. Even when I got sick and tired, it took me a couple of months & a few more disappointments before I finally let go, but it was that first “get real with yourself moment” that turned the corner for me. I remember Natalie mentioning that it was one morning when the EUM left that it came to her and I can say I had the same sort of moment. It’s when you realize they won’t call, do the things they should and you feel like crap yet again when they walk out the door that makes you realize “I’ve got to get out of this pattern.” I can’t tell you how wonderful it is–I hadn’t thought much about it lately, but tonight when I was driving home I realized just how happy I am now.
Brad K–as usualy, bingo! They don’t ever really get it or know any better. Anusha, you’re giving them way too much credit for having the capacity to think, realize & change. In their minds, their behavior is just fine, regardless of the BS they tell you (oh, I’m not good enough, oh I know I need to change, oh I truly do love you but I just am not good at commitment). It’s all a lot of hot air. And even if it’s not, who wants to wait on someone to change. That could be an eternity.
Peace to all.
Anusha,
I am coming to believe that much of healthy or unhealthy behavior is affected by who we associate with.
Think of the stories of ladies that find Baggage Reclaim, and discover that the path they are on doesn’t have to remain painful and desolate. For the most part, we rely on those we trust. I was told that women are smarter than men, that women can hold an intelligent conversation about emotions – men trade well placed grunts and pokes. Whether that is true, I think there are many more women likely to find acceptable advice in writing than guys are.
Look at the EUM and AC types. Look at those the call “friends”, and often family, too. Who are they going to trust, that will tell them they are acting rude and arrogant and abusive? It doesn’t matter if they realize all their relationships are crap. What would bring about real change, is if they understood for themselves that they have to change, to live better, be responsible, and pick suitable companions for a happy and healthy shared life. Lacking healthy partners, they are unlikely to discover relationships exists, beyond the level of high school dating.
Their partners cannot tell them to change. That is just a bad partner nagging and harping – something they are convinced all “worthless” partners do – and that all partners are worthless. As long as they believe that, they won’t be changing. Their partners are damned for picking them, damned for staying, and damned again if the partner tries to point out their flaws. When you start out with the premise that your partner is worthless, see, you don’t have to worry about caring what they say.
And face it – most of the women they hook up with aren’t smart enough to stay away from a guy for four full years after a divorce, to allow time for healing and making room in his life that a new love might occupy. Most are all too willing to confuse rude, arrogant, and bullying behavior with strength and security. Many are willing to confuse lustful feelings and his skirt chasing for real respect and affection. I am not sure how many know to make sure they have the respect before they ever consider getting intimate at any level.
So how would the AC and EUM find someone they trust to confront them about their destructive habits and values? Mostly their lives repel respectful and responsible people, so they are unlikely to find someone they really trust.
And, really, most people seldom sit down and ponder the problems and hurts in their lives. They work to find a workaround – pick a new girlfriend, trade cars, upgrade the iPod, change jobs, go out drinking, whatever. And they go on. They don’t usually pay much attention to whether they fixed anything.
Right now you are embroiled in a search for meaning in your life and love life. Baggage Reclaim is good for that, there are probably more people here at that point in their life than almost any where else you could find. And that is the point. The AC and EUM seldom turn up here, seldom find something that they identify with and provides them useful guidance.
Count yourself lucky to find a means to examine your own life and choices. Understand that others that haven’t might be a higher risk companion. And do choose friends and associates with care – character counts. Who you choose to spend time with defines your character, and how important your boundaries are to you.
And keep in mind that the fixer-uppers are actually . . . broken. And more likely to break you than to do the repairs they need. You have already learned that you are not one of those that magically fix everything you touch. Accept that you dare not try fixing the lost puppies and sad stories and slick lines ever again.
EUMs and ACs don’t change because they can’t.
As a person that has recently broken up with someone, I think often times we go back to our old patterns of not letting the EUM go because that is what we are comfortable doing. I have a sneaking suspicion that my now ex is an EUM (due to some of his behavior and my history of picking them), but I am not positive. He could just not be that into me or having a relationship right now.
All I know is that our reality changed over the past two months and I found myself on the other side of ambiguity when we should have at best been growing closer, or at minimum continuing along the same course or pace with which we started.
The first time I confronted him about it he was ambiguous in his response. I left the conversation feeling more insecure than when I started it. RED FLAG. So I brought up the topic again a few days later and was more clear about my concerns. He was even more ambiguous and it was clear to me that we weren’t on the same page. I didn’t want to lose him and thought maybe he needed time. I gave it a month or so and our relationship continued according to his terms. Just last week though, the same issue came up again and at that point I had a sinking feeling in my gut that I couldn’t do it anymore. We had a very tough conversation. At the end of it, he was ambiguous about how he felt about us as a couple, he said that we are in different places (figuratively and also literally), and even though he listened to my concerns, he wasn’t willing to meet me half way. If we were to continue, it would be on his terms.
He was honest with me. We definitely were in different “places”. I wanted more of a commitment and an actual relationship. He wanted to see me and spend time with me when there wasn’t other “stuff” that he wanted to do. We hadn’t seen each other in five weeks because of travel schedules and he was fine not seeing me for another month. I thought there should be a way for us to shift our schedules a bit so we could see each other. I was willing to do it, he was not.
I couldn’t believe he wouldn’t compromise like I was willing to do. NML is right – we can’t assume that they are thinking the way we are about the relationship. And to continue to press our agenda or desires on them when they have other things in mind – well – we are trying to change them. So we either need to accept it or get out.
Finally, after about an hour of this difficult conversation I just said that I “can’t do this anymore.” He didn’t want to break up, but he didn’t want to do anything to make me feel any better. I didn’t want to lose him or the relationship BUT – I also was not happy with the status quo and honestly hadn’t been to thrilled with it for the past couple months. So I opted out.
And since then, I’ve been keeping myself busy but it hurts. I’m sad. He hasn’t called. I haven’t called him. And I wonder if I acted too rashly. Maybe I should have just put up with the status quo. But – that’s what I had been doing, at least to some degree, all along. I’d always had a nagging gut feeling that he was too free spirited of an individual with whom to have a relationship.
And many told me to “stay positive” and “think positively” and that if I focused on the negative it would turn out negative. So I tried that.
At the end of the day though – my gut won out. We had the talk and he was honest to say that he didn’t feel the same way about having a relationship with me. So we broke up. And it hurts. Because I remember all the good times. But there were lots of times where my gut feeling had me immersed in doubt and anxiety. I guess I need to remember that too.
If I had stayed and continued on his terms, we would have had more fights, I would have been anxious a lot of the time, I would have projected my wants for the relationship onto him, it just would not have been a good situation.
So now I am just sad – but these feelings too shall pass. I hope. It would be much easier and true to my past relationship history to call him up and just go back to having the relationship on his terms. Or to call him up and have another “discussion”. But what would that do? Just continue the cycle of my focusing on and spending time in relationships that are not healthy. That’s what I’ve been trying to get away from for the past two years. I need to just stop and let this pass and start accepting the reality.
Thanks NML, this series is incredibly timely.
Brad- I know the chances of a EUM change are very small since they dont do the introspection like we do or rely on writing information like you said.But it can happen.And btw I dont mean that I can make them change(neither do I want that anymore),I mean that once they want it they can change.I know the problem is them realizing they have a problem,what isnt much comun to happen.But remember that guy(I think his name was Dan) that was on the forum a while ago saying that he is a EUM and was doing therapy to change.They wont change because we want to but if they want it themselves I believe they can change yes.But I do recognize that the chances of that happening are very small and that most of them never realy change.
Madeamistake – that is exactly how i feel now! i NEVER thought i would get over “him.” It does get better – SO MUCH BETTER – it’s been 4 months no contact for me. Brad you are exactly right – they are broken & they will break you if you hang around. ashley, you are the smart one – don’t waste anymore of your precious time on this guy. i, too, had a pattern of coming back around to discuss, discuss, discuss. Wasted energy, wasted time. It’s one of the saddest things i have been through – but you can come out on the other end – once you really believe you are fine just the way you are. i think most of us are dealing with arrogant, abusive AC & it’s time to say no more. thanks NML – keep up the good work – you are doing a great service to many.
“Respecting the reality of someone gives you the opportunity to re-evaluate whether what’s on offer is what you still want.” NML
“The first time I confronted him about it he was ambiguous in his response. I left the conversation feeling more insecure than when I started it. RED FLAG.” Ashley
NML’s Comment + Ashley’s Comment = FBG Accepting the Ambivilant Man for Who He Is . . .
And that leads to pain and heartache and a hell of a lot of work. And in the case of the FBG (me) it leads to the clinging of hope, hope, and hope.
Now, add Brad K’s comment, “EUMs and ACs don’t change because they can’t.”
And thus, here I am: A woman – who believed in someone who said he wanted to change, who said that he was tired of his inertia, who said that he was tired of not really feeling connected – who has had to accept the fact that she made some really bad decisions and has to now fight her way back to emotional health.
I had to walk away to save me. So, I do agree with Brad K. in his above post to Anusha, with one exception: I do believe that people can change – if they want to and they have in them the will to do it. That said, the AC/EUM that I was involved with – I think that he wants to change, but because he is so enmeshed in his other unhealthy behaviors – that he can’t rather than won’t. The inertia that has been his “style”, the avoidance of real conversation, the lack of not setting deadlines, the over-analyzing of situations, the “work around” (Brad K.) . . . they just all add up to a swirling mess that spins and spins and spins.
And so, because I knew that some things had to change in my life, I began the very painful process of change (introspection, owning my responsibility, getting over the habit of talking over and over and over about the same thing with nothing ever getting resolved) and began to set boundaries in my behaviors (stopping the obsession, maintaining NC [even though I still have the desire to talk to him], not saying maybe to people when what I really meant was to say no), and began to set boundaries so that people could not engulf me.
The ambivalent man will take everything out of you, and I quite honestly believe that he isn’t really aware of how destructive his behavior is. So, while I ended up falling deeply in love, and it was love, I ended up losing so much of me. To stay involved with an ambivalent man who isn’t willing to do the work to change is self-destructive and very self- defeating.
“And keep in mind that the fixer-uppers are actually . . . broken. And more likely to break you than to do the repairs they need. You have already learned that you are not one of those that magically fix everything you touch. Accept that you dare not try fixing the lost puppies and sad stories and slick lines ever again.”
OH
SO
TRUE
– moreover, in the meanwhile who is fixing you, supporting you, loving you, making sure YOU are ok? Not you, that’s for sure, you’re throwing it down the black hole cos that is easier than changing …
@angelina “So, while I ended up falling deeply in love, and it was love, I ended up losing so much of me. To stay involved with an ambivalent man who isn’t willing to do the work to change is self-destructive and very self- defeating.”
@ ashley – your whole post.
exactly what i’m going through. exactly what i’m thinking.
and in about 2 weeks time we are moving to opposite sides of the earth. i’m sad, depressed, wish it was different, wish he was better, don’t want to let him go, nor do i want to participate in a gradually devolving relationship from lovers to occasional facebook friend profile curiosity.
sigh. i’m glad i have this website though.
“Respecting the reality of someone gives you the opportunity to re-evaluate whether what’s on offer is what you still want”…SO TRUE! My EUM couldnt offer me a commited relationship and I left him and later after few begging messages from him I came back…
@Ashley and Starbuck, I am in the same situation, mine contacted me and I was stupid enough to responded! Trust me situation is still the same, and he cant offer anymore than he can…its upset me so much, but I am not strong enough to let it go, I tried so many times:-(
I am also happy to that I discovered NML’s site!!!
We think that surely if someone is behaving like an asshole, they have to realise it at some point, feel remorse and strive to be a better person, in a better relationship…ideally with us.
I wish, but the sad reality is even if they do see it they so rarely acknowledge it I used to cry over the lack of apologies from one asshole always wondering why couldn’t they see how much he had hurt me. But the latter part of the sentences are telling I wanted him to feel remorse to be a better person to have a better relationship with me because I had invested so much and could not cut my loses.
I have learnt so much from this web site and books however it is amazing that I can repeat the experiment again and again… work to be done.
I agree with this post but it also does create some kind of tension in me from some confusion
NML writes….and I do really agree..
“Even if they have claimed to feel the same way that you do, this can change. We have to be careful of thinking that people we’re in relationships with should think, feel, and act in the way that we think, feel, and act. Their reality is different from yours. ”
And Brad I believe, brought up something in the past, that has made me think about this in a different way…. that me not listening to the EUM, ignoring his reality ( that is so different from mine) and wanting him to be different, emotionally available..in other words – me not respecting the AC that the is…. all these things are a form of disrespect to him. Like maybe I should respect the fact that it is within everyone’s right to be an AC if they want.
But, at the same time I very much do honestly think that they are broken, and this does imply not good enough, and needing improvement, and not accepting them for who they are and wanting them to change. And why on earth should I expect this of another ?
So …I am confused a bit …. But, I guess what I am getting clear on is that if I ever encounter this again I will respect the fact that the person is EU from a very early point and respectfully decline to get to know them because I * know * I will pass judgement on them, and want them to work to be what I consider a better person.
And that is not respectful to me, nor to them.
Where to begin except at the beginning. I met the socipath locally. I had just moved to town nearby to my sibling. I was supporting my daughter and her child. I was doing fine working, and providing for them except I made one huge mistatke. I felt compelled to get my daughter out and about to meet new people. The town was small and not much to do so we stopped into a local pub to eat. This is when my nightmare began.
Conversation opened up to this person, and before I knew what hit me, I was charmed, pursued, lavished with complements. What started out as a friendly acquaintance turned into a chase. Soon, he was at my house every night, he took over, called me 5 6 7 times a day. He loved my house, he loved the fact that I was a strong responsible women. He admired me, put me on a pedastal all the while gaining more control of my every move, all under the proclamation of love. He claimed he was a Christian and had recently moved from another state to start over. He came with nothing to call his own except for a loud, fast souped up Truck with a Killer stereo in it. He was living with a friend (male) and was involved in a Bible study group. He was professing he needed this group, they were great, held one another accountable, encouraged transparency. Within weeks, I saw inconsistancies in his life when he wasn’t around this group. Heavy drinking, smoking pot and hiding it all from this group. When he was around them, he hid these things from them. He actually told me that he could not (if it was God’s will) to get married again) marry a women who didn’t accept the beliefs and involvement with this grpoup (Ekklesia).
So the confusion began for me. Part of me was very intrigued by what the leader of this group believed. Within a few months, my confidence was slipping in my faith and how far God had brought me, I was told that if we didn’t see good fruit in our lives that we could be cast into hell upon Jesus’ return.
Well, as the story unfolds I soon realized that this group was a sort of a cult. I tried to point this out to this man, he defended it and the leader, even though the leader insisted that I meet alone with him to discuss issues in my life. This man even went as far as saying that if we got married we needed to counsel with him about everything, including our sex life. That it was a maintenance thing and this is the way the leader handled all of the people in his cult. I knew that this was sick. This too I expressed to “socio” in my life. I became so fed up with the pressure from this group trying to get me aside to ask questions about “socio” and so I told them for the socio’s own good that he was spending all his time at my house, smoking pot, drinking JD. I guess I knew this was going to be a test to see just how sincere the socio was. Well, he was confronted by the leader and a relative and aftetr that he broke up with me. By that time, I was so drained and confused and the beginning of brainwashing had set in.
The socio came to me after he made a visit to his parents in Florida that he decided he was going to move there. that his mom was sick and he felt moved to go there to be near them. He asked me to go with him. By this time, my daughter had gotten backwith her son’s father. The house I was in was too big forjust me so I was encouraged by the leader to find a smaller, more affordable place. I cant begin to explain the oppression I was under as I made thismove. I signed a 6 month lease and was being terribly pressued by socio to come to florida. I was depressed, scared, my faith was being shaken. After a couple of weeks of the socio being gone to Florida, he called me all the time. Sweet talking me, pressuring me, telling me of this wonderful life we would have together, all he wanted to do for us. He told me about all the money he wasmaking with his new job. He eased right into explaining that his credit was shot from his recent divorce and that he needed me to apply for an apt. rental. I did, I sold eveything to my name and drove to Florida. Upon arriving at 10 at night, he arranged for us to have a room in a motel. When I walked in, all he had was a bottle of Jack Daneils and his coke. I was hungry, thirsy and tired and he insisted he wanted to make love to me. Right then and there, God knows I should have turned right around and left him forever. I didn’t. There was something that had it’s hooks in me.
The apt. he picked out was one he lived in before years ago when he was in his twenties. I later found out this was where he lived with a girl when he was into his cocaine and partying and wild lifestyle.
I found a job and together we tried to make ends meet. One week after arriving there, I received a call from my family that my dad passed away. I was in shock, he sent me back to Ny with $40 to my name while hemade sure he had is gallon of Jack Daniels. When he took me to the airport, it was like being dropped off by a taxi service, he didn’t come in with me, he just left. I remember walking around in this huge airport, in a daze, I felt like I would pass out.
I managed to arrive in NY safe.
When I returned to Fl, I immediately went to his job, the first thing he said was, I need 400 dollars tomake my truck payment, that he paid by money order but they said they never received the payment. I couldn’t believe it.
To back up the story a bit, the day after I got the news of my dad’s passing, I had a few days before I would fly backto NY. He got me out driving with him and we ended up at a boat dealership. He tried to convince me of the dream he had of owning a boat, that he wanted to get his Captain’s license and we could one day charter fishing trips. He tried so hard to pursuade me to go to my bank for aloan. ThankGod, I wasn’t so far gone that I gave in. And this is only the beginning of the hell. I will add more after I take a nap.
Hi bibleannie. Thanks for posting your comment. Due to the length and nature of your comment, you should use the Baggage Reclaim forum to discuss your story further. Thanks