My Epiphany
Three months after finding out my husband was a military phony, aka narcissist sociopath, it finally sunk in that I can do what I want, when I want, how I want. For real. I can do what makes ME happy without walking on eggshells, without second-guessing myself, without worrying about pacifying his fragile ego. And. That. Is. A. Totally. Amazing. Feeling!
Confusion
How did I get to this point? It sure didn’t happen overnight, and it definitely wasn’t a straight line. First thing I had to do was break the trauma bond and the spell I was under. When I looked back at our relationship, I was so confused. Really confused. It was so hard to accept that the fraud he had turned out to be was the real him, and the person who had left me love notes on the bathroom mirror or stopped the project we were working on to dance with me in the garage – this romantic person was a fake.
His Veiled Confession
In retrospect, I remember that he used to tell me that he “used to be romantic” or that he “used to feel but that he didn’t really feel anything anymore.” He said this was the fallout from his first marriage. Now I wonder about this. I think he was telling me the truth that he didn’t feel anything, but the lie in that was what he was reporting as the cause – his first marriage. I think he wanted to be “romantic,” and I really do think he tried to be that with me. But the reality was he didn’t and doesn’t and never has felt anything remotely approaching normal feelings for anyone. I don’t think he’s capable of it.
Using DBT Skills
The trauma bond started to break before I found out he was a fraud. I made a DBT-style pros and cons list and read it often. A DBT-style pros and cons list is different than a typical pros and cons list with only one list of pros and one list of cons. In the DBT-style list I did a pros and cons of reasons to stay in the relationship and a pros and cons list of reasons to leave the relationship.
Here is an example. This isn’t my real list. My real list was much longer and more detailed.
As you can see, the pros of staying and the cons of leaving are similar or the same, as are the pros of leaving and the cons of staying. But it helped me to have the pros and cons of both options written down. It also helped to re-read these in the early days whenever I started to get sad about the situation or start to feel bad for him.
No Contact
In conjunction with reading this list, I went very low contact initially and no contact from about the second month after I left. Going no contact cut off any residual influence he had over me and was essential in breaking the trauma bond. Over time, I pulled the list out less and less and three months after I left, I had the epiphany that I really could do what I wanted with my time, energy and life. That’s a great feeling!