I Feel Like She Took Apart of My Soul.....

[AaronSG]

I don't know folks, I could just be rambling on about much of nothing here, but in recent days I've been feeling very strange and odd, and when I go about analyzing my feelings, I almost come to the strange answer, I almost always feel like my sociopathic ex-faince took part of my soul back home with her!

 

 

I don't know what to make of this, I've been in other serious relationships before, but this recent one takes the cake! Way back in High School 1985 to 1989 I had 3 very serious relationships with very normal and regular women, whenever those relations ended I never felt like they took any piece of me with them. I've been previously married to my ex-wife 1991 to 2008, my prior marriage ended in divorce, but even with the 14 years invested and instigating a divorce, even after that relationship ended I never felt like my very normal and regular person of a wife took any real piece of me with her after she was gone!

 

 

My ex-girlfriend 2010 to 2012 even after that relationship ended I didn't feel like she took any part of me with her as she left. Now here we come, my ex-faince late 2012 to 2014 this is where I am at a serious loss! It's been 3 months now since she has physically been in my life, it's been since August-7th since the last time we talked on the phone and here I am, for the life of me I can't figure out why, with this particular woman, why it feels like she ripped out part of my soul and took it back home with her.

 

 

The other women I've been with were normal in ever sense of the word compared to my ex-fiance. Some around these parts may be aware of my recent breakup story, but in a nut shell, she was a liar, a charmer, a deceiver, a manipulator, a controller, a user, a taker, at times a mild mentally abusing person, a person who rarely said "thank you" to anything that might have been given or done for her, a person who has some "entitlement" issues, a person that never once during the relationship ever said "sorry" about anything, a person who unknowingly came to me with so much damage from a life time of abuse she witnessed and suffered back at home, a person who unknowingly at first came to me a a former "cutter", damaging a very "private area of her body" when she a was a teenager, a person unknowingly at first who came to me being a person who was yanked out of the 2nd grade and never allowed to return to school, a person who unknowingly at first who was never allowed to seek out professional help of any sort for her life's problems, a person who brought her narcissistic father into my life, ect. ect. ect. ............I could go on!

 

 

Without knowing much or any of the baggage she brought into our relationship, at that, I loved her more than any woman I've ever loved before. She said all the right things, she did all the right actions, in very short order this woman almost morphed herself into what I had always thought the woman of my dreams would be. This woman was very attentive to my needs and wants and desires and at first she feed into them all and satisfied each and ever one. This woman was getting experiences of a life time with me, many to be "1st" for her, many day trips, many restaurant visits, many movie theater trips, many times hanging out with friends and family ect. ect. ect.

 

 

Granted, I wasn't totally dumb, there were the occasional "red flags" but when things were starting out for us, the red flags felt like many I might have faced before with normal woman, so blindly I brushed them off and kept going! Then one day I put my foot down and no longer allow money to be sent back home to family, and from that moment there was a total "doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hide" routine! Subsequently, the relationship, due to mischievous and manipulative reasons ends, and she goes back home to things worse off there then they were here.

 

 

Granted, I have made a lot of progress in my recovery from this situation, for nearly 3 months I've attended weekly support groups, joined many on-line support groups here on eNotAlone, picked back up reading "self help" books, had many honest and open conversations about these matters with friends and family, placed myself under the care of a Psychiatrist, am taking medications, I've done a lot to help myself to get back towards making myself whole again! But that's the issue, this person who came into my life like a lovely whirlwind, full of all the hopes and promises and dreams and love, then exit's my life like a devastating hurricane and almost leaves me for dead, this is the trick here, why did I always feel whole after my previous relations with what society would consider normal and regular women, and here it is, I mess around this one person who to come to find out from all my sources is a sociopath, why with this one do I feel like she ripped out a part of my soul and took it with her? Why with this one am I having the hardest time getting back to a place in life where I feel complete? Why with this one can't I seem to get my mind and heart back on track? And the kicker here......why with this one, who did all she did to me and my family and friends, and everything her family did to the same people, why oh why does a part of me still feel so addicted to her?

 

 

I don't know, I could be making mountains of mole hills here and be rambling on about nothing, but this one I just can't figure out. I've done all the things to help myself, I've invested tons of hours watching educational videos about Narcissists and Sociopaths and Psychopaths on You Tube, I've invested a lot of time reading official medical documents on-line about these physiological labels, but still with all I've learned and all I've seen through the video's and all I've been able to take away from my support groups and talks with friends and family, why oh why, do I still feel like in some regards that I'm at a loss here?

 

 

I just can't figure why I would still be in many ways still in love, or at least addicted to a person like this, and why does it feel like they took some of who I am with them?

 

 

In certain aspects it's as if I almost feel guilty about being the victim here, which that issue alone as to why I feel that way has got me stumped!

 

 

Can someone please explain this to me, am I just stupid, am I just uneducated, am I making something out of nothing? I don't know............I just feel like she took from me parts of what makes me, me!

[sadchick83]

Not only did you lose your girlfriend, you were swindled at the same time. I broke up with a loser/narcissist/user and felt the same way. One of the things that hurt the most was that he did not acknowledge the death of my father. He knew my Dad well. My strapping young ex used to watch my father mow the lawn while he drank his beers.

 

Everything you are doing is great. You will start to feel better soon. I promise you when you meet your next girlfriend, if she is a solid, decent person, you will soon forget about that crazy woman form Ohio. It is fresh and she has not been replaced.

 

It's not you, it's her and the nasty way she entered and exited your life. The self help stuff is good, but in the end, you are not the problem, she is! You've been wounded. Rather than spend anymore time on self-help books, treat yourself to something...A game of golf, a mini vacation, whatever. You will forget about her when you meet someone new.

 

Good luck!

[tabhronorm]

I agree, it will take time but you WILL get over her. I think you need to stop analysing it so much, you need to get out and about, do new things, meet new people. Good luck!

[Supernova1607309611]

Ah, this is simpler than you think.

 

This was a co-dependent relationship, where you were her rescuer, pulling her out of poverty, a crazy family, busily shaping her and 'training' her from being that crazy messed up sociopathic girl into what you thought was your own divine creation/perfection.

 

Co-dependent relationships are extremely hard to break away from, because you get hooked on 'rescuing' and teaching and controlling the other person such that they become the center of your world and your sense of self and self worth is based on taking care of them and feelings powerful 'rescuing' that person. It's the brass ring you are chasing, a very powerful reward mechanism, where if you are only a good enough Pygmalion you will save this person from themselves and you feel like a hero every day.

 

She was from a lower class than you correct? And you 'raised her up' and treated her as much like a child you were teaching as an adult equal. So there are some very powerful (and screwed up) emotions involved there that have a strong pull and are hard to break away from. So you didn't 'love her more' than others, she just tapped into a co-dependency/rescuer/teacher side of you that was a very appealing image for you to have of yourself, and gave you something to do with yourself busily rescuing and reforming her.

 

But sociopaths are excellent at tapping into what people want to do/be and they feed/play into that. So if what this girl wanted was an easy life for herself and her family and to live off your money and assets and send money home to her family, and you stopped providing that, she'll instantly quit playing the role you want her to play and will bolt. Because she obviously WAS in it for the perks and money if she evaporates as soon as you pull that plug.

 

And if she wasn't a sociopath but just a messed up girl riding the coattails of your co-dependency, she may have eventually grown up and gotten sick of playing second fiddle to your decisions and you parenting her rather than treating her as an equal. 'Cutting off' her money to her family is a parental kind of move (i.e, you deciding how money is spent rather than allowing her a voice in that) so she may have started chafing under being the 'good girl' you wanted her to be and decided she'd had enough of the controlling, co-dependent, teaching kind of behavior from you and wanted to be seen as an equal and not a subordinate/lesser person than you.

 

I suggest you read up on co-depedency and I think you will recognize your relationship there. There are many good books on that to help you understand that it isn't healthy and it tied into a bad kind of relationship rather than a good one. Romantic partnerships shouldn't be about one person in the superior role 'rescuing' or 'molding' or 'caretaking' another person who is screwed up. That is what co-dependencies are about.

 

Those books can help you learn to let go from the co-dependency that is still messing with your head even after she's gone. You're dependent on her to feel good about yourself because you were really into that rescuing/teaching role, which ultimately turns sour when the person being 'rescued' gets sick of dancing to the co-dependent's tune and wants to be free, or the person with the issues refuses to cooperate with you anymore as happened here.

 

What starts off as you feeling good at being able to 'help' or 'rescue' a person such as she is usually ends badly, because a person with such issues must help themselves and seek professional help or those changes are only temporary or designed to manipulate someone else to get a need filled (i.e., money for her and her family). And when that need is not filled/cut off, the person will revert back to what they were because the change was never genuine or really even desired but part of an unhealthy co-dependent drama.

[Supernova1607309611]

btw, there is nothing wrong with wanting to be a good person and help people. But think about all the money you wasted on her and her family trying to rescue her... those impulses should be directed into some kind of a charity or philanthropy to help the genuinely needy as opposed to trying to 'buy' the improvement of a lower class partner into someone you want her to be.

 

So it is good you like to help and enjoy giving, but you need to apply that appropriately via volunteer work or giving rather than an unhealthy co-dependent relationship with a partner who is more like a screwed up child you are trying to raise than an equal. Seek equals in your romantic partnerships, and you will be successful... Seeking wounded birds will ruin your life as you've discovered.

 

So take some of that energy now and find some way to do volunteer work to help you feel useful. There are so many good organizations that need volunteers and financial support, and you should look for one that has a cause that appeals to you and pour yourself into that. It will help fill some of those empty spaces where you feel you have 'lost' a part of yourself. You will feel needed and useful, and will be helping people/animals/whatever rather than helping a family pack of lazy sociopath users/losers. Spend your money and time more wisely, and look for a partner who is more an equal than a mess.

[sentiententity]

Hey Aaron, I'm an Aaron as well. Your ex sounds like my ex. Seems like messed up girls can be very enchanting for some reason. I suppose because they are so dependent on you emotionally. Just keep in mind how much of a pain they can be. That's what I've been doing.

[AaronSG]

This was a co-dependent relationship, where you were her rescuer, pulling her out of poverty, a crazy family, busily shaping her and 'training' her from being that crazy messed up sociopathic girl into what you thought was your own divine creation/perfection.

 

You know, and being totally honest here, your not the first person in my life to point this type of example out to me! I've had various people from some of my closest friend, to cherished family members to people in my weekly codependency support group and now you, everyone kind of putting a different spin on it, but everyone in the end basically saying the same thing! And as I tell them, like I'll tell you, your right, I took on a woman from a very troubled past, from a very troubled home, from a very non experienced life, from a very financially destitute home, from a life time of being on "entitlement programs" ect. ect. ect.

 

Some tell me, as you have done, that I took this woman on not just because I thought I madly loved her, but I might have taken her on because deep down inside me I felt pity for her, and perhaps at first, without knowing it or at least being able to mask or deny as to what some of the real reason were, but in the end I took on this woman and rather than placing her into a the category of "she's my equal" I rather placed her in the category of "I can save her and maybe bring her up to my level"! So yeah, honest, in hindsight, I can see it now, that the bulk majority of the time I was in relations with my ex-faince, I can honestly say that I was more in a adult parent role, rather than totally being in a "I'm her lover or fiance role"!

 

And your also right, like many people in my life over here had pointed out, I attempted to bring to life something perhaps off the pages of the script to the mid 90's hit movie Pretty Woman! Like my best friend Kyle pointed out about 3 weeks back, you took this woman literally from out of nothing, paid to fly her 2000 miles, told her as she walked into your home for the first time that this home is now equally her's, telling her that everything I had been able to accumulate in my home was now equally her's and so forth. You took this woman who had no world experiences and paid for trips like San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Lake Tahoe, Nevada State, Bodega Bay, Napa Valley ect. ect. ect. you felt it important to start putting experiences in her head, you gave this woman in short order access to your bank account on-line and told her that she could make choices about it, as telling her that all the money I had been able to accumulate is now equally her's.

 

My friends and family after a short while of my ex-fiance being here became alarmed and worried that this relationship I'd gotten myself in had nothing to do with "two equals" living with each other, but rather some saw it as a grown up taking care of a lost pitiful child and seeing that I was more so trying to change her into something completely different than what she was! Isn't it great that usually in regards to such thing, we are usually the last to know! I had no real clue as to what I was really trying to do, I really had no clue that I perhaps thought of my ex-fiance as some sort of charity case, but as it has been pointed out by some, there I was, going through the motions as if it was a charity case, I've been told that they feel that I didn't recognize my reason at first, other than as I usually do and that is to be the "nice guy" in all my relations, they told me that my "as usual" propensity to want to play the role of the "nice guy" and as I do very often, and that is being told that I always try to be looked at as a guy who always likes to do the "right thing"! So in the end, be it a friend, be it a family member, be it a support group member, be it "who ever", I'm being told that in a large way I had created the problems I suffer from now, I brought them on all on my very own.

 

Again, it's funny that were usually the last to know about these things, because at the time I thought I was doing all the "right things" and at the time I thought I was totally being the "nice guy", but alas, as pointed out by some, my subconscious was in "over drive" and it was helping me to justify and emotionally and mentally reason and excuse myself from the true reason for my choices and actions. Bitter pill to swallow here, to know that I alone allowed myself with questionable intentions in the end be a product of my own creation! Due to wanting to be the "nice guy" and to do the "right thing" I have indeed brought some of this on myself. That in the end, perhaps what I feel that my ex-faince took from me isn't so much my soul, but perhaps she took away my subconscious's desire to fulfill a dream or wish, and that was to lift this woman up, bring her to a satisfactory level in life, put things at that point on "automatic pilot" and live out the rest of my life knowing or at least fooling myself into believing that I did the "right thing"!

 

Maybe it's not my soul here, but just the burst bubble of a dream unfulfilled.

 

I asked my friends and family who gave me some of their "pearls of wisdom" why they didn't speak up when they saw the questionable events play out as they were happening, most told me that they didn't feel it was their place to come between me and my relationship with my ex-faince, most tell me that with some things are best left alone, and getting in the middle of another persons relationships is one of the things best left alone. Plus a very limited few have told me that they knew from day 1 that the relationship was doomed, they saw the hand writing on the wall, they saw how she was, they saw the baggage she brought with her, they saw me making off the wall choices that weren't the normal I would make, they saw me more and more as the day's progressed becoming, as they say, and no offense here to anyone for their choice of words, but they told me that they could tell as the day's went on that Aaron was becoming more and more "pu**y whipped" and they saw me becoming more so a puddle of goo than standing on my own two feet and being the solid clear thinking man they knew I could be. So in the end some of who have shared this with me didn't want to get involved, they figured that this was something I had to go through alone, they figured that in the end I'd get so devastatingly hurt that the pain alone would force me at some point to start to think about the "why" factors! And they told me that they knew when after was all said and done, and that the relationship was destroyed, that they knew if I could get to the point of merely asking "why", they knew I'd be okay!

 

I know time can heal all wounds, I at least can recognize that in 3 months I've have come a good ways in my recovery. I am at present continuing to make good choices for myself, like maintaining my attendance at 3 different support groups per week, one being a 12 step liars anonymous group, one being a codependency group and one being a life's issues support group! I'm reading a couple "self help" books at present, that deal with failed relationships and perhaps how to build better ones, I'm still having good communications with friends and family and not being afraid to talk about all of this with them, even if I don't like the answers, I'm taking my health more into play and making better health choices for myself, like engaging in at least three 2 mile walks per week, also supported by 2 times a week swimming in the heated pool, watching more so of what I eat now a day's and sometimes just taking some time to do some fun things! I'm feeling better, I'm looking a little better, I'm being better, but it was just this one last nagging thing that I had to come here and present to everyone, the whole "it feels like she took part of my soul" thing. Now perhaps I can put this baby to rest once and for all and perhaps think it wasn't my soul she took, it was just that she perhaps robbed my subconscious of full filling it's wish or dream, and that was to "save her"!

[Supernova1607309611]

the most important thing you should take from this is that you can't 'renovate' a person... they are not like fixer upper houses/projects because for them to be 'fixed', they have to fix themselves. And vast majority of the time, what you see is what you get, so if they are a total mess, you'll think you see progress, but ultimately when the initial glow wears off, they will revert to who they really are and want to be.

 

So when you meet new women, you need to ask yourself, 'can i live with this woman exactly as she is now if there are not changes made?' If you have the urge to change or fix her, she's not for you and you need to pass on her. And you need to watch very carefully for any woman who will instantly avail herself of all your assets and resources... there are gold diggers out there, and they are willing to disguise who they are in order to avail themselves of an easy life. A good woman would feel awkward and unwilling to immediately move in with you and start spending your money, and most likely she will be more mature and closer to your age and circumstances.

 

So what you need is some kind of a project to make you feel useful and engaged, but that 'project' shouldn't be trying to renovate a woman! So just stay busy and get engaged/involved in activities that make you feel worthwhile, and stop centering your world around thoughts of her and instead imagine a HEALTHY relationship with a NORMAL woman and you will eventually find one.

[Dcgent]

I would refer you back to the comments on made on your previous threads, as I feel those comments are still relevant to what you continue to write. I do want to note, that maybe you also need to reread what you post as well. Your initial post for this particular thread is very contradictory and I think you will find some of your answers on your own. You mentioned all these things that she did that didn't respect you or the relationship of the opportunities you provided, but then you go on to talk about how right everything was/felt.... If she wasn't respecting you, as you point out, how can you go on to say it was all so right?

 

"She said all the right things, she did all the right actions, in very short order this woman almost morphed herself into what I had always thought the woman of my dreams would be. This woman was very attentive to my needs and wants and desires and at first she feed into them all and satisfied each and ever one."

 

I think you are trying to break this relationship down to a molecular level...and quite frankly that isn't possible and at some point you are going to need to break away from her as a variable in this equation and look at yourself. You mentioned you saw all these red flags, but you ignored them. Intentionally at times and unintentionally at other times. I think the fact that you were able to ignore these red flags is a major factor to this all. Why did you ignore them. Why would you let someone disrespect you or the relationship so early on. It wasn't that you finally put your foot down that made everything change...the change was already constant and suddenly the boiling point was surpassed...on both sides....

 

What even made you like this person to begin with? With your significant difference in age...upbringing...geographical (almost cultural) differences, etc... Like I said in previous threads your foundational values and morals were not the same at all. You really need to stop labeling her as xyz and accept the situation for what it is. You two were not meant for each other, because you both were far from being compatible.

 

You need to forgive to move on and I don't think you have forgiven her or yourself...and you really need to do that. Stop over analyzing everything...it isn't getting you anywhere fast. It sounds like you are taking advantage of every support network provided, from meds to groups to therapy to books to online forums, etc.... Stop figuring her out...figure yourself out. You sound lost to me...and I am sorry to hear that. Many of us have been there. You were in a toxic, cancerous relationship and it will take time to heal...you can try to figure out why it happened, but sometimes you just need to focus on not letting it happen again. I know your happy place is within reach...but you aren't putting enough energy forward to find it!

 

Wishing you well on this journey...and hope to read further updates.