FAQ

Some Dos and Don'ts That Might Save You and Others a Lot of Pain

Tips from women who have survived the devastating impact of spousal relationships with pathologically disordered men.

This blog is written for female survivors of male perpetrators.

DO get comfortable with 'I don't know' as the answer to everything for a while.

He has been manipulating your reality for a long time and the explanation for his sudden abandonment when you thought you had a safe secure happy relationship will take a while to percolate.

DON'T imagine there is an innocent explanation for his sudden personality change.

If the narcopath checklist and descriptions of manipulative behaviour read like the pages of your diary, start believing it. You’ve been trapped by your own denial. You married Dr Jekyll. Now you’re discarded by Mr Hyde.

DO resist the urge to ask him for an explanation.

He will take zero responsibility and flip the blame back onto you. End contact as soon as you can.

DON’T offer him kindness forgiveness generosity and hope to be friends the way you have with exes in the past.

He will continue to use and manipulate you as a source of supply, cover or an enabler for the rest of his life if he can. Free yourself.

DO move swiftly to protect your children, home, bank accounts, business, whatever.

He is a liar and a thief. He will take whatever he can from you, despite the polite words he uses to entice you back into denial of who he really is. Change the locks if you are still in your marital home. Seriously.

DON’T blame yourself for everything.

He has conditioned you to accept the blame for all his shortcomings, as well as your own. You did your best. You are a good person. You are none of the things he has told everybody you are. Your character will rescue the reputation he shredded. Keep the high moral ground.

DON’T expect to recover in a few weeks like you have always done in the past.

This isn’t a skirmish. This is a war you didn't choose. The depth of your injuries may not become clear for years as the thousands of lies are slowly unravelled.

DO find a place of refuge as soon as you possibly can.

Shifting to a safe location where he can't gaslight you or manipulate you is the first step in recovery.

DON’T assess your situation by your own experience of break ups in the past. The guy is seriously disordered and does not behave like other men.

Read the case studies and educate yourself. If you anticipate every blow, you can arm yourself better. It’s frightening, but it will end.

DON’T tell the psychopath you have realised he is a psychopath.

He will have to retaliate by smashing you to pieces.

DON’T warn his next host of his personality disorder to protect her from the harm he has inflicted on all the women in his life.

She won't believe you. She thinks she has met her soulmate at last. And she has been groomed and seduced, like you were, believing his last wife (you) was abusive/alcoholic/dishonest/crazy/whatever other slanderous accusation he has made against you. He will have to punish you by destroying your credibility and reputation.

DON’T ask him for an apology for all the lies he told and promises he broke.

He has no conscience, nor shame and can never apologise. He will accuse you of being insane yourself (and you just might believe it if you are suffering Narcissistic Abuse Syndrome).

DON’T beat yourself up for feeling such deep pain and having trouble functioning normally.

This is not a normal break up. You cannot manage it in the way you have in the past. The reason you feel like you have been used and discarded like a thing is because you have been. It is he who should be ashamed, not you. It is very likely your anxiety symptoms are PTSD. There is treatment for that.

DON’T try to expose him on Facebook or elsewhere.

Very few people will believe you. He and his army of fans and followers will turn and attack you.

DO accept that every move you make after the mask drops will result in a worsening of his behaviour.

He is unfathomably vindictive. He wants to destroy you. He wants you to destroy yourself.

DON’T seek help and support from a shrink who has no experience of malignant narcissism or psychopathy.

Aussie shrinks know very little about these disorders. Ask them before you trust them with your frailty.

DON’T expect support from your male friends.

They will want to protect the psycho, not you. Break-ups are the place where patriarchal male entitlement rears its ugly head in men of many backgrounds.

DON’T confide in your traditional conservative female friends.

They will blame you for being a bad wife, and try to remind you of all the good times you must have had, urge you to forgive him, and get over it. They’re wrong. They’ll never get it.

DON’T hang onto friends who want to judge criticise and blame you.

If they make you feel shame and tell you they are only pointing out all your character flaws because they love you, stop associating with them. It is better to be alone than to be surrounded by toxic people.

DO seek out support from other women who have been victimised by a narcopath and feminist organisations.

At the very least, they understand the kind of domestic abuse that 1 in 4 Australian women endure. They might also understand the way your abuser twists the truth and uses your good character against you. Even then, if you are high-functioning:- that is, you’re able to wear a brave face, control your emotions and hide your shocking psychological injuries, they might not see past the fact that you have no bruises or broken bones.

DO listen to your innermost fears of how low he will stoop to destroy you.

Destroying you is necessary for him to be free to move unencumbered into the next chapter of his life. Protect yourself from further hurt in whatever way you can. Better still, go NO CONTACT as soon as you can. You can cope with this shock. You can heal your abandonment wounds. You can overcome the grief of losing everything to a love-fraud. You can recover.

DON’T believe him when he says he still loves you, never meant to hurt you, or wants to settle ‘amicably’ via mediation.

He thinks manipulating exploiting and destroying women is love. He is deeply vindictive and wants to punish you. He has to destroy you and ensure that everybody blames you rather than him and keep his reputation intact. He will continue his covert manipulative and deceptive behaviour in court. It will give him a thrill to dupe intelligent, highly-skilled legal practitioners. It will be like blood-sport for him, with you as the hunted prey. He has to WIN at all costs.

NOTE: Responses to the aftermath in survivor case studies are remarkably similar, so……

It’s normal to feel like he’s driven you insane. It’s normal to question whether you are narcissistic like him.

It's normal to want to blame his next host instead of him. It’s normal to vacillate between grief for someone you love and disbelief that anyone who claims to love you could hurt you with such callous disregard.

It’s normal to start seeing psychopaths and narcissists everywhere now you know about them. It’s normal to feel overwhelming compassion and to warn his next host. It’s normal to be horrified at how many lies you believed. It’s normal to feel like you’ve been raped. It's normal to want revenge (resist this - it only escalates his narcissistic rage and doubles his efforts to disable you).

It’s normal to feel like you’ll never recover (you will). It’s normal to be traumatised and lose control of your behaviour - your survival instincts have been triggered. It’s normal to feel overwhelmed by a nightmare no-one else can see and respond with anger and rage, wanting to escape, or collapsing into a frozen state of terror and self-loathing.

It’s even normal to feel suicidal.

This dreadful state of mind has been deliberately DONE to you! You are the victim of unmitigated cruelty.

BUT

You can recover from this. You are stronger than you think. Recovery is a long, winding road.