I have read in many of these posts that those of us exposed to a sociopathic relationship must not blame ourselves and instead we were victims of someone with a severe and sick personality disorder - this I see. But I still ask myself what in me was able to TOLERATE his behaviour for as long as 13 years and be taken for such a ride when I am intrinsically a smart intuitive girl who is a survivor. I look back to my family environment which was full of fear and sickness and a negative attitude towards life because of my unstable mother and where there was a vibration in our household that emanated that - that same vibration sat in each household I shared with my ex - I knew it, it was familiar to me, so I could tolerate it. My mother was a hypochondriac who made her two daughters attend to her needs so that she kept us close to her and got her needs met, which my father never did because he always had affairs, she was entirely neurotic. To this day I blame her for my sister becoming a drug addict and dying of an overdose though I know my sister always had a choice to stop and change. At 17 I walked out and told my mother to fuck right off with her life threatening attitude and let me live a life of my own and so got rejected by her and punished by her love being taken away, and of course because my sister was always sick, she was the centre of attention, and my emotional needs were never met. I found my ex needing his needs to be prioritised all the time, always wanting attention from me and his son, acting out in a funny or threatening way so we would pay attention and keep him our priority, either out of laughter or out of fear. It was always about him and of course with a sick sister who I took care of for over 20 years, it was always about her and my needs had to be put aside, so I was used to it. I also definitely had rejection issues from my mother so I suppose to receive verbal abuse, which is very rejecting and repeats how worthless you are, echoes that, and again, it was familiar to me. Physical abuse was not but seeking approval after the physical abuse was a big issue of mine - maybe if I had done this or that he would not have done this or that and of course he often told me I deserved it or caused him to do it. He also often seemed to go into a fugue state when he physically abused me, as if another personality appeared and appeared not to remember the magnitude of what he had done, or not remember it at all, unless that was just manipulation, and my mothers emotional climate would change constantly creating an unstable and unsteady emotional climate for us girls. I climbed the success ladder early and made a huge success of my life but fear was in my bones and was my motivation, and sickness was an absolute terror of mine and of course as the universe dictates, I came crashing down to face those very wounds to heal them, only to still be in an abusive relationship with a man who offered me no care at all when i lost my entire family and my sister to a drug overdose, never put his arms around me, not even when I had cancer. I have no experience of being supported in that way because it was our job to always support our mother never to be supported, or my job to always support my sister and my father was an absent alcoholic. In the end, I did not know what love felt like or looked like though now after this experience with my ex sociopath, I know what love is not, love is not abuse and love cannot thrive or live in an abusive environment no matter how many apologies are delivered. So back to self reflection, surely we do have to look at ourselves and our familial environment, our family of origin, our tendencies, our own emotional weaknesses when considering how we tolerated a sociopath and his ongoing manipulation and abuse - my sister was a major manipulator for example and I paid for everything for her, due to my wealth at that time, my mother abdicated, I took charge, I only once in 20 years told her to get on a plane and look for her own fucking daughter on the streets than keep expecting me to do her job, but she would cry incapable and strong pendra would step in of course, all over again, be the saviour. My father was sick so I was used to sick men, I suppose I had a tendency to want to heal them, or heal simon vicariously as if he were my father who had succumbed to death through alcoholism and who I had refused help to, I knew what a sick man looked like and I wanted to believe I had the power to make my whole family as well as I wanted to be, as was in my soul character - my mother, sister, father - so I suppose I believed that I could make simon well too, if only I could make him happy and his character did change over the years, he became far more responsible than when i met him - he was the cocaine addicted alcoholic wreck in those days and I was the dynamic successful businesswoman - now he is the responsible well dressed, go to work on time guy and I am the wreck rebuilding my life from scratch and he doesn't give a damn for how I helped him get there. How I helped him engender self respect no matter that it did not erase his sociopathic tendencies. I think I also permanently and forever felt guilty for betraying my mother and her negative life script and walking away into the wilderness, into my life, or being the healthy successful one when my sister was the mirror opposite in sickness and addiction, I felt I owed them both somehow and thats perhaps why I also paid for my dues and neglect of their needs or my mothers particularly through abuse from simon but in the end my spiral downwards, like the myth of icarus where his father makes him a set of wax wings and warns him not to fly too close to the sun because his wings will melt and he will tumble into the dark sea, that is what I did. I flew higher and higher to get further and further away from the threat of sickness and annihilation that my mother warned us girls about, and my sister numbed herself with drugs and could not even smell a mountain. In the end my spiral downwards brought me face to face with my wounds and fears, as did my relationship with my ex sociopath, as painful as it is to confront them. As I see it, even though I am sore and scared shitless, now I get to meet them and heal them finally and continue a life without them being present as uninvited guests who are permanently beside me. I have to look at my self esteem, my self worth, my guilt, my issues of rejection, my ability to tolerate a sick toxic environment, the ability I have now to discern what is healthy and what is not, what I will accept and what I will not, develop filters that will show me the signs of a person who is not well or not healthy for me, dangerous or someone with a personality disorder, see someone with a mask, go slower, not rush into relationships and bare all, be more private, contain my own anxiety without instantly seeking outside counsel from friends which offers me therapy on tap and creates debts with them as I become the needy one and the friendship swings out of balance. Know I can walk out, as I did with my mother, but never did with Simon, know that even if it hurts another, like Simon (or my mother) I can choose a life of my own that is healthy and vibrates with my own needs and desires, that I am allowed to, that I don't need to keep paying the debt to my mother by recreating situations where there is sickness or I am exposed to life limiting situations that keep me trapped. Learn to shut the fuck up with people. Find more joy and lightness in my life. Say NO NO NO NO, if it doesn't work for me, don't submit, don't comply, don't seek approval and make constant apologies or seek to be accepted, again a mother issue. So in all this which is very personal, I do think we need to self reflect and see why we allowed ourselves to be treated this way as much as we were also victims of very subtle and magnificently crafted manipulation and a very cunning strategy, a person who changed faces, who made sure we complied with their threatening measures, who used verbal abuse to kick box us to the floor as if it were physical abuse, so they then had us in submission and could do with us as they chose, or physically abuse us and then tell us like my ex did when he knocked me unconscious that I was drunk and on pills, when I knew I was stone cold sober and no pills. I have just looked up the definition of a narcissist and seen my old good female friend is just that - I keep wanting her to take SOME tiny bit of responsibility in the breakdown of our special friendship (or I thought it so) and no matter how hard I try, as with my ex sociopath, she aint gonna. So learn Pendra, stop trying, shut the fuck up, stop looking for gold in an empty pit. Trust that more reliable and healthier people will come later when I am stronger and more discerning, let those who have walked out of my life cos they are sick of the drama go, don't try and bring them back, dont try and explain it all. Feel dirty from it all all on your own, maybe with the help of this site and a therapist, don't mix therapy and friendships, learn to create more distance and don't splab it all or put yourself on display. Choose a healthier environment, learn what that looks like even though I don't intrinsically know because I have not been exposed to one, and it doesn't have to be surrounded by and ordinary average white picket fence, it can still accommodate my unusual nature in some way but be healthy. One day someone will read to me whilst I am in the bath, surrounded by candlelight in a gentle voice and there will be beautiful music in the background. One day I will know how love feels. I will fight through this to give myself that opportunity, he and they (my dead family) will not win, not today at least.