will I have to pay spousal support? Archives

Is love all we need?
It might be… if we’re talking about
a relationship with a puppy.
So many things make our world,
but most of all it’s our beliefs
that shape our experiences.

We hear a lot of things about relationships, about marriage, and what makes them work; “love” is always the bottom line: “If you love each other.”

We also hear: relationships are hard work. And stories of love at first sight, or being swept off our feet. We’ve all heard the adage that says love conquers all, and have been told that all couples fight.

When things go wrong we’re counseled by well-meaning friends or family with things like boys will be boys. And you still might hear that a woman’s place is in the home. And when things are really rough someone might tell us, you made your bed, now lie in it. – To my way of thinking, “love” somehow got lost in here.

“Unconditional” Loves Makes Room for Bad Behavior

narcissists do not love narcissistic abuse

It’s said that true and real love is meant to be unconditional, as well as some who say the legal contract of marriage is phooey and, that it’s only a piece of paper.

There are so many expressions describing the experience of love, let’s look at more of them: we fall into it; we’re crazy in it. Sick with it, and: all’s fair in love and war.

If you think about it, you’ll come up with a barrel full and more of these platitudes floating around. We’ve all heard all of them. We all absorb them unconsciously, or believe them all the way.

I have to say, personally, none of these sentiments cause me to want to be hit by cupid’s arrow. A really important question to ask ourselves is: How do our beliefs about love help us and how do they cause us to suffer?

What Do These Metaphors Mean About Our Expectations in Relationships?

Relationships are Hard Work

Are they? Is this a fact..? I coined a slogan long ago from my own experience in relationships: when it’s right, it’s easy. – Isn’t this just as valid? – What’s “right” has to be factored in. We won’t get “easy” if we want different things when it comes to the big questions in life like where to live, how to live and having kids or not.

Honestly when it comes down to it things won’t last if we have different ideas of what’s funny, or favorite foods or eating styles. Vegan vs. fast food is not going to have many happy meals together. A smoker vs. a runner is going to have a short lap around the track at best.

Narcissistic abuse recovery sessions.
Read all about it here.

Love at First Sight

This is kinda romantic and yes, there can be a primal pull to someone, an attraction that goes deep, but actual l.o.v.e…? Not so much. That would take more time. Guess who wants us to think the real deal happens in one instant?

Swept Off Our Feet

Yes! That adrenaline rush and that floaty feeling like our feet left the floor and our head is full of clouds. That sounds very unstable. Like being out of control…and it is just that. This isn’t the time to jump into a commitment. It’s time to take a step back. It usually signifies something isn’t quite right, or isn’t really for us.

What Truly Conquers All in Life?

If only love conquered all. We love our dolls when we’re little; that doesn’t stop them from getting dirty or lost. Our goldfish captures our hearts; they still stink up the glass bowl and die anyway. Never being defeated by loss or grief, or life’s ups and downs, now that conquers all.

It’s Noble and Poetic to Stick Around No Matter What

William Shakespeare: Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.

Every Couple Fights

Do they…? First of all, what constitutes a fight? Screaming? Throwing things, ignoring us, calling us fat? Wwho would do that…? What the heck is there to fight about? In my experience, when it’s right it’s easy. There’s nothing to fight about.

Boys Will Be Boys

Really…? We know who likes this one. This palliative phrase echos another historical era, like when people thought the earth was flat, and believed if we walked far enough we’d fall off the edge. Boys need to eventually be men. And men and boys will be held accountable. If they are subhuman as a pathological user then, bye-bye.

A Woman’s Place is in the Home

Hey, I love home. Home is where the heart is. And as women we have a place outside the home too. Again, the earth is no longer flat and girdles are not required.

You Made Your Bed

Life is about creating what ever we want. We’re never stuck in any one place. This is from those flat-earth and earlier beliefs. When women were property and even as near to now as the 1980’s when women had to fight to get a bank loan to by a house on their own.

Our Beliefs About Love Create Our Experience

It’s Only a Piece of Paper

As if marriage is unimportant and the legalities and life changing effects therein are “only a piece of paper”. Nope. A marriage certificate is not “only a piece of paper.” In legalities alone there are many, many binding alterations to our life. Those are in place until we divorce them. That nightmare-ish process is another can of legal worms, and includes myriad little pieces of paper I’m sure most of us hold in high esteem.

And then in real life terms being a wife or husband is entirely another realm than boyfriend territory even if you live together. Anyone who’s been married knows the experience of that something that kicks in that makes everything different. This is a life bond.

Marriage, from an emotional or spiritual and legal stand point is far beyond a piece of paper, even if we don’t know that until we experience it.

Understand and heal PTSD.

If It’s Real It’s Unconditional

This sentiment is a bizarre notion. To me it signifies a free hall pass to any and all (bad) behavior within a relationship. Nope. Not a good idea.

Unconditional acceptance is for babies, actual infants, not grown men and women. Pathological predators depend heavily on our concept of this kind of love in order to use us. To me unconditional love is reserved for babies and puppies, so to speak.

We’re “Crazy In Love”

The pathological predator, a sociopath is incapable of feeling love. Love is nothing to a sociopath. We are their prey. They are dependent upon us. There’s no love going on here.

This expression about how it feels to love is natural. It can seem whirlwind and so exciting and we’re crazy about them! What we’re discovering is that there are situations that are full of chaos, trauma and legitimate fear. This is not “crazy in love” this is the trauma of being involved in anyway with a pathological user.

In the aftermath of this mess, when we talk about our feelings to others, they’re cool at first – maybe. Typically at a certain point things flip and we get a sense hat they think we’re crazy. Being entangled into a fake-latioinship by a sociopath feels like crazy and we start to think we’re crazy. We aren’t crazy. Recovery from crazy is possible.

We “Fall Into” Love

Fall…? Remember falling…? Like from childhood. Falling, was bad. It hurt. It was a loss of control, an absence of safety. A lack of choice. An accident. Traumatic. Falling happened to us, we didn’t decide to do it. How is this related to love…? Does this concept need to be a part of our ideas about how we love?

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We’re “Sick” with Love

I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t want to be sick with anything. I get it, that longing that aches and is the pain of wanting someone. Especially if they go out of town, or already have a girlfriend or boyfriend, or they don’t seem to notice us. But – uhh – that was high school.

All’s Fair in Love …and War

Where the heck did that come from? Come on. No. It isn’t. Personally, I think there’s nothing fair whatsoever in war. And I firmly believe that all is meant to be fair in love unless you’re meaning it’s fair to lie. Nope: that’s not fair at all. That’s criminal.

Why Isn’t Love Enough?

The nasty pathological predator counts on our surrender to love, our complete trust in love combined with our lack of understanding that this kind of predator exists and what that means.

They depend on us buying into the idea that we’re blinded by it; that it’s enough, that love doesn’t question, that it never dies, that if it’s “true”, it lasts forever and until death do us part. In reality with a pathological predator, such as a narcopath (a sociopath), it was never there and we typically only know that after they’ve parted us from our health, money, property, sanity and dignity.

Are There Other Ways to Conceptualize and Live Out Love?

How many concepts of love can you think of? There’s a fool for it, and that other person is our better half. We’ve all heard what’s his name from that movie say: you complete me. – Sorry Tom, but that’s just not our job.

Make a list of as many ideas stuffed into little idioms or platitudes that you can think of. Then think baout how they contribute to confusion or maybe pain. Then check out the TED talk below for some great ones and alternatives for new ways to think about and experience love.

What If We Think About Matters of the Heart a New Way?

What if we thought of love differently? For example, as something we partnered in? Or stepped or walked into rather than fell into? If we turned the popular concepts we live from into new thinking, such as: we collaborate in love? That we create it, build it. Grow into it and within it. Choose it and harmonize in it. Imagine if those feelings of love could be enough if we thought of them in a new way.

Here’s a great TED Talk discussing how we think of love and how this shapes our experience of love, Just like with all things in life: from our perspective, our expectations, our beliefs that determine and give us the fortitude and wisdom to conquer all.

Mandy Len Catron – A Better Way to Talk About Love

Ms. Catron works with words and language and talks about how we think of love as a form of madness, and metal illness, and it’s full of violence and we fall into it, and are smitten by it as a vengeance from an angry God. What if instead, love were a collaborative work of art?

Love Is How and What We Make It

The pathological predator, a sociopath is incapable of feeling love. Love is nothing to a sociopath. We are their prey. They are dependent upon us. There’s no love going on here.

Here’s to REAL True Love and Happiness!

Look into guided recovery coaching here.

Feel free to email me for coaching at personalized rates, jennifer@truelovescam.com

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As a certified coach, upholding industry standards I strive to inform, educate, invite thought and dialogue, to co-plan, co-strategize, advise, consult, refer, recommend, train, teach, guide and coach people in guided recovery and discovery specific to these crimes, and from hell and broken in the aftermath to whole again, and more. You decide what winning is.