A profound realization about idealization-I'm unstuck!

I wanted to share this with all of you, a revelation that I've had the last few days and it is very freeing. I've been listening to Thomas Sheridan's interviews over and over when I have felt depressed over my ex. It's driving my kids crazy LOL! I also blog on another site, and had a big epiphany there that has me moving forward when I was so incredibly stuck. I see it a lot here too and I think it's the biggest impediment to the healing process.

I was stuck because my ex psychopath did not fit the bill of the sexual predator. While he showed some deviancy sexually, ie: I was an object, the OW, exploited me sexually, abused me sexually, etc, he wasn't heavily into porn, he wasn't screwing fifty million women, the sexuality amounted to what was mere novelty. Doing it outside in weird places on his property, in a hot tub, and he wanted me to use a vibrator really bad, but I refused, not because I was necessarily opposed to it, but because I knew i was being OBJECTIFIED and I always felt that he really wasn't "into" sex the way some of your personality disordered men were. I was the ow for ten years of his second 17 year marriage. Looking back, I believe that soon after his marriage he began to withhold, got bored and the idealization phase with her was over. Sex, as he said, was a "maintenance chore" at home. I believe he had the Madonna/Whore complex. Once he marries, sex is good for about a year. then it stops. then it's time to look for a triangulation. He loves that. He enjoyed the triangulation. It gave him more POWER. He bores VERY easily. this new marriage too, is a novelty. He will get to do everything he wants to do and then will get bored. Sex will become maintenance again and then he'll be on the prowl. He told me once that if he could just find the right woman, he could be faithful. He played "hard to get" at first with me. Like he was faithful. talked about his wife all the time, yet was at my house everyday for lunch. It was all a cover. He talked about her, because he had no personality to discuss with regards to himself. I saw a dependence that was overwhelming, as well as sickening. I've since learned that putting your spouse on display on a pedestal, is just as damaging as not putting her there. It is an insult. What it really turned out to be, upon reflection is that he enjoys controlling, isolating, one woman at a time. He works hard to break her down and keep her away from everyone she knows. He lives in the sticks and this helps him do that.

There are two points here I'd like to make and I see this over and over with everyone's stories. It seems that this is partially what keeps us stuck in the muck, as it were. Pathologicals are PURPOSELY targeting you in the idealization phase, which I think is the MOST dangerous of all phases. He puts on a mask specifically for you and lies and manipulates and deceives, love bombs, etc. He takes on a completely different persona for each target. OMG! We've met our soul mate! He elevates us to unbelievable and ridiculous heights. He takes the good qualities of ours and EXPLOITS those qualities to get what he wants. NONE OF IT IS REAL!!!!! The hardest part in getting over these relationships, is what was created in the idealization phase. This is often why we stay and do anything we can to make it work. We are still living off the high of ourselves, the mirroring he exposed us too and exploited. It's just a ridiculously overrated version of ourselves. Who doesn't want to be told that they're gorgeous, you're the only one, the best in bed...how ridiculous is that? Our flaws do not exist during the idealization phase. this is, in actuality, the heart of the sickness. We really believe he feels/felt that way. He never did. There was not ONE real moment in the relationship. When it is over, the idealization phase is the utmost in betrayal. We bought the story, the web he weaved about ourselves. when the relationship is over, we are forced to find the balance in what is real. We DO have flaws, we do make incorrect choices, we can love, we feel badly when we've hurt someone. we ARE good people inside, with conscience. we are NOT the elevated version of what the psychopath introduced us to during the idealization phase. I have seen, over and over, women and men wanting so badly to believe that even a small part of the good times was real. It wasn't. It was either a lie or manipulation. And when you look at it in this way, the devaluation and discard is just as EXTREME as the idealization. NOne of that is true of ourselves either, the extreme badness he wants us to believe of ourselves. NONE OF IT WAS REAL. To embrace and accept what has happened, is to embrace and accept that HIS sickness and our own narcissism to a degree, allowed us to believe his lies in the idealization phase. healthy relationship do not start out that way. We see one another for what is real, flaws and good stuff. The biggest part of grieving is understanding that anything he said or did during the luring phase, was a LIE. There was no truth in him. NONE. It's so sad to read some stories, my own included in the past and apply a human quality to a man who was so sick he was incapable of any warmth that was real. Thomas Sheridan is right. So is sandra brown. They are human predators. they target on purpose with the intent to deceive and manipulate. Their intent is to destroy you. to hurt you. If you can wrap your mind around his disorder, the traits he had and the red flags you missed early on. If you can accept that anything that felt real from him in the idealization phase was as fake as the day is long..it's easier to come to terms and accept what happened. That is his biggest hook into you. This is why NC is so critical to recovery, on every single level and to clear the cog/dis with the absolute truth of him. The untruths of you, the finding of balance again within yourself. The more I see that the ENTIRE relationship was fake, ESPECIALLY the idealization phase, I have new eyes. I see where the red flags were that I missed. I got caught up in the fantasy he created for me. I believe his lies. I also began to understand that every disordered individual doesn't show one trait to the extreme, again such as sexual, as some others do, but this doesn't change the bottom line traits that are significant for every single one of them, no matter how they are manifested in the relationship, ie: lack of empathy, lack of remorse, lack of guilt, pathological lying, manipulation. All of us have seen those traits in our disordered partners.

I feel much freer with this understanding. Because he doesn't do one thing that another psychopath would, it doesn't make him any less a psychopath. Just because I want to believe the idealization was real, well, doesn't make it real, because it wasn't at all. He is still as pathological as the day is long. And he will never change. He didn't change with his past marriages, with me, and certainly not with this one either. I listen to the Thomas Sheridan videos often throughout the day, particularly the radio interviews. Hearing them over and over, and telling the story, brings a new revelation every time. But this one was the biggest. And I do believe that the idealization phase is the most dangerous of all. I hope there will be more public education with regards to how the psychopath lures and what signs to look for early on. Many lives could be spared and saved from their extreme desire to destroy, harm and damage.