By now if you have been trying to heal from a pathological love relationship and can’t find effective and knowledgeable counseling you have probably figured out what we have…that the pathological love relationship is NOT widely understood.

Frustrated women hear unhelpful advice from family, friends and even therapists who label their attachment to pathological men as “codependent” or “mutually addictive” or merely “emotional abuse.” Women jump from counselor to counselor and from group counseling experience-to-group counseling experience looking for someone, ANYONE, who understands this intense attachment to a dangerous and pathological man.

She looks for some understanding at ‘what’ is wrong with him. Labeling him an ‘abuser’ doesn’t quite cover the extensive array of brilliant psychopathic tendencies he has. Why was SHE targeted by him? Why does she feel both intense attachment and loathing for him at the same time? Why do her symptoms more resemble ‘mind control’ than mere ‘abused woman syndrome?’ Why is the bonding with this man more intense and unshakeable than any other man? Is it abuse if he never physically harms you but has the mental infiltration of a CIA operative?

What we are finding out from our research about women who have been in pathological love relationships is that all the normal dynamics of regular relationships DON’T apply to these types. All the normal dynamics of addictive relationships, codependent relationships and dysfunctional relationships DON’T apply to these types either. No wonder women can’t find the help they need…it hasn’t been taught YET! Our research is pointing towards women who DON’T fit into the stereotypes of women we normally see in shelters, counseling centers and in other abuse situations. These are not women who have the kinds of histories we normally associate with abuse nor do they have the kinds of current lives that fit the demographics of most counseling programs and shelters. Their personality traits and behaviors fit no other ‘typologies.’ And their current symptoms don’t match the simply ‘dysfunctional’ love relationship.

Could it be that the dynamics in a pathological love relationships really ARE different than other types of relationships? Could this be why women in these types of relationships aren’t helped by the more prevalent types of intervention offered to other types of abusive relationships? Why does the Power & Control Wheel model seem ineffective with these types of women? Why are these women LESS likely to seek traditional counseling? And if they do, why are they less likely to be helped by it? Why are these women’s personality traits so vastly different then shelter women? Or abused women?

Too many women have been through the ringer of counselors-not-understanding-psychopathology/family-lumping-all-relationship-types-together/ friends-saying-‘just-get-over-it’/ and counseling-programs-telling-she’s-just-codependent. Too many women have stopped seeking help because they are tired of too many people ‘not getting it.’ Psychology has to allow itself to grow beyond a one-size-fits-all approach when dealing with women emerging from pathological love relationships because all relationships are not created equal. Especially when one of them is pathological. Not understanding the effects of pathology on relationships, self concept, and recovery deters a woman’s ability to heal. Understanding the DIFFERENCES in these types of relationships is critical.

The Institute developed programs and materials exactly for this reason. We developed our telephone coaching program for women in immediate need of validation of their experiences, our retreat programs specifically geared to ‘Healing the Aftermath of the Pathological Love Relationship,’ our Therapist Affiliate Program training which provides other therapists nationwide the clinical training to help women heal from these types of relationships, and our 40+ products all developed to teach pathology to others.

Why? Why all the effort in treatment related issues? Because the absence of trained counselors is screamingly evident. Our mailing list writes us week after week asking “Can you recommend someone in Florida, Michigan, the United Kingdom, Canada, California, Oregon…? Why don’t other counselors understand this? Why can’t anyone explain to me what is going on! If one more counselor or family member suggests I am codependent or a relationship addict, I’m going to scream! Why is this so hard to understand?”

Much like the beginning phases of the addiction field, the pathological love relationship field is feeling the same ‘misunderstanding phase’ that other theories of counseling have gone through. When the field is new or the knowledge is groundbreaking, there is an overt lack of trained responders. Unfortunately, those that suffer the new phases are the victims/survivors that wish there were more trained service providers.

The Institute operates as a public psychopathy education project which means we try to train anyone and everyone in the issues of pathology–that includes the women in the relationships AND those who are likely to be emotional supports to women recovering from these relationships. Please bear with an entirely new emerging field of psychology that is trying to race to catch up to the knowledge of what is needed for this population of people. After all, until us no one had even bothered to STUDY the female partners of psychopaths and partners of other pathological types. No one created research projects to study the personality traits, histories and chronic vulnerabilities of women who have been in these relationships. So to that degree, we are virginal in our exploration of these issues.

As an Institute, we try to be immediately responsive to needs. In the last year we have exploded in growth in our outreach–our weekly newsletter continues to reach more and more people, our blogs we write for other websites such as Psychology Today and Times Up! helps us to reach an even larger audience with the educational value of our expertise, our list of books, CDs and DVDs that are in every country of the world, our expanded retreat format, private 1:1’s with Sandra, our telephone assessments and coaching which doubled in size this year, our weekly teleconferencing support groups, and our Therapist Training Program–all are born out of our desire to reach YOU! As needs are repeatedly identified by our mailing list, we try to quickly ascertain how to develop a program to meet the need. That’s because we recognize that the services available out there are slim. We provide what we can knowing that we are a drop in the bucket to the need that exists. So unless we duplicate ourselves through products and services many women will go untreated.

I know for many women who are struggling to recover from the diabolical aftermath of a pathological relationship that it seems that too few services exist. Please remain hopeful that not only this Institute but other therapists and agencies hear your cry and are reaching out for training so they can help you. We too are always looking at how we can expand our scope and reach.

Over the past year or two there has been a proliferation of survivor-based websites, blogs, newsletters, blog radio shows, and chat forums that have jumped in to fill the need between what you need and what ‘is’ out there for support or assistance. (We appreciate that every new blog is pathology information reaching new victims!) Lately we have been asked what constitutes effective help for the aftermath symptoms. Those suffering with stress related disorders, intrusive thoughts/obsessional thinking as well as PTSD and other anxiety-based disorders are often surprised to find that chat forums INCREASE their symptoms. It seems counter-intuitive that the thing you want most to do (process it, talk about it, and roll it around in your head) may be the very thing that increases intrusive thoughts and autonomic adrenaline response in your body. “But it’s the first time someone has understood” or “I feel so at home with others like me” is a common feeling associated with the huge relief after finding a forum that you resonate with. And I am sure lots of people will disagree with me about the use of chat forums. Unfortunately, we have spent a great deal of time ‘cleaning up’ symptoms that have increased in survivors while surfing the net, chatting in forums or finding survivor-support blogs that don’t clinically understand PTSD or what helps/hinders it.

While survivor blogs and websites may have the ‘right heart’ when it comes to offering a ‘place for survivors’ please be aware that these sites are not professional clinicians. They may have lived through a pathological relationship, but it is questionable if they are competent to offer guidance on your array of mental health problems. In fact, if what they do offer triggers you, they are not likely to know what to do or be able to provide it.

While we exist to help all survivors, it is increasing difficult for us to clean up the emotional meltdowns caused from too much exposure to things that trigger your autonomic response of adrenaline, depression or anxiety generated from non-clinical websites. It’s also a reason we only used master degreed professionals for our phone support.

Here are our recommendations:

We suggest that you find a trauma therapist skilled in PTSD. We are happy to provide a training DVD to her that helps her get up to speed on Pathological Love Relationships so she can understand why your aftermath is so severe.

Finding an EMDR or Hypnosis Therapist are considered ‘gentle therapies’ and easiest on your own biological system as you can work through your symptoms.

When your symptoms have minimized, consider finding a support program (phone group or in person group).

STOP group whenever/if ever your are re-triggered (recovery is about pacing your level of exposure to things that are triggering).

Limit your exposure to triggering events such as chat forums or too much ‘other victim-oriented’ story sharing.

Practice a stress relieving lifestyle (you have a stress disorder!)

Find beauty in things that instill hope for a future.

Most of all, don’t give up hope. We are an emerging new psychology field! We are where Domestic Violence was in the 1970’s and 80’s–we are blazing a new frontier!

Hopefully these tips will help you select competent services for your own recovery. Let us know how if we can be of help.

Women in these relationships and their family members who watch her relationship dynamics all wonder about **why** this dangerous guy is so hard to leave. While all the people around her have the easy and rational answers of how and why she should leave, the disengagement and detachment is harder with pathological persons than anyone else.

No one knows this better than her. At the heart of the attachment is the intensity of bonding produced in a relationship that has an ’emotional vortex’ pull. Much like magnets pointed towards each other, the draw and pull and staying power of pathologicals is not like other relationship dynamics. As we study these particular attachments we see that there are unusual qualities to the relationships that even the women can’t define or adequately describe. This includes the dichotomous thinking often seen in ‘mind control,’ the hypnotic engagement often seen in trauma, and the betrayal bonding often seen in sexual addiction. Combined, this power cocktail renders her not only entranced by paralyzed from action.

Normal motivations do not motivate her. Not her current roller-coaster mental health, her other family relationships, her declining health, her children, her

job or any other force that would usually rally her to her own self care. No wonder people who care about her are baffled that a high functioning, bright, proactive woman has been reduced to a catatonic/hypnotized/brain washed version of her former self.

An hour a week at the counselor’s office has done little to unwedge her from this super-glued relationship. It hasn’t recognized the hypnotic en-trancement, the growing PTSD symptoms, the cognitive loops and entrenched dichotomous thinking. It hasn’t unveiled the death grip that pathologicals can have on a squirming victim. Or the mind control that sucks the willpower and brain function from her.

Physically and emotionally exhausted from the too-many-go-rounds with him, there isn’t enough left of her to fight her way out or even think her way out. Many women now suffer from Chronic Fatigue from the wearing process with the pathological. Without the emotional resources and physical strength, her lethargy just ‘allows’ the relationship to roll like waves over the top of her. Without help or intervention, she is likely to have a complete physical break down including severe medical problems, sleep disruptions, mental confusion, panic attacks, anxiety, depression and more. Women have developed auto immune disease and cardiac problems in the middle of these acutely stressful relationships.

With all of their resources sapped and their concentration at a near record low, many have had to quit their jobs, have been fired, been in car accidents or sporting injuries because of the inability to concentrate. Taking an inventory of just ‘what it has cost her’ to be in a relationship with a pathological is often the first step towards education.

The disengagement process is a supported function often by counselors or The Institute in which education, acceptance of his diagnosis, self care re-initiation, symptom management and then the full recovery process is necessary. Some need short term programs that help them kick start their own recovery such as our retreats or intensives with Sandra.

Many of the women have PTSD now from the exposure to the pathological. PTSD worsens without treatment, with added stress, and with time. Some where she has to find the counseling resources in order to return her to a life she use to know before the pathological. This includes finding support people, support groups, coaching, specific focused books and audios on the subject, and if needed, retreat or residential programs. If this describes your current situation, get what you need to heal now–to minimize the effects of intrusive and ping ponging thoughts. Most of all, the intensity of attachment in order to be broken must first be understood. Healing the Aftermath of Pathological Love Relationships is a great tool for loosening the pathological’s emotional death grip.

The past two weeks we have been talking about trance states, dissociation, hypnotic suggestion, and mind control…all ways the pathological controls your mind, thoughts, feelings, and ultimately your behavior.

This is not hocus pocus stuff. Trance states, dissociation and hypnosis are all normal parts of the way our body and minds respond to certain conditions. The only argument is if these pathologicals KNOW they are doing it to others! My answer would be yes: they are masters at noticing what works on other people. So to that degree, they tweak what works.

Additionally, many of you may be aware of the seminars, books, websites and now TV shows about ‘seduction’ and the techniques that are taught men about coming in under the radar in seducing women through hypnotic methods. My guess is that the pathologicals are teaching their findings to others…passing on the horrid knowledge of their own disorders and how to covertly attract women subconsciously into sexual relationships. Appalling? You bet. Just one more big WAKE UP CALL to women–pay attention and guard your minds.

Trance, mind control and hypnotic suggestion also are based on one’s own level of ‘suggestibility’. This is related to how responsive you are to the suggestions and opinions of others. The more responsive you are the more suggestible and more easily you are mind controlled or hypnotizable.

A women’s suggestibility is often influenced by her biology. Women who are highly cooperative and value how others perceive them are likely to be more suggestible.

Also, women’s fatigability highly influences her suggestibility.

Almost all women report high levels of emotional, physical, sexual, financial, and spiritual fatigue with pathological relationships. They take a toll on her–wearing her down until her emotional reserves that would normally not give in, are repressed. At that time when her fatigue level is high, her suggestibility is also high. Tired and spaced out, it’s easy to get controlled by him.

Messages that are told to her during tired and spaced out times are recorded deeply and yet often subconsciously. “Can’t get him out of your head?” is very real.

The women who participated in our research survey on ‘women who love psychopaths’ showed us just how susceptible you group of women really are to suggestibility, fatigability, and the resulting mind control. Almost all of the women experienced some form of trance, hypnosis, mind control of ‘spell bound’ symptoms.

Women must understand that ‘staying in the relationship to figure it out’ or ‘see what happens’ or ‘wait until he works on himself and gets better’ is absolutely risky for you. Your ability to be controlled covertly by him is significantly higher than other females.

Until women really understand their ‘at risk’ temperament traits and how they affect her choices in relationships and TOLERANCE in relationships, she remains significantly likely to either not leave or pick the same way the next time around…

Ladies, hope and healing are available. We really UNDERSTAND the dynamics involved in what you have lived through. Our research has opened up incredible insights into your temperament and your relationship dynamics. Now specific and uniquely targeted treatment can begin! Please, let The Institute be part of your recovery.

Last week we started to talk about the very REAL issue of trance in relationship with pathologicals.

Women feel ‘under his spell,’ ‘spell bound,’ ‘ mesmerized,’ ‘hypnotized,’ ‘spaced out,’ ‘not in control of their own thoughts….’ All of these are ways of saying that various levels of covert and subtle mind-control have been happening with the pathological. And why wouldn’t it be happening? These are power-hungry people who live to exert their dominance over others.

That includes your body, mind or spirit. Mind Control techniques are used on prisoners of war, in cults, and in hostage taking. It obviously works or there wouldn’t be ‘techniques’ and bad people wouldn’t use it.

Mind control, brain washing, coercion…are all words for the same principles that are used to produce the results of reducing your own effectiveness and being emotionally overtaken by someone intent on doing so. Here are the conditions of mind control:

• Perceived threat to one’s physical or psychological survival and the belief that the captor/perpetrator would carry out the threat.
• Perceived small kindness from the captor/perpetrator to the captive.
• Isolation from perspectives other than those of the captor/perpetrator.
• Perceived inability to escape.

Mind control then produces dissociation which is a form of trance states. It’s when your mind becomes overloaded and you need to ‘step outside of yourself’ to relieve the stress. Dissociation and trance happens during abuse in childhood as well or adult rape. Prolonged mind control in adults will even produce trance states where adults begin to feel like they are being controlled. And they are…

Treatment and recovery for mind control includes:

• Breaking the Isolation – Help the client identify sources of supportive intervention; Self-help groups or group therapy (group needs to be homogeneous to needs), also hotlines, crisis centers, shelters and friends.
• Identifying Violence – As victims in abusive relationships minimize the abuse, or are in so much denial it may be necessary to ask directly about the different types of violent behavior. Many woman (and children) are confused about what is acceptable male (parental / authority) behavior. Journal keeping, autobiographical writing, reading of first hand accounts or seeing films that deal with abuse may be helpful to clients.
• Perceived Kindness – Encourage the client to develop alternative sources of nurturance and caring other than the captor/perpetrator.
• Validating both Love and Terror – Helping the client integrate both disassociated ‘sides’ of the abuser, will assist her in giving up her dream-like state in how she sees him.

Next week, we’ll continue our discussion on other forms of trance states and spellbound conditions.

Time and again women allude to the mystical aspects of the pathological they are involved with. They describe it as “being under his spell,” “entranced with him” or “hypnotized by him” even “spellbound” or “mind controlled.”

Women aren’t exactly able to define what they are ‘experiencing’ or even accurately describe what they think is occurring but they do unanimously conclude that ‘something’ is happening that feels like it’s hypnotic’.

Beyond the ‘hocus pocus’ of hypnosis lies real truth about what IS probably happening in those relationships.

Trance happens to every person every day. It is a natural lull in the body when many of the systems are resting or a state we enter when tired. Blood sugar, metabolism and other natural body functions can affect the sleepy states of trance that we enter all day long.

You’ve probably heard of ‘Highway Hypnosis.’ This occurs when you have been driving and are so concentrated on the driving (or when you are getting sleepy while driving and watching those yellow lines) that you forgot about the last few miles and all of a sudden you’re aware you’re almost at your destination. Highway Hypnosis is trance or light forms of self-hypnosis. No one put you in that state or hypnosis — you went in it on your own.

Check in with most people around 2 p.m. in the afternoon and you’ll see lots of people in sleepy trances.

But pathology can cause people to enter trance states frequently. Pathological love relationships are exhausting and take their toll on your body through stress, diet, loss of sleep, and worry. While you are worn down and fatigued you are more suggestible to the kinds of things that are said to you in that state of mind. These words, feelings and concepts sink in at a deeper level than other ideas and statements that are said to you when you are not in a trance state.

If he is telling you that you are crazy, or gaslighting you by telling you that you really didn’t see him do what you think he did, or that the problems of the relationship are because of you…those statements said to you when you are suggestible stay filed in your subconscious and are replayed over and over again creating intrusive thoughts and obsessive thinking.

If he tells you positives when you are in trance states such as “He needs you and please don’t ever leave him” – those phrases too are stored in a subconscious location working you over without your knowledge. When it’s time to redirect your beliefs about him, disengage, or break up women feel like ‘old tapes’ are running in their heads. It’s very hard for them to get these messages to stop activating their thinking, feeling, and behavior.

Women who are have strong personality traits in suggestibility and fatigability are more at risk of trance-like states in which words, meanings, and symbols are more concretely stored in the subconscious.

Women feel relieved to find out that they really aren’t crazy—it really DOES feel like she is under his spell because in many ways, she is.

Next week, we’ll talk about other ways that trance states can be effected in the pathological relationship.

We began talking about the ongoing battles with pathologicals-whether it is a break up, move out, divorce, property settlement, mediation, child custody, or the ever-revolving door of litigious events with law enforcement or the legal system. By nature of the pathology, they are MORE likely to allege falsified abuse, stalk the other parent, sue, to continue to sue, to not settle, to refuse mediation services, to go to court over things like “his shoes are dirty therefore this is parental neglect,” to reject every child evaluator, reject every child therapist, reject every child pediatrician, reject every child’s school choice. They gaslight situations suggesting things have happened that didn’t, nor can they be proved they did or did not happen. (Classic gaslighting is associated with NPDs, ASPDs, socio/psychopaths). They are MORE likely to need court monitored visits after exchange antics which now require ‘a babysitter’ for their behavior and yet reject every monitor chosen, every center selected, or will find centers that are the farthest away in the most dangerous areas to ask the other parent to bring the child to. They also do not follow through on child support payments; other medical needs the children may have, does not pay their share of attorney and court fees. They use up enormous legal resources which has given them their own title within the legal system known as ‘High Conflict Person’ which eventually becomes a ‘High Conflict Case’ for you and for them. A ‘typical’ legal scenario (provided by Bill Eddy www.billeddy.com) is:

A Petition is filed, and then there are countless emergency court hearings, restraining orders, restricted visitation, and/or residence exclusion, many filing for temporary hearings on custody, visitation, child support, and spousal support. Then there is the unending filing for many declarations for hearing, getting an evaluator appointed, preparing documentation for evaluators/court (often done multiple times), serving numerous subpoenas, taking lists and lists of depositions, going thru the demand for documentations, attending multiple temporary hearings. Now they have received the trial only to have delays that can go on for years, disputes over evaluators’ reports and other unending other objections. Then begins the continuous disputes over trial court orders, motions for reconsideration, etc. Sprinkled through out are the constant allegations to child services of abuse and neglect, the rallying of others to support the allegations, and the utter exhaustion of the child services departments with the constant threats of suing them, etc. Once/if after all these enormous amount of time, money, energy is and the divorce is granted, then there is the ongoing post divorce hearings with the constant modification requests, custody battles, alleging new relationships which are bad for the children, failed relationships wit others bringing in new conflicts, drama and trauma.

It’s easy to see that this kind of behavior is what is shutting down our court systems and why it’s hard to get simple things done. 90% of the problems are being produced by a small % of the people who have the largest % of mental health and pathology disorders. In fact, it is cases like THESE that indicate to professionals working on these cases that there is in fact, pathology present. They have already been named ‘High Conflict Persons’ to help identify the partner who is likely to keep producing litigious insanity. It has taken a while for all the professional systems involved in cases like these to come to understand what behavior like this IS attached to: chronic and unrelenting pathology. For many years euphemisms have been used for these people “difficult cases” “pain in the butt cases” “problematic” instead of understanding these ARE the behaviors associated with pathological conditions. Pathology is simply being what it is—in the relationship, in the parenting, in the courts. It holds its mask in place for a while but then it always slips where other professionals are able to identify the behaviors and recognize the pathology. This is the unification of how Public Pathology Awareness is beginning to allow systems involved with pathologicals to more easily identify them by their universal and consistent behaviors, in and out of court.

The Institute’s goal is to bring training about these consistent and universal behaviors to therapists, coaches, the legal system, child evaluators, monitors, child therapists, Minor’s Counsel, and social service workers. ‘Why’ high conflict persons act this way has everything to do with the disorder itself. When we understand pathology and its neuro-implications as well, we can not only know what behaviors go with which disorders but why. We can learn to predict the kinds of known behaviors and antics that go with pathological disorders– in child rearing, in court proceedings, and in relationship endings. Those behaviors include imperative impulsivity, loophole lying, gaming gaslighting, reliable revenge, the prevalent projecting, and legendary legal litany of cases. Normal people don’t do this in court, in relationship, in life. It is the glaring opposites that almost always give us the best indicator that what is happening is not what other people do, behave, or believe. So, ours shouldn’t be to ask ‘why’ pathologicals do this. It’s to say ‘why not?’ After all, that’s how they are wired.

Lots of clients lately want to know ‘when will this ever end?’ — ‘this’ being the aggravation from a pathological.

• Constantly harassing you
• Stalking
• Stirring the pot
• Making up allegations against you
• Not paying what they are suppose to
• Going back to court for the 1,000th time
• Turning others against you
• Turning you in to Social Services for child abuse
• Lying to the judge
• Paying others off to lie for him in court
• Gaslighting you or others
• Making others dread him, you, or your situation

The truth is, this IS what pathology does. If court evaluators, child monitors, judges, attorneys, batterer intervention counselors, anger management therapists—those working in the field knew that this IS what pathology does, it would heighten everyone’s awareness about pathology. Instead, euphemisms are used for this kind of behavior–

• Drama cases
• Trauma cases
• Dead beat dads
• High conflict divorces
• Jerks
• Snakes in Suits
• Con artists
• Custody Battles
• No resolution cases

Behavior related to making allegations, lying in court, hiring others to lie, hiring others to stalk you, spy on you, put spy ware in your house/car/computer, harass social services/child services workers, eat up enormous amount of court hours–are all behaviors ASSOCIATED with pathology—not drama, not trauma, not dead beats, not conflict, not jerks, not snakes and not cons—but Cluster B personality disorders such as Borderline, Narcissistic, Anti-Social and the other Low/No Conscienced disorders such as Socio/Psychopaths.

Our office has been flooded with calls lately about ‘how to’ survive until ‘this all stops.’ Women aren’t finding help with ‘how to’ survive, ‘how to’ appropriately communicate with him to have the least ‘aftermath,’ what to do when he alleges things to child services, judges, and courts, how to document well for court now and in the future, what dissuades them, how to angle the situation so he exposes his true self/disorder/motives, how to take care of yourself until some of this slows down, stops, or a miracle occurs.

Pathology is exhausting. This isn’t something ‘unique’ to your case. It’s standard in cases with pathologicals. You didn’t cause it; it’s the disorder just being what it is. But maybe some of the things you are doing aren’t in the best interest of your case, simply because using what ‘works’ with normal people, NEVER works in pathology. I think it’s time we do something to help the women out there get a grip on some of the problems inherent in pathological break ups, legal situations, and child custody.

Last week I began discussing the reasons why women have a difficult time ‘remembering the bad aspects of the relationship.’ Women describe the sensation of only remembering the good times, the good feelings and being ‘fuzzy’ or sort of forgetting all the bad things he has done when they think of him. This process seems to be triggered by an emotional feeling (such as longing or loneliness) AND/OR by a memory or hearing his voice, seeing an email, etc.

Last week we discussed how good and bad memories are stored in the brain differently. Good memories are stored upfront and easily accessed. Bad memories are stored and compartmentalized in the mind and are harder to access (think of, for instance, child abuse memories and how people so often repress or forget these memories). This week we are going to talk about ANOTHER reason why you only remember the good stuff of a bad relationship. (This is also covered in detail in ‘Women Who Love Psychopaths.’)

The second reason is based on our own biological hardwiring. We are wired with a pleasure base that is called our Reward System. We associate pleasure with being rewarded or something ‘good.’ We are naturally attracted to pleasure. The pathological (at least in the beginning) stimulates the pleasure base and we associate that with a ‘reward’– that is, we ‘enjoy his presence.’ Pathologicals are also often excessively dominant and strong in their presence, something we have gone on to call ‘Command Presence.’ What we enjoy in him is all the good feelings + his strong dominate command presence. Being rewarded by his presence AND experiencing the strength of that presence registers as pleasure/reward.

Although he later goes on to inflict pain, pleasure or good memories, as we saw last week are stored differently in the brain. Our brains tend to focus on one or the other and we have a natural internal ‘default’ to lean towards remembering and responding to our Reward System and pleasure.

On the other hand, memories associated with punishment or pain are short lived and stored differently in the brain. They can be harder to access and ‘remember.’ When you experience pleasure with him (whether it’s attention, sex, or a good feeling) it stimulates the reward pathway in the brain. This helps to facilitate ‘extinction’ of fear.

Fear is extinugished when fear is hooked up with pleasant thoughts, feelings, and experiences (such as the early ‘honeymoon’ phase of the relationship). When fear + pleasant feelings are paired together, the negative emotion of the fear gives way to the pleasant feelings and the fear goes away.

Your Reward System then squelches your anxiety associated with repeating the same negative thing with the pathological. The memories associated with the fear/anxiety/punishment are quickly extinguished.

For most people, the unconscious pursuit of reward/pleasure is more important than the avoidance of punishment/pain. This is especially true if you were raised with pathological parents in which you became hyper-focused on reward/pleasure because you were chronically in so much pain.

Given that our natural hardwired state of being is tilted towards pleasure and our Reward System, it makes sense as to why women have an easier time accessing the positive memories. Once these positive memories become ‘intrusive’ and the only thing you can think about is now the good feelings associated with the pathological, the positive memories have stepped up the game to obsession and often a compulsion to be with him despite the punishment/pain associated with him.

These two reasons why bad memories are hard to access have helped us understand and develop intervention based on the memory storage of bad memories and the reward/punishment system of the brain. If you struggle with the continued issue of intrusive thoughts and feel ‘compelled’ to be with him or pursue a destructive relationship…you are not alone. Understanding his pathology, your response to it, and how to combat these overwhelming sensations and thoughts are part of our retreat/psycho-educational program.

Human nature procrastinates…after every single retreat I always get emails of people ‘regretting’ they didn’t come and thinking their symptoms would ‘just get better on their own’ only to find they have worsened. For those who NEED help, I am advising that you do it in our retreats.

Please don’t live your whole life with symptoms that CAN BE treated and helped. We have made our retreats as cheap as we possibly can so that each of you can receive help and healing.

Over and over again women are puzzled by their own process in trying to recover from a pathological relationship. What is puzzling is that despite the treatment they received by him, despite the absolute mind-screwing he did to her emotions, not only is the attraction still VERY INTENSE but also the POSITIVE memories still remain strong.

Woman after woman says the same thing–that when it comes to remaining strong in not contacting him (what we call ‘Starving the Vampire’) she struggles to pull up (and maintain the pulled up) negative memories of him and his behavior that could help her keep strong and detached.

But why? Why are the positive memories floating around in her head freely and strongly and yet the bad memories are stuffed in a ‘mind closet’ full of fuzzy cobwebs that prevent her from actively

reacting to those memories?

There are a couple of reasons–of which we will discuss today only the first one. Let’s think of your mind like a computer. Memories are ‘stored’ much like they are stored on a computer. When there is pain and trauma, memories are stored differently then when it’s a positive memory. Pulling up the negative memories from your hard drive is different than pulling up a memory that is on your desk top as an icon emblem.

Traumatic memories get fragmented on their way to being stored on the hard drive. They get divided up into more than one file. In one file is the emotional feelings, another file is the sights, another file the sounds, another file the physical sensations.

But a WHOLE and complete memory is made up of ALL those files TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME– what you emotionally felt, saw, heard, and physically experienced. Not just one piece of it—and not just

the positive memory of it. A memory is good + bad = complete.

But when things are traumatic, (or stressful) the mind separates the whole experience into smaller bits and pieces and then stores them separately in the mind because it’s less painful that way.

When women try to ‘remind themselves’ why they shouldn’t be with him, they might get flashes of the bad memory but strangely, the emotional feelings are NOT attached to it. They wonder ‘where did

the feelings go?’ They can see the bad event but they don’t feel much about what they remember.

If you are playing a movie without the sound, how do you know what the actors are passionately feeling? It’s the same thing with this traumatic recall of memories. You might see the video but not hear the pain in the voices. The negative or traumatic memory is divided up into several files and you are only accessing one of the files—a place where you have stored the positive aspects of the relationship.

To complicate things further, positive memories are not stored like negative memories. They are not divided up into other files. They don’t need to be—they aren’t traumatic.

So when you remember a time when the relationship was good or cuddly or the early parts of the relationships which are notoriously honeymoon-ish, the whole memory comes up–the emotional feelings, the visual, the auditory, the sensations. You have a WHOLE and STRONG memory with that. Of course that is WAY MORE appealing to have–a memory that is

not only GOOD but one in which you feel all the powerful aspects of it as well.

Now, close your eyes and pull up a negative memory…can you feel the difference? You might see it but not feel it. Or hear it and not see much of it. Or feel a physical sensation of it but not the emotional piece that SHOULD go with the physical sensation. No matter what your experience is of the negative emotion, it is probably fragmented in some way.

Negative and traumatic memories are often incomplete memories–they are memory fragments floating all over your computer/mind. They are small files holding tiny bits of info that have fragmented your sense of the whole complete memory. These distorted and broken memory fragments are easily lost in your mind.

If you have grown up in an abusive or alcoholic home, you were already subconsciously trained how to separate out memories like this. If your abuse was severe enough early on, your mind just automatically does this anyway–if you get scared, or someone raises their voice, or you feel fear in anyway—your

brain starts breaking down the painful experience so it’s easier for you to cope with.

Next week we will talk about one other way your mind handles positive and negative memories and why you are flooded with positive recall and blocked from remembering and feeling those negative things he’s done to you.

I hope by now with these newsletters you can see the unique aspects of what you have lived through in the pathological relationship and why this is a whole different thing to heal from then other relationships. This is why regular counseling often doesn’t work and forget about reading regular relationship books! They are NOT written for pathologically based dynamics! ‘Imago therapy’ isn’t gonna help this. Dr. Phil’s books aren’t gonna touch this. The pathological relationship dynamics are UNIQUE and require a combination of several approaches to help you heal. If your parents were pathological as well, you have the double-whammy to heal from.

Please don’t live your whole life with symptoms that CAN BE treated and helped. We have made our retreats as cheap as we possibly can so that each of you can receive help and healing.

In a session someone says “I really miss what we had. I could get over this if it hadn’t been in the most wonderful relationship of my life. I just feel like something has been cut out of me–like I’m missing a big part of myself now.”

Pathology is marked by the issue of illusion. It’s why our logo is a mask because it best represents the mirage of normalcy that pathologicals can often project…at least for a while. Cleckley, a writer about pathology from the 1940’s called it ‘The Mask of Sanity’ and states that pathology gives all the surface signals of deep connection, the most fun ever experienced with someone else, someone who is really into you—while behind the curtain, you are being used as a distraction, a pay check, grotesquely as a ‘vaginal doormat’ or some other form of ‘feeding’ of the pathological piranha. What you are experiencing you are internally labeling as ‘normal’ or ‘wonderful’ or ‘love’ and yet it really isn’t any of those things. It’s just a label of experience you have tagged him with. If someone else was watching your relationship as a movie and watched the other scenes in which the pathological is exposed for what he is, your scene would be tagged and labeled by the watcher very differently than how you thought of your own experience. That’s because the watchers would see the pathological’s behaviors and words as manipulative and the watcher would under go a distinctly different view of the storyline. Your labeling of your experience isn’t always accurate. As I often say, “Your thinking is what got you into this pathological relationship. Don’t always believe what you think.”

Being invested in being correct is part of the human condition and is in part, the way our brains work. The more important the question such as “Does he love me? Is this THEE one?” — The greater the pleasure will seem from labeling the experience as positive. The more positive the relationship is perceived, the more invested you will be to label the experiences and his behavior as positive and to get the reward of your label such as “him, marriage, or the relationship.” Of course none of this is problematic except if you have misread the illusion, believed the mask, and labeled an experience with a narcissist, anti-social, or socio/psychopath as ‘positive.’

The illusion is that:

* He was normal

* He was in love with you

* He was what he said he was

* And he did what he said he did.

In pathology, that’s never the case.

* Their attachments are surface (which isn’t love)

* They are mentally disordered (which is not normal)

* They never present themselves as disordered/sexually promiscuous/and incapable of love (so he wasn’t what he said he was)

* And they harbor hidden lives filled with other sex partners, hook ups, criminality, or illegal/moral behavior (so they don’t disclose what he’s really up to).

What you had (that you can’t possibly miss) is a pathological relationship. What you miss, is the ability to wrap yourself up like a blanket in the illusion–to go back to the time before you knew this was all illusion.

Women often say when they try to break up they have the feeling that something is cut out of them. They feel like they are missing a part of themselves. This sensation is similar to what is called ‘phantom limb pain’ that is a medical mystery of sorts. When a person has an arm that is accidentally amputated, the portion of the brain that use to receive sensory messages about the existing arm goes through a series of changes that causes it to misread the brain message and creates the ‘ghostly’ illusion that the arm is still there and in pain. Even though the patient can see that the arm is gone and what they are experiencing is an illusion, they can’t stop the distressing phantom limb sensations of wanting to believe the arm is still there, the arm is in pain, the arm is anything but gone. The amputee must learn to cope differently by beginning with relabeling the experience they are having which is the pretense of the arm is a perceptual illusion.

So it is with those leaving the illusionary pathological love relationship. The emotional pain you experience is based on the illusion the pathological presented, a perceptual illusion that was mislabeled, experienced as positive and invested in. Keeping that positive illusion is initially important to you. Learning to adjust the cognitive dissonance which is the ping ponging between he was good/he was bad) is the challenge in overcoming the ghostly emotional baggage of phantom relationship pain.

If we can help you with the ghostly emotional phantom limb pain in your relationship, please plan on attending our April retreat in Clearwater or our May retreat (or private intensive with Sandra) in NC.

Is it Fear Or Is it Anxiety?

Last week we began talking about the difference between fear and anxiety. Real fear draws on your animalistic instincts and causes a sincere fight/flight reaction. Anxiety causes you to worry about the situation but you aren’t likely to bolt.

Anxiety can develop as a counterfeit trait to the true fear you never reacted to.

Gavin DeBecker in the classic book ‘The Gift of Fear’ is a Danger Analyst and has much to say about the preventability of most bad outcomes. He says there is Always Always Always a Pre-incident Indicator (a PIN) that women ignore. In my book, I call them Red Flags–the wisdom of your body that recognizes primitive fear and sends a signal to your body to react. In that split second, you can run or you can rename it. Renaming it causes your body to react less and less to the messages it does send. Not one woman in the 20+ years I’ve been doing this said there wasn’t an initial red flag that she CONSCIOUSLY ignored. Almost 100% of the time, the early red flags end up being exactly why the relationship ended. You could have saved yourself 3, 5, 15, 20 years of a dangerous relationship by listening to your body instead of your head!

Let’s go back to more stories by Gavin….

Dorothy says her ex-boyfriend Kevan was a fun guy with a Master’s degree and a CPA. “He was charming, and it never let up,” Dorothy says. “He was willing to do whatever I wanted to do.”

Eventually, Dorothy began to feel that something wasn’t right. “He would buy me a present or buy me a beautiful bouquet of roses and have it sitting on the table–and that was very nice, but that night or the next day he wanted me to be with him all the time.”

As Dorothy shares her story, Gavin points out some of the warning signs–starting with Kevan’s charm. “A great thing is to think of charm as a verb. It’s something you do. ‘I will charm [Dorothy] now.’ It’s not a feature of [one’s] personality,” Gavin says.

What happened next stunned Dorothy. “I was out visiting my sister in California, and he was calling me, calling me, and he asked me to marry him over the cell phone,” she says.

“I thought, you’re kidding. I’ve always said I would never get married again. And I said,

‘That’s the last time I’m going to talk about it.'”

After rejecting Kevan and coming home, Dorothy says he remained persistent. He showed Dorothy the picture of a diamond ring he wanted to buy and told her he wanted to buy a house. “And he had it all mapped out, how it was going to work for us,” she says.

When Kevan refused to listen when Dorothy repeatedly told him no, Gavin says it should have raised serious red flags. “Anytime someone doesn’t hear no, it means they’re trying to control you,” Gavin says. “When a man says no in this culture, it’s the end of the discussion. When a woman says no, it’s the beginning of a negotiation.”

After four and a half years and many red flags, Dorothy finally broke off her relationship with Kevan. But that wasn’t the end. “He kept calling me, calling me with repeated questions. What am I doing now? ‘What are you going to do tonight?'” Dorothy says.

“And that’s when I realized I am in trouble here.”

On the urging of her son, Dorothy got a restraining order on Kevan, which she says gave her peace of mind. “And that was a huge mistake,” she says.

One night, Dorothy was asleep in her bed when she woke up to the sound of her name being shouted. “I turned to my left shoulder, and I saw a knife about [10 inches long]. I could see the reflection of my TV in the blade. Then I saw that he had cut off surgical gloves, and that was scary,” Dorothy says. “I put the covers right over my head and curled into a fetal position and started praying. He said to me, ‘Are you scared?'”

Rather than panicking, Dorothy says she got out of bed, stood up and told Kevan he was leaving. As she walked calmly out the door, he followed her to the parking lot.

“So I said, ‘You’re leaving now,'” she says. “He turned, went down the street, and I didn’t see him again.” Dorothy immediately called 911, and police later arrested Kevan. He was convicted and is serving a four-year prison sentence.

Gavin says when Dorothy stood up, spoke firmly to Kevan and walked out; she was accepting a gift of power by acting on her instincts. “Fetal position is not a position of power, but you came out of it with a great position of power. And the pure power to say to him, ‘You’re leaving now,’ is fantastic,” he says. “Of all the details in that story, the one that stayed with me the most is that you saw the reflection of your little television set on the bedside table in the knife. And what that told me was you are on–you are in the on position…. You were seeing every single detail and acting on it.”

Just like ignoring your intuition, Gavin says the way women are conditioned to be nice all the time can lead them into dangerous situations. “The fact is that men, at core, are afraid that women will laugh at them. And women, at core, are afraid that men will kill them.”

This conditioning and fear, Gavin says, lead many women to try to be nice to people whose very presence makes them fearful and uncomfortable. They often believe that being mean increases risk, he says, when in fact the opposite is true.

“It’s when you’re nice that you open up and give information, that you engage with someone you don’t want to talk to,” he says. “I have not heard of one case in my entire career where someone was raped or murdered because they weren’t nice. In other words, that’s not the thing that motivates rape and murder. But I’ve heard of many, many cases where someone was victimized because they were open to the continued conversation with someone they didn’t feel good about talking to.”

In my own book ‘How to Spot a Dangerous Man’ I talked about cultural conditioning and how women feel they should be polite and at least go out with them once. If you’re saying yes to a psychopath, once is all he needs. Women also have HORRID and NON-EXISTANT break up skills. What in the world is more important than having good break up skills? You are likely to date a dozen men in your life time and not likely to marry but one of them. What are you going to do with the rest of them?

In this culture with all the books on ‘How to Attract Men’ very little is written about how to break up. Women spend more time on a Glamour Shots picture of themselves for a dating site then learning how strong boundaries can protect them. Women who are attracted to the bad boys don’t need the book ‘How to Attract’ — she’s already doing it. But how can she get rid of the predator she DID attract? (See our new book ‘Women Who Love Psychopaths).

Women buy our books, do phone coaching, and come to NC for 1:1’s, come to retreats all with a primary motive “Help me to never do this again.” While you definitely need insight about your own super-traits that have positioned you in the line of fire with a psychopath, you also need most the ability to reconnect with your internal safety signal. Everything in the world we can teach you will not keep you safe if you ignore your body. Our cognitive information can not save you the way your body can. That’s the bottom line. This is something you have to do for yourself.

This issue of real fear -vs.- mere anxiety is of utmost importance. It has really struck me this week that we may have missed something in our discussion about PTSD and its relationship to fight/flight reactions. Gavin helps us to see that fear happens in the moment–it’s an entire body sensation–the flash of fear followed by the intense adrenaline and fight or flight. The intensity of the body reactions usually COMPELS people into fight/flight.

With PTSD, I see how we have lumped more minor reactive reactions like ‘PTSD induced fight/flight’ with the real in-the-moment reactions of fear. I see them as different now. If women are THAT afraid of him and compelled by real fear (as opposed to worry ‘He might harm me in the future but he isn’t mad right now and not going to hurt me this second) she wouldn’t be with him because her animalistic reaction would be to flee.

Real fear IN THE MOMENT demands action. Our own ability to tolerate what he is doing suggests it’s not TRUE survival fear. This is the difference between animalistic/survival fear and our common day PTSD-reactionary fear.

Sometimes our body has reactions to evil, or pathology. Normal psychology should ALWAYS have a negative reaction to abnormal psychology. So your first meeting with him should have produced SOMETHING in you. It may not have been the true fear reaction that COMPELLED you to run away but you may have gotten other kinds of thoughts or bodily reactions to be in the presence of significant abnormality and sometimes, pure evil.

Listen. Your body is smarter than your brain.

Is it Fear Or Is it Anxiety?

Women who have been in pathological relationships come away from the relationships with problems associated with fear, worry, and anxiety. This is often related to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or what we call ‘High Harm Avoidance’– being on high alert looking for ways she might get harmed now or in the future.

PTSD, by its own nature as a disorder, is an anxiety disorder that is preoccupied by both the past (flashbacks and intrusive thoughts of him or events) and by the future (worry about future events, trying to anticipate his behaviors, etc.). With long term exposure to PTSD, this anxiety and worry begins to mask itself, at least in her mind, as ‘fear.’ In fact, most women lump together the sensations of anxiety, worry, and fear into one feeling and don’t differientiate them.

Fear is helpful and safety-oriented whereas worry and anxiety are not helpful and related to phantom ‘possible’ events that often don’t happen. To that degree, worry and anxiety are distracting away from real fear signals that could help her.

In the book which is now a classic on predicting harmful behavior in others, Gavin deBecker in ‘The Gift of Fear’ delineates the difference between what we need fear FOR and what we DONT need anxiety and worry for. In some ways, the ability to use fear correctly while stopping the use of anxiety and worry may do much to curtail PTSD symptoms.

deBecker who is not a therapist but a Danger Anaylst has done what other therapists haven’t even done–nix PTSD symptoms of anxiety and worry by focusing on true fear and it’s necessity versus anxiety and it’s faux meaning to us.

The term fear was used by Freud (in contrast to anxiety), to refer to the reaction to real danger. Freud emphasized the difference between fear and anxiety in terms of their relation to danger:

~ Anxiety is a state characterized by the expectation and preparation for a danger–even if it’s unknown ~

~ While fear implies a specific object to be feared in the here/now. ~ (Anxiety is: ‘He MIGHT harm me’ where fear is: “He IS harming me with his fist, words, actions, etc.”)

If you heard there was a weapon proven to prevent most crimes (including picking a dangerous partner) before it happened, would you run out and buy it? World-renowned security expert Gavin deBecker says this weapon exists, but you already have it. He calls it “the gift of fear.”

The story of a woman named Kelly begins with a simple warning sign. A man offers to help carry her groceries into her apartment—and instantly, Kelly doesn’t like the sound of his voice. Kelly goes against her gut and lets him help her—and in doing so, she lets a rapist into her home.

“We get a signal prior to violence,” Gavin says. “There are preincident

indicators. Things that happen before violence occurs.”

Gavin says that unlike any other living creature, humans will sense

danger, yet still walk right into it.

“You’re in a hallway waiting for an elevator late at night. The elevator door opens, and there’s a guy inside, and he makes you afraid. You don’t know why, you don’t know what it is. And many women will stand there and look at that guy and say, ‘Oh, I don’t want to think like that. I don’t want to be the kind of person who lets the door close in his face. I’ve got to be nice. I don’t want him to think I’m not nice.’

And so human beings will get into a steel soundproof chamber with

someone they’re afraid of, and there’s not another animal in nature that would even consider it.”

Gavin says that “eerie feelings” is exactly what he wants women to pay attention to. “We’re trying to analyze the warning signs,” he says. “And what I really want to teach today and forever is the feeling of the warning sign. All the other stuff is our explanation for the feeling. Why it was this, why it was that. The feeling itself IS the warning sign.”

What happens over and over again is that women dismantle their OWN internal safety system by ignoring it. The longer she ignores it, the more ‘over rides’ it receives and retrains the brain to ignore the fear signal. Once rewired women are at tremendous risks of all kinds…risks of picking the wrong men, of squelching fear signals of impending violence, shutting off alarms about potential sexual assaults, shutting down red flags about financial rip offs, squeeking out hints about poor character in other people…and the list goes on. What is left after your whole entire safety system is dismantled? Not much….

Women, subconsciously sensing they need to have ‘something’ to fall back on, swap out true and profoundly accurate fear signals with the miserly counterfeit and highly unproductive feeling of worry/anxiety.

LADIES– WRONG FEELING!

Then they end up in coaching for their 4th dangerous relationship and wonder if they have a target sign on their forehead. No they don’t. They have learned to dismantle, rename, minimize, justify, or deny the fear signals they get or got in the relationship. As if their ability to ‘take it’ or ‘not be afraid’ of very dangerous behavior is some sort of win for them. As if their ability to look danger in the face and STAY means they are as tough or competitive as he is…

No–it means they have a fear signal that no longer saves them. Their barely stuttering signal means it’s been over-ridden by her. She felt it, labeled it, and released it all the while staring eye-to-eye with what she should fear most.

Then later, or another day or week passes and she has mounting anxiety–over what she wonders? She has a chronic low grade worry, whisps of anxiety that waife thru her life. She can’t put 2+2 together to figure out that ignoring true fear will demand to be recognized by her subconscious in some way—an illegitimate way through worry and anxiety that does nothing to save her from real danger. Her real ally (her true fear) has been squelched and banished.

When coming to us for coaching she wants us to help her ‘feel safe’ again when actually, we can’t do any of that. It’s all in her internal system as it’s always been. Her safety is inside her and her future healing is too.

She will sit in the counselor’s office denying true fear and begging for relief from the mounting anxiety she is experiencing. She doesn’t trust herself, her intuition, her judgments–all she can feel is anxiety. And with good reason! True fear is her true intuition…not anxiety. But she’s already canned what can save her and now on some level she must know she has nothing left that can help her feel and react.

Animals instinctively react to the danger signal–the adrenaline, flash of fear, and flood of cortisol. They don’t have internal dialogue with themselves like “What did that mean? Why did he say that? I don’t like that behavior—I wonder if he was abused as a child.”

An animal is trained to have a natural reaction to the fear signal–they run. You don’t see animals ‘stuck’ in abusive mating environments! In nature, as in us, we are wired with the King of Comments which is the danger signal. When we respond to the flash of true fear, we aren’t left having a commentary with ourselves.

“The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them, changes both the maker and the destination.” – John Schaar

Women don’t know whether to trust what they feel or not. Are you confused over whether feelings are factual or if they are fiction? You’re not alone. Women struggle where to draw the line between believing what they think and questioning it.

On one hand, feelings can be red flags in the beginning or in the midst of the relationship. Red flags can be emotional, physical, or spiritual warnings of what is happening or what is yet to be.

Emotional red flags are feelings you get while in the relationship–constant worry, dread, wondering, suspicion, anxiety, depression, or obsession. Often the emotional red flags are quickly noticed by other people in your lives who point out that you have changed since the relationship–and not for the good. Lots of times women don’t want to ‘hear’ about their emotional changes since being in the relationship. Other times, women already KNOW they are having emotional red flags about him or aspects of the relationship. In either case, it’s important to know that emotional red flags can be GOOD PREDICTORS OF THE POTENTIAL LONGEVITY OF THE RELATIONSHIP. Many women notice that the red flags they had at the beginning of the relationship ARE the reasons the relationship eventually end. Emotional red flags can be great tools and often accurate.

Waiting for feelings to become ‘facts’ before you act on them can be very dangerous. In the case of emotional red flags (and your intuition), responding NOW instead of later can help you exit the relationship quickly. By the time a feeling IS A FACT, many things could have happened. (For more info on red flags, see the first few chapters of the Dangerous Man book).

ON THE OTHER HAND (there’s always ‘another hand’ isn’t there?)–women wonder if the intense feelings they are having are an indicator of ‘true love’ or why would they be having them? Women often experience confusing emotions when trouble starts in the relationship. She either becomes confused when the relationship turns bad or she becomes confused when she has ended the relationship. This confusion takes the form of “if he was so mean to me, why do I still have feelings for him? I must still love him if I can’t stop thinking about him even if he did bad things. Do my feelings mean I should go back with him?”

In these cases ‘feelings’ are not facts. It is human nature to seek attachment and bonding. When that is ripped away there is an emptiness that happens. Women often think that ‘means’ that they were in love if they experience the aftermath of ‘loss.’ It just means you are feeling the loss.

Women often think that since they ‘miss the good times of the relationship’ they must miss him. What women actually often are missing is the ‘feelings’ that were generated in the relationship when it was good. Women miss feeling of being ‘in love’ or ‘attached’ or ‘wanted and desired’ or ‘safe and secure.’ When women can separate out what they really ‘miss’ they often can see that ‘he’ represented those feelings she was having. She misses the feelings of the illusion of being in a good relationship. Missing ‘him’ might not really be ‘missing him.’ Who is ‘him’ – the dangerous man/cheater/liar/or pathological? You miss that ‘him’? No. You miss the feelings of being in love.

Tell yourself — “What I am missing are the ‘feelings’ of being in a good relationship.” Remind yourself of that when you misinterpret those feelings as meaning you ‘want him back.’ Often that isn’t the case. Recognize that this very ‘feeling’ thing is what propels women right back out there seeking to ‘feel loved’ again and attach to those missing feelings. It places women very ‘at-risk’ of repeating the same mistake.

Here—try this. Draw a line down the middle of the page. On one side, list the feelings you miss having. On the other side, list the dangerous man traits/behaviors/incidents.

Now take a look. Which do you really miss?

Feelings can be accurate when we are getting red flags in the relationship. Feelings can be inaccurate when we are gauging whether to return to relationship because we think we ‘miss’ him when in fact, what we miss are the feelings that were generated in the relationship. Feelings can be inaccurate when we are gauging the intensity and equate that with love or something healthy in the relationship. Understanding the importance of ‘feelings’ in all stages of a relationship can help you recognize just ‘what’ your feelings are telling you and when to heed them and when to be a little suspicious of their messages to you!