What Can I Do for You?

In the two years since my boys’ dad started his on-again, off-again relationship with this woman, she’s made five attempts to get on my radar. I don’t understand it. I try not to assume someone’s motives because, at the end of the day, I’ll never truly know what’s going on in someone’s mind or what drives their actions.

Now that my sons have their own cars and can drive themselves back and forth between their dad and me, there’s no need to communicate with him. There’s no reason for me to engage with her—I’ve never met her, and we’ve never had any interaction. But still, it seems important to her to get my attention.

I can’t know if she wants to share something, or simply needs to be noticed.

If I sensed that her interest in connecting with me came from a place of wholesomeness, or if there was a chance that a conversation between us could bring healing to either of us, I’d be open to it. I will always be happy to participate in healing, especially with someone who impacts my children’s lives.

I imagine we probably have more in common than either of us would care to admit. I was tall, thin, attractive, doing well professionally, with more resources and assets than he had—yet still filled with enough self-loathing to try and make it work with someone who made me feel terrible. He’s driven to gain access to women with low self-esteem, who will trade being single for being with a man who takes everything they have, offering nothing good in return except for consistent cycles of intermittent reinforcement—just enough to keep them hanging on and trying harder.

I do feel for her.

Okay, I’m officially aware that I really need to get a life so I can have genuinely interesting things to write about.

Starved

Love Bombed: My Story of Worship, Betrayal, and No Contact (Part 8 of 32,000,000)

Learning to Love Myself?
I have been tasked with imagining loving myself rather than seeking love elsewhere.

But how? Starved for connection my entire life. I have gone without nurturing, protection, or the kind of love which would alllow me to exist without fear of it vanishing. Granted, I would benefit from taking better care of myself. And while that might prepare me for healthy connection with another, it will not satisfy my need for intimacy and connection.

In my world, love has been conditional— withdrawn when I failed to be useful or pleasing, which was much of the time.

I don’t know what it means to love myself. I survive myself. Each day, I wake up, and there I am—by myself with myself.

People who love themselves seem to have learned what love feels like because someone has showed them.

And this man who showed me what it was to feel cared for, considered, loved, treasured—wasn’t who he claimed to be.

Was It Real?
Was the love we had real? I mean, it wasn’t not real. But it was crafted and designed by him, executed by him—and then, intermittently retracted by him.

I don’t know. I feel stuck and disturbed by the idea that I’m supposed to now learn to love myself.

My therapist said, “Buy yourself flowers. You don’t need someone else to buy you flowers.”

But it was nothing to do with the flowers. It was about him/us—the consideration, effort, presence. He made me feel seen, heard, chosen. And ultimately, dependent on him making me feel those feelings.

I became emotionally reliant.

Fuck Self-Love
I am devastated by the belief that “no one will love you more than you love yourself.”

If true, and I was indoctrinated to hate myself, then does that mean everyone else will hate me too—forever?

It’s as if love is generational wealth or generational poverty. Some people inherit it. For others, it remains out of reach.

How does that work?

Connection
I am wired for and starved for connection. Not association. Not status. Not proximity.

I crave shared direction and flow—someone to hug, call, listen to, and be initiated by. Someone to laugh with, cry with, cheer for, and fight for—just as they would for me.

I’ve spent my life surviving, on my own. And I reject that healthy connection is hostage to my self-love. I cannot accept that as truth.

My lack of self-love didn’t just make me vulnerable to this love bomb—it made me perfect for it. I was groomed for this. Though I hesitate to use the word, I now recognize a pattern of behavior that feels predatory. Before learning about the two other women, I would have been offended to hear him referred to this way. But patterns don’t lie. I am one of four women devastated by him in just one year, not to mention his wife and daughters. Data and harmful patterns cannot be denied. Even if harm was not the intent, it remains harm.

Disclaimer: I am sharing my personal experience exactly as I recall it. This is my truth, my story, and my perspective~ to document what I lived through.

Harm Without Malice

Love Bombed: My Story of Worship, Betrayal, and No Contact (Part 7 of 32,000,000)

Reconciling Harm Without Malice

I feel like the absence of malice has to count for something. I truly believe this man is a highly empathic, loving soul. I think the idea that he has caused pain—pain he cannot magically make disappear or convince the hurt person that it isn’t real and if it is, it is not due to his intentions or actual choices—is deeply upsetting to him. 

He does things which happen to be deeply harmful because he needs to, because he’s good at it. And when faced with his culpability, he will do anything to deny it or smooth it over—not because he wants to harm, but because he doesn’t want harm to exist. This man is just doing the thing he loves, and it happens to be devastating.

But if harm keeps happening, and his response is to deny it rather than take accountability, what does that say about his version of empathy? Does he care more about not feeling like a harmful person than about actually not being one? It does seem so.

It’s strange to hold two truths at once: that someone can be deeply loving and also deeply harmful. That they can hate the idea of causing pain while continuing to cause it. And that, in the end, the absence of malice doesn’t undo the damage.

I’m realizing now that love without accountability isn’t love that can be trusted. Unwavering trust and safety matter more than the high of feeling adored. Both – And! I really thought I we had it ALL.

“One doesn’t have to operate with great malice to do great harm. The absence of empathy and understanding is sufficient.” ~Charles M.Blow.

Disclaimer: I am sharing my personal experience exactly as I recall it. This is my truth, my story, and my perspective~ to document what I lived through.

Love Bombing: Lies Before Hello

Love Bombed: My Story of Worship, Betrayal, and No Contact (Part 6 of 32,000,000)

The Story He Told Me

When we met, I was deeply moved. How he soldiered through the last 13 years of his 30-year marriage – cold and disconnected—no affection, no gratitude, no shared experiences. He spoke of serving well and faithfully as a parent, provider, and fixer, but never feeling like a true partner. And realized he needed more. I was the more.

Before me, he engaged a woman who requested of him to hit her hard enough to leave marks, who called him Daddy and insisted he call her Baby, Daddy’s Baby Girl, who threatened suicide if he upset her. But again, he did not speak negatively of anyone outright. He artfully shared in ways which allowed me to draw my own sympathetic conclusions.

I felt heartbroken for him. How is it possible for someone so awake, intentional, and generous—so full of love and light—to have only experienced misfortune in love?

The Little Lies

He found me on a dating app, and the lies started small, but immediately. I clearly indicated my preference for a man my height or taller—he lied about his height. I wanted someone politically aligned—he lied about his politics. I wasn’t a fan of thick Southern accents—he assured me he didn’t have one. But he was from South Georgia. Of course he had one. He explained it all away when I called him on it. So charming, who could be mad? Fuck it be short. Vote for the enemy. Speak like someone from the woods of South Georgia. Who even cares because you are soooooo good for me, so good for my nervous system. An emotional and sensory delight.

Initially, I tried to decline: I don’t think we need to talk or meet.
He replied, What’s it gonna hurt?
And so, of course we spoke. Then, met. And it went all the way, full tilt, everywhere. Immediately.

Disclaimer: I am sharing my personal experience exactly as I recall it. This is my truth, my story, and my perspective~ to document what I lived through.

When Love Fades

Love Bombed: My Story of Worship, Betrayal, and No Contact (Part 5 of 32,000,000)

Denial

I could not see it.
I wouldn’t believe it, no matter how many times friends begged me to look and listen. They saw the signs as glaring, in only the details I readily shared with them. I just couldn’t recognize what was happening. All I knew was that I loved him and felt loved in his presence. Loved, spoiled, seen, chosen.

Even when the devaluation started. Even when I felt myself grasping for his attention, for his validation, for our original way of engaging. I believed in what we had – that it was real and profound.  Legit, on many occasions over those months, laughing joyfully, I was exclaiming, “I literally think we have invented the greatest love ever, THIS has never been done before.”

Looking back, I recall the chill —the moment cool distance and mixed messaging replaced love bombing. More time between responses and initiatives. Less present and engaging communication in texts. Almost like courtesy responses, obligatory, detached. no longer a steady rally. Previously, all of it was expansive— effortless, shared rhythm- FLOW. Then… constriction. The energy changed. Where there was once unending enthusiasm and warmth, now there was hesitation—something muted, measured, fading.

The Devaluation & the Desperation to Hold On

Once I felt that high, for months on end, I was hooked–addicted, desperate to get it back.

When the devaluation began and he started pulling away, he graciously and REPEATEDLY showered me with gorgeous words of assurance. The mixed messaging compounded my anxiety. I scrambled and held on tighter. I attempted to get smaller, quieter, easier. I ignored red flags. I discounted myself.

I begged myself to believe and rely on his beautiful soothing words, though they differed from his energy and actions. If I could just be less needy, less pawing, just less, he would burn for me again. He would return as the man who once couldn’t get enough of me—the version of himself he had shown me, the one who stole my heart.

But that version of him was gone-  never real.

Disclaimer: I am sharing my personal experience exactly as I recall it. This is my truth, my story, and my perspective~ to document what I lived through.

The Two Truths

Love Bombed: My Story of Worship, Betrayal, and No Contact (Part 4 of 32,000,000)

The Two Truths
I’m struggling to reconcile two truths. One truth is what I directly and consistently experienced: our time together was effortless, joyful, and deeply connected. We did not fight or argue, though we did not always agree. We shared adventures, laughter, navigating hardships, and what felt like genuine emotional intimacy. If you judged our relationship by our times together, it would appear an A+—fluid, fun, and safe, kind, caring. CRAZY in love, envisioning our beautiful future.

And then there’s the other truth: what I didn’t experience directly, but pieced together from mixed messaging and inconsistencies, hollow texts, and now the stories of these two other women, deeply distressed and pursuing him legally with charges of abuse and physical harm (which took place in August, when I sensed something was off and blocked him—because his insistence that – all was and would be well – was in direct conflict with my lived experience and my gut—but I was desperate to believe him). It was not possible to believe him and stay sane because he was gaslighting me and engaging two other women, apparently in ways which left them suicidal and in need of pressing charges. His betrayals weren’t directly observable; they were sensed, uncovered, and explained away. His deceptions are insidious—and for me, defy articulation.

I was left with one option: stop communication. Blocking him feels childish, but there’s nothing else to do but hold on to what’s left of myself and close that door.

I hate it, but it’s the truth. The best I can do is heal from all that groomed me for exactly this relationship, and then grieve the loss and do the work to recover. I was first crazy for him and now crazy from him. I do not mean to suggest that I was clearly not NOT crazy before we met.

I wish it weren’t true. I wish it made sense. I wished it hurt less.

Disclaimer: I am sharing my personal experience exactly as I recall it. This is my truth, my story, and my perspective~ to document what I lived through.

Recognizing Love Bombing Signs

Love Bombed: My Story of Worship, Betrayal, and No Contact (Part 2 of 32,000,000)

The First Signs of Cracks (Denial & Self-Betrayal)

I didn’t want to see it.

I wouldn’t believe it, no matter how many times people told me. Friends who cared about me saw the signs, even based only on the things I was telling them. But I dismissed it. I justified it. I couldn’t recognize what was happening, even as I described it out loud.

Even when the devaluation started. Even when I felt myself grasping for his attention, for his validation, for the thing I thought we had in the beginning. I clung to the idea that we were different. That what we had was real.

But looking back, I can see the shift—the exact moment the love bombing started to fade, replaced by distance, devaluation, gaslighting, and control.

The Devaluation & The Desperation to Hold On

That’s the thing about love bombing. Once you’ve felt it, you’ll do anything to get it back.

I despaired when he started pulling away, while insisting he was not- when the devaluation began, I scrambled to keep him. I made myself smaller, quieter, easier. I ignored red flags. I suffered unbearable pain, anxiety, and shame. My need for him was the issue, my sensitivity, my trauma—-those exact things signaled him as to my suitbility as a promsing supply- a good prospect.

I told myself that if I could just love him better—if I could be more patient, more understanding, less direct—he would return to me. The version of him I fell for in the beginning.

But that version of him was never real.

Disclaimer: I am sharing my personal experience exactly as I recall it. This is my truth, my story, and my perspective~ to document what I lived through.

Addiction to Toxic Love

Love Bombed: My Story of Worship, Betrayal, and No Contact (Part 1 of 32,000,000)

The Illusion of Love (The Hook)

I worshiped him. Loving him was like a religion. Sex with him was a sacrament.

He gave me a glimpse into a life of love and fluid connection that made me want to stay on this planet like nothing else ever had. He showed me something that felt like love—something deeper than anything I had ever received from my parents or the man I married. With him, I felt seen, welcomed, safe, protected, treasured, and chosen.

And I know now—he wanted me to feel that way. Because that’s what cult leaders and love bombers do.

The High (Addiction & Trauma Bonding)

And I ate it up. I was beyond high from it- addicted, obsessed, in love.

I thought we were saving each other—pulling one another out of unfulfilling, disconnected, disappointing, and lonely lives. We had it all: laughter, easy connection, effortless conversation. It felt so expansive, so overflowing, that it spilled into physicality—physicality that felt highly rewarding, even sacred.

But if I’m being honest? It wasn’t as rewarding as I pretended it was. I knew my display of worship and responsiveness mattered to him. And I was desperate to keep him delighting in my postive responses to him as a desired man and a god.

Especially once I felt the shift.

Ralph E Owen Five Stones Church Love Bomber

Disclaimer: I am sharing my personal experience exactly as I recall it. This is my truth, my story, and my perspective~ to document what I lived through.

Breaking the Love Spell

With stunning clarity, I now see the man I loved blindly and hopelessly for over a year is not who he said he was. He’s what my friends cautioned me about- a love bomber and a manipulator. There are things I understand now which before I couldn’t —things I couldn’t recognize because they were foreign to me, yet oddly familiar patterns of abuse.

Maybe it’s sleep deprivation, or my struggle with executive function, attention deficit, or trauma. But I think I may be the least calculating person I know. I don’t anticipate, strategize, or predict outcomes. I’m stunned when people point out something done or not done deliberately—I don’t see it. I can’t fathom operating that way because I lack the capacity. Even in games, I don’t strategize. I win or lose by surprise. I’ve been programmed not to trust myself—to discount my own knowing, feelings, and needs—and to look to others for the truth. I end up believing what people say, even when it doesn’t align with my lived experience. And even after they have shown me time and again, they are not to be trusted.

So, for today, I see it.

This man—his scheming, calculating energy—is more real than the man who made me feel spoiled, chosen, treasured until he stopped. That was a scam, a trick, a spell. I am now aware of three other women in the past year—aside from his ex-wife and daughters—have fallen under and been broken by his spell, now legally charging him with abuse. He shows a pattern of preying on the vulnerable, disguised as a savior, fearless leader, a man who fears nothing.

His charisma is intoxicating. His confidence unshakable. No wonder he’s a wizard in donor development and lucrative partnerships- effortlessly raising millions. But his nonprofit– Smoke and mirrors. Five beds for survivors they can’t keep full. Yet they hustle, raising millions to construct a larger facility, more beds– greater salaries, bonuses, and perks.

He’s a rainmaker—dazzling always and only at the start.

Because I was conditioned to believe I’m unlovable and unworthy, I remain vulnerable to dynamics like this—until that wound is healed. For so long, I thought I was the cause of abuse. That I was imagining it. That maybe, if I tried hard enough, I could change it.

But the truth is, the best I can do is leave—though I never go easily. I stay until the pain makes it undeniable—when staying is no longer sane or safe–because staying makes me want to die. There will be no peaceful resolution, no shared understanding, because that would disrupt the power balance.

Now, in therapy and recovery, I’m learning to heal the parts of myself that invite and enable this debilitating, destabilizing dynamic. No contact is a tragic last resort. The work to heal is exhausitng and neverending, a process, not an event…no arrival or final destination. I’m tired of accumulating new things to heal from—injuries that will persist until I address the old wounds. I’ve broken, or at least disrupted, the cycle for my children, but I haven’t fully done it for myself. R al ph Owen Five Stones Church Carmel Baptist Church Waxhaw NC – narcissist liar cheater scammer

The Cure and the Curse

By design, it seems, he became my everything;  my comfort, my laughter, my peace, my joy. He is the place where I have felt the most alive, the most connected, the most whole.

And yet, he is also the thing which breaks me.

Like insulin to a diabetic, crack to an addict. I need him like breath, like blood, like something vital that I cannot live without-  he is both medicine and poison. 

When we are together, I have felt both calm and excited. For many months we were mutually in awe of our connection, each feeling both held and free. It is true that we spent an unnatural amount of time together, and that his showering me with gifts, adventure, and constant contact was intoxicating, spellbinding. It absolutely fits the bill of love bombing. And then, his decision to reclassify me matches what is described as the devalue/discard. It is true I beg him to stay and he does. When we are apart, I am unraveling. This love is both my salvation and my sickness.