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. 

The truth is the truth even if nobody beleives it. A lie is a lie, even if everyone beleives it.

The Truth is the Truth

I’ve been nursing a heavy ache in my heart — one that’s hard to put into words. It’s about my boys, how they see me, how they see their dad, and the painful gap between what they witness and what they’re told.

I don’t know what’s been said to justify the way I’ve been treated. But I know my boys have seen me act with kindness and generosity — not because their dad deserved it, but because that’s who I am. They’ve seen me show mercy when I wasn’t given any.

They’ve also seen their dad — convinced he’s entitled and never wrong, punishing anyone who challenges him. They’ve experienced his coldness, his deception.

I believe they’ve been gaslit — taught not to trust what they’ve seen. And if my boys know anything about me, it’s that I am kind and incapable of pretending. I can barely remember things well enough to lie, let alone scheme or hide.

They’ve seen my hopeless choices in relationships. And they’ve seen how their dad surrounds himself with people — especially women — who elevate him. That’s why he chose me. He didn’t marry me because he valued me, but because I had more: more wealth, more friends. I made him look good. I gave him legitimacy — a wife, a house, a sense of status.

While he took from me, I gained nothing good from him. I didn’t marry a man who was kind or generous or wise. My life didn’t grow — it shrank. My circle got smaller. My bank account got smaller. My self-esteem, my energy, my ability to function — all smaller.

Before him, I had two great loves: my special-needs dog, King Simon, and my job as a first-grade teacher — both gave me purpose. But in that relationship, I spent so much energy silencing my feelings and needs that I had nothing left for the things I once loved. Teaching became impossible. I took a leave of absence because I couldn’t manage both my unhappy marriage and being the passionate teacher I once was. Even caring for my King (this incensed him- that I had a King and it was not him)— whom I adored — started to feel overwhelming. I remember wondering if putting him down early would be easier, just to have one less thing counting on me.

Yet somehow, it never occurred to me that the marriage itself was what I should let go of. Instead, I gave up everything else — friends, my job, volleyball — until all that remained was my miserable marriage, my pain, and the shame of still not being enough for my husband, my family, or the world.

The marriage didn’t create that belief — it just confirmed what I’d always feared: that I was unworthy, and every struggle was proof of my own badness. It felt like evidence for everyone who had ever been disappointed in me before.

Of course, I’m grateful for my children — born of our union. But that relationship? It brought me nothing but loss. If anything, it was my final lesson — a harsh reminder not to choose someone who would diminish me, betray me, and then make himself the victim.

I want to believe my boys will one day sort through it all — that they’ll remember what they’ve seen, felt, and know in their hearts.

Until then, I hope — hope that my love will be louder than the lies, and my truth stronger than the distortions. Because no matter what they’ve been told, the truth is still there — steady and waiting to be seen.

Little Wins

I’ve shared before about the mantra I use to punish myself: “Winners keep winning, and losers keep losing.”

Lately, life has felt like an uphill climb, made harder by a tangled mess of medications. With my memory and focus already a struggle, this recent medical event made it worse than I could have imagined.

So when this happened, it felt like a win.

I baked banana bread for the boyfriend who doesn’t choose me, and also for the one who does 😘. The first time, I forgot the egg and braced for failure — but – it turned out delicious. I tried it again two more times, no egg on purpose, and each time it was just as moist and tasty.

I’m pleased and proud. Now I have a recipe for a food item I enjoy and something I feel good at making — a much-needed win.

Today, I’m not the loser who forgot the egg — I’m a banana bread champ.

It was moist, delicious, and easy. I may only have about 12 readers, none of whom follow me for cooking tips, but I’m sharing the recipe anyway, just in case.

Preheat the oven to 350. Melt 1/3 cup of butter in a bowl. Once melted, mash in 3 bananas, 1/3 cup of applesauce, and 1 tsp of vanilla.

In a separate bowl, mix ½ tsp of baking soda, a pinch of salt, ¾ cup of sugar, and 1½ cups of flour.

Combine your wet and dry ingredients, then pour into a greased loaf pan and bake for about 53 minutes. Check with a toothpick to see if it’s done. Perfection.