A Beautiful, Terrible Thing Quotes

“when you come out on the other side of this, the amount of power you walk away with is going to blow your fucking mind.”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

“Some sociopathic individuals absolutely know that they suffer from a personality disorder and use it to their advantage. Marco sounds like he lacks empathy and an inner moral compass but that he truly justifies his actions to himself. That’s to say, it sounds like he believes his own lies.”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

“Anyone involved in a relationship with a psychopath goes through a long period of something called cognitive dissonance. It is a period of time during which you are trying to merge two realities: that the person you thought was your best friend and the love of your life is actually nothing but an illusion; his sole objective was to build you up so that he could destroy you in the worst way possible.”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

“Because psychopaths tend to target individuals who are especially empathetic and trusting, the best way to win a target is to appeal to her decency. The psychopath will weave an elaborate sob story, pouring his heart out to his target and making her feel not only sympathetic to the psychopath’s “bad luck” but also extremely flattered that the psychopath has chosen her to divulge his deepest secrets to.”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

“sometimes it takes going through hell to find yourself.”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

“It’s like the mask drops when they are called on to be the nurturer in the relationship for once.”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

“Psychopaths desire to be consumed whole by someone else because they lack an identity themselves.”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

“I remember reading that sociopaths cannot and will not, under any circumstances, remain faithful for longer than a few months, that even while idealizing one target, they are still constantly on the lookout for more supply.”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

“Now I understand why sociopaths are dubbed “human heroin.” I have been shooting pure, unadulterated psychopathic love into my bloodstream for five years. I am coming down from a drug I didn’t even know I was on, and the withdrawal has knocked me on my fucking ass.”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

“When you really don’t like your partner, you need to be in love with them, and when you fall out of love with them, you need to like them.”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

“There is no “old Marco” and “new Marco.” Marco was always an illusion; the best magic trick I’ve ever seen.”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

“And then a voice in my head says very clearly, “She could have been anyone.” The obviousness and the truth of this statement jolts me. If it wasn’t her, it would have been someone else. Marco hunted for someone willing to feed his ego, but it didn’t actually matter to him who it was.”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

“He targeted her because she’s extremely insecure, and he figured out how to give her whatever validation she needed. For someone who has been looking to be validated her entire life, do you know how powerful it would be to hear ‘I’m giving up everything for you’?” I think back to the person I was when I met Marco. I was desperate for external validation. I needed someone to tell me I was special so that I could believe it myself. I decided that Marco was my missing piece and because of his love, I would finally be whole. I wanted so badly to feel the “magic” of love, to be adored, to find my fairy-tale ending, to be complete.”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

“Even his ‘lovey’ texts are not actually about YOU and how he hurt YOU. They’re about him and how he ruined his life. He doesn’t say ‘My God, I can’t believe I put you through hell,’ he says ‘All I want is my wife back. All I want is my life.’ HIS wife. HIS life. Every single thing he says relates back to HIM.”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

“It’s like the mask drops when they are called on to be the nurturer in the relationship for once. You know, I never expressed it in words, but I think I innately felt like Finally, it’s Marco’s turn to take care of me, after I put so much into him for so long. And then instead of taking care of me, he had an affair.”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

“It is incredibly freeing to invest in what nourishes your emotional well-being and stop engaging with the people and things that make you feel less than. Somehow, I never realized that I always had a choice in creating my own reality. I”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

“It’s not that P’s are trying to be intentionally cruel, though they could care less about that since they have no conscience. Rather, since P’s lack an identity, they spend their lives collecting data and analyzing situations. They merely see that something ‘works’ and so store it away for future use on another target.”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

“Gaslighting is a psychological tool that psychopaths use to mess with their victims’ hold on reality during the devalue phase. It’s a form of mental manipulation that eventually causes the target to question her own sanity and to mistrust her perception of reality.”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

“We have always been each other’s biggest fan,” my mom said. “That’s so important in a relationship and a marriage. Dad and I have always had a vision of what we were trying to do and worked together to accomplish it. Big or small, you hunker down and work toward it together. Respect and teamwork. Because if you’re not on the same team, what’s the point?”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

“He has made the decision for you to end the relationship because he has chosen that there will be no respect, openness, or true intimacy in the relationship.”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

“You have to grieve the family and the future you thought you would have. And you have to go through an entire cycle of holidays, birthdays, and seasons before you really stop feeling that raw pain. Even then, all the ‘firsts’ will be hard, the first time she sleeps in her crib, her first word, the first time she walks. But then one day you will wake up and you will be so glad it happened. And that it happened when she was a newborn. You will realize your lives are so, so much better without Marco, if this is really who he is.”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

“I’ve always thought of myself as an optimist, but now I’m starting to wonder about the difference between being “optimistic” and being delusional. I was so eager to believe in the fairy tale that I blinded myself to some serious character flaws. I was so bound to my belief that Marco was “the one” that I took in all the “good” (love bombing, intense feelings, sexual chemistry) and rejected the “bad” (lying, cheating, a dark, murky past).”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

“I mean, it might be hard to accept, but there are a lot of bad people in the world. Or at least people who do bad things.”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

“The dynamic that we used to have has been so completely destroyed that I am left clinging to texts that switch between being outright cruel and sappy and lovey. Sometimes they come in literally one right after another. I went from trusting and loving this person, from feeling adored and protected, to licking bitter morsels that he is throwing at me off the ground whenever he senses that I am starting to break free. Now I understand why sociopaths are dubbed “human heroin.” I have been shooting pure, unadulterated psychopathic love into my bloodstream for five years. I am coming down from a drug I didn’t even know I was on, and the withdrawal has knocked me on my fucking ass.”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

“Gaslighting is a psychological tool that psychopaths use to mess with their victims’ hold on reality during the devalue phase. It’s a form of mental manipulation that eventually causes the target to question her own sanity and to mistrust her perception of reality. The most common example is a P denying something he said or did. The P is so adamant and incredulous in his denial that his partner second-guesses herself and then finally decides that she must be confused, misremembering, going insane. I think back to the day Marco tagged and then untagged me in the sunglasses picture. How easily I decided to let it go; how easily I let myself be convinced that I was probably confused—maybe Marco never tagged the picture, maybe I was going insane from sleep deprivation.”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

“Sociopaths: A Lack of Conscience.” I read that sociopaths have absolutely no conscience. Whenever they seemingly do something that falls in line with societal standards of “good” or “moral” it is only because it benefits them in some way. While they are smart enough to understand that society deems certain things (cheating, lying, murder, rape) as “bad,” they do not actually feel that there is anything wrong with these things.”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

“When the target is no longer useful or providing enough narcissistic supply, the dark void that is always lurking within the sociopath opens and he starts to methodically devalue the very traits of his target he once overvalued.”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

“At the end of the article the author explains that some targets provide such large sources of ego fuel that they may remain in the idealize phase for years, depending on what the sociopath desires out of the relationship. The article calls this “narcissistic supply” and states that all sociopaths are also narcissists. I read the next line: If a target is providing a constant stream of supply, they may be overvalued and idealized by the sociopath for many years. However, when their supply eventually decreases, they will be quickly devalued and discarded. Oh my God. Green card. Restaurant. Wedding. Travel. Reputability. Maine. Money. Family. I was an almost never-ending source of supply for Marco until I had a baby and suddenly, my stock plummeted. I would no longer be feeding his ego if I was taking care of a newborn.”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

“I remember Marco saying, “I can’t be alone. You know I hate being alone,” as if that was a justification for him continuing his affair. The article concludes by saying that a sociopath will repeat the same relationship cycle over and over again; lather, rinse, repeat. I Google “sociopath relationship cycle.” I click a link that leads to a page with a shadowy figure wearing a mask with the words “Idealize, Devalue, Discard” on it. I have not even read what this means and chills creep all over my body. Idealize, devalue, discard.”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

“He Googled ‘Does penis enlargement really work?’ When I asked him about it, he said he was worried about me being . . . stretched out after having a baby.” I look at her with an embarrassed smirk and shudder. “But obviously at this point I know he was researching for Croella.” My mom stares at me. “So while we were all madly trying to help him and figure out what was physically wrong with him. While you stopped producing enough milk for your newborn baby because you were so stressed about the e-mail and his personality change. He was Googling how to make his penis bigger for his twenty-two-year-old girlfriend?”
― Jen Waite, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal