Realizing that you're involved with a sociopath is heartbreaking, devastating, earth-shattering. But, as bad as it is, good can come out of the experience. You can gain a better understanding of the world and the people in it. You can gain a better understanding of yourself. And, if you commit yourself to recovery, you can come out the other side healthier than ever, with an opportunity for true happiness. I've written about this quite a bit here on Lovefraud. In my second of two articles for YourTango, I've expressed this view to a wider audience. You can read it by clicking the link below. 7 reasons loving a cheater is the best gift you'll ever give yourself, on YourTango.com. BTW I …
10 Signs you’re addicted to loving a cheater
Here on Lovefraud, we often say that the incredibly strong feelings you have for someone you know is a sociopath are not really love, but addiction. How can you know? And how does this happen? Donna Andersen has just contributed an article to YourTango.com, a website dedicated to love and relationships, that answers the questions. Here are some of the signs: 1. You confront him about the calls on his phone from other women. He comes up with excuses, and you know they are lame, but you accept them anyway. 2. He says it's your fault that he cheated on you, and you agree with him. 3. You keep telling yourself that if you could just be more loving, patient, sexy, etc., he would make you his …
Games psychopaths play – flaunting other women (and men)
At 11 p.m. on a Saturday night, wearing new lingerie from Victoria's Secret, I awaited the arrival of my fiancé, James Montgomery. He'd been out of the country on a secret military mission (so he told me). But he could escape his duties for a short time, so he was driving more than 1,000 miles, from MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, to my home in New Jersey, to meet me for a passionate rendezvous. He arrived in a vehicle I'd never seen before a black Grand Prix. "Whose car is this?" I asked. "It belongs to one of my mates from MacDill," Montgomery told me. "He needed the car brought up north, and I needed to get home. It worked out well." I believed his explanation at …
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Therapy Satisfaction Survey: Did you seek counseling because of a difficult relationship? How did it go?
If you've found your way to Lovefraud, most likely it's because you experienced an abusive or destructive relationship. Did you also seek professional counseling? If so, Lovefraud wants to know about your experience. We are collecting data for a scientific research paper about the experiences of people who seek therapy in the context of an abusive relationship. Your relationship could have been with anybody: Partner Parent Sibling Boss Other The survey will ask you questions like: What aspects of the therapy were helpful or not helpful? Did you engage in couples or joint counseling? How satisfied were you with the services you received? It has multiple-choice questions and some questions …
Q&A with Carol Mooney, a wellness counselor
What experience have you had dealing with sociopaths or other disordered personalities—personally, professionally, or both? I worked for many years as a counselor in the criminal justice system with high-risk individuals involved in criminal offending, drugs and alcohol, volatile behaviors, chronic unemployment, very low education levels, mental health disorders and personality disorders (predominantly antisocial personality disorder), as well as a crisis counselor through the Mental Health Mental Retardation Department. In addition, I speak from the inside out from personal experience with a relationship with a dangerous, toxic lethal individual. I know the pain, betrayal …
Overt and covert narcissists
According to an article by Scott Barry Kaufman on the Scientific American Blog, there are two types of narcissists: "While the 'overt' narcissists tended to be aggressive, self-aggrandizing, exploitative, and have extreme delusions of grandeur and a need for attention," he writes, "'covert' narcissists were more prone to feelings of neglect or belittlement, hypersensitivity, anxiety, and delusions of persecution." Researchers have developed the Maladaptive Covert Narcissism Scale. It has 23 statements, and people are supposed to rate the degree to which the statements describe them. Kaufman includes the scale in this article does it apply to anyone you know? 23 signs you're secretly a …
The sociopath would always make me think I did something wrong
Editor's note: Lovefraud received the following email from a reader whom we'll call "Felicia." I was separated from husband and joined a personal training center. The trainer through months of me training with him convinced me to help him open a restaurant. I worked long hours for no pay. He would tell me, I'll make you a partner, just prove to me you can run the restaurant. This went on for a year. I divorced and after the divorce he started to tell me I was the best thing that happened to the restaureant, that I would start to make a lot of money. He then started to ask me to go places with him that pertained to the business. Then he would tell me I was beautiful and we eventually started …
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How your brain enables you to be deceived
When we finally catch on that everything a sociopath told us was a lie, most of us are furious with ourselves for not seeing the deception. We should cut ourselves some slack. A documentary that aired on the History channel explains why our brains misinterprets what we observe, and/or totally misses what is going on around us. "We believe first, and ask questions later," says science writer Jeff Wise in the show. Your Bleeped Up Brain: Deception, on History.com. Link provided by a Lovefraud reader. …
How did you get caught by a sociopath? Find answers in the new Red Flags of Love Fraud Workbook ebook
As I learned more and more about the depths of my one-time husband's deception and betrayal, one of the things I kept asking myself was this: How did I get myself into this mess? I was a college-educated journalist and business owner. I'd been dating for more than 20 years. Yet nothing this man promised me was real, and I couldn't see it until it was far too late. How did this happen? Since my personal experience, and hearing from thousands of Lovefraud readers, I've discovered that we all have vulnerabilities, and sociopaths are experts at finding them. Recognizing our own vulnerabilities will help us understand why we were targeted, and what we have to do to recover. More importantly, …
Con man Patrick Giblin, released from prison after scamming 132 women, sentenced to 2 years for more violations
By Donna Andersen CAMDEN, N.J. Patrick Giblin, 51, of Atlantic City, New Jersey, was sentenced to two years in federal prison yesterday after violating the conditions of his supervised release. Despite promising to change his ways, Giblin had gone back to scamming women he met through dating websites and gambling in casinos. Giblin was originally sentenced on April 17, 2007, to 115 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to 10 counts of wire fraud. Between 2000 and 2005, he defrauded 132 women out of a total of $320,241. Read Lovefraud's original coverage of this outrageous case here: Patrick Giblin trolls phone dating lines, taking money from 132 women Giblin was also ordered …