How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists

LETTER TO LOVEFRAUD: He painted a future, telling me how we were going to make this work

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Editor's note: Lovefraud received the following email from a reader whom we'll call "Gabriela." She lives outside of the United States. My heart is aching because of what happened to me. I met a guy, I don´t know if he´s a sociopath, but he betrayed me. I met him once in at the pool area in a casino hotel in the U.S. I was traveling there with some family, I´m from another country. We had this great chemistry since that day that we met. We spoke for hours, invited me to go out but I couldn't. Then I came back to my country but kept that in love feeling that I had never felt before. I couldn´t even understand it because we only saw each other for those few hours, but still I searched him on …

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Sociopath Math

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 "It feels like I have a target on me," said a woman who had repeatedly caught the eye of sociopathic men. "You do," I replied.  “So do I. So do lots of us.” Believe Who They Are When They Show You The First Time Why are empathetic people especially likely to get trapped in long-term relationships with sociopaths? We stay in these relationships too long, in part, because we discount and misattribute malicious, selfish, destructive behavior. We give people the benefit of the doubt. We have to stop doing this!  Or at least, we need to become far more selective about when we do it and with whom we do it. We need to take Maya Angelou's words to heart — “When someone shows you who they are …

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Traits that make women attractive to psychopaths

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  Many people think that women who've been snared by a psychopathic con artist are weak, gullible and lacking in self-esteem. Well, many people are wrong. In a recent article for SheKnows.com, author Kiri Blakeley lists seven traits that make women vulnerable to psychopaths. They're not what you may think. Donna Andersen, author of Lovefraud.com, was quoted in the article. 7 traits psychopaths are attracted to, on SheKnows.com.   …

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Why betrayal by a sociopath hurts so much

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BOOK REVIEW: Love and the mystery of betrayal, by Sandra Lee Dennis, Ph.D. This post refers to spiritual concepts. Please see Lovefraud's statement on Spiritual Recovery. If you're like most Lovefraud readers, you may find it difficult to put into words the depth of the pain romantic betrayal causes. Discovering that your romantic partner, the person who claimed to be your soul mate, proclaimed unending love and promised a future of golden togetherness, was lying all along and totally deceived you, causes indescribable agony. Sandra Lee Dennis, Ph.D., has put your suffering into words. I recently read her book, Love and the Mystery of Betrayal Recovering your trust and faith after trauma, …

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Married To A Sociopath — How It All Began

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My Story Since ending what turned into a toxic marriage, suffering through a divorce from hell, and enduring severe post-divorce emotional, legal, and financial aftershocks, I have educated myself about sociopaths. It is clear to me now that my ex-husband and the father of my children is a sociopath. By sharing my story and painfully gained insights in my book Husband, Liar, Sociopath: How He Lied, Why I Fell For It & The Painful Lessons Learned, and on the lovefraud.com  website, I hope to help others identify some of the markers that indicate someone in their life might be a sociopath as well as to recognize and offset the qualities in oneself—as in all of us—that encourage us to give …

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He’s a sociopath – he’s been lying to me since the day I met him

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Editor's note: Lovefraud received the following story from a reader whom we'll call "Arlene." Five months ago I found myself in one of the worst situations of my life. I found out that my boyfriend, the love of my life, the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with and grow old with, the man I thought I knew better than he knew himself, of 8 years ... was a total stranger and never existed. This is my story. I started dating a man 11 years older than me when I was 24 years old; I am now 33. We supposedly, in my mind, fell in love very quickly. Three months in, he took me shopping for a wedding ring, and two weeks later he told me that he had been making payments on the one that I loved, …

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BOOK REVIEW: Husband, Liar, Sociopath

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Many people equate the term "psychopath" with "criminal," especially "serial killer." Although it's true that many serial killers are likely either deranged or psychopathic, it is also true that most psychopaths never kill anyone. In fact, there is an entire group of university researchers, led by Scott Lilienfeld, professor of psychology at Emory University, are investigating the "successful psychopath." Scientists disagree on how to define this creature. Some consider any psychopath who stays out of jail to be successful. Others look at career or monetary success. Read: Is the 'successful psychopath' a myth or reality? on PsyPost.org. Married to a successful psychopath Even if a psychopath …

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