The following letter, written by a young woman who we’ll call Chloe, is one of the most complete stories of psychological manipulation that I’ve ever seen yet. Chloe wrote this letter secretly while the sociopath she is living with was at the gym.
I met my boyfriend two years ago. I was 18; he was 33. He’s a photographer; we live on an island that is very small. He has lived here forever (10 years) and I had only been here a few months when I met him. Everybody, especially women on the island, adore him, he is THE BIGGEST charmer.
He told me that he had moved here with his fiancée, that she had said she was going home for a week, and then never came back. He said she’d gone to therapy back home and been “mindf*cked” and never returned, breaking their engagement. I felt for him. He was so normal and sweet. He was living with his parents (because they were taking over his place) and he was moving out. He/we lived with them for a year, he’s still in it to this day, though his parents left a long time ago.
Always telling me what I should and shouldn’t eat. I’m 5’7” and 115 pounds, and I’m size DD and he’s always showing me plastic surgeons that do the best boob jobs so I can make them bigger. He was normal for four months, then told me he didn’t want me hanging out with or speaking to other guys. He even would get annoyed when I’d talk to my mom or dad.
Long story short, when I started moving out, which has happened a million times, he became violent. Touching me, I’d ask him to stop, gently pushing him off me but he wouldn’t and that’s when he started strangling me. I’ve told people about him and they take his side, because he’s such an upstanding member of the community.
He says guilt is a useless emotion and therefore feels none. He’s broken six cell phones, and in turn I’ve broken things of his. He uses this as a way to twist it and say it’s all my fault. He has every symptom on the sociopath checklist; I could go on and on. He got me a dog for my birthday and has started to use her as a tool to keep me home.
I’ve lost all my friends, rarely see family, but I’m so scared of life without him. I hate him, but every time I think about not having HIM in my life my chest hurts and it’s hard to breathe. I’ve gone to the hospital because he choked me too long, and spit in my face and held me down and rubbed it in, and I can’t or won’t leave. Isn’t that sick?
Initially I stayed because of the sex. Now I stay because I’m scared to be without him but also, I don’t want him to be with someone else, although I think he might have cheated on me once. When I tell him all these things, he calls me insane and “such a victim” and that I’m “sandbagging him and that’s all in the past.”
I’ve called Women Helping Women, but your site was the most helpful so far and I don’t know what to do. Everyone loves him; even the cops are his “braddahs.” He’s an SMU graduate; I only have high school (although I’ve gone to private schools my whole life) so he says no one would believe me, and they don’t!
His ex told me he stalked her until she moved back to the mainland, and no one believed her either… I used to be really strong and confident, but now I can’t leave the house without his approval of my outfit. I don’t want him to be with someone else, I don’t want to be with him, but I don’t want to be without him. He’s becoming more and more negative and aggressive towards me, but I’m scared to leave and scared to stay.
I feel dumb, ugly, depressed, anxious, and trapped. He’s drilled into my head for almost the whole two years that no other guys will date me or love me, and that they would only cheat on me. I know that’s not true because I get asked out all the time, but now I’m terrified of being cheated on! What should I do? Oh also he has naked pics and video of me that he’s threatened to release, even make money on.
Classic sociopath
This guy is a classic sociopath, employing every trick in the sociopath toolbox. He used the pity play to snag Chloe, with the story about his previous fiancé being “mindf*cked” in therapy to leave him. Yeah, right—she probably fled because it was the only way to get rid of him.
Then the guy used sex to get his hooks into Chloe. As Dr. Liane Leedom explains, in normal people, intimate relations creates bonds between them, and it worked with Chloe. These bonds, which are both psychological and hormonal, are Nature’s way of holding the human race together for our own survival.
But it’s possible for the bonds to become pathological. That can happen when someone—such as a sociopath—deliberately tries to bring another person under his or her control. Here’s how this guy did it to Chloe:
- Telling Chloe what she should eat and wear
- Telling Chloe to get breast implants, even though it sounds like she has a fabulous figure
- Isolating Chloe from her family and friends
- Refusing to comply when she asks him not to touch her, then strangling her
- Breaking cell phones—her way of contacting other people
- Telling Chloe she is insane
- Telling Chloe that no other man will have her
- Twisting everything around so that all problems are Chloe’s fault
Cycle of fear, anxiety, intimacy
Make no mistake—this is abuse. So what happens as a result? The guy creates fear and anxiety in Chloe. Fear and anxiety strengthen those attachment bonds, which started out being normal. What usually happens in these situations is that the victim turns to the abuser for relief from the fear and anxiety. The abuser then “forgives” the victim for “making him” act abusively. Then they have sex.
This cycle of fear-anxiety-intimacy keeps strengthening the psychological and hormonal attachment bond, actually rewiring the victim’s brain. So now, even though Chloe knows the guy is bad news, it is almost impossible for her to get out of the relationship. This is apparent in the physical symptoms Chloe is showing just by thinking about leaving—her chest hurts and it’s difficult to breathe.
Off the island
Yet Chloe must leave. She must find the strength to get away from the guy, even if it means voting herself off the island.
Leaving this sociopath will be much like breaking an addiction. This, too, is normal. As Dr. Leedom explains, the bonds created in these relationships use the same pathways in the brain as drug addictions. That’s why Chloe has to go cold turkey with this guy, and why it will feel like withdrawal. The secret, as they say in recovery programs, it to take it one day at a time.
Chloe, do whatever you have to do to get out. Be prepared for the guy to pursue you, perhaps to the point of stalking, as he did with the previous woman. He may plead, beg, and even threaten. It’s not because he loves you. It’s because he doesn’t want to lose his property. Because that’s all you are to him—property.
Skylar, mine got me to apologize to him for him hitting me.
I am just baffled.
What a head trip. I hate them.
I got wifi on the train 🙂
Panther,
good list!
Please add:
No one will EVER love you.
Love should be unconditional.
You must respond CORRECTLY.
You interrupted, so I have to start all over again, from the beginning.
You didn’t answer the phone!! ALWAYS answer the phone.
Do you think I’m inconsiderate?
Thanks Skylar. I am putting that on the list.
I also remembered a few today:
He tells me we can’t trust you (talking about himself)
I suffer from horrible things that you do when you black out.
If you really loved me, you would lie to me.
I love you more than you love me because I am willing to lie to you to make you feel safe.
You are selfish because you always insist on being honest.
I am Jesus.
I hate porn. I really hate it. It objectifies women and it makes me sick. I only watch it for educational purposes. I don’t actually get off on it. I’m just trying to learn from it.
I’ve been with about 150 prostitutes.
I am a virgin.
I manipulated, played, and lied to you because I loved you and that made me scared, so I had to.
You should stop talking to that stupid guy. He’s trying to brainwash you into thinking men respect women. He just wants to sleep with you.
LOL! Panther,
how did you accept both “I’m a virgin” and “I’ve been with 150 prostitutes?”
Didn’t this boggle your mind?
No no not at once!
When we met, he was a “player” who had gone “straight” for the ONE which was me. He claimed to have been with ONLY prostitutes before me because he had never felt an emotion for another human being, ever. He went on and on about how I had broken through this wall of his and now he wanted to “give it all up” and just be with one woman forever.
Then when the love bombing period was over, he went into constant rages about me not being a virgin. My constant answer was, YOU HYPOCRITE! You have been with over a hundred prostitutes! How dare you expect me to be a virgin! He responded with VIOLENCE, hitting, strangling, name-calling, etc.
Then….I broke up with him. I had had ENOUGH of his SHIT.
So…he came crawling back telling me that there was this BIG secret he needed to tell me….some horrible, shameful thing that he had always been too afraid to tell anyone.
He got all dramatic and said, “Well, if you try to look for any woman before you, you won’t be able to find any, because you were actually the first.” I asked, “Wait, you are saying you were a VIRGIN?” Him, “Shhh, don’t use that word….I am so afraid to even be saying this aloud, oh, I have never told anyone and it tortured me so much to keep such a huge secret from you all this time. Oh, please don’t hate me. I am so sorry. I thought you’d hurt me if you knew the truth. I wanted to sound macho and like an alpha, so I made all those stories up. Please don’t tell my friends the truth. Please don’t hurt me! I never meant to be violent with you. I’ve been carrying the weight of this for so long….”
And the rest is history. I totally bought it and even tried to comfort the jerk. He bought himself a few more months of torturing me with that lie.
Oh, yeah, he also told me that he was a virgin because a 34 year old woman tried to rape him when he was 11 and he had hated women ever since.
Wow Panther….VERY sick man!
My x told me that he NEVER masturbated! He said that his grandmother taught him that it was bad, and he “can’t”.
They are so sick…and such liars!!!
I can’t believe I didn’t run sooner. The problem was that he had value for me in my life at that time. (I must have been “sick” too!). lol I wasn’t “sick”, he was just a distraction in my life for awhile…a “friend” and so normal in some ways. But, he really has deep-rooted issues that go way back.
Bottom line is…all of the negative outweighed any positive.
tobehappy, I originally came to a similar conclusion that he must have had a value for me at the time, but I don’t think this answer goes far enough. The reason I say this is because a sociopath, from what I’m learning, will become ANYTHING in order to be “what you need” at that time in your life. He wasn’t something you needed. He just noticed a weakness in you and BECAME the solution. They are freaking shape-shifters. If you need anything AT ALL they will figure out what it is and become that. We cannot expect ourselves to stop needing things in life. What’s wrong with needing love, affection, family, bonds, healthy relationships, etc? I think there are some healthy needs, and it’s not our fault that they just figure out what’s missing in our lives at that moment and then PRETEND to be THAT….it’s no wonder we end up more starved for that particular need at the end of it. It’s like we’re starving for something and they show up with popcorn and we start woofing down the popcorn and then they refuse to let us eat anything else, and we don’t look cause at least we have popcorn, but really we are becoming malnourished, even though our tummies are full. They are the ultimate placebo effect….the placebo that eventually gets replaced with poison.
You are right, Panther. I didn’t “need” him. I was not involved seriously with any man for 5 yrs after my divorce. I met him at work. We worked together for 2 yrs before he asked me out.
He was attracted to me sexually, as I was to him. I never thought we would end up together since we worked together.
We grew close because of a problem in work that forced us to stick together. I jumped into the sack with him too fast. I should have gotten to know him outside of the job. His persona was not who he really was.
The lovebombing was overwhelming. After 5 yrs with no man in my life, I was eating it up. He made me feel “sexy” again…and built up my self esteem. I wasn’t desparate for a man, but I enjoyed having him as a companion and best friend.
After a year, I realized what he was behind closed doors. I caught him in lies. I ended it. Of course he came back crying and super lovebombing…But, it was never the same.
I wanted to remain friends with him…but he wouldn’t go for that. He wanted sex or he was going to end it completely.
So be it. I couldn’t have the “great” sex with him..I lost respect for him when I realized he was not the honest, caring, giving person I thought he was…when I got to know him well.
I say that he had value, because he was moral support for me throughout my financial problems…helped me alot with decisions, paperwork..etc.
But, thank God he is out of my life because he would have discouraged me to keep my home and take on the big payments. He was looking out for himself…wanted me to save my cash and pay less somewhere else. (Probably so that he could have it to buy the land he wants to build on! lol)
They are just out for themselves…have no capacity to really care. Like little children…”all about me”!!! I deserve more than that . I HAVE something to give…so I expect the same in return.