UPDATED FOR 2023: Lovefraud received this note from a reader; we’ll call her Allison. She offers excellent advice for recovering from your entanglement with a sociopath: Don’t take it personally.
I want to thank everyone involved with the Lovefraud website. It is truly a gift. To the brave survivors, I wish you peace. I am a survivor myself. In fact, I’m divorcing mine as we speak. I will write my story another time because this time I only want to give a piece of advice that has helped me the most. When I was able to do this, the rest was easier to get through. I stopped taking it personally. It was not an easy task. I read everything I could get my hands on and while I learned his actions were mostly textbook, it was easier for me to let go. Once I convinced myself that I was not the first nor will I be the last, I shut my heart off and stopped taking it personally. This was my key to survival. I offered a silent apology to the women of the world for throwing this one back into the dating pool and went on with my life. I stopped taking it personally and I slept better, dreamed better, laughed more and found that I’ll be just fine. If this helps even one person, it will have made it worth it. Take care.
Simple, effective advice
Allison’s advice is very simple, but it goes directly to the core of the sociopath’s manipulation, betrayal and abuse. The sociopath never cared about us one way or the other. We were convenient targets. We had something the sociopath wanted. Or we presented an opportunity for the sociopath’s amusement.
Sociopaths do what they do, because that’s what they do. We just happened to be there.
Of course, that’s not what the sociopath told us. First, he or she proclaimed love and devotion, or a sterling opportunity to succeed together — whatever the promise was. Then, when the promise started falling apart, the sociopath told us it was all our fault.
We, as normal human beings, believed the original promise — how could anyone say those words and not mean them? So, when the blame started flying from the person who made the promise, we believed that as well.
As we say here on Lovefraud, the sociopath is the lie. And the sociopath lied because that’s what they do. They are missing the parts — emotional connections to other people and conscience — that make us human.
Opportunity for healing
Still, there is a reason that we went along with the sociopath’s program, and that is something we do need to take personally, for our own recovery and growth.
Read more: Seduced by a sociopath — It’s not love, it’s love fraud
This does not at all excuse the sociopath’s heartless behavior, nor is it meant to blame the victim. But most of us engaged because we wanted to believe the original promise.
We have to ask ourselves, what was missing within us that allowed us to believe? Did we have experiences in our pasts that made us susceptible to the manipulation? If so, it’s time to look at these issues and heal ourselves.
So as we extricate ourselves from the sociopath, understand that this is how they are, their behavior is not our fault, and don’t take it personally.
But we should take very personally the opportunity to excavate the old, erroneous tapes in our heads, and create wonderful new lives for ourselves.
Learn more: Comprehensive 7-part recovery series presented by Mandy Friedman, LPCC-S
Lovefraud originally posted this article on April 6, 2009.
LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: Hyper vigilance and PTSD
Oxy,
I OFTEN wonder about the few posters that posted here for awile about their kids.
The poster who had a daughter that was younger and was going into the “special school”. This poor womans story scared the hell out of me. And I can remember how she was feeling judged by others, for giving up on her child. And she challeneged anyone to come live in “her shoes” for a few days and see what they thought about her after they could experience her daughter first hand.
And another that posted close to the same time. Her daughter was about 17 or 18 and had runaway to live with her P ex husband and after a couple years came back to her mother and was staying with her and her new husband.
You know that the story never ends….I am often curious if these people ever found peace? And how they found it if they ever did?
Wow Ox-
You’ve done a TON of work! Good for you…the road couldnt have been easy, and to hear you talk with such clarity is a breath of fresh air. I wish to get to that place where I can tell my story and really KNOW all the facts. It seems as though Im trying to sort out all those ‘facts’…
Sometimes I sit in my house and look at all the ‘things’ that I have. What I sadly realize is that alot of the items in my house were bought by him. I may answer my own question here or come to an ephiphany so bare with me please….
I was reminded of an incident that occured 2 weeks after we met that may have just set the stage for where Im at now. He wanted to bring over a coffee pot he had because I didnt have one. He was spending the night over here, but I didnt want the coffee pot here cause, well, first of all I dont drink coffee, second of all, we were only dating for 2 weeks and it felt like he was TRYING TO MOVE IN, and thrid of all, it was just plane weird…a coffee pot? It symbolized us being “together” without any courtship. Needless to say, he didnt bring the coffee pot over.
About 2 months later, I found myself SO PISSED at him for ‘smothering’ me. We had argued about him being upset with me for going out ‘longer than (he) planned’ after my XMas work party (he was at his mom and dads that night cause I had plans). WHO THE FUCK IS HE! He had, by this time brought his coffee pot over…along with about a quarter of his closet…which in turn PISSED ME OFF as I felt, again, he was trying to move in…without talkign to me about it. I packed ALL his things, coffee pot included, and asked him to take them home…to his mommy and daddys.
As I look around at my house though, it’s striking to me all the ‘things’ he bought for me. Were they for me though? Or were they an attempt at ‘stamping’ himself into the fibers of my life? Im not talking about a blanket here and there either…Im talking about a wraught iron bed frame, a 20 picture jewlery cabinet, dvd/vcr player, corner tv stand, electic fireplace, gorgeous hanging wall picture frames (that of course had our pictures in it). I asked for NONE of these things…they all showed up at my house with him saying ‘I thought you’d like this so I bought it.” Really?
As I look back, about 90 percent of these ‘things’ were bought within our first year and a half. Interesting. He would comment about how “(your) house was decorated by me…MY things.”
I dont know, were these things given to me to really help enhance my living space OR were they another stupid ass attempt at manipulating me…with THINGS?
R-Babe,
It was all an attempt to make your place “his” place. A twisted way of control.
EVERYTHING is twisted when they do something. Always an ulterior motive. ALWAYS.
There might come a time not to long down the road where you might want to even dispose of these things. Maybe you don’t feel that way now…But trust me, you will later.
There will come a time when these things will not represent any kind of sentiment or memories of “good times”.
You will see them for clearly what they are.
witsend:
you make sense…yeah, make my place ‘his’ place without doing the necessary things to be his place…like pay bills—WOW! and he used to call my spare bedroom, his sons room! ive come to realize, which you just confirmed, that there ALWAYS was an ulterior motive…sex, place to stay on the weekends, whatever.
i didnt think of it as a way of control but it makes sense…yeah, if HIS things are here, then its HIS place…
I wonder if you realize how helpful you, Ox and EB in particular have been to me…oh, and one-step too! THANK YOU
I kinda feel like the jokes on him, just a tiny bit right now. I HAVE ALL THESE COOL THINGS and he has a bedroom at his mommy and daddys home…
Whose in control now, asshole! 😛 I know Ive got it in me to be a bitch, cause god knows Ive used it before…I wanna get there again SOOOOON
lol @....... Erin Brock
XOXOXOXOX dahlink
Sounds like your ex left it there just for shits-and-giggles
“Do you really want to live a ’fake’ life”
I called him “a phoney” on a few occasions, not really understanding how bang-on I was.
(PS I’m in NZ, so I hope my kiwi-isms are making sense)
R-babe,
Witsend is right on the money. Everything a p does is for a specific effect, one that has them on top and their mark/target on the bottom. If there is an audience, no matter what they are doing, it is a performance. Maybe even when alone. Anyway…..
Him bringing these things into your home is the equivalent of a wolf peeing around his territory. Marking it. Making it his own. But then, because he unfortunately has a ‘developed brain’ there is more to it than with the wolf. It’s not only to mark you/the house as his, but also to create something for you to believe in. The Lie. In this case the artificial sense of being together. And many of us have misinterpreted these displays of territoriality to mean ‘we’ are making a home together. But really it is just part of the survival strategy of the p. He is ‘merely’ (physically and psychologically) taking over any space he wants, ensuring his shelter, and future supply of goods and services.
They seem to do these things as if they are making binding agreements with us. Like: if I do X (hang my picture in your house), then that means Y (I ‘love’ you, snicker, you sucker). Then you have to do Z (anything I say).
All because of one tiny foto. Or coffee pot. There is most often something off to the way they do it. Like trying to bring a coffee pot over after two weeks of dating. Who does that, besides a p? Maybe a senile relative. But generally, no one.
In my experience these behaviors were ‘enough’ inside the framwork of normal that it was difficult to call them out, but done just strangely enough that I registered my discomfort (as you did when you said no to the coffee pot). Yet it isn’t, at least in the beginning, so out there that we see it for what it is. Manipulation.
And it comes at us with such regularity that most of it goes unchallenged. Then, it seems to me, that by the time they are doing really obviously nutso stuff, we have been desensitized by all the little shit that preceeded it. And we are truly overwhelmed. Our shit detectors are basically burned out.
I think this is where listening to those small amounts of discomfort is crucial. Screw having to know everything in minute intellectual detail. Which is always my achilles heel. I like the directions spelled out. And that doesn’t really work so well in some situations. Gotta go with my gut. Those ARE the instructions!
If it feels weird, it is. Validating ourselves, not waiting for some absolute clarity, or worse yet, validation from the other person. This is what is required if we are to become p-proof (along with some other stuff too, like demanding reciprocity, and ditching pity– see Kathy Hawkes article). I know I have to assign more importance to my own processes. I have to become more sensitive to what I am trying to tell myself! Instead of being so bloody sensitive to everyone else, and ignoring my own good senses.
That way after a coffee pot incident or two, they will be outta there!
Slimone:
Your talk about ‘taking over’ any space he wants is so true too. There was actually a time when I YELLED at him “I WANT TO SIT ON MY COUCH, I WANT TO WATCH MY TV, I WANT TO GO SEE A GIRL MOVIE’ and he looked at me like ‘what’s YOUR problem’. My problem was that he was trying SO hard to take over MY house…to the point where his child would sit on my couch, he on my loveseat…and me on the floor! When I got pissed, he acted like I ‘shoulda just said something.’ BULLSHIT ASSHOLE!
Your theory of an x=y=z is right on also! He set the stage from the VERY beginning, under the auspice of ‘being a good guy who only wants my love’. However, once the ball began to drop and the cracks began to emerge, he banked on all his ‘good deeds’ of the past to manipulate me into ‘helping; him while he is/was ‘down’ (like picking him up every weekend, after he lost his license, asking me to buy him a motorcycle, toting him around….).
I got smart though, and he didn’t like to be told no. Once my parents said ‘no’ to allowing him back in their lives, I think he knew his gig was up. I would NOT go against my parents wishes…and if I had to choose, Id respect their wishes over his…which is what happened…his game was over.
I want so badly to be done with all this…Im exhausting myself and he has, im sure, found someone else to feed off of…
Dear R-babe,
My X-BF (P) offered to buy me a new washer when mine went out about a week after we started dating, and I said “No, thanks, I’ll get one.” He had given “lavish” gifts to each of his GFs but I would not let him buy me things, because to me, when you give a gift to someone you really hardly know, it is like Trying to “buy them.” I don’t need anyone to support me, though some of his other GFs did enjoy the financial benefits of his company. It is just another form of CONTROL.
My egg donor offered me money and I turned it down, because Iknew that it was a “down payment” on CONTROL. Sure enough, when she wasx accusing me of being after her money, the funny thing is I am the ONLY one who has not ever taken anything from her that I didn’t “pay back.” WITH INTEREST. Once she gave me a large cash “gift” for Christmas “because the government would get it when I die anyway.” (boy, does that make you feel special!) and I donated an EQUAL amount to her favorite charity in HER NAME SO SHE COULD TAKE THE TAX DEDUCTION. LOL
I am an “independent old cuss” or as my grandfather would have said “as independent as a hog walking on ice.”
I don’t want to OWE anyone “favors” that I am maybe not willing to repay, so I sort of “watch Greeks bearing gifts” and see what someone’s “generosity” is all about. Is it as CON? Sometimes it is!
Thank you for those compliments, it has been a long hard road, and there have been plenty of times I have fallen into the abyss, you can go back and look at some of my 2+ yr old posts, or a couple from a couple of months ago. It is an uphill road sometimes and we fall in the pits or off the side of the road into another swamp, or get lured off the road by a “Siren Song” only to realize it is a fake.
My life hasn’t been a pits, I’ve had some wonderful times, had and have some wonderful friends, I’ve had adventures that are unique and wonderful, and also some lows that make whale poo look like Mount Everest. I’ve made some horrible blunders, loved the wrong people, not loved some good people enough. I’ve won big and I’lve lost big—I’ve lived life, but I’m living it BETTER now, I’m over all happier now, trust MYSELF to keep me safe even when it hurts to do so.
Courage is not being unafraid, it is being scared chitless and doiing what you have to anyway. I’m not sure who said that but it sure is true. I am learning courage and I am becoming more confident in MYSELF and my judgment. I no longer have to have someone else tell me I am doing right. I can judge that for myself. I am learning to set boundaries for everyone in my life, and especially in my CIRCLE OF TRUST. If someone is not 100% honest, kind, caring, etc. I do not need them as a CLOSE FRIEND. I am no longer “lonely” and “needy” and not depressed that I am 63 and my husband is gone, and I am “by myself”—I would love another good relationship to share my life with, but I do not need a set of problems to warm my bed. One is a WHOLE number, not just half of two.
There have been so many “layers” of dysfunction in my life, things I have allowed others to do to me, and things I have done to myself, that it has taken almost 5 years to sort them all out since my husband died, but I don’t feel like it has been too much to pay to accomplish what I have. Learning from problems is what life is all about! I hope I have learned a few things and those things will make life better for me. If I can help others work through their own paths, that’s good too.
There have been lots of people who have “been there” for me when I needed a kind word or a friend, and I can’t pay them back directly, so I am passing it on to someone else, who will I hope pass it on to others. Thats what LF is about, and Donna has given us a forum to work on that journey.
R-babe,
I know what you mean by wanting this to be over. And believe me the thoughts and feelings heal and improve with time. I am over two years out. It gets better and better. Life comes to color again, and the world does again get interesting and engaging. But even after two years, he isn’t gone from my thinking, or my feeling, or my learning. Even so, he isn’t making me unbearably unhappy any longer. He is just part of my healing story and the ‘pain’ I might feel from time to time, as I process through stuff on deeper levels, doesn’t unhinge me, or send me into PTSD or depression. It informs me.
So in a way, at least as far as I can see, I may always have this person ‘with’ me, and never be done with it in that sense. I read somewhere’s that this is a REALLY good reason to be thoughtful about who we let into our lives; that we will carry them with us for the rest of our lives. On the other hand, if my healing continues to progress as it has been the thoughts of him will become so clear and resolved, they will no longer stir any feeling in me at all.
Be kind to yourself and try and give yourself as much time and space as you need. Good things will come to you.