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
And why go through all the formalities of ‘convincing’ me that he ‘loves’ me if all he wanted was to BE me? It seems like an aweful lot of work.
Maybe that’s the sickness at its best-the con man working his magic.
R-Babe,
He IS the lie. He doesn’t just “tell” lies.
One of the very hardest things to understand about this disorder is their unbelievable (really) ability to know just EXACTLY what to do, how to present themselves, to make us fall in love with them in the first place….
However without that “honeymoon” stage, there would be no relationship. Because if they presented their “true self” to us in the begining of the relationship, we would run like hell.
BUT as you continue with this process and start spending more time focusing on yourself and less time trying to understand him, you will see the many red flags that did present themselves to you that you couldn’t see “clearly” at the time. Because part of their sick “game” is to keep you off balance…. and questioning….What the hell did just happen here? They got you lookin left when you need to be looking to the right.
This process always starts with being about them, but it will end with you learning alot more about yourself. And although the process can be very painful it is worthwile…..
Oh, Im processing alright…
I wish I would stop…its driving me nuts!
Dear R-babe,
Witty is right and so is LTL and Slim one, you have gotten some great advice.
Of course there is a “honeymoon” stage (and keep in mind that we are OVERWHELMEND DURING THAT TIME BY A HORMNAL RUSH.) That’s the bonding hormones and the sexual hormones etc. Yea, it makes us GULLIBLE because nature knows if we have a kid we need to like and be bonded to this guy so the kid will have 2 parents—problem is, THEY don’t have the same bonding hormones as they have diminished receptors. Dr. Leedom did a great article on this, with a picture of a sheep. Read about it. This may be one of the key reasons they have problems bonding and sex is not anything to them but “animal” actions.
Yes, we do want validation, and we want the P to see as well, but AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN, Babe! We have to make our own validation. We have to not only SAY but to FEEL, “even if no one else in the whole world knows I am Right, I DO! AND THAT’S ENOUGH!” And believe me, it took me a long time to FEEL that even after I realized it was a truth, and knew it was a truth.
Logic and emotion aren’t always in sync (or is it cync? LOL) any way, you know what I mean.
Sometimes I’ve found that when my logic knows something but the “inside Oxy” refuses to FEEL it, I sort of have to BOINK her on the head with the cast-iron skillet sometimes, only “love taps” but it wakes her up! And it really DOES help me to “get it” together.
Sit down in a chair and have an empty chair facing you and TALK TO YOURSELF, thenn change chairs and ANSWER. Silly, I know, but sometimnes when logic and emotion are out of balance it will work.
Also, I don’t know how you feel about the STUFF he left there or “gave” you—I actually GOT RID of every gift my egg donor ever gave me, gave it away, or threw it away, I put away all the photographs of her (I used to be a professional photographer so got lots of photos scattered all over the place) but I don’t even want to be reminded of her, I’d much rather look at photos of my long-gone animals than one of her. I guess that is like the Egyptian kings who chisled the names of the kings before them that they didn’t like, but whatever it is, I am “erasing” her out of my life and that includes anything she “gave me” because it was NEVER A GIFT it was a “down-payment on control”—-
This whole thing with the Ps is about CONTROL–control of you, control of your stuff (“what is mine is mine and what is yours is mine”)
I’m taking back–well actually, not taking BACK, because if you take something back you had it once, and I’m not sure I ever had control of myself where the egg donor is concerned, but I am TAKING CONTROL over myself–my behavior, my thinking and my feelings where she is concerned. She can’t control me if I won’t let her, and I sure as hell ain’t gonna let’er!!!!!
Oxy-
Your recomendation is Gestalt therapy, and Im a TOTAL behaviorist…in theory and practice, but I am going to try the empty chair tecnhique. Thank you.
When we first got together, he talked about marriage about 6 months into the relationship. There were mutual feelings there, although some hesitency on my part as it was too soon. Anyhow, as the relationship progressed I noticed there were minimal conversations concerning marriage. It was like the idea wen to the wastside, cause it wasn’t needed (or something?).
Sporadically, he would mention the idea to me or phrase things as if he had plans of being with me for the long haul. Our last vacation we went on, a young lifeguard at the water parke we were at asked how long we had been dating. I said 3 years…she replied ‘3 years! When you gonna marry her?” His response to that was to put his finger up to his mouth and to shhhhhhhhhh her, then placing his hands over his ears.
Of course I found this to be strange, but I laughed it off as it seemed just so silly. That night, as he was drinking, he (out of the blue) said to me “you know, Ive done some really shitty things to you, but Ive NEVER loved anyone like you. Ive NEVER thought about marrying anyone but you.”
And I just wonder then…was any of that real?
Robx:
“I’ve never loved anyone like you. I’ve NEVER thought about marrying anyone but you.
And I just wonder then….was any of that real?”
NO.
Dr. Leedom’s psychopath ex-husband said almost the exact same thing to her….VERBATIM!
In her book, “Just Like His Father”, Dr. Leedom writes this about her ex-husband on page 220,
“On a warm cloudy summer day, my husband and I were out on a rowboat on a lake. He looked at me. I looked at him. He said, ‘You know, I don’t think I’ve ever loved anyone the way I love you.’ The moment felt genuine to me, after all I was carrying his child!
Yet it wasn’t. I thought he was reflecting on our wonderful family (which included my stepson and two daughters) and on our lives together. For him though, the feelings were shallow. He reported them as part of a plan to con me. And no, I didn’t sense the manipulation.”
Dear R-babe,
ROSA is RIGHT!~ NO!!!!! a thousand times NO! none of it was real. Sometimes they do say the truth, but we don’t hear it, just like him doing the “shhhh” thing–a JOKE? No, THAT was the TRUTH. My P-BF used to say to me “I love you but…” and everything BEFORE the “but” was false and everything AFTER the “but” was the truth.
Mine was only after another “respectable” wife to keep his GFs at bay. I am SO glad that I caught on and kicked him to the curb, but boy, did it HURT. Thank God I did not marry him!
The talking to yourself (chairs) may sound kind of silly, and I am more “into” Behavioral, but I like to think I take something good from every discipline I’ve studied. I also love Dr. Eric Berne’s “Games People Play” and use it quite a lot. TA has some good points! I also did eye movement therapy for the PTSD and it helped a LOT!
The bottom line on life is though, I think, that we have to LISTEN to our gut instincts and take care of ourselves. The Ps are PREDATORS and act just like predators in the wild, they pick a victim that has something about them that makes them an easier catch. Dr. Leedom’s book (the originall version) with Sandra Brown, “Women who love psychopaths” is a wonderfull look at US and why we surcumed to the vision they held out of nirvana to us.
Each psychopath that has abused me, my sperm donor, my son, my BF, bosses, business associates, and others, used my own desires to lure me into their web. But I’m learning and “better late than never.”
Woah roxybaby your ex’s mum (mom) sounds alot like my ex mother in law, in terms of education levels , and her giving you the feeling you don’t measure up.
Although I give her alot of credit for telling me her son is very emotionally cold, only wants a relationship for a constant supply of sex, and that it won’t last with his new GF. (this was way before I twigged onto the sociopath explanation, so she must be onto something,I suspect she may even know he is a socio)
I feel bad that I have dissed her son to her too much in the past , as it must be hard to have a son like that (hope I never find out how hard with my own son)
🙂
“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. ”
Who’s to say that having an emotional connection is only a human trait. Some animals have characteristics of emotions, and they are not human. Whether we like it or not (more than likely not) the sociopath is a human, just a more warped, destructive kind of human. Something about referring to them as everything but is a little too belittling to me. It’s hypocritical.