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
trimama;
In addiction theory, there is a concept called “kindling effect.” Each “withdrawal” makes subsequent ones more difficult.
Trimama,
Girl, mine always left me for someone at least 15 yrs younger then me. His most recent was not only younger, but the daughter of my mothers “used to be” best friend! My spath obviously not only affected me and my family relations, but my families personal relationships outside of our family. Let me tell ya…he’s a gem!
I also want to make it clear that I too still have days that I hear a song on the radio, or think of a special moment we shared together and slip back into that thinking of, “he didn’t mean it”. He did love me, we just wasn’t meant to be. Fortunately those moments don’t last that long as they used too. I try to bring myself back to reality reminding myself that I was in love with the image he pretended too be, not anything that was truly real. It takes time. I was with him for 9 yrs, therefore; he had ample opportunity to entangle me in his web. Oh yeah…Do you know why your ex hooked up with a little girl? Because they are completely clueless and easily manipulated. The truth is he is saying the same things, and making the same promises too her, as he did you. I remember when mine left me the first time. The chick he hooked up with called utterly confused after he left her and came back too me. Apparently he told her she was his “soulmate”. I was like…oh really…so am I! Damn, how many soulmates can one have? God love her!
You hang in there Sist’a girl! As I said before…One day at a time. That’s all I know to do!
OMG Trimama exactly!!! I could have written that post!! Well except the part about the strong basketball hands. Turd is a retired BB coach but trust me with him at 70 and me a gym rat I can take him out and he knew it.
Can you imagine a man AT SEVENTY YEARS OLD that is still a player? Gawd almighty. We need to start a new thread on the Peter Pan syndrome!! Why does he still do it?
Answer: because he STILL CAN, of course…
Newlife
QUOTE “I must take care of myself and get to the root of the problem, not only to prevent getting back with my ex, but just as importantly”hooking up with someone just like him.”
YOU ARE SO RIGHT!!! It starts out learning about them, but ends up being about LEARNING ABOUT OURSELVES!!!
Why did I spend a lifetime putting up with other people’s bad behavior? Why did I feel responsible for everyone’s happiness but my own? Why….why…why?
Find the answers to those questions and a few others, and then you can start to trust yourself again.
I don’t think it is the lack of trust we have in others that is the problem, but the fact that we are not able to trust ourselves to keep ourselves safe….until we LEARN….and that knowledge gives us our power back (if we every had it, and sometimes I think I didn’t have it, but I am getting it now!)
Good job new life! TOWANDA!!!!
Dear Trimama,
I am so glad that you are waaaay A-way from him and that you are starting to gain strength and insight into what is going on, both with him and with yourself.
I was very concerned about your physical safety and about 85% of women do go back…even to physical abusers….and I am so relieved that you are not with him now and that you are starting that road toward healing.
It will take some time, Trimama, because it is at first about them, but then becomes about why we stayed….why did we allow it? Not BLAMING you, just pointing out that you, like the rest of us, allowed it even after you knew it was abuse. But the point is that in the future, you will NEVER AGAIN ALLOW anyone to hurt or abuse you…you will be your own best friend! You will be able to trust yourself to put YOURSELF FIRST OVER ANYONE ELSE.
TOWANDA! Girlfriend! I am so glad you are safe!. BIGGGGG CYBER ((((HUGS)))))
THANKS, ALLISON! You rule, girl! Tawanda!
Such a quietly beautiful, eloquent, strong statement. I loved it. I am a writer, and I am in awe of your ability to crystallize and talk straight from the heart.
And from the rest of the article: “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.”
I’ve been thinking about that. Something very basic, almost unnoticeable about our relating styles makes us targets.
With me, I’m now convinced it’s my father. I love my father deeply. From the get-go, I was “Daddy’s Girl.”
I still think our relationship is real.
But it tells me something about the compartmentalism of this disease, that he can be both that sociopath I have discovered and that super dad of mine. He just doesn’t see.
Because my father has never stolen from anyone. He didn’t molest his daughters. His code of honor in business is spotless. He has shared with me, honestly, as a true friend, a lot of his pain and past and history.
And yet — He told me last month that I didn’t tell him about my cancer diagnosis six years ago. (Don’t worry, I’m fine. I kicked cancer’s butt to kingdom come.)
Hello? I sent morbid e-mails to all my friends. I called my mother and fell apart. I could barely hold it together at work during that time. And he says he only found out about it after the fact, after it was all over.
He told me this as if he really believed it. I think he did. He simply doesn’t remember. And that’s disturbing.
I felt a psychological earthquake — and then the rumbling stopped within a few minutes. I said, “It has nothing to do with me. Or even with a big part of him. It just is.” It’s like talking to a crazy person. You just don’t take it seriously. You say, “OK, fine, the end of the world is nigh, Jesus told you to say this, yes, yes, well, have a nice day.”
I’ve been able to connect the dots to some bewildering — though mild — episodes with him. I forgive him totally. I forgive myself for misinterpreting his actions as those of a rational person at that moment. He wasn’t even “there.”
I see a pattern: He isn’t “there” when I tell him I have a problem. I’m this beautiful child who rocked his world when he was a 22-year-old kid himself, and I’m perfect except when I throw him totally into a tailspin by being a mere human. He doesn’t SEE me. I can say, “I’ve been ill for a while, Dad. I’m going to take some time off to recover.” And I hear silence on the other end of the phone line. No comprehension at all. The only time he ever abused me was when I was sick. He jerked the car, slamming on the brakes, one time when I had abdominal cramps so bad I couldn’t sit up. He never made the slightest allowance for my failure to be perfectly healthy, perfectly alert, perfectly strong, and ready to go.
It isn’t about me, and it never has been. These days, I just watch. He’s 70 years old now. It’s too late to change. I offer my little prayer into the universe — gratitude for the lesson my karma somehow needed me to learn, and loving and tender thoughts to him that he might just, well, live, tread lightly on the earth, do no harm, and enjoy the moments he can really be present for.
I am not harmed. I don’t have to be that beautiful little perfect kid anymore. I can just be me.
P.S. If you’re looking for a genetic connection, here it is: My father was the result of a rape. He was given up in an arranged adoption. I’ll never know who his father was, but he was obviously a spath, a rapist, a criminal. (I met my biological grandmother, and she was still struggling to come to terms with what happened to her. It was as if she had met a psychopath and was at a loss for words to explain what that was like. She told me no one believed her — I believed her on THAT.) My sister is a spath, a more seriously deranged one but not dangerous; mostly dangerous to herself. My mom and I just look on and go, “What happened?” Every time I encounter a mental block, a kind of learning disability, I know it’s that rapist inside me — his DNA. I accept that little bit of impairment and express gratitutde that I am not a spath.
My ex is 28 soon, and he chooses young to mid 30 (my age). However, the young students of 20 and 21 passing by on their trips and then going back to college doesn’t last for long. First of all, they travel together in packs. And their friends will immediately say “it was him” if they lost their stuff. Secondly, college is so exciting anyway, and brings in a constant variety of people to get to know, that they tend to see it more as a holiday fling. Thirdly, they don’t have enough money, and unable to support him, let alone buy him a ticket to visit or sign a paper they will be responsible during his 3 month stay. Fourthly, they don’t tend to be in the “marry me, have a child with me” stage in their lives.
It’s the mid 30 women he’s switching from for longer term relationships. More of them just travel alone, and thus have a bit of an adventure streak in them to take a risk. They have had some relationshit before in their past and more easy to fall prey for his charming, oh so caring mirror (it is exactly what they’re looking for). And they have at least a little bit of money put aside or work that pays well enough to think, “hmmm, he seems a catch. I earn more than he does. So I’ll buy a ticket for him to come and visit.” And they are for European women standards anyway at the perfect settle down and wanting a child stage.
NewLife, the audacity of these vampires referring to someone as a “soul mate”. Nuh uh..you have to have a SOUL to be or have a soul mate…sheesh..
Hey everyone! Just curious if anyone else has experienced this:
When my ex and I were together, he randomly decided (the day after taking my virginity) that he would start talking to his ex again. According to him (3 months before), he hated his “crazy” ex who was still in love with him and wanted to have sex with him. So you can imagine my great confusion when he decided to start publicly flirting with him all day on Facebook and texts.
I realize now, of course, that he was trying to drive me insane (mission accomplished) by then calling me jealous and crazy.
But my question now is, do sociopaths pretend to be mentors/helpers of those that they have harmed? He kept trying to design these sympathetic scenarios for himself where his ex was just in so much pain & trouble, and he wanted to be there as a friend to help him through it. Of course, I was in lala land, so I was just like “Oh, okay then. You are so thoughtful and kind!” But now that I’m sitting here, I realize that I was in a lot of pain DURING OUR ACTUAL RELATIONSHIP because of the way you treated me, and yet you don’t give two sh*ts about me. So I’m starting to wonder if this whole “ex needing my help” thing was complete BS, and just there to serve a purpose. His purpose.
And then once he got rid of me, I never spoke to him again. HE was the one who initiated contact after 2 months, in this smug/arrogant way. A way that no normal person would be if they had cheated on you, gotten you to fly back to the country, and then text dumped you and blamed it on you. But he was. He was arrogant, and practically daring me not to “make any drama”.
But the way he spoke down to me after was so condescending and weird — like he was some beacon of maturity and wisdom, while I was this insane/crazy/depressed lunatic. (Which I was).
But is this normal? Has anyone else experienced this? I can’t for the life of me understand why a person would want to turn me crazy so that they could “mentor” me, or “fix” me. But that’s exactly what he did to his other ex, who completely lost his life and went crazy. He came crawling back. WTF?
Actually, I think I probably would have come crawling back too if I hadn’t found this site.
So confused today lol
new winter:
‘… my question now is, do sociopaths pretend to be mentors/helpers of those that they have harmed? ABSOLUTEAMONDO!!!