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–
I’m at the same stage you are right now. And I think it is just a stage on the way to recovery (I hope, can’t take this much longer!). If he showed up at my door I would not let him in, but still I want him to show up at my door so I can send him away.
Trimama and abbri,
Listen to what LL wrote. She is 100% accurate and correct.
The slime that they leave you with is because they PRETEND to be like you, with feelings and needs. They don’t have that. They really don’t care if they are sleeping under a bridge. IT DOESN’T BOTHER THEM. They prefer a nice bed, but only if it was provided to them under false pretenses. The bed is not what makes them happy, it’s the con they used to obtain the bed.
This might be hard for you to believe, after all you remember quite vividly, them asking you for this or that. It was a GAME.
My spath had a little car that needed a transmission. He had money, lots of it, but he didn’t put the transmission in the car until his friend gave him the measley $300 to buy it. He didn’t even care about the car or the transmission, or the money. It was the sensation of control that he felt when he had manipulated this very wealthy man into giving him even more money – on top of the $100,000 he had gotten in previous years!
Does that help you to understand a bit better? It isn’t the money, it isn’t the amount of money. It isn’t sex, or cigarettes, it is satisfaction in pulling a con – yet again – on his supply – YOU.
The more I am reading this website, the closer that personal peace is getting inside me. DONNA: ARE YOU LISTENING?! 🙂 I could never make sense out of everything that has happened to me.
I mean people who love and care and give ‘goodness’ aren’t suppose to be punished this way; right?
Well, there ARE people in this life who are soooo unhappy with themselves and THEIR LIVES and have absolutely NO clue how to change resent us for this peace we have. To them, it is amusing to (a) use us for whatever they can get and (b) create a constant havoc in our lives through their own inability to control themselves and their primal urges.
I was sexually abused as a child, as well. So was spath. That was one thing that added to that ‘extreme’ bond; the understanding of where we had come from.
He likes the affection and attention but hates women and I see that now. We are nothing to him but game pieces and I am sure it came from a lack of parenting, as he was growing up. I am almost sure of it. But understanding that does not give those actions a license to destroy us.
I have spent the past 9 years being nothing but an absolute best friend to spath. No expectations; no demands when really there should have been: IN MYSELF!
I believe that NO PARENT wishes nor wants to see their children go wrong in this life. It defeats the point of giving them life. BUT, I do believe that parents become neglectful of their children and not intentionally. Not always.
I was a single mother of four really great kids! 🙂
They are all grown up now and such wonderful people.
With all of my psychotic tendencies, through life, I am always so amazed how well adjusted they are and how close our family is. Even my ex husband and I have somehow managed to remain ‘friendly’ this whole time.
We both realized we had a serious committment to our children so we shielded them from the pain by reinforcing the family. Yes, even through our divorce. We have always been that way with our children. It is important to give them as best a solid ground in their life as possible.
Ever hear? Oh, well, he spanked me all the time, as a kid, but it wasn’t abuse; it has become appreciated, now, later in my life.” We expect boundaries; that we respect in one another. Spaths break all boundaries because they are the extreme center of attention. So much so that they want to be IN YOUR MIND, CONTROLLING YOUR THOUGHTS.
one/joy…..yes, never give up hope.
It’s the one thing in this life that is consistent. 🙂
I appreciate you all so very very much….
I told my therapist about our little group and invited her to join in. She said that even SHE Could see a change in the way I speak. You are all amazing.
Dear Katy: my love and heart are with you.
You will find the answers you are seeking.
*HUGS TO ALL*
DUPED
Duped in Socal – Thanks so much. I’m glad Lovefraud is helping you. Best wishes in your continued recovery.
I am so grateful…..
DUPED
The hardest thing for me has been just letting go…realizing that what I thought was real never was. Some of the things he did were so addicting; he was like no other I had ever met, but of course he was…he is a spath!!! I still struggle sometimes. And it’s been hard realizing I meant nothing to him. It can really wreak havoc on your self esteem.
Our animal side feels atracted to them because they’re mostly animalistic. This is the reason i think they’re so addictive.
Eva:
Exactly!!! That is so true!!
Eb, yes i think so. They stimulate our irrational, animal side since the beginning, just that at the beginning we think we can take it all: stability and excitement. And later we realize stability is simply impossible to get with a psycho. But to realize this fact doesn’t prevent, at least for some time, the pain for the lost of that strange pleasure we experienced when being with that strange creature.
Eva:
You are so right! I really thought I could pull it off you know? And by that I mean that I started realizing at one point the reality of the relationship, but thought I could still separate those animal feelings from the emotional feelings. Didn’t work.