I subscribe to a service through which reporters who are looking for information for their stories can find sources. Not long ago, a reporter posted the following query:
A reporter at a national publication is writing about the hell of heartbreak and is looking for people to interview who have experienced a romantic breakup or divorce and who have creative/unusual advice on how to get through the day-to-day emotional turmoil of it. If you’ve been through a breakup (as an adult), how did you deal with the emotional pain, especially in the very beginning? How did you distract yourself from your heartache? How did you keep yourself from calling or texting your former beloved? What advice would you give to someone else in the middle of a heartbreak?
Most of us are here on Lovefraud because we experienced the most devastating, heartrending breakups of all—those involving sociopaths.
Ours were not run-of-the-mill relationships where the ending was, “he’s just not into you.” Ours were not situations in which two people “just grew apart.” Ours were false relationships from the very beginning, in which we were targeted, exploited and betrayed.
Advice? Yes, I have advice.
First of all, if you were involved with a sociopath, NORMAL ADVICE DOESN’T WORK. Even though self-help gurus have sold millions of books, and even if your friends have been through many, many relationships, unless they, too, have been targeted by sociopaths, THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT.
So, the first bit of advice is DON’T LISTEN TO PEOPLE WHO DON’T GET IT.
Back to positive advice. What is the one thing you need to understand if you’ve been involved with a sociopath? IT’S NOT YOU!
Oh, the sociopath certainly told you that you were the problem, told you that you had problems, and even blamed you for his or her atrocious behavior. But that was all part of the manipulation. Sociopaths intentionally make you doubt yourself. Sometimes it’s to make you malleable so they can take advantage of you, sometimes it’s just for their own entertainment. If you’re feeling nuts, you are having a rational reaction to an insane situation, and your ex is the one causing the insanity.
Next you need to know that the relationship NEVER WOULD HAVE WORKED. Although sociopaths lavishly proclaim their love, they’re lying. Sociopaths are incapable of love. But they have learned that if they mouth the words “I love you,” they can get what they want. And what they want is to exploit you.
If you’ve been involved with someone like this, there is nothing you could have done differently. Nothing would have made the situation better. The sociopath cannot be satisfied, and cannot change.
So how should you view your experience? DON’T TAKE IT PERSONALLY. Yes, really. The fact that you were mistreated had nothing to do with you or your behavior. It had everything to do with the fact that you were involved with a cruel, heartless sociopath.
If your ex didn’t do it to you, he or she would have done it to someone else. Why? Because that’s what they do.
Finally, YOU CAN RECOVER, BUT IT WILL TAKE TIME. This is not a normal breakup. It wasn’t only your heart that was broken. It was also your view of the world.
Give yourself time and permission to heal. Surround yourself with people who truly care about you, and embark on a program of NO CONTACT with the sociopath. Even though you pine for the individual, understand that you fell in love with a mirage, and what you’re feeling is residual addiction to the relationship.
Do not call. Do not text. Do not send email. The stronger your commitment to NO CONTACT, the faster you will mend.
Take positive steps. Find joy and happiness anywhere you can, and let them seep into the empty hole that was your heart. Eventually, your heart will fill up and you can try again—with much more wisdom than you had before.
Dear Oxy,
I just saw your post from earlier, and I really like the expression “goo golly oops of money!” Haha, is that how people talk out there on the Arkansas frontier?
I think what it comes down to, is that once Life gives you two or three good “knocks on the head,” it really teaches you what is important and what isn’t! At any rate, your post reminded me of those beautiful words of St. Paul: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man I put away childish things.”
And what in the end are all the “baubles” of money, fame, and power – if not the most childish things of all?
Dear Star, Michi,
I know what you mean, Star, about “sticking your finger in the hole” – I did that once or twice myself. For me it was a matter of sending a final letter, which at the time I felt like I “had” to do. And maybe I did. But that being said, “final letters” and “final phone calls” to sociopaths are invariably disappointing. Because no matter what we say to them, they are incapable of giving us the response that we really need. But you are also right, Star, that sometimes that lack of response IS what we need.
Nevertheless, as a general principle, I adhere to the rule: “The most important letters are the ones we never send.” (And the same goes, I suppose, for “the most important phone calls.”)
Besides, one of my biggest regrets all these years later, is that I was more conciliatory than I should have been in my final “farewell letter.” Not that I didn’t give it to her pretty good – I did. But I wish she knew how little respect I really have for her, and how much I despise what she is. However, the letter’s already been sent, and I can’t take it back now – or make it quite as mean as it should have been!
@....... Stargazer I was with him for a year and a half. I do have cravings for him too.
@....... Hens it could turn dangerous. I fought him before. He used to call me in his drug stupor and once he said he was afraid I would shoot him, then he said he would shoot me. When he called me last night he told me he is afraid I will stab him in his sleep. He lives across the country with his wife but he said he wants to take a job an hour from where I live.
Dear Michi,
I just reread your post from earlier in the week. I didn’t realize this, but it sounds like the same thing happened to you that happened to me. (i.e. my sociopath was married without my knowing it, we were “engaged,” etc.) Anyhow, trust me, I know just how this feels – and it isn’t nice.
My guess is that this guy is “full of it,” and that he may well string you along if he can do it without sacrificing the “safe world” of his home and family. However, you are still in the “sentimental” attachment/bonding phase, where you haven’t fully fathomed what he is yet. Your mind might be starting to figure it out, but your heart won’t “get it” (i.e., the depth of his vileness and depravity) for probably two or three more years.
If he really lied to you and f**ked with you like this, I think you should write his wife a letter and tell her everything. You might not feel the desire to do this now, but in a year or so you will probably regret not doing it. (That is, when it’s no longer “touchy feely,” and the enormity of his deeds begins to sink in.) Also, I wouldn’t worry about him “doing” anything to you – he sounds like nothing but the usual drug-addled “talker.” (And what is there left for him to “kill,” right?) Which means – no doubt – that he’ll probably focus much more on conning his wife into keeping him, than he will on avenging himself against you. But at least you will have had the satisfaction of injecting a little poison into their “phoney paradise”!
Furthermore, as many women here have pointed out in similar cases, you pretty much have a moral duty to tell her what this guy has done. If you’ve been duped by all of this, then it’s only fair to assume that she is being equally used and duped on her end. (And, by the way, don’t believe all the rotten things he probably says about her. They all do that! Indeed, when mine finally admitted that she was married, she spoke of her husband with the utmost contempt. But when I finally called him, I found him to be not such a bad guy.)
So, yeah, I did send THAT letter. And I hate to admit it, but it gave me an almost erotic thrill when I dropped it into the Post Office mailbox! (Okay, I’m human – so shoot me!)
Still, whatever you do (and in fairness, take my advice about the “wife letter” with a grain of salt – I’m an extremist, and what I’m telling you might not actually be the right thing in this particular case.), I wish you healing and good luck, Michi: I wasn’t kidding when I said that I know how painful this is.
But it does get better.
C.
PS Just to clarify, the “conciliatory letter” (“conciliatory” is actually rather inaccurate – it was far from that!) that I referred to in the earlier post wasn’t the one I sent to the husband: the “husband letter” is definitely NOT something that I will ever regret! But after I sent that to him, I ALSO sent her a letter that was harsh, but in retrospect, probably not harsh enough! Because in that letter I still spoke to her as if she were actually a human being. Fallen and hopelessly flawed, with a dense mind and a very ugly heart – but still human. And to this day, it is my only major regret (i.e., that I even showed her so much consideration as THAT!).
Constantine:
You sound like such a nice guy. I am so sorry you had to go through all that. I think it’s awesome you sent the husband a letter. I would love to hear other’s thoughts on sending the spouse a letter.
Louise,
And you sound like such a nice woman! It’s funny, isn’t it? Most of us would undoubtedly hit it off quite well in the real world; but as it is, we’re all separated by hundreds or thousands of miles! – and most of the people we actually run into in daily life are clods or worse!
Hello everyone,
What an interesting discussion in here! I showed up really late. I’ve had a hard time keeping up with LF the past couple of days. Actually, just the comments section kind of overwhelms me because there are about 15-30 different conversations going on simultaneously and I forget which post we were talking about which topic in. I really wish there was some way to streamline this site so that these convos could be condensed into one spot somehow. Hmmm. No idea, but I’d like to keep up with you all better.
Alciad: You are NC?!?! Cool!!! You go!!! Me too! So, we are both newbies. I loved this part you said: focus on the good things about having him out of your life. Yes! Great idea! I will try to do this more. I already am doing this, but I will amp it up.
Michi: When the mask starts to slip and we start to regain “consciousness” (this is how it feels anyways, like we were totally unconscious before), then we see that they are totally NUTS underneath. When my ex’s mask started slipping, it was like looking at a Picasso painting…..melting. Towards the end of our relationship, he told me he wanted to make a movie with demons in it, and one of the demons would have babies hanging from meat hooks on his arms. He said that he really wanted to traumatize people to destroy them and he was trying to think of the most traumatizing film he could make so that the movie would ruins people’s lives. The Picasso painting he’d chaotically convinced me was art…..was beginning to melt. He might as well have been a headless chicken licking wallpaper at that point. Things were getting very very WEIRD at a faster pace every moment that my head started to wake up. I also think they are not clever enough to keep someone duped forever. They forget what they lied about before and then they start to contradict themselves. It’s simply impossible they can keep this up forever. Eventually, we will remember something they forgot they said and then watch them flounder trying to come up with an excuse as to why they just contradicted themselves. When you still don’t believe them, it’s like they blow a fuse and their heads explode. Your chicken description sounds about right.
Constantine: I contacted 2 of his closest friends and told them what was really going on. The reason this was important is because I’d been watching him lie to everyone for so long that I wanted to free everyone from the lies now that I knew the truth. I was angry with myself for never telling these people when I’d watch him, literally, lie straight to their faces with me sitting right there and then turn to me and expect me to back him….usually I’d just stare at him in shock, sometimes I’d just nod because I couldn’t make myself say a thing. I also told his family that he is a lying sociopath. I basically “outed” him to everyone who knows him. Part of the reason for this is because he kept having them contact me on behalf of him! So, I figured he’d stop doing that very quickly if I said, “Oh, hello so-and-so, do you know what he’s lied to YOU about? Because I know….” Magically people stopped trying to get a hold of me. I also wonder if he had another woman somewhere, but I can never know for sure. He kept many many email accounts. He did, every once in awhile, vanish for a night. I would tell her, but I don’t know who she is.
To everyone about the conventional and boring thing: I agree with this. Spaths are BORING under all their crap. And conventional. My ex had a mask of being totally forward-thinking, open-minded, breezy, cool, kick back. When I got to know him, he was basically a fascist, convention to the extreme. And BLAND as hell.
Skylar: Your ex was like Mark Twain too? Oh, I bet they would have a kick if they met each other. Then they could compete and we could watch to see whose ex spath is the first to announce that they have been to the moon in order to top the other spath!!! Hahah.
Constantine: Oh yeah the whole reason he is having his little breakdown is because I did contact the wife. I was visiting him in one of the cities he was working in when I found a pay stub that indicated his married status. Of course he denied it but I could tell he was lying.
When I returned home I did a background check which revealed her name and their address, then I made a fake account on facebook and went through hundreds of people with her name until I found her. I gave her every detail of the affair with me and other affairs he had while he was traveling for work. She was blindsided.
I contacted the wife because it was the only recourse I had for the damage he did to me. I wasn’t going to let him just throw me away like a piece of trash and go home with no consequences. I know that whatever future they have will be rocky and that was confirmed when he called me on Saturday.
The background check also revealed that he was married two other times. He originally told me he was only married once 15 years ago. So she was his third wife and he was “engaged” to me while they were still married.
Good for you Michi – that’s a definite win for the “good guys”! I’m very glad to hear it! But what a loser. It’s really hard to believe that people can actually be married and yet “engaged” to someone else at the same time! That’s still a riddle to me to this day: Did they honestly think we weren’t going to take them down with us? (haha)
From what you’ve said, we must have had a very similar experiences – and resolved them in an almost identical fashion! My guess is that the wife will keep him. It’s sad that people put up with such behavior; but I at least pride myself on knowing that I would NEVER have taken her back if the situation were reversed. Regardless, though, you at least gave her the option of living an “authentic life” by telling her what really happened. The statistics say there’s about a 15% chance that she’ll do so. But because of your actions, you opened up that possibility, at any rate.
Again, I hope you start to feel better before too long, Michi. Even if he is a complete “slopover” and a buffoon, the pain is no less for all that.
All the best.