A Lovefraud reader posted the following comment awhile back:
I just have one question for everyone here. Does anyone trust people after these sick people did what they did to us? Unfortunately for me, I have run across a few of these sickos but NONE like my ex. Whoever I meet now I’m thinking to myself, who is this person really? Do they have a secret life like the Scott Petersons and Ted Bundys of this world? I don’t let my children out of my sight and I’m already training my kids and they all know the signs of a sociopath especially my girls. I feel like I’m in a prison sometimes in my mind as I try so hard but just can’t trust anyone.
Yes, it is possible to trust again. Remember, sociopaths account for 1% to 4% of the population, depending on how the personality disorder is defined. Let’s bump the number of disordered people up to 10% to account for those who have sociopathic traits, but maybe not the full disorder.
That still means that 90% of the population are not sociopaths, and may be deserving of our trust.
So how can we feel trust again? How do we determine whom to trust? I think there are four components to being able to feel trust, and deciding who deserves to be trusted.
1. Educate ourselves
One of the statements I’ve heard over and over again, through emails and phone calls from victims, is this: “I didn’t know such evil existed.” Well, now we know.
We’ve all learned, mostly the hard way, about sociopaths. Now that we know they exist, we need to educate ourselves about the warning signs, the patterns of behavior that may indicate someone is disordered. Lies, irresponsibility, vague answers to questions, no long-term friends, new in town, magnetic charm, lavish flattery, statements that don’t add up, flashes of violence—if we start seeing the signs, we need to put up our guard.
2. Believe our own instincts
Just about everyone who was victimized by a sociopath had early warning signs—a gut feeling that something wasn’t right, an instinctive revulsion, questions about what was seen or heard. Unfortunately, we ignored the signals.
We didn’t believe the signals for three reasons:
- We didn’t have the empirical knowledge that evil exists (see above), so we didn’t know how interpret them.
- We viewed ourselves as open-minded individuals, and believed that everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt.
- We allowed the sociopath to explain away our questions and doubts.
Never again. We should never doubt our instincts. In fact, we should train ourselves to pay attention to our instincts. Our intuition is absolutely the best tool we have for steering clear of sociopaths.
3. Make people earn our trust
I had a blind spot. I am a forthright, trustworthy person. I would never think of lying to someone. Unfortunately, I thought everyone else was like me. Big mistake. My younger brother’s life philosophy is probably more useful. His rule of thumb: “Everyone is an a**hole until proven otherwise.”
The point is that we should not give our trust away indiscriminately. People must earn our trust by consistent, reliable and truthful behavior.
Important caveat: Sociopaths often appear to be trustworthy, dependable and honest in the beginning, while they’re trying to hook us. So if the good behavior slips, and bad behavior starts to appear, we must recognize the change as a big red flag.
4. Process our pain
I think the biggest roadblock to being able to trust again is our own pain. After an encounter with a sociopath, we’ve been deceived, betrayed, injured, emotionally crushed. We are angry and bitter, and rightfully so. But if we want to move on, we can’t keep carrying the pain around.
To get rid of the pain, we must allow ourselves to feel it.
I recommend that, either privately or with the guidance of a good therapist, we let the tears and curses flow. Expressing the pain physically, without hurting yourself or others, also helps. My favorite technique was pounding pillows with my fists. You may want to stomp your feet, twist towels or chop wood.
For more on this, read Releasing the pain inflicted by a sociopath.
Trust and love
It is important to be able to trust again. Doubting and disbelieving everyone we meet is a dismal way to live. If we cannot recover our trust in humanity, the sociopath who plagued us will have truly won.
The difference is that after the sociopath, we must practice informed trust. We know the red flags of a sociopath, and in evaluating a person, we don’t see them. Our intuition is giving us the green light. The person has proven, and continues to prove, to be trustworthy. These are the intellectual aspects of trust.
By doing the work of exorcising our pain, we clear away the roadblocks to feeling trust emotionally. It’s crucial to be able to feel trust, because that’s what paves the way for love.
Guys,
You seem to think tha tthere will never be “closure”—depends on how you “define” the world “closure.”
At the time I kicked my P-XBF to the curb, I was hurting badly, I was in a terribly needy frame of mind, needing something or someone to comfort me.
I FELT LIKE there could be no closure, but you know what, I have come to the place, at least with that creep, that now there IS CLOSURE. I no longer long for him, I no longer long for anything to do with him, and recently he just got remarried and I actually FELT SORRY for that woman, cause I know she is “happy” now and thinks she has the world by the tail, but I KNOW WHAT HE WILL DO TO HER, and I know that right now he thinks he has the “world by the tail” a nice attractive woman who married him, so now he can keep the harem women from wanting him to leave her and marry them, and talk them into just staying “friends with benefits” and you know what, he will not quit sleeping with any of those women. He will tell thelittle wife, who is a working nurse, that he is going to X state for a living history event, or a concert, or to visit friends, but he will be seeing his “friends with benefits” and so on. HE WILL NEVER CHANGE.
Eventually the little wife, if she is not a total fool, will start to “catch on” and she will question him about something and BINGO he will go into one of his “you can’t order me around” rages and they will have a terrible fight. Or she will forget to say pa-leeeeze before she says “pass the salt” and he will go into one of rages. Or he will come home drunk one night from some place and crash his car and she will have to take care of him for the rest of his life.
Nah, I do not need anymore CLOSURE THAN THAT. I DO have closure. I no longer desire him, II don’t hate him, I don’t care about him. I AM TRULY INDIFFERENT TO HIM. I am getting that way about my mother, though I am not 100% there with her yet, there is still some resentment there. But I am so close to closure now that I can almost smell it.
With my P-son, my X-DIL, and the Trojan Horse P, I am within “spitting distance” of complete closure. I don’t trust any of them, of course, and I realize that my “X-son” will be a continued threat to me but I am no longer panic stricken, I’m going to live my life one day at a time. So folks, I do say there IS CLOSURE. It just takes some more time and work.
DON’T GIVE UP ON CLOSURE. The opposite of love is not hate or anger, it is INDIFFERENCE. Where if they were on fire, you wouldn’t even want to piss on them.
HH: You can’t block a particular text number but you can have the entire text messaging turned off. You can turn it back on anytime. That’s what I did.
ox? that doesn’t sound like closure to me – it sound like indifference and I will accept that. I am not saying I am going to grieve for him the rest of my life. But no closure to me means that I will never understand their action’s, so I have stopped trying to find closure or understanding with them. Indifference is the next best thing, maybe even better than closure. or maybe they are one and the same?
henry and matt:
i vascillate regarding wanting to talk to my ex-s/p/n’s wife. she knows a lot, but when he discussed divorcing her, she freaked. she’s very dependent on him; she doesn’t work, doesn’t drive and has no education (but she’s gorgeous, so…).
i think she would assume i’m lying. also, what is there to be gained? i have no interest in hurting her any more than the suffering i know she goes through with him.
but, it would be nice to trash him together. i think i’ll keep it as a fantasy …
that would be a violation of NC, right?
LIG yes that would be a violation – but go ahead I won’t tell…
Dear Wiser…My situation was similar….A friend didn’t refer him, I did! That is, he was my first love 40 years earlier, and I had met other old high school friends and they were just as they were then, so I thought he was a find upstanding person since I had knew him “way back when” and loved him then. And he became a doctor and mega-millionaire, so I figured he must be “okay” and that made me ignore all KINDS of red flags that I AM POSITIVE I would not have ignored otherwise, and I almost didn’t ignore them this time! The trouble is, at 15, actually age 16 when he dumped me, I didn’t realize that crying for a year from the hurt was a signal that this was not normal hurt, and I didn’t realize that it wasn’t that I wasn’t good enough, but rather the sudden reversal “dump” was part of his personality disorder, and so were the several sick, cruel things he did….not just boyish immaturity. So the problem was, he hadn’t changed a bit, I just didn’t know what I had on my hands back then!!!!
Henry,
To me “closure” means that I don’t wonder about him any more, and I feel like I “understand” them as well as any “normal” person can, and there is not more allure, no more anything except indifference (the opposite of love) Just really NOT GIVING A BIG RAT’S BEHIND about them. I don’t want them to hurt, I don’t want them to be unhappy, I don’t want them happy, it is just more like I don’t know 99.999999% of the people in the world so I don’t think about them, I don’t really care about them, they just “don’t exist” for me except as “humankind.” I’m having a hard time describing what I feel is “closure” but I know it is what I am feeling.
I can talk about them, talk about the things they did etc and the EMOTIONS of pain etc are not there with those thoughts any mroe.
I agree that NC is the best thing. Unfortunately for me, his new GF works at the local Walmart, so as long as I check the parking lot for her vehicle, I can pick a safe time to shop. (I live in a really small town, w/only 1 “Wally-World). Other than that, all contact is made through my lawyer, speaking of which, another OMG-you’ve got to be kidding me- turn in my “case”. I had thought a warrant was sworn out for ex s.’s arrest for contempt of court. Come to find out, my lawyer said the judge just doesn’t to have the “poor guy” arrested, we need to go to court 1 more time- I think I’m up to 7 hearings now for the same thing. It don’t get any better than this-hehehe.
..about contacting former wives, GF’s, etc., my ex s.’s ex wife called me after I divorced the creep, I think wanting to compare notes. I almost felt sorry for her, she put up w/ his BS for 20 yrs. He did the identical things to her he did to me. it was really creepy when she called me. Thank God I never heard from again. As far as his current GF goes, I say she deserves what ever she gets. This was a girl I went to school with, & had known all my life. They became involved when they worked together. All the times I took him a hot lunch at work, & spoke to her, they were having an affair right under my nose. I say, “Have a nice trip, dumb ass!”
i agree – if she was with him when you took him hot lunches – they were both playing you for a fool (that stinks) so she deserves what is coming………..Oxy I get what you are saying (you don’t give a flying fuck) yes that is closure – can’t wait untill I get there.
On the subject of trusting, I have been chatting with this guy on a dating site. Just chatting. No flirting, just conversation, to pass the time. He does tell me I’m beautiful, and that he’s intrigued by this or that, but I am not responsive to flirtations right now, especially over the internet. He seems very nice and stable. He lives several hours from me, so it’s unlikely I’ll meet him anyway. But when I looked in his profile, something caught my attention. Everyone gets 2 virtual roses to send every 30 days. I noticed he had sent one. And it wasn’t to me. So immediately I’m thinking he is showing even more interest in someone else than me. Why shouldn’t he? We’re just talking. But it bothered me, and I probably won’t write him any more because of it. I really just need to get off the internet. My trust issues are just all over the place!!!