Lovefraud received the following letter from a reader:
I have been involved with a man for the past seven years. We don’t live together but he has stayed at my home on and off. Anything rotten in a relationship I have had to deal with–lies, cheating, humiliation, emotional abuse and financial, not that he took money from me but sponged off a single mother. This man makes good money and has never made a commitment to anyone, lots of broken promises and excuses. He has a problem with breaking the connection with me, always trying to get back in and regain his supply. I believe this man is a psychopath/narcissist. I have reverted to just trying to remain friends but I don’t think for him this is possible. He always tries to get back in. My married ex was also a psychopath and I was involved with another man, he was also a psychopath. How can we change this–always attracting the same?
It is not possible to remain friends with a sociopath (or psychopath or narcissist). The only way to deal with them is not to deal with them. No contact. At all.
But this letter asks a more important question, “How can we change this–always attracting the same?”
How to Spot a Dangerous Man
The first step in avoiding involvement with a sociopath is knowing that they are out there. If you’re reading Lovefraud, you’ve probably already had a painful run-in with a sociopath and are well aware that they exist.
The next step is to figure out why you allowed a sociopath into your life. For women who have been victimized, I suggest reading How to Spot a Dangerous Man Before You Get Involved, by Sandra L. Brown, M.A.
Brown describes eight types of dangerous men—men with mental illnesses and personality disorders that cannot be rehabilitated. Lovefraud readers will recognize most of the types as various shades of sociopaths. Brown describes their behavior, provides case studies of women who were involved with them, and includes red-alert behavior checklists. If you see the behaviors on the list, you should end the relationship.
Overriding our warning system
But many Lovefraud readers have intuitively known there was something wrong in a relationship, yet have had difficulty ending it. This is where Brown’s book will be extremely helpful.
Every woman, Brown says, has an internal system of red flags and red alerts that act as a warning system that someone is dangerous. Unfortunately, many of us ignore the signals.
“Somewhere between childhood and adulthood we have allowed many of our built-in alarm systems to become dismantled. Years of overriding internal warnings with reasons to move ahead anyway, combined with the ability to numb the feelings triggered by our own system’s messages, have deadened many women to the symptoms of being in a dangerous relationship. This perilous cycle can lead women to date four or five dangerous men before they begin to notice the spiritual, emotional and physical messages they have been ignoring.”
Brown then explains why women ignore the signals. Sometimes it is because of society’s expectations that it’s more important for women to be polite than to question the behavior of men. Or it’s more important for women to accept everyone unconditionally than to expect people to prove themselves as trustworthy. Or it’s more important to love the unlovable than to realize it’s not safe to love everyone. Or that it’s more important to believe everyone can change than to accept that some people can’t.
Dangerous Man Workbook
So how does all this apply to you? How do you figure out where you’ve been making mistakes? To answer these questions for yourself, I suggest that you also get the How to Spot a Dangerous Man Workbook.
The workbook prints lists of universal red flags—check the ones that you’ve experienced. It lists family traditions and early conditioning—check what you’ve been taught. And it lists loopholes for downplaying the dangerous behavior of men—check the excuses you’ve used.
In the next section of the workbook, you answer questions about your own experiences with dangerous men. How did you meet? Were they similar to your father or another influential relative? What were your first red flags?
If you honestly fill out the workbook, you’ll see your patterns and where you need to change. Because changing your expectations, enforcing your personal boundaries and realizing that you deserve better are required for you to stop attracting sociopaths.
Both books are available on Amazon.com:
How to Spot a Dangerous Man Before You Get Involved
How to Spot a Dangerous Man Workbook
“when I spot a RED FLAG, I STOP, LOOK and LISTEN and then I ACT ”
Now I react like I do when I’m on fire….
I STOP….DROP…..and ROLL…..right on outa there!
Not willing to be ‘burned’ again!!!
I guess I prided myself on not wanting to ‘judge’ him and in doing so, I opened the door. Things that he exposed to me, which were the ‘red flags’ I tried accepting as ‘what he did’ not as ‘who he is’. I guess my mantra was ‘he hasn’t been (mean, rude, a cheater, lieing, etc) to me, so who am I to judge?”
The mysteriousness about him intrigued me, although at times, it felt downright disrespectful. I would ask and ask and ask for him to SHARE with me WHO HE WAS as, anyone who knows me (and maybe some of you have picked up on this as well) knows that Ive got nothing to hide and am an open person. I can see now that him avoiding sharing himself in that way with me was a way to keep me intrigued and mostly off balance. If I knew about what he ‘did’ either in other relationships or just in general life, I HOPEFULLY would have ran as fast as I could away…
This brings up another memory…One time I emailed his mom because I was so frustrated with hearing how ‘bad’ he has been and ‘was’ that I wanted to know what was sooooo ‘bad’ that I didnt know about. His moms response (because he did and STILL DOES live at home….at 36) was this…”I would caution you over knowing too much. I dont necessarily think knowing everything would help your relationship as much of him was a nightmare.”
WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT! Well, Ill tell you, its another red flag! She knew the level of destruction he is capable of causing…and now that Im thinking about it…I seem to remember other emails she and I had, particularly when he did something really stupid where she would ALWAYS end her responses to me with ” I dont blame you if you want out….” or “I understand if this is too much for you to handle…”
Ok…the signs were all there and I didnt take heed…however-I WILL NOT beat myself up anymore for HIS idiocy and manipulations…
I got rid of his things today…and smiled! 🙂
robxsykobabe –
one of the ways i was set up was that the character himself, and the other sock puppets talked about how damaged he was. he was also so lovely. so whenever he went on about how damaged he was, i went, no, no, no, you are so lovely.
it meant i accepted a spirally worsening scenario as he got sicker and sicker (not so much directed AT me, but general conditions which meant i worked harder and harder and got less and less).
duped duped duped.
and about what your spath ex’s mom said – not a red flag, but a legion of red flag carriers coming right at you.
and the bag is gone! good for you!
One Step:
I agree…a legion of red flag carriers coming at me, although none of them could divulge any information. It was like I had to ‘find it out’ on my own, but they were all there with their sirens blaring…
I also understand though that I was possibly manipulated by his mom as well. She would tell me over and over and over again how PROUD she was over the MAN he had become…how much PROGRESS he had made…how he is that WONDERFUL PERSON she always knew he could be…
And then she would write me those emails saying ‘I dont blame you if you left…”
What a whirlwind! I said to him after we broke up “you know, it was like I watched you spiral further and further down as an outside observer”…I was right!
Thanks One Step
This IS his pathology…I got to see it first hand! I was a witness to who he is and what he does…just like my family and friends are witnesses to who I am and what I do…but for good…
He’s such an ass!
robxsykobabe – i’ll call you ‘ass’ and raise you a ‘creep’. 😉
I will add this title to my ever growing list of material.
I think that we need to do a better job of educating our youth that there is evil in the world. They have been taught tolerance and acceptance to the degree that they may not be able to distinguish the really bad from the somewhat different. In trying to alert my kids to things, I get the “oh, Mom!” routine, as if I am paranoid or crazy for doubting. The whole Don’t Talk to Strangers movement seems to have flown out the window in this computer age. You “trust” people you have never met, and get an idealized view of the world. Some of the required reading that my teens have come home with leads me to wonder why we couldn’t incorporate some of the more broader topics like Without Conscience or The Sociopath Next Door. Heaven knows, we wouldn’t want to offend anyone with gender specific titles. Although I’m sure there would be a major backlash if we were to try and incorporate this type of teaching, it sticks in the back of my mind.
I read about Joran Van der Sloot (suspected in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway), in my opinion, a dangerous criminal (a spath). He has recently been arrested in the murder of a twenty-one year old girl, authorities finding her in his hotel room in Peru, with a broken neck. How could anyone break someone’s neck, just thinking about this makes me very uncomfortable, sick. What a way to leave this world.
All his date rape fantasies will come true in prison.
I personally think Joran Van der Sloot killed Natalee Holloway, dumping her body in the ocean. Now he’s murdered another young woman, being callous about taking another life.