How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists

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After the sociopath, I still feel numb – what can I do?

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UPDATED FOR 2023. After discovering that someone close to you, someone you trusted, totally betrayed you, it would certainly be expected that you'd feel anger, outrage, or sadness. But many people who have this experience simply feel numb. For example, Lovefraud received the following email from a reader: It has been about 3 years since I discovered what happened to me. I've had no contact with my spaths. Yet I still feel numb and broken. I feel like I have tried almost everything to get through this dark time. I feel so lost. I feel so robbed of my life and my children have been too. What can I do now? I'm running out of solutions. I don't want to feel like this anymore.... please …

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After the sociopath, how to overcome the fear of dating

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My ex-husband thoroughly betrayed me. He defrauded me, cheated prolifically, had a child with another woman during our marriage, and then committed bigamy. When people hear my outrageous story, they often ask, how did I overcome the fear of dating after the sociopath? Wasn’t I afraid that I’d meet another one? I’ve found that it is certainly possible to overcome the fear of dating again. I’ll explain how to do it. Heartbroken by a sociopath If you’ve been left heartbroken by a sociopath, you may feel gun shy about putting yourself out there in search of a new partner. This is totally understandable. The sociopath swept into your life, love bombed you, and promised that the two of you wo …

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Love Fraud Book Excerpt: For the first time in my life, my heart led the way

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In honor of Valentine’s Day, I’m telling the beginning of my love story — finding real, authentic love after the betrayal by my sociopathic ex-husband. My healing journey is recorded in my book, Love Fraud — How marriage to a sociopath fulfilled my spiritual plan. For now, I invite you to read: Excerpts describing my husband’s lies and cheating. Excerpts describing my healing journey. By Donna Andersen I made one last attempt to get my money back from my ex-husband by blackmailing him. My intuition told me that I created a lot of problems for him in his latest scam, but I received nothing. The battle was over. At least my love life was moving forward. After our wonderful date a …

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5 steppingstones to true love after the sociopath

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If you become romantically involved with a sociopath, sooner or later your heart is broken. The pain is so devastating that you may swear you’ll never love again. Please don’t follow through on that. It is entirely possible to find true love after the sociopath. I know, because it happened to me. I first learned about sociopaths the hard way — by marrying one. I wrote a book about it, called Love Fraud – how marriage to a sociopath fulfilled my spiritual plan. Much of the story is about my ex-husband’s outrageous lies and manipulations towards me and multiple other women. His audacity was unbelievable. You can’t make this stuff up.  Still, I think the most important part of book is how …

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Coerced debt: Financial betrayal by the sociopath

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For sociopaths, the objective of any relationship is to exert power and control over the other person. This is especially true in romantic relationships. One of the things sociopaths want to control is money, which often leaves survivors with mountains of coerced debt. I have experience with this one. My sociopathic ex-husband, James Montgomery, manipulated me into maxing out all my credit cards, supposedly to support his sure-to-succeed business plans. By the end, he’d wiped out my savings, decimated my business, and left me with $60,000 in credit card debt. I later found out he spent a lot of my money entertaining other women. Using my credit How did James Montgomery get his hands on m …

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Letting go of the mistake with the sociopath

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When I finally realized that the person who promised to love me forever, James Montgomery, was a lying, manipulative cheater, I was angry with him — and just as angry with myself. Why did I believe his lies and empty promises? I knew he was taking my money; why did I stay? I beat myself up. I couldn’t let go of my mistake with the sociopath. The realization that I’d made a massive error in marrying this man was, of course, just one aspect of my emotional turmoil. I was betrayed — Montgomery cheated on me with multiple women. In fact, he had a child with another woman during our marriage. He also convinced me to finance his business plans, which were really just get-rich-quick schemes, until a …

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19 New Year’s resolutions to help you recover from narcissistic abuse

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UPDATED FOR 2023. The New Year is always a good time for new beginnings. If your wish for 2023 is to heal from a destructive relationship with a sociopath and recover from the narcissistic abuse that you endured, here are 19 New Year's resolutions to help you. 1 . I will have No Contact with the sociopath — I will not call, text or send email, and I certainly won't meet him/her in person. 2. If the sociopath contacts me, I will not respond. 3. I will not try to get information about the sociopath from others. 4. I will not follow or stalk the sociopath on social media. 5. I will remember that anything the sociopath says could be a lie. 6. I will not try to prove myself to the sociopath …

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Should I expose the sociopath for revenge?

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In a comment on my Lovefraud Live! Youtube show, a viewer asked if she should expose the sociopath for revenge. Here’s what she wrote: I've got so much dirt on this guy that I now know is a sociopath...took advantage of my emotions horribly. Should I use what I know about him to get some kind of revenge? This Lovefraud viewer brings up two issues. First, she asks about exposing the sociopath. Second, she asks about revenge. Let’s address them one at a time. Exposing the sociopath There is value in exposing the sociopath for society as a whole: warning others against his or her deceit and exploitation can prevent them from being victimized. One reason why sociopaths keep engaging i …

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Healthy relationships after the sociopath or narcissist

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“I’ll never date again.” I can’t tell you how many times Lovefraud readers have said this after being betrayed by a sociopath or narcissist. I get it — the soul-crushing experience of lies, manipulation, exploitation and perhaps physical assault leaves you wanting to do nothing but crawl into a cave. But I assure you, you can recover, and healthy relationships after the sociopath or narcissist are possible. The key, as I’ve said many times here on Lovefraud, is emotional recovery. That means allowing yourself to feel and process the emotional wounds inflicted by the sociopath, and probably by other people in your life as well. The work of recovery is messy and takes time, but it is truly w …

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Explaining dysfunctional relationships as codependency

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When we face difficulties and hardship in life, we try to find meaning in the experience. This is certainly the case with all of us who have tangled with sociopaths. We ask, how did this happen? More importantly, why did this happen? Many people have answered the questions by explaining dysfunctional relationships as codependency. In fact, for some people, explaining dysfunctional relationships as codependency is comforting. This is the point of a study entitled, The lived experience of codependency: an interpretative phenomenological analysis, by Ingrid Bacon and colleagues. The research was based on in-depth interviews with eight people who identified themselves as codependent and coped …

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