Last Sunday, the Asbury Park Press, a New Jersey newspaper, published a front-page article about the career of Edward J. Devine. On August 1, 2008, Devine was sentenced to five years in prison for bouncing checks and deceiving nonprofit and educational institutions. The bulk of the story was not about those crimes, but what Devine did to the women in his life. Claiming to be the heir to a Sonoma wine company and a trucking mogul, he left one wife, Donna Devine, and her mother $400,000 in debt. He wiped out the inheritance of another wife, Deborah Weiss. He forced his first wife, Carol Ceralli, into bankruptcy. It's a story that many of us know, and some of us have experienced. But …
LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: Finding sanity after the sociopath (part 2)
Editor's note: The following essay was submitted by Lovefraud reader “Presseject.” This is part two of his story. Part one was posted yesterday. By Presseject About two weeks after I confronted my S, there was a very dark day in which I was cut to pieces. I am okay now recalling it, but at that time, and for many weeks afterwards, it was like a knife in the heart. I would like to share a bit further with you the silver lining to this part of the story and how that relates to the good work you have done with the site. You see, it went like this: I had my S visit and stay with me for my birthday weekend. He presented me with fun gifts and a card that included the words signed with "tons of l …
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LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: Finding sanity after the sociopath (part 1)
Editor's note: The following essay was submitted by Lovefraud reader "Presseject." This is part one of his story. Part two will be posted tomorrow. By Presseject A little over three months ago I had my heart ripped out from me. It happened suddenly and there are few words I can use to describe the pain I felt as dreams, hopes and even what I thought was my own sanity seemed to disappear quickly in a crushing instant that reverberated with off-the-scale emotional aftershocks for weeks into months afterwards. I suffered nearly two months of an awful nerve-wracking traumatic stress reaction, a hypervigilence that has finally recently lessened its grip on me. The Internet, along with my own …
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A list for leaving the sociopath behind
by AlohaTraveler How many of us have a list, or know someone who does, of the ideal qualities we are looking for in THE ONE? I think these lists can sometimes cause us to miss out on someone quite wonderful because we get so attached to a check list. But that's another topic. I have a different kind of list. It could be called the list of EXACTLY what I DO NOT want in a life partner! This list has helped me to heal and come to terms with the reality of the Bad Man. While going through my things this morning, I found a piece of binder paper with a list I had written about the Bad Man in the early stages of my healing. It was written sometime within the first year after I had left him. …
After the sociopath is gone: Inspired Change
I receive a weekly newsletter from Brian Willis at Winning Mind Training. In his latest newsletter he quotes Lon Bartel, a law enforcement trainer in Arizona who said, "People change out of desperation or inspiration. Desperation results in short term change. Inspiration, results in powerful and lasting change." When I was in relationship with the sociopath, I made desperate changes. Living in constant fear, I was desperate to keep him happy. In my desperation, I contorted and distorted myself to fit the image he told me I had to fit. Most of what I did was about keeping him happy and my life, as it were, intact. Often, the changes I made were 'inspired' by his anger. I would do just …
Speaking up after the sociopath is gone.
It was just a name in the subject line of an email. I knew the name. How could I forget it? It was the name of the man who had betrayed my trust and my love for the four years nine months of our relationship. Curious, I opened the email and read the words of a woman whose daughter's girlfriend is engaged to a man named ”˜Jack' (not his real name). I think he's the same man you knew, she wrote. I read your website and the article from when your book was published. Do you have a picture? I wrote back and told her I had burnt every picture I had of him. She sent me one by return email. Is this the same man? I'm really scared for my daughter's safety. Conrad and my daughter's friend h …
Forgiveness and the psychopath
Editor's note: The following article refers to spiritual concepts. Please read Lovefraud's statement on Spiritual Recovery. By Ox Drover For my whole life I felt that I could never measure up because I was expected to “pretend it never happened” in order to meet my mother's definition of the word “forgive.” I was expected to trust the person who had hurt me in the past, and who I knew would hurt me again in the future. I was told by religious leaders, whom I trusted, that if I did not “pretend it didn't happen” and “truly forgive,” I was bound for an eternal residence in hellfire and brimstone. Many of us who are Christians know the various Bible passages that say, in essence, we m …
After the sociopath, hard-learned truths
Before I became entangled with the sociopath, I was an avid consumer of self-help books and programs. Although I was successful in my career, I could not get the relationship thing to work. This, of course, was the vulnerability exploited by the sociopath I married, but I get ahead of myself. In my quest for answers—Why was I alone? Why couldn't I find love?—I once participated in a weekend seminar called "Understanding Yourself and Others." After some initial skepticism, I found the program to be helpful. One of the things I remember from the weekend is a pithy little motto: "The truth will set you free—but first it will piss you off." In reference to sociopaths, truer words were never sp …
Guidelines for posting comments on the Lovefraud Blog
In the three years since Lovefraud launched, it's grown from a website to a community. I am always amazed and appreciative that so many people are contributing. New readers arrive distraught and asking for help; other readers respond with caring and heartfelt support. People start to recover. It is beautiful to watch. Thank you all. As we post, there is an important fact that we must all keep in mind. Here it is: Linguists estimate that 65 percent to 90 percent of the meaning in human communication is transmitted via nonverbal cues—tone of voice, facial expression, body language. None of these cues, of course, are available over a computer. That means when we post written comments on the L …
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Book review: Antisocial Personality Disorder A Practitioner’s Guide to Comparative Treatments
I had a nice conversation with a friend today. She said that part of healing from a relationship with a sociopath is getting to the point where one realizes that sociopaths deserve pity for being disordered. In that regard, we both hope that science will progress to the point where sociopathy is preventable and fully treatable. In this blog I will discuss treatment options for those diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder. Following the format of the book I am reviewing, this disorder is called sociopathy or ASPD and the personality traits that give rise to the disorder are called “psychopathic personality traits.” Regarding whether sociopathy and psychopathic personality traits are …