Lovefraud received the following letter from a woman who was married to a sociopath for 16 years. I was a stay-at-home mom until my son entered kindergarten, then I got a job. This was the end of any peace I would have for 10 years. The worst possible thing happened to my husband—the woman he could make fun of for being stupid or having no goals (whatever he would say to hurt my self-esteem) became a huge success. In fact, I made three times as much as Mr. Wonderful. The abuse escalated. He was so obsessed with destroying me that even on a business trip where I was getting an award for being the top sales rep in my company, he was pulling my boss aside and insinuating I was committing fraud …
I grieve for myself and let the psychopath go
When someone dies, we grieve. The process is well-documented, the steps clearly defined though seldom straight-forward. We each journey through the process at our own speed, in our own time. But, regardless of our pace, we must go through each step to come to that place where we can be at peace with only the memories of the one we loved to warm our hearts, as we learn to accept that they have gone forever as we move on. We start with disbelief. It cannot be true. They cannot be gone. We are in denial. And then we move into anger. How could they have left us! Why me? Why them? Why now? Why? Why? Why? Anger gives way to bargaining, trying to find some way to reach peace with the inevitable …
Telling our stories of being targeted by sociopaths
Sociopaths have no heart, no conscience and no remorse. They purposely drain the life out of people and then throw them away. Despite their charming and charismatic veneer, they are evil to the core. In my opinion, the people who truly understand this personality disorder are those who felt the full brunt of sociopathic deceit, and then woke up to the truth. We, the former targets, remember the promises of love and luxury, and how it all seemed so possible. We remember the confusion—how reality didn't match the promises, and the excuses that explained away the discrepancies. We remember attempting to express misgivings, only to be told we were crazy. We, the former targets, also remember t …
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Healing from an encounter with a psychopath. It’s all in my perceptions.
Recently I was hired to write a script for a video on Mammography. While working on the voice-overs, the actress hired to do the narration kept stumbling on one line. I knew it sounded awkward but was having trouble changing it. The Director and I looked at the sentence -- The fact that the screening mammogram might have saved her life, is not a myth. It's a fact. “It's the word, fact. It appears twice in the sentence and makes it awkward,” I said. We struggled for some minutes to think of a word to replace it with, but couldn't find one that fit. “We can't change the last two phrases,” I said. “They have to go together because that's the power statement. It's not a myth. It's a fact. We' …
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Never is a long, long time after loving a psychopath
When I first got my life back after the Psychopath was arrested, I didn't know who I was, where I was or even how I'd got to that place in which I was living with such deep, dank desperation and sadness. During that 4 year 9 month relationship I had done things and behaved in ways I did not think were possible for me. But, there I was after his arrest, standing amidst the devastation of my life, forced to acknowledge the truth; I had become that crazed woman who had accepted his lies as her truth. I was that woman who, locked in his unholy arms, lost her moral compass and fell into the abyss of his web of deceit. Freed from his embrace, I looked around me and realized, I was lost. I had …
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When I fear the past, the psychopath haunts me
Every Saturday morning I take my golden retriever, Sadie, for a walk at a park on the edge of the city. It is a quiet time, a time for reflection, for musing, for dreaming. This morning the world was blanketed in a white veil of fog. There was no city view, no vistas of the grandeur of the jagged ridge of the Rockies marching along the western skyline. Sound was softened by the denseness of the air around me and my vision was limited by the marshmallow-like mist of the world surrounding me. It was a magical grey on white landscape of misty hills rolling into nothingness dotted by the stark relief of naked trees holding their ground against the fog swirling around their frost laden …
When the trigger is pulled
Editor's note: This post was written by M.L. Gallagher, who was romantically involved with, and almost destroyed by, a sociopath. She has written a book about her experience called, The Dandelion Spirit: A True Life Fairytale of Love, Lies and Letting Go. Lovefraud recommends the book for anyone who is trying to understand how sociopaths manipulate their victims. M.L. Gallagher will be posting regularly to Lovefraud. Jack and I have been friends since high school. Last fall when his marriage of twenty-two years dissolved, he arrived on my doorstep, emotionally drained, bruised and fragile. As he tried to make sense of what had happened to his life, our friendship deepened. Recently, …
Fear and loathing when the sociopath returns
In August Lovefraud posted a story called One woman's experience of romantic manipulation. The information was submitted by “Survivor,” who had been targeted by someone whom she believes is a sociopath, and lists her observations of behaviors that, in hindsight, indicated how she was being manipulated. Survivor wrote to Lovefraud recently—the guy was back. Survivor had finally taken a step to be social again, joining a singles group. The guy found out and joined as well. I told her that No Contact is the best policy, and she might want to drop out of the group. To confront—or not What happened next illustrates three things: 1. The amount of psychological damage that sociopaths infli …
Pop psychology doesn’t work with sociopaths
I remember the first time I had proof that my ex-husband, James Montgomery, was cheating on me. Montgomery had talked me into giving him a credit card to use. He charged things on the card, and I paid the bills (a good deal for him). One time the bill came and it listed a charge for the Berlin Motor Lodge. This is not Berlin, Germany. There's a small town called Berlin not far from where I live in New Jersey. It isn't much more than a blip on the highway. Now, my ex was always away on "business." But there was no possible business reason for him to stay at this budget motel that was only about 40 minutes away. The only realistic explanation was that he was there with another woman. …
How do you help someone snared by a sociopath?
Lovefraud recently heard from a woman who was concerned for her daughter. Here is her e-mail: Currently, our daughter is married to a sociopath. He has taken us (her parents) for thousands and thousands of dollars, then turned her against us. These people victimize people and are somehow able to make themselves look like the victim. They have 2 small children. He has completely isolated her from her family, including her sister. He completely hates me and has made me the enemy, for I started seeing through him. Do you have any idea how I can possibly reach her to make her see the pattern? This man has felonies on his record for scheming to defraud; he has cheated people all his adult …