"It feels like I have a target on me," said a woman who had repeatedly caught the eye of sociopathic men. "You do," I replied. “So do I. So do lots of us.” Believe Who They Are When They Show You The First Time Why are empathetic people especially likely to get trapped in long-term relationships with sociopaths? We stay in these relationships too long, in part, because we discount and misattribute malicious, selfish, destructive behavior. We give people the benefit of the doubt. We have to stop doing this! Or at least, we need to become far more selective about when we do it and with whom we do it. We need to take Maya Angelou's words to heart — “When someone shows you who they are believe …
Married To A Sociopath — How It All Began
My Story Since ending what turned into a toxic marriage, suffering through a divorce from hell, and enduring severe post-divorce emotional, legal, and financial aftershocks, I have educated myself about sociopaths. It is clear to me now that my ex-husband and the father of my children is a sociopath. By sharing my story and painfully gained insights in my book Husband, Liar, Sociopath: How He Lied, Why I Fell For It & The Painful Lessons Learned, and on the lovefraud.com website, I hope to help others identify some of the markers that indicate someone in their life might be a sociopath as well as to recognize and offset the qualities in oneself—as in all of us—that encourage us to give t …
Tips for surviving a custody evaluation
Editor's note: Lovefraud received the following email from a mother whom we'll call "Natalya". She shares a child with a sociopath and her custody nightmare keeps getting worse. I have read in many articles and blogs that often psychologists would not recognize the psychopath and actually "allow" themselves to be manipulated. I thought it won't happen to me as my son's father is so ridiculous and I think it is so obvious to see something is wrong with him. Unfortunately my custody evaluation was a disaster. Even one of the mental tests he took shows the possibility of substance induced psychotic disorder and the psychologists herself stated he shows paranoia, delusion and cannot be …
My Niece in My Bed…with My Sociopath Husband
Dinner in Bed The spath convinced me to have his 17 year old niece come from his country and have us house her to try and give her a chance to live here. I agreed. Seemed noble, right? In November she came. I conceived my daughter in January; she was still in our home. I wanted her to have a good chance at life so I got her plugged into school here to learn English, taught her how to drive, took her to get her hair done, you know all those things. There was a language barrier because she did not speak English, but I spent a lot of time and effort helping her. One night I had one of my girlfriends over and we were cooking dinner. I hadn't seen my niece nor the spath around for a while; i …
My father the sociopath: ‘I should just kill you’
Editor's note: Lovefraud received the following story from a reader whom we'll call “Judith-Ann.” Many of us grow up in homes of loud abuses. As children, constant new realities wail on our fledgling emotions, all too often beating them into submission. Some of us give up. Our sensitive natures can't bear the hate of our own creators and we crash into ourselves in a thousand ways, catching fire until we burn out like stars, until there is nothing of ourselves but a black hole of self-hatred. Others of us continue to rail against the injustices committed against us. The Unwanted, we bash our brains out against the bars of an invisible cage from which we honestly believe we can never be freed. …
Judge throws kids in juvenile detention for not talking to father
A divorce and child custody case in Oakland County, Michigan, has gotten so bitter that Judge Lisa Gorcyca has sent three children, ages 14, 10 and 9, to juvenile detention for refusing to see their father. The saga began five years ago, when Maya Eibschitz-Tsimhoni filed for divorce from Omer Tsimhoni. Both parents are originally from Israel, and the father had returned Israel. The Internet is buzzing over this one, and here are some stories. But reading them, I have absolutely NO IDEA whether the problem is the mother, the father, or both. We all know how well sociopaths can talk, lie, play the victim, and run a smear campaign. Probably the only way to really know who is at fault i …
Judge throws kids in juvenile detention for not talking to fatherRead More
Marriage to the narcissist was bad, but divorcing him was worse
Lovefraud received the following story from a reader whom we'll call “Mary-Louise.” I was married for 9 years to a man who is a malignant narcissist, very similar to a sociopath. I have 2 kids and we share legal custody. I thought being married to him was bad, but divorcing him is worse in a lot of ways. He had a sex and gambling addiction. He works as a fitness coach for adults and loved the automatic authority that gave him. He took full advantage of the women clients and had affairs with many of them. This was unknown to me until we separated. There were several women he had on-going affairs with over the course of 10 years. Regularly he would invite his fitness clients over to our house f …
Marriage to the narcissist was bad, but divorcing him was worseRead More
Alleged Charleston murderer Dylann Storm Roof: Perhaps a budding sociopath who never had a chance
On the evening of June 17, 2015, Dylann Storm Roof sat in a Bible study group at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, in Charleston, South Carolina, for 45 minutes. Then he pulled out a Glock .45 handgun and shot 10 people, killing nine of them. All of the victims were African-American. One was the pastor of the church and a state senator, Rev. Clementa Pinckney. Two others were also pastors. Six of the victims were women; three were men. Fourteen hours later, Roof, 21, of Eastover, South Carolina, was arrested and charged with the murders. Many people, from politicians to celebrities to men and women on the street, are decrying the mass killing as an indication of …
With her intense rage, lack of remorse and hate, she seems “possessed”
Editor's note: Lovefraud received the following story from a reader whom we'll call "Mario." My wife peed in my drinking water then turned down the lights and then laughed after I drank one gulp. She spent the night with a lesbian lover the night my grandmother died. She told me she didn't care that our 1 year old daughter was falling off the bed 3 feet to a concrete floor, raised a fist to punch my 15 year old daughter in the face 3 times, punched me in the back of the head multiple times, pinched her fingertips together to cut my face to shreds while I was holding my computer trying to load the car to leave, threw car keys, plates, ceramic mugs, and punches at me while I was holding our 9 …
With her intense rage, lack of remorse and hate, she seems “possessed”Read More
Research suggests parenting style can turn children into narcissists
A new study from Ohio State University suggests that parents who "overvalue" their children, treating them as more deserving than others, are not nurturing self-esteem, but they are nurturing narcissism. Narcissism is partly based on genetics, according to research. So Eddie Brummelman, one of the study's authors, says that if a child has inherited a genetic risk for narcissism, it's important not to inflate the child's sense of self-worth, because that could enable the narcissism to flourish. Too much praise can turn kids into narcissists, study suggests, on Forbes.com. Link submitted by a Lovefraud reader. …
Research suggests parenting style can turn children into narcissistsRead More