Since Lovefraud launched in 2005, I’ve collected 2,850 cases—people who have contacted me to tell me about their experiences with a sociopath. In nearly 100 of these cases—3.4%—the person who contacted me was not actually the victim, but was a friend or family member who was trying to pry the victim away from the sociopath. For example, here’s an email that Lovefraud recently received:
I have a sister-in-law who is dating a married man, who claims he will be getting a divorce, which is still yet to happen. Now she’s pregnant with his kid so things are more serious. They were supposed to move out together a couple months ago, but when the day came he disappeared, then a couple weeks later she found out she was pregnant by him then they were in contact again. Anyways, they went ahead and got an apartment again, which he’s not living in because he is still living with his wife, so it’s a come and go when he pleases”¦ He’s using her! This is not his first child out of wedlock, in fact, he has no contact with the other one and he has now cheated on his wife six times! All these red flags, and all she does is cover up for him. I’ve noticed she’s been depressed and been doing irresponsible things with her health as a result of this guy! Everyone also bluntly tells her that she’s basically his whore, so she knows how everyone feels. What do I do to open her eyes?
Lovefraud’s standard advice in this situation is that there isn’t much someone else can do—it’s up to the person who is involved with a sociopath to open her own eyes and see what is going on. In order to break away, the victim must feel, and own, the negative emotions associated with being controlled and/or abused. This will spark the victim’s desire to get out.
The best thing loved ones can do is stay in contact with the victim, because the sociopath will try to isolate him or her. Friends and loved ones should be emotionally supportive of the individual, but not supply material support, such as money or a place to live. The idea, essentially, is to wait it out, and then, when the relationship crashes and burns, be there to pick up the pieces.
Dr. Liane Leedom explained this approach in her article, “How can I get my _____ away from the psychopathic con artist?”
I’ve sent many, many people the link to that article. But every time I do, it is so dissatisfying. Isn’t there anything a loved one can do?
I understand that people become deeply bonded to sociopaths, especially when they are emotionally and physically intimate, and more especially when they are pregnant. I wrote a whole chapter in my new book, Red Flags of Love Fraud, that explains exactly how this happens. Chapter 6 is called “Sociopathic sex and bonding,” and it explains the psychology and biology of how this powerful psychological love bond is formed.
Here’s a chapter by chapter summary of the book.
Still, I don’t like the idea of just waiting around the victim hits bottom. Sometimes, by the time that happens, the victim is so broken that there is no recovery. And sometimes, when the victim hits bottom, she is dead.
So, I ask Lovefraud readers: Have you ever conducted a successful intervention? If you were the friend or family member of someone in the clutches of a sociopath, were you able to get him or her out? How? Or, if you were the person bonded to the sociopath, did anyone ever do or say anything that gave you the strength to leave?
If anything works, please let us know. I’d love to be able to offer more heartening suggestions.
Here is a discussion of Loyalty I find interesting
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/loyalty/
Loyalty is usually seen as a virtue, albeit a problematic one. It is constituted centrally by perseverance in an association to which a person has become intrinsically committed. Its paradigmatic expression is found in friendship, to which loyalty is integral, but many other relationships and associations seek to encourage it as an aspect of affiliation or membership: families expect it, organizations often demand it, and countries do what they can to foster it.
Hope is of course an expectation, so there are some differences, but at the same time, I can see that there are also some of the same aspects. It would be difficult I think to have one without the other. But I guess that would be best decided by the philosophers.
IMO – loyalty is like trust – it must be earned.
Katy ~ your x may have used your good gualities as a weapon against you, BUT he did not destroy those qualities and they shine through everyday.
For me the two are also very distinct.
Loyalty means I’m willing to sacrifice for another. Whereas hope means I expect something back.
I’m loyal to a fault.
The spath even told me once, “You’re a very loyal person.” it came out of the blue, I couldn’t figure out why he said it. Now I know that it was a veiled insult, meaning, “You’re a dog I can kick whenever I want.” My spath frienemy, K, also said, “You’re more like a dog, I’m more like a cat.” I thought, “WTF? where did that come from? ”
I wasn’t loyal to K, like I was to spath. The reason he said it, was because he was actually spath’s friend (behind my back) and he knew that spath was using me as a “beard”.
In the end, I had no hope for spath and myself, I only stayed out of loyalty. I couldn’t bear to hurt him.
puke.
I only left when I saw that he was trying to kill me and NEVER loved me. Loyalty went out the door and I was right behind.
What people need to understand is that these are not bad traits: hope and loyalty. Neither is being wealthy or generous or beautiful. But spaths use our own power against us. They tempt us by saying, “look at all the power you have, why don’t you use it?”
Spath did that when he convinced his millionaire friend to buy a new helicopter then he came home and described the conversation. It sounded just like Satan talking to Jesus in the desert.
When we acquiesce to use our power at the behest of the spath, we take the first step down the slippery slope because he has ways of perverting the very best things about us.
We can avoid it and see a red flag by being aware when someone is appealing to our pride in our abilities and in the gifts that God gave us.
http://www.jesuswalk.com/lessons/4_1-13.htm
Milo, I agree that loyalty should be earned. I have found that Patrick is “loyal” to his friends but not to me…DUH??? So why was I loyal to HIM? I also saw that son C was “loyal” to Patrick (until he realized that Patrick had sent someone to kill at least me and maybe him….and also that he saw that Patrick knew his “friend” was farking C’s wife…DUH?) Well, so much for loyalty to a psychopath, huh?
I realize That I have GIVEN my loyalty to those I loved, and I HOPED they would be loyal in return.
Of course it didn’t work out that way because not everyone is loyal to us…which shows me that they do not care very much about me if they have little to no loyalty to me.
Oh, well…I can’t trust someone who does not demonstrate that they do what they say they will do, and ACT like they care about me by SHOWING me they are loyal and trustworthy.
Very interesting discussion! I like the idea of malignant loyalty — that rings true for me.
For me, loyalty and hope are two different things. When I married my spath, I was hopeful for a bright and happy future with him, looking forward “hopefully” to the unfolding of it all… my marriage vows were about loyalty — they were the promise I was making.
At the time, naively, I thought he was making the same promise I was making. So, I don’t think I would ever be so stupid as to make a promise of loyalty in a wedding vow to someone who does not return that same promise. I believed in something that was not real. I didn’t hope for it. I simply believed it. It went without saying, without hoping.
That belief vanished one day, finally, when it FINALLY sunk into me that his vow to me was EMPTY. INSINCERE. (I didn’t even think such a thing was possible!)
When the belief vanished, my trust vanished. My hope for a bright future with him vanished. But my loyalty lingered on for a long time, even if it was in pieces. I defended him to people. I made excuses in my own mind for his abuse. I tried to “understand” the root cause of his behavior. I no longer believed he was sincere or that we could stay married, but he was the FATHER OF MY CHILDREN, dammit!! And I have to “honor” him for that — right? That is what I thought for so many years. That piece of loyalty remained, even though he had none for me, and THAT is what allowed me to be hurt, for years and years and years.
Because yeah, I was like a dog that allowed myself to be kicked and kicked and kicked and kept coming back for more because I thought I had made a promise, there was something there to honor, and I needed to just keep trying to be a good co-parent. To tell my kids, “you know, your dad loves you but he may not always know how to show it.” I never spoke of his abuse to me, to the kids. I hoped that maybe it was just an aberrant period in our marriage… and that they would never know that their father had abused their mother.
I didn’t set out to lie to my kids — I truly thought I was being a good mom by hanging onto a few shreds of this loyalty. No hope. Just loyalty.
Loyalty ties into respect. I wanted to respect and honor him at the very least, for his humanity — isn’t that what God wants us to do?
I’ve already passed through the spath-awakening stage and I’m beyond the hurt and angry stage, and getting on with the forgiveness stage. So… I am not loyal in my heart any more. I am not trying to honor him. But I’m not trying to condemn him anymore, either. And I’m forgiving myself.
There is no hope with him. It helps that there is no hope. It’s a more accepting way of being, which feels more peaceful. I see him more clearly and I don’t expect anything other than what he gives me in any given moment. And I view all of it as a pretense anyhow.
I will be kind and civil to him because I think it benefits the children and helps things go more smoothly. But I do it in the most gray-rockish, Stepford-ex-wife-ish way I can manage. I have no expectations and I will not be fooled by him again. So I offer a pretense of loyalty, but my real loyalty now is to my kids and myself.
And I’m full of hope for the future — but my hope no longer rests on the actions and behaviors and loyalty of other people. A bit of my trust in my fellow man is still damaged.
Oh yes, malignant loyalty. Now we are really getting to the meat of the issue; aren’t we? This is so true. They use that loyalty they see that we have and they exploit it to the point of laugh-ability inside themselves. They see us as weak and petty and not worthy of them so they become superior in their own feeble little minds.
I have no hope in my situation, FOR HIM. I do have hope for myself. I have always found that hope and loyalty are quite different and distinct as well.
Getting to the point of this post, ‘what’ would help a loved one break free of a ppath? — Strong support. Education. Awareness. I have said before, the educational and awareness program Donna has presented to her local High School is an absolute necessity in these days and times. To educate the children, all the children, who are our hope for the future. To that we MUST be loyal.
Education and awareness is not in itself the sole solution, I don’t think. It also takes a lot of interaction by caring and understanding people. I think what the victims want and need the most is a place to be heard. To have understanding ears and caring hearts to listen and to understand and just share some of the load by listening. Having someone to listen to our incessant ruminations created by the shock of the experiences we have encountered is so priceless. You don’t realize how priceless until you don’t have that kind of support. YOU all have been that support for me. I thank you from my heart.
I don’t know what the answer is to pull someone out of the nightmare. I do know that making them ‘aware’ IS one important key and factor. But even then, you have a tendency to disbelieve what you are seeing…
In the end, it IS ultimately the choice of the victim what they choose. To continue on in misery or to make concrete changes in themselves and to leave the misery behind. Someone once said I was a masochist because I could not leave this relationship. I couldn’t leave out of loyalty. Not hope as much as loyalty. I felt I owed that ‘staying power’. More out of commitment than affection.
Just my two cents.
Yes, my faith in humanity has slipped after this encounter too, 20years. Although I do not look upon everyone as being like this, I do recognize that all humans are capable of the same ugly qualities. It makes me very ‘unto myself’ and that isn’t all bad. At least I can be myself and walk around naked if I want. I don’t have to cook on demand nor wash dirty underwear.
Dupey
When I was about 25, I had a doctor who was very cute and very interested in me. I pretended not to notice and I set him up with a friend of mine. (It didn’t work out.)
It’s not that I wasn’t interested, it’s just that I was loyal to my spath.
Sure could kick myself now!
skylar: i can relate but everything happens for a reason, i believe….who knows how that would have turned out!!!!!!!
i know what that kind of loyalty is like and when it’s not appreciated nor respected, kind of puts a damper on things…it’s unacceptable.
xxoo
Actually Dupey, I couldn’t live with myself if I was the kind of person that just dumped someone when a better offer comes around. It’s not really about him, it’s about my self-respect – that’s why I couldn’t dump him for the cute doctor.
Unfortunately, that same attitude was used against me by the spath. I took responsibility for our relationshit, rather than insist that responsibility should be mutual.
I am proud to hear you say that skylar. I feel the same way: it’s about self respect. Absolutely. Sometimes that self respect can help us make the choices that we just know we should make or have to make.
Yes, I know they use that attitude and strength about us as a weapon against us. I always took responsibility for everything in our relationSHIT as well. That was my fault for accepting that in the first place.
I see all the flashing lights now, Dearie….
Have a good night, skylar: thank you for everything you have contributed to my healing. xxoo