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.
aloha
Actually I think it’s a good seed for the victims of a sneak attacker. Writing down the incident and then the evidence WHY it felt that way helps to label behaviors being perpetrated. It’s a little detective work that is needed when someone is gaslighting a victim. I’d rather have been wrong; that there was a simple explanation. BUT what I NEEDED (rather than wanted) was to KNOW TO PROTECT MYSELF.
You see, one of the best benefits of my recording events in my journal was putting things on a timeline. For ex: My husband would say something didn’t happen b/c he was out of town that day. And yet, my journal was dated and timed, so I KNEW he was NOT out of town. That proved he LIED.
Therefore, a LIST might not have worked for me, but a TIMELINE application of a list would reveal what a Mindfarker he was.
Sometimes an idea is MORE than an idea. Don’t give up on it, EXPAND IT!
Since most psychopaths LIE….when we catch them in a lie….write it down….I think the lies themselves as they accumulate would show a PATTERN.
oh yes, keeping track of the truths in your mind and sometimes ignoring the emotions helps you have a different perspective on things.
trust me.
i think the largest thing anyone can do for themselves if they are in the situation we have all been through is to continue believing in ourselves. remembering ‘who’ we are and ‘what’ we stand for and believe in and ‘what’ we find acceptable and not acceptable. just believing in yourself and putting yourself on that path TO yourself is the hugest one thing we can do to get out from under this ‘dark cloud’ that has hung over us far too long.
oh yes, keeping track of situations, words said, deeds done…definitely. when it gets to the point that you find it unacceptable, it is okay to turn the other way and to focus on ourselves and not feel selfish at all but self surviving.
love and blessings to you all…
dupey
Once upon a time I was dealing with a woman I really didn’t know too well, and she told a very good story about how her previous employer had abused her….and how her boy friend/business partner had abused her and ya da, ya da.
My short term memory isn’t all that good any more, hasn’t been since the plane crash, but I was getting a gut feeling about this woman. So I wrote down some of her tales while they were fresh in my mind….and after a few days I began to see a PATTERN of things with her that didn’t add up….then she began to try to get me to “invest” in some things…and well, you know, I never did know all the truth about this woman, but I did realize that I did not want to be sucked into her “investments” or anything else with her.
When people abuse us, keeping a list of the abuse or attempted abuse attempts without the EMOTIONAL baggage that goes with it, just like Sgt. Joe Friday the TV detective when I was a kid “JUST THE FACTS, MAM” It won’t take a long list of these things for us to SEE that the person (separate from the emotions tied to them) is not a good fit for us as a friend/lover/ etc and it makes it easier to cut the “TIES THAT BIND.” I think.
When my old college buddy that I had taken to hanging out with started to kind of “get greedy” in various transactions we did, I NOTED those things—but I EXCUSED THEM—but the the last one, the changing a small but important agreement (the amount of dollars amounted to 56) but causing me a bunch of TROUBLE tipped it over the scale. My ANGER at this made me react and stand up, but if I had been more aware and less excusing of the PAST PROBLEMS the last one wouldn’t have been so upsetting emotionally I think and would have made it easier.
I think not only do we need to learn something (and I think Kathy Hawk’s methods described above sound GREAT!) about how to try to “get through” to others but we also need to be able to “get through” to OURSELVES when someone is being abusive.
The fact we met and dealt with one (or more) psychopaths or abusers doesn’t mean we won’t come across another one at work, our neighborhood or where ever. We need to prepare ourselves as well.
This is a timely article for us! My husband and I were in the position five years ago of being one of the whistle blowers on the man our niece was to marry. A liar, con artist, manipulator and fraud. We found this site and asked for assistance and learned so much about sociopaths and predators. Many of you predicted that we may not be able to get through to her and her immediate family. They were right about that and we were cast out of their lives.
Our niece did marry him, did stay with him several years and finally kicked him out. He was arrested within 10 months of that and has been in jail for almost 2 years. He pled quilty and worked out a plea bargain.
I thankfully can post this on 3/9/11 ~ he was sentenced to 11 years in prison, plus 3 years probation. He delayed his sentencing many times and thought he was the smartest person in the courtroom. Attempted to fire his public defender. Showed no remorse for anything he did.
Unfortunately, we have had no contact with our niece or her family. They all moved out of state and have nothing to do with any family. I am sure they feel like most of you, wanting to bury this away and never speak of it to anyone. The evil of this individual goes way beyond the money involved and the judge made a point of this throughout the sentencing hearings. She gave him above and beyond what the plea bargain was set at.
I now have faith in the justice system, and hope that judges like her keep up the good work.
Dear Inquirente,
I vaguely remember your story. I am sorry that you at least did not reestablish contact with your niece after he was arrested. I am glad though that the justice system worked for you! I hope that your niece and her family do recover, but it is work and it must be focused and accepting of the TRUTH in order to heal. God bless you and your family.
not sure where to post..
Im new to this but I can relate to most of it. I dont know where to start. I have a plethora of lies and deceptions of which all were turned back on me and explained away. I met him online, my final shot. He was attentive, interesting and different. Eccentric. That was nearly a year ago. I broke up with him 7mths into it cos he lied incessantly and always had a story to cover. Things just got more and more strange. I took him back but his responses -where emotion was required- just didnt add up. So many things on the ’list’ he fits. I just wrangle with is it my issues or is he really a sociopath? my friends dont know him (he never came to anything to meet them) and think im going overboard when I call him a sociopath.
Too many doubts keep making me want to go back. But I know something is so very wrong there. I just wish I had something concrete to hold onto so I could maintain NC. and forget him. Its the weirdest relationship Ive ever had I just cant work it out in my head and that whats holding me back from moving on. My brain is toasted by his talk and charm. Promises that never came about, strange disappearances, ex girlfriends that hes lying about seeing, dodgy sex requests, idealizing and then devaluing. His manipulations and trickery. Im seriously going mad. Help me. Before this I was a confident professional (and outdoorsy) corporate fit and happy now Im a walking shell that crys most days and obsesses about this guy.
Help
Dear Joss,
“welcome to the club”. You seem to “qualify”, unfortunately. It is normal to feel the way you seem to feel, completely un-normal. I recommend you to read the articles in the archive, for me the ones of Kathleen Hawk were very enlightening. In the beginning it will be about “them”, but will soon become a very important lesson about yourself. Please feel free to write here, anytime there is someone online. Unfortunately the Spaths are all over the world. Welcome.
Hi Everyone! Just celebrated one full year of no contact. This question really intrigued me. What exactly was it that opened my eyes finally and made me see that the reality that he created for me wasn’t real?
It was a text message from one of the six other women he was seeing/using. It was like reading something I had written myself. That woman lived my life! She knew things only I should have known. She had been played the same way I had. Each line of her text hit me like a slap in the face. “I paid the child support for his son in Cuba”, “he cries huge crocodile tears when he wants something”, “he’s a grown man, he can get a job, it was like having a 4th child”, “he cheated on me with at least 2 other women and threw it in my face”. And she repeated intimate details of our sexual encounters that only he and I should have known.
That text changed my world. There was no way I couldn’t believe her. It was my life she was describing, except it was her life.
So, my great idea is, and I’d love to see this done, a movie or tv series needs to be made. But instead of the psychopath character being the murderous Ted Bundy type, as most psychopath’s are portrayed, the character or characters need be the more common type that most of us have dealt with in our relationships.
Then we would have a movie to give to our friend to watch and hope they can see the similarity in their life with a psychopath to the one in the movie.
It can star Brad Pitt. -_-
Feeling good and loving life!
Hey Joss,
You are doing great working out pretty quickly that this is not a good thing when some of us here have not been so smart or perhaps been conned by guys even smarter than the one who tried it on with you. Your story sounds so familiar to me. What that scenario you described to very dangerous is vulnerability caused by children, a death or other trauma, or some kind of context which the con can exploit to intensify the situation and get uber sympathy. Do not go back. If something bad happens in your life do not let that make you vulnerable enough to go back to that person. Stay away, that person has their life compartmentalized and is probably doing the same thing to several other people just like you at the same time. Hang around and keep reading and also read up on PUA techniques. Your guy is using them on you and keeping it up. There should be a new abbreviation KIUA (keeping it up artists) or SAA (string along artists). I hate him for what he is deliberately doing to you.