Although it has been many years and there is a new relationship, a friend of mine still wishes every day that the sociopath that preyed on her will “drop dead.” Wishing and hoping that some horrible end will come for the sociopath takes up time and energy in my friend’s life; as she searches for evidence that something bad has indeed happened to the sociopath and then is disappointed.
Recently, I discussed the topic of forgiving psychopaths with a psychopathy researcher who is not a clinician. He said he received a letter from someone complaining that friends were pressuring the victim to forgive. It was the psychopathy researcher’s opinion that people should NOT be told they have to forgive a psychopath.
Upon reflecting on this opinion, I believe that this psychopathy researcher may have a special insight that informs his view —that psychopaths should not necessarily be forgiven. Perhaps this insight is: in spite of their brain disorder, psychopaths still have a choice about what they do.
My son is now 7, he and I rough and tumble play every day. It is impossible to wrestle and not have some kind of slight hurt come to one or the both of us. From the time he was very young, perhaps as young as 3, my son has appreciated the idea that mommy didn’t “do it on purpose”. If he pokes me in the eye or lands rough on my stomach he’ll say “Sorry, I didn’t do it on purpose.”
This example illustrates our inborn social contract that says we do not hurt each other on purpose. If hurts happen in the course of life, they are usually unintended side effects of other behaviors and so should be forgiven. Cheating on a spouse could even be forgiven as an unintentional hurt if the person succumbed to temptation in a moment of weakness, realized the wrong committed, then repented. Even murder is not punished as much if it is an accident.
The problem with sociopaths is that their behavior is no accident. They hurt people on purpose, carefully planning, then executing their plans. After 7 years of reading research articles and talking to victims, I believe choice is part of a complete explanation of sociopathy and victimization. If you watch any of the TV shows about sociopaths you too will see that the theme of their choices permeates the media.
Friday night, Gangland on the History Channel told the story of Billy Wadd, a member of the Devil’s Disciples motorcycle gang who gained notoriety when he broke the biker’s code of silence and testified against his nephew who murdered a family during a home invasion. Wadd said he decided to aid the prosecution of his nephew, John Wolfenbarger, instead of “taking care of things the usual way” because “You just don’t kill kids.” It is clear he believed these murders were performed with an intention that not even another sociopath could accept, so even sociopaths believe in their own capacities for choice.
Now let’s reconsider whether victims should be told they have to forgive. It seems there is a natural human instinct that says forgiveness is reserved for accidents, unintended consequences, and perhaps intentional slights that are out of character. How then can you ever forgive a psychopath?
Psychopaths have been compared to predators. I think this analogy is seriously flawed. A predator such as a lion or wolf has to kill in order to survive. Psychopaths don’t hurt for survival. They hurt because they want to, because they like hurting. Their enjoyment of hurting increases the likelihood they will choose to hurt if given the opportunity. They also seek out opportunities to hurt -not for survival but for pleasure.
Since sociopaths, with intention, repeatedly violate our inborn social contract, perhaps they should never be forgiven.
Instead of forgiving, I hope, my friend, you will think about all this and thoroughly digest the reality of the sociopath you shared life with. The reality is terrible— you shared life with a truly evil person, someone who regularly, with malice and forethought, chooses to harm others. Don’t stop hoping to see the day the scourge of this evil person’s existence will be wiped from the Earth, but do not waste any more of your time on him.
psychopathy on House … now!
Thanks everyone – a bit of change does us all good sometimes! And this is kind of a crisis at the moment and I am in my mid life so it’s not really untrue as such. Crisis is danger and opportunity mixed.
Kathy – a special thanks – you acknowledged my feelings as valid and pointed out a good path ahead that incorporates the good and the bad from this experience. I think I have been a bit all or nothing in my thinking before this – now I am aware of nuances and the ‘both and’ phenomenon – it’s being able to hold two opposing ideas in the same space at the same time and able to acknowledge t he truth in each of them.
I have lots more reading to do today … lots more delving into the past and no doubt it will be painful.
I agree with you I can’t change anything while not totally strong myself – I am still too attached to it all and emotionally involved with it. That’s the difference between educating people rationally and screaming about my own personal pain – one will get results and help the cause, the other damages it infinitely. So for now I remain silent while I continue to work on myself.
Hormonal cycles for me are painful reminders of everything I lost and the unchangeable passing of time and decay of everything. But they can also be generative periods of time where I get to a deeper place in thinking and feeling. So I take your advice and will do some journalling tonight later when it cools down. I tend to just write now and see what comes up without judging it – it seems to work for me – releases whatever is uppermost so I feel somewhat lightened in the load I am carrying.
I think I was sulking before about the ‘story’ of personal development. I can see the good in the process and realise everyone will have had those doubts about the value of it. We have to find some meaning in what happened and retrieve some gold for ourselves from the experience – otherwise it was random and meaningless and I can’t live with that orientation. I have often asked why he was brought into my life at that time – and I see many valid reasons. I still maintain I could have done without it, but that is a useless comment. What is done is done and cannot be taken back. So I have to find a way to live with it all.
Off to do some things = may blessings shower down on all of you for your warmth, heartedness, love, caring and compassion.
midlifecrisis
“may blessings shower down on YOU for the warmth, heartedness, love, caring and compassion” that you have for others and most important… that you are relearning to give to yourself first and foremost! LTL
I think this is a very important article, Dr. Leedom. Forgiveness is rightly thought to be an important part of the healing we require when wronged, but the wrongs committed by sociopaths are entirely different.
I do believe their actions are a matter of choice. I’ve come to believe that they are not necessarily intending to harm us, but the end result is always that they DO harm us because they have adopted coping strategies that place them above everyone else. Their fundamental life strategy views us as ultimately irrelevant, although they may strongly act otherwise when they see us as useful to them in some way. In most cases, I suspect we are not so much intended victims as “collateral damage.”
The fact remains that if you are enmeshed in a relationship with a sociopath (a love relationship, working relationship, or any other), in the long term or the short term you absolutely will get hurt. Having been harmed by a sociopath, I believe the resulting trauma requires us to choose between protecting ourselves and enduring permanent psychic damage. I protect myself.
All relationships for me now are about the enforcement of appropriate boundaries. It wasn’t always that way. And the boundary with a known sociopath is more like the Great Wall of China, while the boundaries with normal people tend to be something like a sawhorse or traffic barrier that can be moved at will.
Recognizing the difference between sociopaths and so-called “normal” people has been part of the learning process. There really aren’t many true sociopaths out there, but even one or two in your life can do an amazing amount of damage that can’t be undone.
I wish you all the strength and inner peace you deserve. Thank you, Dr. Leedom and all others who support people here at LoveFraud.
Dr Leedom
No….. for this survivor, forgiveness is not an option.
I passionately hold the possibility he will horribly injured out there one way or another, brutally attacked, natural disaster, road accident, comet from outer spacee,hopefully he will meet his mirror image in the form of a disgusting sexually transmitted disease, any other form of aggressive illness he cares to create because lets face it he creates horror.
Back on him every ounce of suffering!
I can hand him over to the great universal truth, hand him into the jaws of karma. He asked me once did I want payback, I said I leave pay back to God, he does it better than me. He was blatantly dissapointed I wasn’t going to go after him. What was painful for me was “nothing” to him. I will not be the one to get entangled in his bad energy, so I let him go. Never to get “away with it” but to spit him out as poison. I’d like to neutralise him, render him harmless failing that to get as far away from him as possible.
What gives me pleasure now is, he has lost all the “attention” from me, I smile when I think of him out there somewhere ploughing into the next nightmare…without me!!! yay! in my case no one died. Time to be grateful not bitter. But if I heard he had been killed horribly I would buy a bottle of champagne and party all night in absolute delight….what I’m saying is I would be absolutely thrilled with profound happiness to hear the news.
Forgiveness from a sociopath is not part of their makeup – unless they are trying to get back into our good graces, and in those cases, asking for forgiveness is just another lie in their ongoing agendae.
For a long time I grappled with ‘forgiveness.’ Forgiveness is part of closure, and closure is not part of their program either.
In the case of dealing with a sociopath, forgiveness is just an open door to let them malign us again.
How can we forgive someone when they don’t ask to be forgiven? We can’t. The option which is open to us is to forgive ourselves for our second-guessing, and eventually time will bring ‘forget’ and we move on.
The sociopath does not grow spiritually or become enlightened; they just move on to their next victim unaware and unfeeling of the devastation they create in people’s lives.
Caring and compassion are missing from their behaviors
Hi Everyone.
Thanks so much for the support. I really wasn’t exspecting so much so quick.
I think to start with I have to accept that I have a lot of issues contributing to why I am happy to be in such a crappy relationship (low self esteem etc) as this is not the first time, Infact with the lack of violence in the relationship this one has is better than my previous. I am reciving help for these issues – although I doubt it is doing much to be honest but at this point I am willing to try anything.
The other thing I feel I should say is that wether it’s because I am mad or just not ready I am not looking to end the relationship. I feel that he is all I have got and life pretty much wouldn’t be worth living without him. I suffer badly from depression and am just not prepared to do that to myself. I am determined to stick it out no matter what.
I also don’t think I would have to worry if I left him – I honestly don’t think he cares about me enough to bother hurting me.
Things are still the same with us anyway – he has been “away” for a while but is getting out in a few days and instead of looking forward to it I am now dreading it. He has pretty much made it clear that although I have done everything for him and all he has asked during the past 2 months he dosen’t want me around so much when he gets back. It always amazes me how he can jump from one extreme to another so damn quckily in the afternoon eveythings fantastic and its me and him against the world and by tea time he is screaming at me because I’m to clingy.
I guues I have just had a few realisations in the past few days of how NOT normal our relationship is, my friends all say I should be estatic at seeing him again but I’m dreading it cause I know what he will be like. They all laugh and joke at how i should “jump” him as soon as he walks in the door – I laugh along but think to myslef no I will be checking everything is clean enough for him so he won’t kick off and start an arguement (surely I shouldn’t be like this at 20?)
He stresses me out so much and the sick thing he knows he does it, its like a game to him. Again just another reminder of how much he means to me and how little I mean to him.
Midlifecrisis wrote: “….And hey I am all for diversity in humans and ’we all have our faults’ but these people don’t harm themselves ”“ they harm everybody else. Our leaders have let us down in not preparing us for enslaughts with these idiots and not providing support for us. Why are we being discriminated against in this way? Every other victim in society has stronger people to advocate for them, to fundraise, to heighten awareness ” why don’t we? Apart from this blog and a few others ” there is nothing…”
i am an Aspie, with an autistic wife and child, and i was for the neurodiversity movement but realized i could not be supportive of a neurodiverse concept if it meant it would respect the ‘rights’ of psychopaths. for there to be a right to be respected same said rights should be respected in others. once those rights are violated any such ‘rights’ that the psychopath has should be forfeited. their whole nature is a crime against others and as such not worthy of respect of diversity. but should be looked upon as a cancer, or plague.
i like the term psychopath over sociopath, because for someone who has taken lifelong social skills classes and training ‘socio’ sounds so very friendly and with all the destruction these individuals do in destroying lifes, children, sanity, one’s view of the world, innocence is lost, faith in people is rattled, the damage done is like a hundred deaths before the actual physical death…
because you actually die inside in many ways to many things and our future generations are affected by it. ‘nice guys’ finish last, children learn from a young age what it takes to get ahead. it warps everyones view of the world. people become jaded.
before i tried some other logic forming solution to my problem and escaped into my fiction story writing i had to deal with my rage, and pain and fears too. and i look around, i read, and altough this website blogsite is a great effort, there really isn’t much out there. i was looking into psychopaths in the school system, in the workplace so i didn’t think i belonged here on lovefraud, but there’ isn’t much out there at all really. no real awareness…
our social development, social harmony, social evolution is being f#%&ed with and there seems little to be done about it, because forget any real proactive solution to the problem when it isn’t even being acknowledged in the main frame unless in severe cases. there are so many autism sites, everywhere you go you will hear about autism, or breast cancer, or see pick ribbons, or puzzle ribbons, but it is nearly, unless you search all over, very little about what is affecting us all everyday, in schools, in the work place, in our business dealings, in marriages, families destroyed and little to nothing out there about why or ‘what’ is doing it.
i nearly feel we’ll never be able to go ahead in the direction we are all meant to be because this plague, this cancer will always be able to hold us back. and that gets me angry. a couple of nights ago i myself wallowed in my anger over my coworker by playing this little video over and over: The Pretender by the Foo Fighters..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lw6o0BsNW6g
but while i entertained myself with the concept, revenge just wasn’t a logical move on my part as it might destroy me too, so that was entertained with all of ten hours total. i pray for swift justice, a sweet rapid karma but most of all a social revolution.
which isn’t coming soon enough from what it appears, lovefraud is great but there should be so much more of ‘this’ out there than this nobel but small effort.
i like the concept of Denmark the happiest place today with the lowest rate of ‘sociopathy’
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/14/60minutes/main3833797.shtml
Mike
Forgiveness is how my ex kept getting his foot back in the door for a period of three years. I am a very forgiving person, usually too forgiving.
I think sociopaths, know and prey on this. They rely on our forgiveness of them, to keep playing their games. They feel safer in a relationship where they know their victim is BIG HEARTED, empathetic, understanding, and forgiving. I am all of those things, and it tends to attract these types of people to me.
What I need to forgive, is myself, for being SOOO BLIND, to the truth of the situation. I think I could say more accurately, IN DENIAL. I went back and forth, from denial, to truth, and back to denial again. To go back into denial, I had to forgive him, because “HE WAS JUST HAVING A DOWN RIGHT HARD TIME IN HIS LIFE.”
IT has been about four months since I have kicked him out. This time he has left the state, taking the business with him, that I payed for. He had something material this time, to lose, and he didn’t want to lose that. It was proof that he was capable of doing something with his life. Proof to his friends that he was ambitious, hard working, and TRYING to get his life together. If I didn’t tell his friends that I paid for what he took, they would have just thought he worked hard for the business himself, because that is what he lead people to believe.
It was a CONJOB, to be more honest. It was planned, he KNEW what he was doing, and he rocked the boat once he had his hands on a material possession that he could take with him this time. It just about put me and my kids out on the street.
I know they watch and test you. He once said to me “I have been waiting and watching, to see how long it would take you to pick up that cup.” This he said, after insinuating that me and my children live like pigs. Even though we do not.
Remarks like this lead me to wake up in the morning, first thoughts being, “OH my God! I have to get the laundry done, the dishes done, the rug vaccuummed, the bed made, before he gets home and thinks I have just been lazy all day.” WELL, the truth of the matter is that I have always been clean, I am a single mother, and a full time college student, working hard to better my life, so that I can get a job that will pay enough to get my kids to college, and put a nicer roof over their heads.
What he would have me believe and tried to make me believe—> That I have fucked my life up. That I am a loser,
that I havent lived up to my potential, that I have let myself and my children down somehow, that I have not been forgiving enough, or empathetic enough…and on and on and on. The truth of this matter is that, these are all qualities of himself, that he PROJECTED ON TO ME. If I had stayed with him any longer, they would have come true. He was always trying to put me in the same boat with him, saying that “TOGETHER WE CAN BETTER OUR LIVES, IF YOU ARE JUST WILLING TO PUT MORE INTO THE RELATIONSHIP.” Basically, what he wanted was my very soul, and he was doing a good job of confusing the living day lights out of it.
At first, I just thought he was a man down on his luck. His house burned down, he was living above a bar because of that in a shitty apartment. Looking back, I wonder if he burnt his own house down. Come to find out, he had growing rooms in it for pot. Second, he was above a bar because he chose that spot, not because he didn’t have a choice. Third, he spotted me from a mile away….the one who is niave in the fact that I always give people the benefit of the doubt. I always want to believe the best about people, and I excuse away their misfortunes by saying to myself “OH, HE HAS HAD SUCH A HARD LIFE. HE JUST NEEDS SOMEONE TO LOVE HIM AND HE WILL BE ALL BETTER!”
The truth of the matter was, HIS LIFE GOT BETTER. He got his cake and ate it too, add a cherry, some whip cream, some chocolate icecream, some candy sprinkles, and a glass of the most expensive champaign ever made.
HE EVEN TRIED TO MAKE ME BELIEVE THAT I HAD NOTHING TO TAKE WORTH OF VALUE> THAT MY HOME, MY BED, THE FOOD ON THE TABLE, THE COMPANY, THE COMFORTABILITY, WAS NOTHING HE NEEDED. HE WAS HERE BECAUSE HE LOVED ME. LMAO!!!!
the truth of the matter, he got his insurance money from his house that had burnt down, about 80,000 dollars, and instead of building his house, like he was supposed to do, he squandered it away on cocain, alcohol, entertainment, friends with worse problems than his (OF course this made it look like he was better than everyone else.)
Today, he is living for free in another womans house out of state. He wrote me about two weeks ago, telling me, how he dreams of coming back this summer, and starting over our relationship. LMAO!!!! HOw can he believe this!
I could write a book on all the things he caused me to lose, my sanity, self-esteem, my integrity, my peace, quality time with my children, my grades in college suffered because of his calling all hours of the night, and stoping by like a stalker, to beg for forgiveness! Many times, i forgave him. Sometimes out of pitty, sometimes, because of the illusion he presented to me…the illusion of how he wanted me to portray him.
Now I see that his past, even before me, is laced with fraud, broken hearts, abandoned children, lies, broken promises. one thing that scared me, is that, once he got the business ready to go, the business that I got him going in, the first thing he started talking aobut was getting LIFE INSURANCE. This scared me. LIFE INSURANCE????? We were not even married, and we had a break up-get back together track record that topped the charts. I really started to get paranoid with him at this point. LIFE INSURANCE? Why would he need life insurance now?
While he was in my home, he frauded my taxes, he frauded unemployment, AFDC, overdrew his bank account by the hundreds, did other small con jobs, got caught selling material that from the house that burnt down, that he had lost, got caught with drugs, got an O.U,I, punched his friends teenager in the face, lied about it, when he left here because I kicked him out, he slept in other womans beds, (As I found out later.) I didn’t know what he was doing until it was too late. He borrowed a huge loan from me, which was loan money that I had taken myself to pay for my college, and was supposed to be paying me back some every month. He left multiple projects left unfinished and just ripped apart around my home.
At the end of our relationship, he was trying to turn me against my own fammily, telling me to tell them to go fuck themselves, because they could see something in him, that I was denying. i didn’t ofcourse. I knew this game too well. He was trying to isolate me, and had been doing a pretty good job of it to start.
He needed my qualities as a person, and he needed to project his qualities on to me. That is how he manipulated me. He turned my strengths into his strengths to make himself look good. He tooks his bad qualities and projected them onto me, to make me look like the bad guy.
FORGIVNESS AT THIS POINT WOULD BE DANGEROUS FOR ME. HE BELIEVES I OWE HIM THAT. The only person I need to forgive, is me, for being so stupid and blind, to think that he was really a GOOD INTENTIONED person. And also, so that I do not wind up in the same trap with another sociopathic loser, I tend to attract them. MY BIGGEST FLAW IS BELIEVING IT IS ME THAT NEEDS MORE WORK, THAT EVERYONE IS GOOD IN THEIR HEARTS AND HAS GOOD INTENTIONS. THAT I DO NOT DESERVE BETTER. Someone who could truelly be interested in me for who I am as a person, and not superficial reasons.
Looking back, I felt extremely lonely with him, because he could not see me as a person. I was not a person, but an object, to be manipulated for his benefit. I was happier alone, with my children. I was and had been doing so well in life, even though I tend not to give myself enough credit. because I do not give myself any credit, neither do men like this, and they play on that.
My ex had also wrote me saying “that if I had truelly loved him I would have….fill in the blank.” the truth was that I gave him everything, my heart, an empathetic ear, love, a home, food, shelter, my money, food, transportation, and more.
So as I ramble here, which is actually very theraputic, my new years resolution, is to forgive myself. Something I have always had a hard time doing. The only thing I can do about forgiveness with him, is pray for him. Pray that the girl he is with, doesn’t get as manipulated as I did, and hurt. I can pray for him, then let it go, so he doesnt consume my mind. My mind still wants to love him at times. The truth is though, that the only reason I want to love him, is because he left a void in me when he left. One he had planned on inhabiting and controlling. That void can be filled will real friends, and life experiences, God, and forgiveness of my self for a change.
Midlife…I feel as if I am in the same exact position as you…I don’t know a lot about you – but, I sense the fear and the confusion. It may not be a lot of consolation – but, I know exactly how you feel. I have struggled and struggled to stand my ground…to get back up when he knocks me down…but, it has been exhausting and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. After 30 years of covert and not so covert abuse – after I finally realized that there was no hope for change – I stood up to him…but, I should have left the country instead.
Some Sociopaths/Abusers move from one vicitim to another…mine is determined to destroy me. I locked the doors behind him five years ago…hired lawyers…spent all of my savings and investments on legal fees…The judges ruled in my favor four different times – and this man is still working as a top executive for a large non-profit organization (medical field) who can weasel himself out of every situation by claiming that he is helping the children in Iraq, Haiti, Africa, etc.
We have been in front of the judges four different times….my ex has lost every time…and still – nothing has been done to enforce the rulings, except enrage my ex even more.
My ex is a former Special Forces officer…but, even worse – he had been in litigation with his sisters over his parent’s estate for eight years (and lost). He was involved in congressional hearings over the Anthrax program (that he screwed up) and lost… He lost every litigation he was ever involved in – but, that didn’t stop him. He knows every loop hole, every tactic, every in and out of the justice system.
What did I know? I was forced to stop painting and teaching because I needed to educate myself in order to understand what was happening. I was under the mistaken assumption that the courts will protect me against an abuser…against frivolous and unneccessary litigation…against stalking…against all kinds of illegal activities…It doesn’t work that way. If you don’t have money – you are screwed. If you don’t know the law – you are screwed. If you have a callous lawyer who is only out to make money…screwed and screwed again.
When I went to see a lawyer – I had a valid, legal and notarized separation agreement. There was no need for litigation. I wanted a divorce and my ex didn’t. After two years of torture – I found out that my ex had bought a $560,000 condo in D.C. together with a woman half his age…took my name off the life insurance policy and put hers on (against the agreement)…had not done our joint taxes for 06 and 07…had not paid his lawyer…etc. etc.
He purposefully broke every paragraph in that agreement so that I would have to go back to court….losing every cent of my money in the meantime…which, of course, was the point.
Once I realized what was happening – I had lost all of my savings – am in debt up to my neck – and can’t make a move.
Two weeks ago we had another court appointment…He showed up at the last minute – but, promised to settle everything out of court. The attorneys believed him…called off the hearing…his lawyer was supposed to send the agreements to my attorney that afternoon.
Nothing.
Duped again. We had him in front of the court room…and he just thumbed his nose at us. I still don’t know what happened but, I am sure he was claiming that he needed to help with the Haitian relieve effort.
I feel victimized by a Sociopath, by my attorney and by the courts. I have nightmares that my ex will burn down my house…or attack me when I get in my garage. Nobody cares and nobody listens – until it’s too late.
For all those who believe that Sociopaths are not responsible for what they are doing…let me tell you otherwise. My ex has told me to my face: “I can do to you whatever I want.”
He would call from work and tell me that he is coming home for dinner…or for my birthday…or for a holiday…or for the kid’s birthday parties – and then wouldn’t. He would verbally abuse me until I had cried – then, he would say he was sorry with a smirk on his face.
He would tell me – in front of others – how much he loved me and would do anything for me…then, would ignore me when I needed medical attention…or when I was in labor with my sons…or when I was waiting for hours at the appointed meeting place. He knew right from wrong – especially when he wanted something from me. He gave lectures on being an honorable and dedicated soldier – how to treat their families, blah, blah, blah. He wouldn’t have been able to spend 31 in the military as an officer or hold on to the high paying job he has now if he didn’t know how to treat people.
He has targeted me, and he will never stop.
I dream of disapearing…but, the reality is that the world has become a fish bowl. My ex and my son know everything there is to know about the newest technological gadgets…how to tap into computers and cell phones. I don’t want to sound paranoid – but, I feel watched and I feel manipulated. I recently changed my phone number and asked what I could do so that it wouldn’t be published on the Internet or anywhere else. The telephone provider told me that I had to pay $2.45 per month. Let’s hope it works.
I equate forgiveness with being able to forget. Unfortunately, my ex will never let me forget. He has done this for so long now – he doesn’t know what else to do. I have changed – but, he hasn’t.
There are a lot of days now where I can say that I have had a good day.
Have a good day everyone.