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Hello i am trying to cope with getting over my most recent relationship with a sociopath. It was a friendship. however, i was previously in a romantic relationship with a sociopath. i saw the warning signs but somehow i still fell for it? We met online, she had just moved to the area. i told her how i hadn’t been having much luck finding new friends and people kept flaking on me. in return, she became my ideal friend; never canceled our plans, never let a text go unanswered, it really felt like i had lucked out and found a true friend. but then things started taking a turn. sometimes i felt she was lying because things she said just SEEMED too good to be true. but i brushed it off then i realized when we were joking with our friends she would often take things too far and become mean and callous. the final straw that tipped me off was having no empathy for a dog and trying to convince me to park at a fire hydrant because she didn’t want to walk too far with no regard for me getting a ticket. yet somehow i continued the relationship. i thought it would give me an edge that i knew. at this point we had known eachother for 6 months. she was my closest, most reliable new friend i enjoyed her company and we had fun together. additionally we had mutual friends that i didn’t want to turn on me. however i overestimated myself. one night at dinner i caught her in a lie, a stupid lie about how she made it seem like she was seriously dating this guy when in reality they only went on two dates. why would she lie about this? it didn’t make any sense. she told me i was remembering wrong but i remembered all the details perfectly. when she realized there was no persuading me she admitted that she lies all the time. she told me she doesn’t value the truth and when i told her that if she lies to me she must not care about me she didn’t understand why the two had to be mutually exclusive. i felt like i was talking to a toddler trying to explain that the truth matters because it matters?? you can’t just lie your way through life?? i realized the rabbit hole went deeper than i thought i probably had no idea what was actually going on in her life. who was this person? i was livid. i told her that if she doesn’t stop lying sooner or later everyone will realize and she will reenact this situation for the rest of her life, never have any real relationships and end up friendless and alone. this seemed to shake her (real or feigned who knows) i found myself feeling bad and apologizing. for some reason i STILL WANTED to salvage our friendship we agreed we needed to have a serious talk. however, a day later she texted me that she did not want to continue the friendship because she will be walking on eggshells around me and i will be waiting for her to slip up. basically admitting that she is a sociopath and now that i am privy to her she has no use for me. our 6 month friendship ended over a short text. it still stings. i know i am better off for it but i am still trying to get over it. i’m worried about her lying about me to our mutual friends. i feel bad that they are still drinking her kool aid but there’s nothing i can do as i said sooner or later they’ll realize. mostly i just feel stupid and partially responsible because i saw the warning signs.i talked to my friends about it but they’ve never been involved with a sociopath (to their knowledge) so they don’t completely understand. just looking for words of support from people who understand the pain and bewilderment of being duped by a sociopath (twice).
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Well I think you handled it very well by recognizing she is lying and bringing it up to her. And it is actually good that she ended your friendship for you so you didn’t have to.
You lost 6 months time investment into a fake friend but 6 months is not really that long so not that much time wasted. And it sounds like you did not lose money or any other resource to her.
So pat yourself on the back that you recognized a liar early on and won’t waste more time on this friendship! You did great and now you can move on to finding better friends.
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You are so much better off with her out of your life! Dealing with this disorder is frustrating and mind-numbing.
Pathological lying, also known as mythomania and pseudologia fantastica is a known trait of some personality disorders, such as antisocial personality disorder, which in turn is a form of sociopathy. Pathological liars tell lies or stories that often don’t have an objective benefit. This is extremely upsetting for those of us who live life honestly. It is impossible to believe anything that comes out of these people’s mouths – and, yes, they will lie about you to others, too.
I ran into one of these people years ago when I was volunteering at a wildlife rehabilitation center. She convinced everyone she was an “expert” in bird rehabilitation and had all sorts of training and veterinary experience. She ended up taking a dozen pigeons home (these were unreleasable) after she showed our manager pictures of ‘her’ aviary and convinced her they would have “forever” homes. She even visited me in my home to look at my set up. I often had animals dropped off at my home after hours to deliver to the center the next day and had a small emergency/triage treatment area in my spare room. My first clue that something was off was when I got a surprise visit from our manager and the center’s vet – they said they had a report of unsanitary conditions, dead birds in piles in the backyard and other horrifying things. Of course, none of it was true and both ladies were shocked at the difference between the report and the truth. They started an investigation and found out that this woman had taken all the pigeons she had been given to another vet and had them euthanized; that she lived in a trailer park – obviously without a large aviary; that she had no credentials or degrees. After they confronted her she filed a police report against ME – claiming I slashed her tires and vandalized her home. I didn’t even know where she lived! It was horrifying the lies she told and the damage she did. And traumatizing.
I know the betrayal is horrifying, but thank heavens you learned about her early before she could ruin your reputation! Blessings to you.
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I want to start a new post, but I don’t know how. Just want people on the forum to know about an amazing true Netflix documentary entitled Tinder Swindler. It’s about one man who swindled countless women in many different countries out of hundreds of thousands of dollars EACH, totaling overall in the millions of dollars. He used the women’s credit cards, and it was nearly impossible for the police in any country to find him. He used fake passports and many names. It’s a very exciting documentary, and well worth streaming at Netflix. At the end of the movie it says he’s living in Israel a free man, and has only served a few months in prison. Other countries are not prosecuting him for the losses the women suffered.
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Raquel185 – You made an emotional investment in this relationship, and it takes time to unwind an emotional investment. Lying is a betrayal. Realizing that you’ve been betrayed is painful. It will take some time to get over it, and that’s ok. Give yourself time.
In the meantime, this situation has proven that you can trust your intuition. Your intuition was right – you just didn’t listen to it. Next time you get a message from your intuition, you’ll know to pay attention.
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Synergy – thank you! People have been telling me about “Tinder Swindler.”
Ps – to create a new post, click the “forum” link in the menu bar at the top of the page and scroll down. There are instructions.
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Donna, it’s so nice to hear from you! I can’t figure out how to post a new comment! I looked at the bottom of forum page and don’t see anything about Post New Comment. Could you possibly send me the link or a screen shot?
Synergy
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Hi Synergy yes I’ve been reading about the Tinder Swindler too!
To create a new topic you have to first go to the forum categories and pick a category. For example Forums and then select › Lovefraud Community Forum – General. Then once you click on that you will see a list of recent topics. Then scroll down to the bottom of the topics list and you will see the box to create a new topic. You have to be logged in also.
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Thanks so much, Sept 4! I was able to post a new link about Tinder Swindler, following your instructions. Many appreciations to you for telling me how to post a new topic!
Synergy
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raquel- I feel your emotional pain. Getting dumped by a narcissist is super confusing and painful but after time, even though the betrayal and hurt is deep, you will be so grateful you didn’t invest any more into the relationship and that you did not stay together. My narcissistic fiance dumped me over the phone two weeks before our wedding and I didn’t understand it at all until I uncovered all his lies and twisted ways of treated me. It’s such a twisted reality you were in; it will take time to sort it all out. The more we learn the more we understand the twisted ways of narcissists. Keep pressing forward, take the time you need to process and heal, and give yourself a lot of grace. You are not alone.
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I feel so fortunate that now I am not involved with any sociopaths. I have had too many of them in my life when I was younger. Now, all my friends and my boyfriend are good people. Thank you for this forum, Donna.
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Hi Raquel –
From my vantage point, I think that you handled the whole situation in a great way, and that you should be very proud of yourself. In the first place, you were mature and did not jump to conclusions. You gave the person a chance when you could have just out of a reaction to your previous relationship, cut her off without really giving time to see her whole character in different scenarios. So you were rightly reflective without over reacting. Then when you were able to see clearly, you took steps to confront her. In narc speak, that always means that they always feel that “ the jig is up “ – they know that you know who they really are, and will either have a big narcissistic offensive rage ( if they think they can get away with it and still keep the victim hooked ) or if they don’t see this as a possibility, then they will do a discard. But the discard is not really a dumping of you – it is just their reaction to being “ caught “ and the truth is by confronting her, in actuality you were the one to leave. You were the beneficiary of getting freed from that relationship. So although you don’t live your life in terms of winning or loosing – you just wanted to share a friendship, but the narcs are all about winning and loosing. Everything they do is about trying to have a win feeling at someone else’s expense. But I am here to tell you, that she tried to put you in this wierd conflict situation, but you were the one to come out with your integrity in place and I congratulate you about that! Well done !
Blessings
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