UPDATED FOR 2020
A Lovefraud reader who posts as “LadyA” sent Lovefraud the following email. At the end, I suggest how she can recover from the sociopath.
I’ve spent a lot time thinking about my experience with my spath, and how it affected me and the people around me. I have read article after article, story after story. I now fully understand what spaths do and how they do it but I didn’t understand why I don’t feel any better about it. What was I missing?
When I left my spath it was a fairly dramatic experience. He had just been sentenced to serve jail time on the weekends for an obstruction of justice charge. My mom flew into town and in one swoop we packed up everything we could get in the car and left the province to go back to my hometown. I had to quit my job over email and send a goodbye text to all my friends.
I am thankful every day for what my mom did for me. I sure wasn’t happy about it at the time but I knew I needed out and this was my chance. What I didn’t know is how much moving back to my hometown would affect me emotionally. I had originally planned on only being back for six months. Just long enough for him to move on and get me out of mind, but it has now been just over three years and I still haven’t moved back. I got settled in a new job, new friends, and a new relationship. Even after all of this I haven’t been able to figure out why I’m not happy. Until three days ago.
Pride. I was proud of myself for the life that I had built. I moved 1200 km’s away from home right after high school to a big city. I was on the fast track to a strong career in a competitive field. I had a brand new car, paid all my bills on time, and was saving to buy a house. I was independent, reliable, strong, caring, and had a really great outlook on the world. Not many people can say that at 22.
All of that was ruined by a six-month “whirlwind romance.” I’m no longer proud of myself. I feel like I have failed because I came back home with my “tail between my legs” to my mommy. I no longer have a new car because it was repossessed as soon as I got back here. I am jaded, I don’t trust people easily, and I am no longer as strong as the face I put on the outside. I’ve gained weight because deep down I just don’t care anymore. My career is now on a plateau due to the location where I live. I don’t have one reason to be proud of myself right now.
How do I get my pride back when I know what happened? I want to feel proud of myself for my life but I just have zero idea where to start. I’ve thought about moving away again, but I don’t really know if that’s the answer. How can I be proud of what has happened in my life? I’m really honestly just so ashamed.
Donna Andersen responds
Dear LadyA,
I am so sorry about your encounter with a sociopath. Although this is not a normal breakup, the good news is that you can recover from the sociopath.
Right now, however, it does not seem that way. Why? I can see two reasons.
The first is that betrayal by a sociopath is a huge emotional injury. In the beginning of your email you said that, after all your reading, you now “fully understand what spaths do and how they do it,” but you don’t feel any better.
Understanding is a critical first step to you to recover from the sociopath. But understanding is an intellectual process, something that you do with your mind. The wound you experienced is also emotional. It needs to be dealt with emotionally.
How do you do that? You allow yourself to feel the pain of the injury.
This means letting yourself cry. Letting yourself scream and wail. Letting yourself experience anger — I’m sure there is anger — perhaps by working it out on a punching bag.
This isn’t pretty, and you probably want to do it privately, because other people often have difficulty being around this. Or, you may have a good therapist who can help you.
One way or another, any bottled up emotion you have within you needs to come out.
Underestimated the injury
Next you wrote that you identified the reason that you’re not happy as “pride.” But it seems like you are regarding pride as something bad, like one of the seven deadly sins.
You had every reason to be proud, because your pride was based on your achievement. And the sociopath took this away from you.
Here is what I think has happened: You have underestimated the scale of the injury, and the severity of the betrayal.
LadyA, you were building a life for yourself. You went out on your own; you started building a career; you were moving forward.
And some manipulative, deceitful parasite, who did something bad enough to end up in jail, ruined it for you.
Not only did he cost you money and hurt your career, he corrupted your outlook on life. You’re jaded; you don’t trust; you don’t care. You are not the young person you once were all because of the sociopath.
Recognize that this was not a normal breakup after all, you had to flee your home, job and friends.
Your life was shattered. Your psyche was deflated. This is a massive shock to your system. It’s no wonder that you are still struggling.
Drain the emotion
So what do you do? In my opinion, you do exactly what I suggested earlier — allow yourself to feel the pain now, knowing that the pain is bigger than you originally thought.
So you cry. You stomp. You imagine him standing in front of you and yell at him. (Do not, however, attempt to confront him in person. This would be counterproductive.)
The idea is to drain off the negative emotion.
As you drain the emotion, a void will be created within you. It’s very important to fill that void with joy.
This may sound preposterous to you, like you have no reason to be joyful. But don’t look at the totality of your life right how.
Do any small thing that makes you happy: Go for a walk. Play with your pets. Have lunch with a friend. Listen to music.
To recover from the sociopath, it may require many rounds of draining off the negative and replacing it with positive. But with time, you’ll find that your entire outlook will change, and you’ll be able to get back on track.
Importantly, with the wisdom you gained through this experience, you’ll never fall for a sociopath again.
Lovefraud originally published this article on May 12, 2014.
High school boyfriend pursues her, then abuses her
Jenna
Everyone here is giving you great advice. I wish I would have found this site after I was discarded. There are so many similarities here. My ex talked about threesomes all he time. He said “but I know you are old and boring, you would not do something like that”. You know what, he had absolutely no respect for me. Do you really want a life partner like this?
Looking back now , I let him walk all over me. The “grey rock” worked for me great during court and mediations. You know what works very well also , sunglasses. Don’t ever make eye contact with him. I remember my lawyer told me to take of my sunglasses. I said “I cant, I have eye problems “.
Jenna ,take it one day at a time. Look at it as a big blessing.
Yes. Sunglasses are a great tool for putting distance between you and the disordered. He can’t see your eyes so he can only imagine your thoughts. Greyrock behavior! YAY!
Kaya, I’ve written about how my ex talked about threesomes all the time here before. He became so obsessed with a woman I worked with that I had mentioned in passing (he had never met her) and nothing I could do would get him off the subject. There was even a point where he was threatening to call her and talk to her about it himself (!!!). I was a division head at my job and supervised a large staff – I could have lost my job over it. It told him he had to drop it because he could jeopardize my job, and he laughed it off, saying that as a woman, I would never lose my job for harassment. It wasn’t until much later I realized that in his relentless pursuit to get what he wanted, destroying my life meant nothing.
Like you said in another comment, they will try everything to destroy you. We are blessed beyond measure when they find a new target they want more than they want us and throw us away.
jenna23
it seems that a sociopath has some of the same traits as other sociopaths…
there were many other women mine was cheating with, whether online or in person. i was not living near mine but i found so many signs about his cheating…and threesomes?? that was his biggest fantasy, which i was not getting involved with…maybe they do want all these women around, its exciting for them and at the same time perhaps reassures them that people do want to be with them, because they have a fear that they will be alone?? i don’t know, but they are all crazy and work so sneakily it makes me CRAZY!!!!
I can only say what I believe based on what happened to me. It is about control and dominance, and getting pleasure out of seeing another person in pain. It is about boredom and needing constant and new stimulation to save them from boredom.
My ex habitually did things to make me cry before, or during sex, then berated me for being a crybaby and telling me that tears didn’t “turn him on”. On the contrary, they sure did.
My ex knew that a threesome was so far out of the realm of anything I would ever do and he used it to control me, make me miserable, take out his anger on me and keep me in fear that he would walk away from the relationship at any moment.
I only know of one time for sure that he had sex with me after he had sex with another woman earlier in the day, and he was preening himself with pride and smugness over it. I’m sure there were countless times.
They use us like inanimate objects to satisfy whatever need they have, and they use no filter of humanity.
I used to think about how much trouble it would be to do so much lying and juggling, and wonder why he wasn’t satisfied with the wonderful life we had together. But now I know that nothing means anything to them. They don’t get pleasure out of their kids or pets, they don’t enjoy a beautiful sunset, they don’t dream about what great tomatoes they’re going to grow this summer, they don’t put effort or thought into anything. My ex loved expensive cars, but only because he thought that complete strangers were envying him. Oh, and that they made him attractive to a whole new batch of women. A year or two he got interested in dressing well and looking sharp, and that was just to impress strangers and get women. I am certain that he doesn’t care about ANYTHING but his whim at the moment, and nothing matters except as a tool to get him that. And no whim he has is good.
My ex loved to take me someplace that he knew I would really enjoy, wait for me to be feeling relaxed and happy and then drop a bomb on me. Maybe say something he was thinking about another woman seated nearby. Maybe say something negative about what I was wearing or my facial expression. Quite often, he would tell me that as soon as we got home and in the door, he expected me to be on my knees giving him a blow job. It would wipe the smile right off my face. I can recall him saying sweetly to me on a cruise ship once, after saying something like that – why aren’t you drinking your drink, sweetheart?
Of course if I had the nerve to respond, he always said I had no sense of humor or he was just trying to “lighten the mood”. Riiiiiight.
HanaleiMoon and all others
You, HM, provide an example of a HUGE RED FLAG, but one I didn’t see at the time. It niggled me, made me feel something was “off” but I didn’t know what. Hindsight has given me that wisdom.
Here’s the thing:
My ex would talk about other women, not like a horndog, but he’d make a comment about admiring someone. And I sometimes asked (thinking it’s the PAST), why didn’t you go out with her then? His answer? “Oh, she’d never go out with me.” Or “She’s married with kids.”
Read this. And I hope you all have that niggle too, that something’s not right in his reply.
The “not right” part? He wasn’t saying, “I am so lucky that it didn’t happen because you came along and now I have someone that I totally love.”
In other words, my ex was expressing remorse over not having someone ELSE. What a slap in the face. And I didn’t get it. That is SO SAD that I didn’t see the red flag at the time. It was because I was used to being the one NOT CHOSEN.
BUT, when someone is expressing regret, remorse, desire about having or not having some one else… that is a HUGE RED FLAG.
A lesson I learned… as HanaleiMoon states, he became obsessed with another woman. My ex did the same and ended up having affairs with those same women. He pursued them with a relentlessness that must have seemed like lovebombing at the time, when it was merely a game of “WINNING”. He prevailed! Got those women eventually, whether married or otherwise unavailable. And yes, then he threw them away.
I’m nodding. I’ve written this story here before but it bears repeating. About a year after I was discarded and I discovered he had been harassing women who worked for him, I talked to one of them. She is the one who told me he had dated 7 – 10 women in the office during our relationship.
She told me he had been seeing one woman (a top level manager) for what she felt was quite a while – she said they went on frequent overnight jaunts. The woman finally stopped seeing him because he was too controlling. He immediately told her he had been cooking up a surprise for her, a cruise (he loved cruises, I now think because it has you trapped). She said no thanks. He didn’t let up and convinced her to to go on this cruise with him, where he treated her so wonderfully she was convinced she had made a mistake in breaking up with him and told him so. He replied that he had not had such a good time and realized he didn’t care for her after all and literally walked away from her in the parking lot and let her find her own way home.
He spent the money on the cruise just to mess with her and dump her.
I am baffled at when he had the time to do this, the cruise must have happened when he mini-discarded me for a week at some point. The other overnight trips on days I was home at my own house. He always wanted me at his house TH – SUN to the point I got hysterical for neglecting my own home. I guess he was a very busy boy Mon-Wed. I never thought to check up on him because I had so much to do.
Good riddance.
I just realized when that cruise probably happened”he had mini-discarded me for about a week and then contacted me with a series of phone calls designed to win me over. That the time apart had shown him how much he loved me, that we belonged together, that kind of crap. He told me that he had a solo trip planned that he had planned while we were apart and that he couldn’t get a refund so he planned to go and he’d see me when he got back.
He had me so trained that I didn’t question where he was going or anything and said I’d see him when he got back then. I never asked how the trip was or what it had been about. We just started up again.
Yep. I bet that was it. He lied it me, and he knew in advance he was taking her on the trip only to dump her.
I pity that poor woman who is married to him now.
Yes, this how I felt. If he did not see my eyes who was not able to manipulate and make me cry. Usually I arrived early in court, I would go to a totally different floor waiting area until about 5 minute before the scheduled time. And the. My lawyer would be there. “Grey rock” has helped me tremendously. It’s like you take the control and nothing can happen to you. It empowered me. My doctor suggested some xanax for the court dates. I said “no, I will be good”. And I was. He gas lighted me for over 20 years.
Jenna, I definetely think his ex wife wore the sunglasses because she did not want to make eye contact. My ex had the coldest eyes you could imagine . I remember not even when his son was born was there something happy, excited, grateful in his face/eyes. To this day I believe he is a helper of lucifer. Very handsome but oh so evil.
And yes, karma exists. You can see in my case it took 2 years. He hates that he lost control over his family. Does he miss us? No, he misses the power he had over us. Remember , they don’t view us a human beings, we are merely an extension of them. Glad I escaped this. The only thing I would do different. The day he discarded us I should have filed for divirce and not 4 months later
kaya
you’re right! the eyes say it all!
mine has these icy blue eyes and one of them is a bit shut more than the other, and when he looks at you, you get a shiver…i believe we have discussed this and yours too has a lazy eye, if i am not mistaken…
look carefully into the eyes and you can tell a lot about a person…and the sunglasses, mask what you don’t want someone to see what you’re thinking…fear, sadness, anger..hope….
Mine stared at my genitals like he was watching a porn movie.
NC
omg .. you should have told him to take a picture it lasts longer…ughhh
jenna23
maybe staring is a thing they do? mine too would stare so deep in my eyes during sex that it spooked me…almost like he was in a trance and didn’t know where he was!! it ws very very creepy and this was when he would be on top and the sweat would pour off his eyebrows into my eyes …i would promise myself to bring kleenex the next time so i could wipe my eyes to see what was happening otherwise it was dripping in my eyes…and its not like we were having anything wild or crazy going on, just the regular missionary position…nothing fancy…this is probably when i could have used those sunglasses lol
hi all 🙂
does it seem that problems with these spaths multiply closer to the holidays or is it just me?
i wrote a few weeks back mine contacted me…apologized profusely for having left me in the middle of a three year relationship to marry a girl 30 years younger in a far off land, to live with her and her family, without any work or much direction…at the time this happened i had only just found out that a month after he and i were together on vacation he was leaving me for her to marry…i begged and pleaded with him, told him he knew nothing about this girl who he met one time before etc…anyway he married her and he and i lost contact, on my part going NC. this was all back in summer/fall, i was doing somewhat ok and hadn’t wanted to contact him after a month of the NC.
fast forward to the holidays..i get an email from him claiming he loved me, yet he loved her but not the same way that he and i had loved one another. he felt she was more his child than a companion or wife. he said she meant well, but was in no way mature enough to handle the roles of a wife…he is 60 btw, she is 30 and i just turned 50…so he is the oldest out of all of us, and the least mature in my opinion.
he asked me if i would be willing at some point down the road to forgive him and maybe we could eventually see one another. he declared undying love for me, wanted contact as much as he possible could e-mail and was on the road to commitment, if i agreed. i told him he was married, i had no intention of ruining that and we will see how things work down the road. yes i still loved him, i was a normal person and i don’t disregard loving a person that quickly after what we had.. he wrote me the day after that letter saying he apologizes, he can’t do what he did the first time, make promises and have me wait for him blah blah, but wanted to remain in contact if i did.. he caught me off guard with all this and i wrote here on LF a couple weeks ago and got some great advice and opinions from everyone…in response to that i told him, we do not need to plan to meet one another but i would like to continue corresponding as we used to especially if he wasn’t trying to work on his marriage and loved me the way he said…
no response back, only a week later a very short message..”hang in there hon, people around all over the place due to holidays” i responded only about 4 days after holidays and said “holidays are way over, and again you’re making promises and not adhering to anything..i wished him happy bday but i wasn’t happy.. he wrote me back and said holidays run differently where they are, which is true, and he couldn’t take any risk of emailing while she was around and if i am going to make him angry and badger him he is not up to it…i apologized because he was right, it was their holidays and i was a bit angry with all of this..here we are a week later, no response back, no thank you for the bday wishes…i thought the whole thing was going to start again…
according to him, his marriage was kaput, he wasn’t trying hard and he wanted to be in touch with me…i fell for it…again…otherwise i wouldn’t want a married man (although he cheated on me first with her)
is this a game they play, is this how the narc/sociopath behaves further down the road after they discard? is he in fact a narc/sociopath??? aghhhh
i only ask this because i haven’t been in the stage where he has contacted me since he left me, so this part is new to me…i want to send him a message and ask wth is the intention or do i not? i think deep down i know the answer to this and what advice i will get…ive been suckered in haven’t i?
janedoe, why are you corresponding like this with a MARRIED MAN?
nothing else in the situation matters at this pt but that hes married and its not to you.
hon, snap out of it. you are not this person…a cheater.
Janedoe, yes, you’ve been suckered in. Please don’t send him a message and PLEASE don’t ask him what his intention is. It is to control and hurt you, keep you on the string while he is married to another woman and living with her family!!!
HIm saying he’s not up to it if you make him angry and badger him”UGH!!! Classic! Designed to make you back off and shut up like a good little girl while he goes off and does whatever he wants and doesn’t give you a second thought until he has a spare (boring) moment.
Everything he says is a lie. Please go no contact and block him from contacting you – anything you see or hear from him just causes you to question all over again. Hugs.
hanaleimoon
exactly what i thought when i heard from him…i even asked him what he was up to and do not play these mind games with me…of course he promised he wasn’t doing that but only has come to realize the wife was not what he wanted, he married to quickly blalh blah…i mean more to him than anything…
you know whats weird though, if they behave like this, then suddenly disappear because its going good for them, do they honestly think in a couple weeks or whatever, when they are feeling like declaring their love again, we will be there? i mean, why doesn’t this sink in???
i think i mentioned before, he isn’t a mean spirited person, never speaks roughly and is always apologizing for his hurt he caused me and thats where i get confused…why is he taking the blame for it all…i believe i read somewhere this is a “vulnerable narcissist or sociopath”
and i can’t remember who exactly on here said that this apologetic behaviour, where they take all blame for all thats gone wrong, is a form of their behaviour in some spaths…i just don’t hear too many people discussing this side of them
thanks hanaleimoon
Janedoe, they think we will be there when they feel like declaring their love again because in many cases, WE ARE.
Just listening to him and responding to him is sending the message that you are still there. That is why you have to go no contact.
My ex husband (not the man I write about here) was at best, a narcissist. I was only married to him a short time, but he told me something that I will never forget and I will share now.
He had been obsessed with his ex wife. She actually moved 3 states away to get away from him (hello, red flag!). He told me that he had emailed her incessantly, and that she never responded, but that he could see that she had opened his email, and that was enough for him to know that he still had some power over her, so he kept emailing her. He basically said it fed him.
I forgot about his for many years, until I had to go no contact with the ex I write about here.
Even them knowing you opened an email from them is an encouragement. Imagine how much encouragement even a negative conversation is for them. NO CONTACT.
hanaleimoon
this was your husband? and he admitted he was obsessed with his ex???
what did you think of all that?
When we were dating, he told me that he “had” been obsessed with his ex wife but that he had gotten over it.
Basically, I overlooked it. He swept me off my feet. We got married very quickly and it was over very quickly too. He was a complete nut case.
He was from my home town area but was living and working about 200 miles away. This situation solidified my thoughts on long distance relationships. I didn’t put much deeper thought into it at the time.
Even if he doesn’t raise his voice, he sounds extremely mean spirited to be playing women against each other.
He apologizes because it gets him something he wants, not because he regrets doing whatever he’s fake apologizing for. A real apology means the person does not repeat the same behavior he apologized for.
Spath do and say whatever they think works to get them what they want, which is not a loving mutually beneficial honest relationship. It’s sex, someone else’s money, practice of sadism, power and control.
In evaluating your ex spath’s motives, consider what he did and does, and try to ignore what he says. Does he have a successful career, good friendships, a history of making people he’s in relationships with happy?
Mine was sorry:
I’m sorry you feel the way you do, etc. (sorry that is the way you see it, different versions of that kind of “sorry”)
and of course the ever-classic
I’m SORRY!!! 🙂
NC, mine never said he was sorry, ever. It was that last friend I had to jettison over the summer that gave me a lesson in how to say sorry without meaning it when I gathered all my courage and gently as possible told her that her repeated comments were hurting me.
Variations: I’m sorry for giving you my OPINION. I’m sorry I said ANYTHING. I’m sorry YOU feel that way. (All preceded by “I know it hurt you”.)
When I took it a step farther and said if you KNEW you were hurting me, why did you continue she made it my fault: You can’t ACCEPT my friendship. I have given you all I can give and you want MORE. You will never be HAPPY. (These are all variations of if you will not take my mean spirited “friendship” as I wish to dish it out to you, and you have the balls to speak up, then I will make sure I say as many hurtful things I can to you before I lose your ear.)
Normal people don’t hurt others on purpose. If a normal person hurts you by accident, they are truly sorry and let you know and don’t do it again. A person hurts you knowing she’s doing it and who continues to hurt you even after you tell them it’s hurting you (and worse, make it your fault) does not belong in my life. Period.
I wish I would have learned this 35 years ago. Thank goodness I am a no contact ninja now and rarely give her a second thought.
annettePK
i have often related his background and relationships to what type of person he is…because he is 60 i would assume he should be somewhat settled in life, and he is not..because he is 60 i assumed work and family life and friendships were established…and they too, are not..
at his age, he picked up a rather unsettled life and moved across the world on a whim to marry half his age.. that tells me right there, there is an issue..
back in the summer when this all started, it was these particular thoughts that saved me, because if all were normal, he wouldn’t have been wasting all that time online meeting women half his age and traipsing across the world.
what is hard to really understand is that they lie when it feels its so believable…but lets just say they were not a spath or anything else, this type of life for a 60 year old man is not very admirable, in my opinion. it should have been a red flag at the beginning
Jane, I haven’t read your “inside” message yet, just the first and very last parts.
No, it is NOT you and you have not blown it; and
NO, it is not your imagination either, I swear Christmas is THEIR SEASON!!
In fact I am starting to wonder just what Santa is doing after coming down the chimney, and just maybe he is feeling up little kids who have waited in line to sit on his lap.
Sign me Jaded! but I love you. xox
NC
you’re funny!! lol
xo
aint
absolutely you are right i would never do this with a married man..
not that i am justifying my position at all i just don’t want you to think I’m a home wrecker…we were together three years and suddenly last summer, on a whim, he left to marry this girl…i didn’t go looking for a married man to be with me…i was in the middle of a relationship with him..we had plans to do many things with our future together
i only have somewhat accepted his contact recently because he told me he was not interested in their marriage and wanted to resume what we had. he knew i was right when i told him he shouldn’t have married someone he didn’t know… i wouldn’t have contacted him while he’s married…never, thats just asking for more trouble…as long as he is married i am out of the picture..
i was curious as to why he was telling me all of this about his marriage and why he had begun to recontact me declaring his love
janedoe, esp becuz u have a history u can not have contact with this married man til hes not married anymore.
janedoe i know ur better than this.
aint
can i hug you?? loll
u can smack me if u just stop for aminute and think. ur emotions, ur heart, are running u rite now n im trying to get thru to ur brain.
hes offbounds THANK GOD. u can heal till hes discarded her too n tries to troll again ur way. u ll be that much stronger. n can ignore his scummy self.
Janedoe, the oldest trick in the book is for a married man to tell a single woman that he is not interested/happy in his marriage in order to string the single woman along in a relationship that has no future for her, meanwhile, he is having his cake and eating it too.
A normal man does not leave a a 3 year relationship suddenly to marry someone else.
He’s telling you all this in order to keep you on the string. He’s contacting you to declare his love because he has a lull (he’s already told you he can’t contact you when she’s around) and is bored and needs to fill his time. Doesn’t he live in another country? That makes him geographically undesirable even if he was the best of guys – long distance “relationships” are so f’en easy for predators to create with women these days.
I’m sorry, but you’ve got to cut him off.
hanaleimoon
yep he lives in another country and we have had our relationship long distance for 3-4 years..the only reason it was worth hanging on to is because he and i saw one another frequently and for a few weeks at time, otherwise it would be a no go…he is an american citizen living overseas but is here often..
i know what you’re saying is right, its just me i think, i need to hear people tell me this…i was so good at NC for four months and figured i was out of his life because i hadn’t heard from him and then POW…there he was the day before xmas…
another thing that keeps me guarded is when he decided to marry this girl.. he met her one time, picked up his life and moved to her country, not knowing what direction he was going in without a job or money and live with her parents…although i was heartbroken and destroyed…thinking of that irratic behaviour coming from a man who is 60 years old, kinda turned me off..you know? isn’t this behaviour that would come from a kid without any direction in life???
im not that impulsive a person, i know where my life is heading, i have direction, two beautiful kids and they are grounded and love their family…i have no plans uprooting my life to skip across to a third world country and not know where i am going..to me i am the normal person..
if i were the wife i think i would ask myself, “isn’t it odd that this man 30 years older, who i met online and met once, moved himself here? that seems a little odd for a man of his age”
that would be RED FLAG number one
Janedoe, Jan7 is giving you good advice. And based on what you’ve said here about him, I have a suspicion that there is much more going on in his life that you have no clue about.
Keep your direction and do not get distracted by this insanity, it will only give you pain.
Hi Janedoe, never believe ANYTHING out of a sociopaths mouth especially about their wife or girlfriend! EVER!!!!!!!!!
Sociopaths manipulate wives against mistresses or mistresses against wives…Why? because they don’t want the wife or gf talking with the mistress and vise versa to learn that they are both being conned by the biggest con artist!! It’s called ’triangulation” google “sociopath triangulation” (also LF may have an article on this subject for you to read).
The sociopath ALWAYS always blames the wife, gf or mistress never are they are fault…google “sociopath blame shifting”. This is a manipulation tactic that works for them because you end up feeling sorry for the sociopath…it’s called “pity play” google “sociopath pity play” (watch Donna’s videos up at the top of this site under the “video section” they are excellent.
How do you know he was not married during your 3 year relationship?
How do you know he is actually married now?
By him telling you?
Again DONT BELIEVE ANYTHING OUT OF A SOCIOPATH MOUTH…THEY ARE ALL CON ARTIST!!
The only way to know the truth is to call his wife period.
The only way for you to have peace in your life is to get this sociopath out of your life for good!!
How do you do that?? By following the “No Contact Rule”!! Google “no contact rule sociopath” and follow it asap (LF has info on this subject too). Block your phone, email, text etc so that he can never contact you again. You deserve so much more than a evil guy.
DO NOT BLAME HIS WIFE..She is not the problem or issue it is the sociopath who is a major issue and will only bring nothing but heart ache, loss of money and chaos/drama/dysfunction into your life everyday!
There are 7 billion people on this planet, half of them are men so throw this sociopath back to see, Educate yourself on sociopath abuse and then find a nice boring guy to have a good life with.
hi jan7
yeh he is married…i didn’t look but a friend of mine decided to show me his FB page, and there were pictures posted of the marriage
i don’t think he was married during our time together, it didn’t seem possible with the amount he travelled here, but then again, never say never
regardless of any of what i say, he is what he is..married or not, i have to accept this
i thank you for the sound advice you have given…
but i am curious as to why HE takes blame for the fact he left me 6 monhts ago to marry this girl…does he want pity from me?? he apologizes over and over how he doesn’t want to see me hurt, he knows i was right about marrying too quickly and not thinking, he blames himself for it all…but yet when i act on his lead about being in contact and why no messages from him in a weeks time, he gets all nervous and angry with me?? what the hell does he expect?!??
He takes the blame and apologizes because he knows it is a way to keep you stringing along and considering that there may be hope. When you act on his lead he gets angry because his lead is insincere and all he wants is for you to be on the string and be a good girl. He wants to know you are waiting in the wings, life on hold, in case he needs/wants you.
You are there for his amusement. You are not to have any active role in that amusement beyond what his intentions are for you. I learned this lesson well.
That is why no contact is your ticket to freedom, life, peace and sanity.
HM
this really does make sense…he knows i am emotional and can cry easily
in fact one things has always stayed in my head and it probably was a red flag:
when we first met and he stayed for a few weeks with me, when he was leaving on his plane home, i was watching him go through the gates with tears in my eyes…
according to him he says “he can never forget the look of sadness on my face when he was leaving that day, and its planted in his brain for good”
when he told me that i thought, wow what a sweet man…but now…i see it as his weapon, to make me sad and want to say things to me that i will feel bad for, because he knows i am emotional kind of person…does that make sense?
Janedoe, it makes total sense. They are masters at knowing exactly what makes us tick and using it to hook us and then against us.
UGGGG JaneDoe
That makes my gut wrench. Your ex essentially told you what he got off on. He feeds on your sadness. He got pleasure from the look of sadness on your face. What a sadist. So now he’s back to feed on more of your grief, for you to have that look of sadness again, so he can feed his sickness.
OMG Janedoe. He feeds off grief.
i know there have been times ive thot i mite be having a nervous brkdwn n then later realized i had been indeed. times no one else could see i was melting but i know. its sad. even after i crashed and it took a few dsys to come back up, no one knew. i just told my kids i was sick n then i felt better wen i could finally get dressed. the times wen i had no kids, i wouldnt do anything but cry n not sleep even for several days.
no one caring becuz i dont matter to anyone, is whats the hardest. no one knows if i live or die…now my kids are old enuf to know rite away…no one knows if i dont come home or spend my bday alone or valentines or july 4th. its not being in sumones lives besides my kids’ that drives me bonkers.
anyway like a person who talks about suicide not going to rly do it, i think not knowing ur breaking down is false. i even wonder still about having a personality disorder even tho i know there are so many things about me that need changing. i seem unable to change them tho…so maybe i am disorded?
aint
i hear you…many times i have thought “maybe I’m the one who is nuts here” maybe i wasn’t understanding enough (although i can’t think of why), maybe I’m not young enough, i didn’t want any more children…
don’t say no body cares…we are all here for each other at any time and this site has opened my eyes to what i have dealt with, id never heard of this type of person before so of course i blamed me…then when i read and read some more and some more, i was almost relieved i was involved with a spath, because maybe it meant it wasn’t me and all him!!
our kids is what matters aint, they are part of you and a product of you..be thankful they love you 🙂
You are so important to your children, you have the power to make their lives happy and secure. There is nothing in the world more important than your role as a mom. It’s different than a partner/spouse, but so fulfilling in its own way. My son is 19, I regret every minute I didn’t spend with him and for him. I love being his mom, and his chldhood went by so fast. I regret every minute I spent on the ex spath that I could have spent with my son, friends and family.
hanaleimoon
i think when they throw things our way during the “love bombing” stage, its almost as though we don’t hear the bad things they tell us, because they have told us so many good things that we dismiss everything wrong…or we think “they won’t do that with us”
i probably should have picked up on many things he said in the beginning and only now see them as red flags, but i was in “love” to notice…
you said you married quickly…that is exactly what my spath has recently done with his wife and why she doesn’t wonder, or her family doesn’t wonder why things happened so fast and that its not normal, is beyond me..
Jane doe
I personally think you should change your email adress, any phone numbers he has. Yes, even when you open the emails it gives him satisfaction and control. You know when I changed my email address how much better I felt. I still remember his lawyer saying to my lawyer “well your client changed all her contact information “. Exactly, she was so right. The emails he sent to me where not delivered because the e mail address was deleted. You need to do this. Put an end to it. You are now still giving him everything he wants, power and control. I know how it is as I was doing the exact same at the beginning. I was waiting for him to contact me. Only to be left insulted , confused and in a state of terror.
And what good would come out of it if you keep emailing back and forth with him? Anything beneficial for you? Nothing good as there is nothing good about this guy. Let him live the consequences of his choices. None of your concern anymore. Who cares if he is happy or unhappy with his wife? You are not a part of their marriage. I hope you will stay strong in the no contact. I find it to be the ONLY effective weapon yo actually work. To my benefit. And not his.
kaya48
he wouldn’t dare call or text me from across the world…he is too cheap and his wife would possibly find out…im not too concerned with the phone…
email yes, i may have to block him, as i did on fb…
i did forget to mention…and i laugh now,
when he contacted me at xmas time, apologizing for the past….asking if i would ever consider seeing him again…he attached a picture of himself lol, obviously taken by his wife, but just a simple pose of him in a restaurant…after i told him when this all began months ago, i have deleted every picture, email and anything relating to him so i won’t be reminded of him…he sends a picture!!! loll he loves himself, thats for sure
Jane doe
Yes, my ex loved it when he made me cry. He would say “stop you f***crying,or go upstairs and cry all you want.” I fed of my sorrow. Always. And like Hanalei he would destroy every “nice” day I thought we had. Once at the beach, looking at a beautiful sunsey he said “you know I could have cheated on you and you would have never known it.” He thought it was funny. Little did I know that it was the truth. But my entire day was destroyed. He got his drama. And of course I did big have thf same humor. I was old and sexually boring. Wow, it is so much crazy making.
Well, he now is miserable because as of him “it’s the worst thing in the world that my son won’t talk to me”. Blah, blah. Same crap. And we don’t care. I am totally “immune” to him now. very strange after spending a century together I don’t care . Because with my divorce my pain stopped.
He may not care whether his son talks to him or not. It may just be something for him to say, another game to play, and/or something he can tell others to make them feel sorry for him, ie. “my terrible ex wife won’t let my son talk to me, she has alienated him from me, blah blah blah, boo hoo hoo….” and in that way blame you, prove how terrible you are and make himself seem like the victim.
If he cared about his son, he would care about the mother of his son. It’s a modern fallacy that it’s acceptable to leave your spouse as long as you still are a good parent to your children. If a man leaves the mother of his children, he is not being a good parent no matter how much time and money he spends with his children.
a good father is a good husband, a good mother is a good wife. get over it folks, is what i tell ppl. the myth that annette talks about is rite up there with quality time making up for quantity. u wont have quality without quantity of time. think about that next u want to screw up ur marraige n maybe split up. think about that any time u put ur kid second.
im passionate about these two things. be a good father by being a good husband first and loving ur kids mother. or dont try n tell me ur a good father.
its one of the most screwed up things in this world today, these myths. it destroys children n therefore ppl. its a dark work.
Wow Hanalei , 7 to 10 women. Unbelievable. And my ex went on a cruise right after the discard. All the same.
At least YOU didn’t get an std. Sigh.
NWHSOM
i suppose he does feed off of grief..i can’t say he constantly wants to make me cry but another situation sticks in my head…
last year i was sobbing in his arms and begging him not to marry this other girl..he would repeatedly tell me he doesn’t know what the situation will be between the two of them…
he kept hugging me and saying “its ok get it out, cry as much as you want, i am here for you”
OMG he was urging me to cry but at the same time instead of reassuring me…he kept saying he’s not sure what will be with the other girl!! who does that??!!!!!
janedoe
Wow. I am impressed. You have uncovered the type of sociopath that he is. A parasitic type. He sucks the sad emotions, he gets off on triggering your grief. And to achieve that, he sets you up to express those emotions and then encourages you to emote.
Now you know his method of abuse, you know why he seemed so passive (it’s called COVERT). Every contact with him is either to set you up so that grief will follow, or for him to feed off your expressed grief. He’s not interested in anything else.
NWHSOM
yuck why would anyone want that…what is it that made them excited to see someone upset..could it be through his upbringing he was always let down?
but again i stress it wasn’t always bad with him..alot of people say they have the physical part of a spath where i did not…so a lot of the times it was quite enjoyable with him, although i refused to see a lot of signs involved…and at the same time he loves to make me laugh, so is he bi polar?
Janedoe, you say he loves to make you laugh. I’m asking you to think about the things you believe are true about him, and question if they are true at all.
My ex abandoned me completely out of the blue after a 7 year relationship and less than 3 months after buying a house with me. We dreamed about and planned this move for over 2 years and he had very specific criteria he wanted in the house, and was so excited when we found this one.
After he abandoned me, for several months I went over things like this in my head and to anyone who would listen:
He loves me. He loves it here. He loves our new house.
He wanted this house so bad, he went through so much trouble to find the perfect house for us.
He was so excited about this move.
He was full of plans for the future in our new town in our new house.
He said he was committed and would never leave the relationship.
He told me the day before he abandoned me that our next focus would be working on buying the second home we wanted, and he was so excited that he would get the job he interviewed for the day before.
He wants to go to the concert. (The day before he pulled the rug out, I commented to him that a singer he always wanted to see was coming to town in a few months. He asked me to go down and buy tickets while he was at his interview, which I did. They were pricy and of course I paid. I kept asking myself how he could have just walked away when he wanted to go to that concert so badly. Geeeeeesh.)
He loves how I am the woman he always wanted.
And yes, he loves to make me laugh and see me happy.
If I was to keep my sanity, I had to realize that all those things I believed, and he led me to believe, and presented to me as truths, were lies, because no one who feels that way sincerely would have done what he did.
I still have things pop into my head here and there like “he sure loved taking me to whatever”. Yah. Did he? Maybe. Maybe not. I doubt it really registered with him.
I’m just saying, question yourself when you think things like he loves to make you laugh. It sounds more like he loves to mess with your head.
I’m full of tough love today. Disregard if you think I’ve gone off the deep end.
HM
never would i discard such valuable advice..tough love is a good eye opener and we all need it from time to time…
everything you wrote is similar to me…would he have done this, would he have said that, or bought this, or promised this….if he was going to leave….
sometimes i think is it possible to have two personalities, and one doesn’t know what the other is saying or doing!!
he certainly does not make me laugh now, but his humour was funny way before i knew what his goal was…
keep up the valuable advice HM i promise i won’t drive you too crazy, i will get over this hump xo
I am willing to risk pissing people off if it helps even one person avoid the type of total life destruction he caused me.
I wish I would have had someone who cared enough about me to try to talk some sense into me, I don’t know if it would have made a difference, but it might have.
In my opinion, any kindly opinions or memories about these monsters are very dangerous to us and to be avoided at all costs. Our memories play tricks on us because we weren’t in our right minds then.
janedoe
What is it that makes us see the evil in other sociopaths and not the evil in ours.
YES. Your ex made you laugh… it’s called manipulation. It made your grief even deeper and boy he fed off that.
Logically… if your feelings truly mattered to him, he wouldn’t have left you and gotten married with a baby(?) and then trying to talk you into chatting with him. HIS CHATTING IS CHEATING. He’s unfaithful. No wife is okay with her husband having chats with his old girlfriend. He cheated on you with her, and now he’s trying to talk you into helping him cheat on her. (It’s known as triangulation) Anyway you slice it, your feelings don’t matter to him, and he’s all about cheating.
Many people have difficult upbringings and don’t become sadistic pathological liars, abusers and perverts, so even if his childhood had problems it’s still his clear choice to do what he did.
If abusers weren’t pleasant, fake nice, and enjoyable to be with on some level at first, no one would go on a second date with them. They hook victims with pleasant charm, and fake a lot of niceness at first. They show their abusive side when the victims are less likely to leave.
If a person is ever mean to you, then he doesn’t care about your well being, regardless if he fakes being nice sometimes. People make mistakes and misunderstandings happen, but if someone is mean more than a couple of times, it’s a pattern of behavior.