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
Hanalei
I feel the same way. My ex never once said I sorry. Instead “get over over it”. Yes people don’t people on purpose and he did.
Thatnis why I am a no cobtact champion also. And when people say “he is still is father” , I don’t care and walk away. Only my son and I and a few good friends and my boss and co workers know what I went through. The other ones can defend him as much as they want to.
Like Annette said, fathers don’t hurt families like this. And he did. So we let him cry, beg and whine all he wants. And sometimes even laugh how pathetic he is.
Kaya, I saw this great quote from Jennifer Aniston in People this week. It seems like there’s always speculation about her being unhappy in her life and relationships. Her comment on her relationship with her fiancé: “We know what our truth is.”
I thought that was so appropriate for us, and especially when people comment about your ex still being the father. We know what OUR truth is.
Hanalei
Thanks. That is such a great statement. We all know our truth and so does he. He can keep justifying his affairs and abuse, it won’t change anything. Because of the truth. They are all the same and I know that one day he will have to answer. But then it’s too late. He will be on his way to hell.
Jennahow did he juggle 7 women at the same time ? That must be so difficult and exhausting. See mine became so sloppy at the end. I had the “family tracker ” on his i phone. Since it was in my name. It s so you can keep track of your “children”. Ha
I knew he was places that he should have not been. And he still denied it. I waited an entire month to confront him, I had so much evidence. And then I was still “the crazy wife”.
See, I don’t think it’s difficult for them to juggle that many women at all, because they don’t care about any of it. It wasn’t exhausting for mine at all. He’d simply do what he wanted, when he wanted. When he left one, they ceased to exist until he wanted them again, or he simply never saw them again. None of it meant anything to him, like a movie you go see and immediately forget about. I truly believe this after the fact, now that I know some of the antics that were going on behind my back and I am sure I only know the tip of the iceberg.
I think he kept me around so long because I gave him an aura of normalcy, I was generous with my money, and I took care of things in his life he couldn’t be bothered to take care of for himself (like food in the refrigerator).
I’m sure I’ve written about it here, but I only confronted mine once, when I saw a receipt sitting on his dresser when I was putting away his socks. It was for a dinner for 2 close to $300 on a Wednesday night when he supposedly had a late meeting at work. I remember what was on it – two glasses of red wine, one lemon drop. Steak dinner, chicken dinner. Bottled pricey water. An after dinner glass of scotch.
When I confronted him with it, he started running around the room in circles like he was crazy (6’2″, 260 pounds, imagine). Then he snatched it out of my hand, told me I was crazy, shoved it in his pocket and sat down and kept watching tv. It was never mentioned again.
Wow
300$ for a dinner of two. Unbelievable. My ex did the same. He snatched all my evidence, destroyed it (I had made copies already of the nasty pictures) and then ran around in circles and eventually called me “crazy”. “You are so insane, you need to be locked away in a mental ward” his exact words.
I am so lucky I escaped this. One of my nurse friends told me “all it takes is one wrong psychatrist who believes his crap “. So true.
I asked the same thing once. Considering the predictable outcome of our marriage, why did my husband marry me…esp because I told him while we were dating exacting the kind of woman I am (family woman, word is your bond woman, a woman of faith, etc. The therapist said, “The disordered marry for all kinds of reasons. To regain a lost reputation, to appear to have redeemed themselves, to use your credit score, to gain an air of respectability, to appear to settle down, as a beard so he can covertly continue is hedonistic behaviors. The list goes on and on.”
What they DIDN’T marry for was faithfulness and love. The “What they Didn’t marry for” is a MUCH shorter list… but it’s the SAME list that others DO many for.
aarrggghhh. my typos are awful.
@edit
“but it’s the SAME list that other DO marry for.
Jenna
I think they get married because of what they want to portray on the outside. Like an image thing. To make them look like a “loving family father and husband”. My ex was not even a good father, he was never there for his son. Maybe financially but that does not count. Like I said before, my son was not an athletic person in high school , he put emphasis on his grades to get into a good college/university. So every day my ex picked on him. The ex was a high school football star, with all the girls after him. Well, my son was the opposite. So he was never proud of him, even graduating with a 4.28 gpa.
He will be a senior in college soon and still does well. I truly think marriage is just a “show” for them. I remember early in the marriage he always told me “when you get like late 40’s , I will replace you with a young one “. I thought he was joking. Little did I know he really meant it. That was definetely a red flag .
Jenna
Did he discard her or did she leave him and file for divorce? Very interesting about the wealthy thing. I rember once my ex worked as a security guard in a community here with very wealthy people. Some of the mansions in there by the ocean were like 20 million and up. He had all that cash when he came home from work. He said “oh the residents gave it to us. B”. Probably some wealthy woman paid him for sex. Who knows ?
Luckily my ex cannot have any more kids. About 2 months after he left he got a vasectomy (I received the bill in the mail). I thought that to be very strange as his minions are in their 20’s and probably want kids. What I thought interesting. He also picked up Viagra and got testosterone shots. Maybe to keep up with the young ones ?
There’s a lot of reasons why someone might not get around to getting her stuff out of her ex’s house – she’s been really busy and hasn’t gotten around to it, she didn’t bother to take stuff she was going to get rid of anyway, she doesn’t want to run into him, he is making it difficult for her to get it, or she’s afraid he’ll sabotage it with black widow spiders or snakes or poison or something.
It’s good to understand spath’s motivations and what the real dynamics were in their abuse and exploitation of us. Understanding the truth is empowering, as well as tragic to realize the spaths never cared for us and never will change. It’s a helpful balance to also focus our mental energy on ourselves and our own lives going forward in a positive way.
My sister passed away 7.5 years ago and my ex spath would continually do little things to honor her memory. It was always so touching and he would even get emotional over doing these little things. Is it possible he cared a little? Are all spaths all bad or can some of them have a little good in them? I’m having such a hard time believing that he has absolutely no love in his heart. There were some moments I remember when he was so happy and seemingly in love but then it would change the next day. Could he possibly have felt something but then denied it to protect himself?
Even when we were breaking up, he said in texts, “you understand that we are different? I handle things differently. This is the only life I know. I have no regrets but losing you may be my first.”
Ok, the last part is bs but I believe that he was elluding to the fact that he has to do what spaths do and that’s the only way he knows how to live.
Jenna, this dude was not a spath, but I had this Classic Exchange with a lady one day, after calling my boyfriend to ask Hey What’s Up>
(phone rings)
Strange woman’s voice: Hello.
Me: Hangs up.
(I call again, phone rings)
Strange woman’s voice: Hello.
Me: Who is this?
Strange woman’s voice: Who is this?
Me: I’m ________.
Strange woman’s voice: I’m _________.
(prolonged mutual silence, ha ha).
We both got the Message, right? 🙂
Sounds like he was trying to reframe his breaking up with you as being ‘different.’ ‘ Losing you may be the first’ sounds like he’s trying to make you think or hope that he regrets losing you, without saying he regrets it, and also without changing whatever he’s doing that’s causing the breakup.
Jenna, since I got together with my x after I lost a child at birth decades ago, I would like to add to your discussion on this topic, please.
It’s my observation that quite a bit of “what is bothersome” about this “being mean to me after my mom died” subject is that it dehumanizes the dead and devalues human lives down to so much Resource and in that manner, diminishes the Whole of Mankind along with our own dear attachments and permanent bondings with the dearly departed mothers, children and others whom the spaths wish that we’d notice instead — even at their funerals, because they are wearing a really nice (and I mean a really nice) new coat.
to clarify: spaths wish we were still focused on them NO MATTER WHAT may have happened to Others in our lives.
They are not supposed to be Real to us, just as we are not Real to them — they think we are ALL like them, and so BFD your mom/baby/sister/daughter/son/friend/old boss is dead, so the hell what?
Jenna, your conclusion is incorrect and not at all scientific either, although I do LOVE you, dear!
I guess my ex spath never cared at all about me
IS NOT the right conclusion, the Right Answer was:
I guess my ex spath is a really screwed up person who is incapable of caring about anyone except himself, whom he hates most of all, which is why he pushes people like me into buying voodoo dolls and wrapping their hair around them, not to mention that set of sharp pins. 🙂
NC, couldn’t agree more with this. Add to your list our beloved pets.
My ex used to tell me he was glad he had two sisters that he knew would take care of his parents if they ever needed it, since he wouldn’t want to be bothered.
His wife was very ill with cancer for about a year before she died. I worked with him during that time and he never missed any time from work. When I asked him about it after she died, he claimed she didn’t want him present at her treatment.
He told me her mother came to stay with them during her last weeks (she died at home). He said her mother had her suitcase on the porch and an taxi on the way within an hour of the death, because she couldn’t stand being around him. He presented this as heartbreaking to him, and of course, got my pity. I’m sure the true story is very different.
Hanalei, I should have been at my father-in-law’s side and have no excuse nor would I pretend to.
Jenna,
He didn’t care about the coworker whose dad passed away either. His motivation for getting the card was probably impression management. His motivation for ignoring your loss was probably selfishness and sadism. He knew that you were grieving the loss and he knew what behaviors he could have done that would have been supportive to you. He just choose to be cruel because he enjoys it. Unbelievable and nauseating.
NC, this funeral talk reminds me of something my ex mother-in-law did. As luck would have it, my dad and her dad both died on the same day, within hours of each other.
We had no services for my dad, and there was the whole nine yards plus some for her dad, and I was there through all of it (and had to defer my own mourning). At some point I was sitting to the side lost in thought and she walked by, paused and said “what’s your problem”. I was kind of floored (since we were both going through the same thing) and said well, my dad just died. No response.
At the time I thought what a heartless b**ch. It just dawned on me. Sociopath.
yup, HM, sounds like it, huh?
smells like it. 🙂 SPATH!!
Consider that if you have a really good meal with a teensy little bit of strychnine in it, it doesn’t matter how good the food is – the poison is going to hurt you and kill you. If a person doesn’t care about the well being of others some of the time, he doesn’t ever care – if it looks like he’s being nice he’s faking it to get something he wants. I don’t think that there’s a mixture of good and evil when it comes to motivation. Good people are not perfect and make mistakes and hurt others inadvertently, but if someone harms others knowingly they can’t simultaneously care about others’ feelings some of the time.
It’s possible that your ex has issues that lead to denying his feelings, but that doesn’t express as abuse and lies. Most important is whether he made you happy, secure, loved and valued. If he didn’t, it doesn’t really matter why – you still won’t choose to be with someone who makes you feel bad.
Dg
You will get to the point where he cannot have any effect on you. Believe me. It took me about 1-1/2 years to get there. Now 2 years after discard I am good. No emotions about him, nothing at all. He can write notes with my alimony check. I don’t even look at them. Just file them away. A year and a half ago I would shake and my heart would race if I saw a note from him. Now, nothing. I was married for over 20 years to that list and chrater until one night he walked out on us. With exactly 3 plastic bags, declared me “mentally ill” , stopped paying the mortgage and had a “blast ” with his co worker , almost 20 younger than him. A little older than his then 18 year old son.
Just take it day by day. You will get better. Take care of yourself. Think about you and only you.
Thinking about ourselves and putting our energy into our own lives is important in becoming whole again.
I meant I was married to that liar and cheater. Sorry.
Annette
You make a good point about staying safe. That’s one part that still scares me from time to time. I know he would love to get rid of my existence. He would not have to pay me alimony and also would be very happy. I stah no contact. With him being a cop I have to be very careful.
I watched a 20/20 thf other day where a cop staged his ex girlfriends suicide. He got away with it. And that scares me.
I live in a gated community with 24 hours security. A little piece of mind. He is on the “no enter ” list for my adress. Of course deputies always have access but he has no cop business in this county. Just got to be one step ahead, at all times .
I definetely know what he is capable of. I know from the 20 plus years.
They are capable of anything if they think it will get them what they want and they won’t get caught. I have no idea what my ex psychopath has done in the past that I just don’t know about.
I get alimony and also I know what he is and what he does (child porn, cross dressing, pathological lying, abuse) which threatens him in a culture/social structure he is heavily invested in. He’s got plenty of psychopathic reasons to want me not to exist.
I have some health problems that were worse when he first targeted me, but have now somewhat improved and stabilized. I discern that he expected me to be an invalid and possibly pass away while he was (fake) married to me. Besides the pedophilia and cross dressing I don’t know for sure what else he is but he showed signs of homosexual attractions too, and I know for sure he’s not a heterosexual man interested in an adult woman, so the whole marriage was a sham. I had some financial security when he targeted me, he had nothing (he blamed it on his first wife having left him – truth was he wasn’t good at earning a living in spite of having a professional degree and he left her), I figured out he wanted my house and my money and to prove the failure of his first marriage was his first ex wife’s fault.
I am careful in every way I can think of, and I try to keep him from having any information about me and my habits and whereabouts. I’ve also told several close friends that if anything happens to me to look closely at him, and I told him that I told people that.
Jenna, I don’t know if your ex is keeping tabs on you or if you are in danger because he’s not controlling you. It’s just something to consider and be aware of. We don’t really know what they think (they feel nothing).
My ex hasn’t had any DIRECT control over me for awhile, but I know that he might think that he still controls me because he left my life in such personal, professional and financial devastation. His actions tore from me the things he knew I loved most, and it is reasonable for him to assume that it was so bad, it’s all still awry. If he assumes that, he would be correct, because it is. That doesn’t mean I am not basically ok and working to make things better every day.
I believe that he wanted to destroy everything that made me happy, all my accomplishments and all my security. He pretty much did. I also believe that if he had time on his hands and was so inclined, and he knew that I had regained some of that, he MIGHT want to take THAT away from me too. I have no doubt that he believes his power is absolute and that he owned me, and may think he still does. He sees me as prey, an amusement. I sincerely hope he has so much going on with his new life that he’s put me on the back burner and forgotten me and doesn’t google search me. He used to google search himself regularly (even had alerts set up) as well as others – it’s not a stretch for me to think he has alerts set up for me.
While there are creepy similarities to all our situations, they are all individual and who the hell knows what any of these monsters are doing. I just know better safe than sorry.
Oh, yeah. Trust is non existent.
Jenna23: Thank God we will never understand them! We would have to get down into the depths of evil — and we don’t want to go there.
I believe that there is deep-seated rabid hatred in their souls. First they hate God, second they hate themselves, third they hate anybody and everybody who has anything they want.
The world “owes” them. They use meanness and hatred to intimidate us to then steal and/or destroy everything good from us. They do delight in their malice. They cannot enjoy good; they hate people who are happy, content, good. They thrive on destruction.
They are just the embodiment of evil. They have sold their souls out to evil, so that there is not a vestige of good or light in them.
Saneandfree, you are SO right when you say they hate anybody and everybody who has anything they want.
I don’t think they really hate in the sense of a passionate feeling arising out of injustice done; like hating someone who harms a loved one. I think spaths are totally cold blooded. They just resent violations of their sense of entitlement of whatever they want at any given time. Hatred implies caring about something more complex than one’s momentary whims and evil manipulations and schemes. Spaths don’t care about anything beyond what they want and what they want is utterly selfish, shallow, and based on harming others rather than the well being of others.
Jenna
There is no way you can ever figure them out. It’s the way they are. I tried for so long to get an explanation why he was so cruel to me and my son, why he left our lives in such chaos? There is no answer. So I stopped trying to figure it out and look at it as a blessing. I wasted a quarter century and would have never left him. He did it for me and I sm grateful he did .
My ex was never sorry, never applogized and the only thing he writes to his son is “I had to leave because I was so unhappy and your mother is mental”. Blah, blah. It takes no responsibility for anything. So there it shows you they don’t have remorse or feel bad (like we do). It’s just not there. So I closed the past. He can have his sex minions and I live my life the way I like, to the fullest. Without crying and being belittled on a daily base. Much better.
Jenna
i agree with kaya…i have spent the last 4 months trying to figure out motives and i just don’t know..the only thing i come up with is he likes to see me upset.
during the time of when we were ending things i would go into detail of what he has done to make me suffer, when explaining through email. i would never get a response back when i would ask what he was doing, why or his motive..never, he always has skipped the questions i really want to know and answers only the things that have no comparison…therefore, i would email back and be upset again only NEVER to get an answer as to why he did such things…even during the relationship when questioning on things like why he hadn’t called or written or texted for a couple days, he would skip that part of email or message and answer another question.. i used to tell him he was not able to multi task (in this case answer more than one question), or having half a brain….he knew exactly what i meant by that..
the best part…when i would say after a couple days not hearing from him…”hi honey just letting you know am off to doctor…blah blah” for example, he would write me back saying i was manipulating him by telling him this, so that he had no choice but to respond and ask WHY i was going to doctor…he was good at twisting things all the time…never the truth
jenna23
i have to wonder what it is exactly gave me the feeling he was up to no good from the beginning…i mean aside from the physical evidence i had months into the relationship..i mean more at the outset…i remember the first time seeing him being on th phone with my sister just i would be busy doing something when he arrived…my first words out of my mouth to her “oh god here he comes, something creepy about him”
i don’t know why but does it start from the get go or do we suspect nothing…i could kick myself
Janedoe, my ex and I worked in the same department for almost two years before I became involved with him. I mostly saw him in staff meetings or just walking around the office, and my biggest impression of him was he was kind of a weirdo.
After a few dates, someone asked me how it was going and I recall saying “I don’t really like him that much”. I was sort of “meh”. It started out as me just inviting him to lunch a short time after his wife died, thinking he might like some company. Romance wasn’t on my mind. When he asked me out later, I accepted. never thinking it would lead to anything. The next thing I knew I was in so, so deep.
My instincts were right in the beginning, and in being nice, I walked right into the worst experience of my life.
I left with my minor son to escape his abuse, as I did many times. The spath always knew I was at an elderly family friend’s home. Out of the blue he accused me of spending the night “with a man like (name of married person I worked with once who had passed away several years ago).”
I eventually figured out he was creating the ‘arguments’ and abusing to manipulate me into leaving so he could have the house to himself to do porn, cross dress and have sex with himself, and whatever else he was doing.