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
I am not having such a good day!!! Again been very busy and am emotionally drained becasue of that, I know. My brain hurts from writing proposals and thinking. And it all still comes back to “him”
Once he would have ( supposedly) been pleased to hear, proud of me, encouraged me, advised me etc etc etc. And I would have felt comforted by that and believed I was doing a good job!
Don’t get me wrong. I know I am good at what I have been doing. But I find myself thinking, what on earth was he thinking all those times he fed me such BS? was he inwardly deriding me, deriding me and ridiculing me?
That is too much to bear!
Thinking like that makes me feel such a failure, pathetic and weak!
I absolutely dread seeing him. I don’t have anything to say to him anymore and yet once over we could talk for hours.
He has destroyed me. He used to say ” have some confidence, you are a lovely person, a great friend ” and now he seems to hate me!
Elsa hon take a deep breath…know that sociopaths target hard working people, they target people that are highly motivated, people that are meticulous about details, people who are good at what they do. YOU do not need him to tell you this…this is were self love comes into play. Get a piece of paper out when you feel you need validation from him and write out all of your personal & business accomplishment that you accomplished before meeting him. Just know that all successful people have doubt at some point, it’s part of what drives us to do our job well & to make sure our loved ones are well taken care of.
One of the most important things you need to do during your recovery is to realize you do need validation from anyone especially from a sociopath who has only accomplish chaos. This take time but you will get back to your old self.
Write out your goals you want to accomplish the next 1, 5 & 10 year…and put the list somewhere were you will see it daily. You will start to see that you are reaching your goals not because he validated you but because you have set your goals and are checking the boxes off to reach those goals.
You are not destroyed Elsa…you just have to refocus your attention on the important things in your life, your husband, your family, your good friends & your business…but you must stop focusing on him…when he pops in your mind come here to lovefraud and read, read, read. Start picturing him in your head with things that are evil. So that you see him as evil.
You are going to get through this hon. Look at the sites adrenalfatigue. org take the quiz, Drlam.com…there is also a hormonal component to healing from a sociopath.
Jan7
This reminds me of an exercise my therapist had me do.
I was to take a photo of my husband and on one side, list all the good things I got from him. Then on the other side list all the bad things. She had me do this after my divorce as well, when my eyes were open to who/what my ex truly was. I was unable to list anything good.
The moral of the story… if nothing they did was good (and what seemed good turned out to be part of his scam), then NOTHING they say is of ANY value.
Elsa. YOU are a lovely person, a person that people want for a friend. You’re competent and an excellent communicator. You’re kind. You have something special to share, something that people want and desire and improves their lives. That’s the truth, whether HE says it or not. These things about you didn’t appear just because he came on scene. They were true about you BEFORE him and true about you now that he’s revealed his true character.
Notwhathesaidofme…that is a good exercise that your therapist had you do…Elsa this is probably a good exercise for you to do also.
It is two weeks today since he flew at me and almost one week since I saw him and began no contact.
Right now, I never want to see him again! But I will!!
Every day that passes is a milestone, I expect.
In August when he first discarded me I did write a comparative list between him and my husband. Good and bad points!!
I told him I had done that and he said ” that’s good”
He has been telling me all along not to “like him” whilst at the same time keeping up the cycles of being nice, kind etc, but then withdrawing!
I think now that at Christmas he decided he didn’t want the friendship so deliberately withdrew, knowing that’s would make me anxious then he could justify getting mad”
Stupid, immature, self centred, sbusive man!
Part of me can believe those words. Thank you
But it almost feels like I have been psychologically and emotionally violated. He saw those good things in me too ( he said, who knows now???) and has deliberately pulled the rug from under my feet.
Elsa
They give when they think they need to but they take it away just as quickly. It makes more sense to see it without emotional involvement – look at the whole time line, I’m trying to only view it this way to.
Not
Very interesting. I never thought of it as”envy”. But you are so right. When someone made s compliment to me, my ex akwsys tried to turn it around. You are so absolutely correct. He envied me because I had the qualities he could never have.
Thank you for all your great words here. For the past 20 years my number one goal in life was to raise my son in a way so he would never become “his father”. I did accomplish that. He is the total opposite. I think with my sobs generation the chain is broken. My ex’s father was and still is a sociopath. He is now on his 4th or 5th marriage. But at the age of 70 he is not that handsome , irrestitible hot guy that he once thought he was. My ex should take a good look at him. But if course they are invincible. Cpt America will never age or get old. What a sad life they live. So shallow and lonely.
kaya48
once upon a time, my ex revealed that he copied some behaviors of his father and did them to me to put me “in my place”. The same father he said was VERY abusive to his mom. And when I was incredulous that he would do so and I said “that would make him the same kind of person as his dad”, (this was before I knew about sociopaths), my ex claimed he was NOT like his dad because his dad was much worse. So my ex excused his own behavior by comparing it to his dads. His good ol boy dad. The dad who supposedly had no fear. Until he knew he was dying. Then… he did everything he could to stay alive, he was TERRIFIED of dying. ME? I just reminded him, “it’s going to be wonderful. you’re going to meet GOD!” (yep. I know. I was being mean. Because his meeting GOD was not going to be a good thing for him. heh heh heh.)
pps Kaya48
The seven deadly sins. They swim in all of them, ALL of the time.
Not
Thank you so much. Just like yours my ex always said “I am not like my father “. From his mom I knew his dad was very abusive towards her and the family. Once the car did not start, and he took an ax and destroyed the entire car out of anger. My ex said this was not true. But why would the mom lie about it. The mom was eventually discarded and left with 5 kids for a younger co worker of his. Of course the co worker was wife number 2 not for long before fresher , sexier supply came along. So my ex just stepped in his fathers footsteps. And of course for my ex God does not exist.
He used to pick on my son and I whenever we would talk about God , our faith, our church. It’s nice that we can do it now without being criticized or questioned. I know my ex was a helper of Satan. How could he stay in the same home with 2 myers if his family who became stronger in their faith. It must have been poor torture for him.
I prayed to God to make him come back at the beginning. God answered my prayers according to his plan what was much better than mine. 🙂
What’s that saying? “Thank God for Unanswered Prayers”?
The same for me. I wanted children, lots of children. But I had miscarriage after miscarriage. Thank God I did not have any with my ex (he adopted my daughter and I often worried he was another Woody Allen.) I am so grateful that more children were not made into my ex’s vulnerable victims.
My ex has a brother who married a woman with two little boys, one a toddler. Those boys are grown and have no lives of their own, they are extremely dependent. Also, the are now misogynists, arrogant, self absorbed thugs. But then again, their mother is a thug too. SHe took pride in resolving her difference with others with physical attacks. So She was a perfect fit in the family. I was not. And proud to realize that I was NOT a fit in a family of thugs, thieves, liars, scammers, bullies, and sociopaths.
THANK YOU GOD for blessings bestowed upon me, for the ones I know and the ones I don’t know.
Kaya
This prayer helps me;
” I wish you (the spath) a day in heaven before the Devil knows your dead!”
Gives me great pleasure!
Elsa hon your brain is processing all of the evilness it will take some time for you to clear your mind. I am glad you keep coming here to vent it really does help. re write that list of good & bad of your husband”I think you will see things differently now that you know the truth about this evil guy and that he was messing with your mind all along. Do it for the sociopath too with all that you now know about him I think it would be a good exercise to replant truth seeds in your mind about him.
Reach out to your husband for emotional support Elsa dont close him out. He is your husband and you should ask him what qualities he loves in you. Get your husband to lift you up now. This is what a good spouse does and you have stated your husband is a good caring man.
As for the evil sociopath”he was a cat playing with a mouse (you). He is sick & twisted and only used you. I do think he was moving towards an affair with you as most sociopath (if not all) are sex addicts who have endless affairs. Glad you were strong in your marriage not to. Sociopaths play mind games so you need to unravel all of his mind games a good knowledgable therapist can help you with this.
He did have lots of affairs. And I suspect use those thai women!!!
I told him often enough that he was a “bad man” but I have no idea why I craved his attention/ affection/ support etc.
I used to tell him he was the kind of man that a girls mother would warn her to stay away from! He knew all along I was right and I have no idea why, being sociopathic, he would want to trick me into thinking any differently! It’s not as if he was trying to disagree with my negative opinions! Although much of what I said was said in jest .
The pain of being discarded and rubbished by someone who only three weeks ago said to me ” you are a really good friend, the kind of friend who is reliable when the chips are down in life”
I believed him!!!
Oh how I would love to tell his wife the truth about him! I have thought about sending her a print off of the she traits of a sociopath anonymously. It is so clearly descriptive of him that I doubt she could not see that it was about him. But he would probably know it was me and that would cause him to get even madder.
I went up to town today and I felt physically sick worrying that I might see him. What way is that to live????
Elsa, I’m no therapist, but I’ve spent plenty of time with one (haha). There can be many reasons why you craved his attention, etc. but one of them is that we all have vulnerabilities and needs that aren’t met. Some we aren’t even aware of. Sociopaths are experts at seeing these vulnerabilities and needs and exploiting them. At first it makes us feel good (grooming) and then we become addicted, even when we know deep down the person is bad. The simple answer is that you craved him because he manipulated you to make sure that you did.
Telling his wife will come to no good. Put this thinking on the back burner and focus on your own life and getting back on track.
Be gentle with yourself and give yourself time. This is all very new. One step at a time. Please lean on the rocks in your life – your husband, business, home, etc. This is what is REAL.
Elsa
I think you are getting excellent advice here from jan 7 and others. I totally agree that they are all sex addicts as it gives them instant gratification without forming any attachments or bonds with their partners. There is no love in sex for them. Sex is about control and power for them not an act of love .
I think if you go no cntact is the best way for you. It’s not about being vindictive or punishing the other party, it’s about protecting yourself from further emotional and mental abuse. Going no contact is very difficult but very effective in the healing process
Even though I share a child with my ex I had no other choice than cutting off all communication with him. He inflicted pain on the family and pushed change on us that we never asked or prepared for. He must face his consequences now. A real father does not walk out on his family , ever .
Elsa
Don’t send the wife or him anything. It will not result in anything productive or positive. You should just focus on yourself. Let him be whatever he wants to be like. I had to learn it the hard way. If I could do it over again , I would have started the no cobtact the day he left, filed for divorce the same day. Begging for him to come back as a husband made me an “option” for him. I was his wife, not an “option”. Also him moving out having to think about everything, that also made me an “option”. He took marriage vows and j should have never been an “option”. It took me 3 months and many sleepless nights, many tears, panic attacks to realize that he does not care about me and he never cared about me.
Live your life to the fullest and let him be all he wants to be. you did not lose anything valuable. He is married also. So let his wife figure him out.
Elsa..for right now I think you should only focus on healing your wounds are still very raw. Later down the road when you are not emotional then you can contact his wife anonymously. But you must keep in mind this guy is evil & dangerous way beyond what he showed you. So exposing him needs to be taken very seriously because there are major ripple effects that could hurt you, your marriage, your business and most importantly your safety. Remember all sociopaths lie…and all sociopaths start a smear campaign against anyone that tries to expose them so be very mindful that you could loose a lot by this guy spreading lies about around your small town.
Jan7
You are so right. Exposing him would not be the smartest thing to do. Once I exposed my ex,all hell broke lose. He accused me of everything possible to shift the focus away from him. Like I said, exposing him gave me a little sarisfaction, not for long. I should have just quitley filed for divorce. Not even exposing him. Before the discard I should have served him divorce papers and not 3 months after .
I think they are way too evil to mess with. You always have to be one step ahead. And I was only able to do that with the help if my lawyer. On my own I would have been no match against him. He would have won.
I agree that at this point with Elsa, exposing him to the wife would cause all hell to break loose. We know they crave drama and this would be right down his alley. It would feed him, and also give him a reason to retaliate. End result, sucking her right back in.
I’m glad I got over my need to “get even” very quickly and never acted on it. There is no getting even in a traditional sense. But – by moving on, being happy and leaving them in the past we are getting even in the best, most positive way.
Yes, they are evil. There is no winning. The smartest move is not to even try.
All really good advice, especially not to contact another victim.
Rather than an anonymous contact, which is too close to the way spaths do things, you might consider sometime later on just letting her know that you are willing to answer any questions she has. That way she can get information from you when/if she is ready to hear it and what you have to say will be useful to her.
It’s so true that one has to stay one step ahead of the spaths’ schemes. It is so much better to do everything we can so we don’t even have to play any games with them. That is what they want – to engage us to get our attention on them as much as possible.
Just sad!!
wish I could just escape this place, which is impossible. and I wish he would disappear to Thailand to his anonymous prostitutes. they sound perfect for him!
Elsa, HM, Jan7 and all-
As a victim, should you expose a sociopath’s exploits to the other people in their life? It will likely get you more problems than you already have! But there is something you can safely do!
First, there’s the “belief” issue. They have surrounded themselves with people who currently believe them. And they have defamed, or will defame you to those people. If their minions weren’t in “belief” mode, they’d have been discarded, just like you were. So you’re waging an uphill battle.
Second, you’ll (pardon), piss-off a dangerous person. That can come back to haunt you in ways you would never even begin to imagine. There is nothing more dangerous than an angry sociopath.
You can, however, make a meaningful difference in ending the behavior that devastated you! There is currently a bill pending in NJ to make sexual assault by fraud a crime. This penal code exists in AL and TN already. NJ could be next. If you’d like to know what the laws are in your state, you can enter your state’s name in the keyword search of my blog, to locate the information. If it’s not there, let me know, and I will bump your state up to the top of my list, and research it for you. Here’s the url: http://www.rapebyfraud.com.
TODAY- you can make a meaningful difference in getting sexual assault by fraud law mandated in NJ. Doing so will not only help the citizens of NJ, but it opens the door to bringing this law to YOUR state. I am currently working on doing so in three additional states.
Please sign the petition, today, that will move the bill forward from the Judiciary Committee to the Assembly floor. Without YOUR VOICE, it could simply die in committee. Please sign the petition today at http://chn.ge/1JOOCes.
Joyce