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
With your comment , that confirms what I was believed. That they treat the next victim the same. They are not only cheaters, they are liars who lack integrity. They should only have prostitutes. No wives, girlfriends of kids.
I agree. I told him last night that he will never have a meaningful relationship. I told him that he was going to die alone.
Ex-wife asked me last night if I knew the names of the others that he had affairs/sex with and I said no, he just told me about experiences and things he had done. He was very careful not to mention people specifically. He told her that he never did anything before me! I do not believe that and I hope that she doesn’t either.
freedom
My ex husband told numerous women that they were his “second” sexual relationship. It was one of his manipulations that made them feel safe and special. But also, once my husband found something that gave him a type of satisfaction, he liked to do it over and over again with lots of people and see how each one responded.
Hi Notwhat..thank you for remembering me! I don’t have much time to write these days..but I read when i can and am going to try to chime in to tell my story. I see all of you giving advice to people who are like me.
You ALL are wonderful people and at the time when i was so sucked in..talking to you all was my only hope. So thank you. I still am not recovered. I still have my days when I am overwhelmed with fury and I want to call him and cuss him out for taking so much from me.
I lost my mom..in july and he STILL used me. He still did mini discard because I was so vunrable. I will never forget. I hope everyone reads this site who thinks they are dealing with a spath. It has changed me forever. I can only pray there is a place in hell for them.
Take care friend! !
So very good to hear from you and that you are on the long painful and difficult road to recovery. I find some happiness in the fact that I am feeling so much better than I did at the worst, as time goes on even though some of the pain, anger and frustration lingers.
Under the radar.
So true. If you have your health you have everything. And remember where there is God, there is no fear. I honestly believe that God guided me through this nightmare. Because for me there was no fear.
Kaya
I have fear but I know God has my back because I always land on my feet. I’m glad you feel the same 🙂
Hanalei
Your comment brought back an old memory. Once being on vacation my ex tried to take a picture of my son and I. Realizing he stepped into fireants my son moved quickly. My ex got so mad, cussed us out and just left us. For the remainder of the vacation I got the silent treatment. We did not act accordingly to his standards. My son was only 9 or 10 years old. To this day we remember those 3 weeks in “hell”.
Wow how amazing good my life is now.
Kaya
Just think…the 20something is now in line for all the fun! Enjoy!
Kaya, I’ll bet you’ve got more examples like that, because I do too. Any normal person would have been concerned that your son didn’t get bit and the ants were all off of him. And then maybe even get a laugh out of it when it was all ok. Not these men. They thrive on showing their contempt and disapproval and making us pay”and pay and pay and pay.
I was a perfect example of the frog getting put in a nice cool pot of water, and the heat being turned up so gradually that he didn’t realize he was being boiled alive. My ex was so sadistically patient, so methodical, so certain of where he was “taking me” that I’m convinced that if it hadn’t ended, something REALLY bad could have happened to me”it wasn’t until I was out that I realized that he had no concern whatsoever at any harm he caused me. If I became of no use to him because I was so damaged, he’d just toss me away. Next!
When I look at it this way, I see how it all turned out as a blessing in disguise.
Sane
Thank you for making me laugh. So true. I can only imagine how he yells at her in his drill seargent voice if she does not act right. That voice used to make my entire body shake and my heart race. My blood rushing through my head , sitting next to him in tears. That must have been so unhealthy to be in a constant “fight and flight ” stage for my body. He really reduced me to a crying mess on the floor. In the end I apologized and kissed up. Unbelievable. Today I am still in shock that I thought this marriage was happy and normal.
Kaya,
Despite the overwhelming evidence of their GROSS psychopathology and the fact that we were intelligent women, it is really hard to get one’s mind around the deception and hypnotism which took place. And, they got away with it for so long!!! 🙁
If we ever wonder, think or worry that they are having a good time, have moved on and are happy with another… we just need to take a stroll down memory lane. And, what’s not to love?!!! Paradise, right? Ha Ha Ha. What a world of CRAZY.
I think spaths are like a Komodo Dragon — they bite their prey and just wait for the toxic poison to slowly destroy them. Then the Komodo Dragon comes back to devour the helpless, paralyzed victims.
And, yet, our x-spaths only just practiced on us. Now they are experts in the game of seek and destroy. I know my x-spath can lie a gazillion times better now than he did way back when…anyone with them now, well, it is just “a littl’ slice of hell.”
It is a down payment and the rest is right behind. Hallelujah for deliverances!!! [img]http://www.pic4ever.com/images/2uge4p4.gif[/img]
Saneandfree
I wish so much that my ex p would move on, not that I don’t suspect he’s staying faithful to his attempts to win me back, I’m sure he’s having sex with someone because he’s not getting it from me and he’s got a full blown sex addiction. Sadly the victim he’s conning into thinking she has landed him would be discarded in a heartbeat if I did return – ummm not going to happen!
UndertheRadar
You can bet on it…he is having sex with someone, somewhere. NOTE: it is sex, not love-making. He is like a masturbatory machine. Do you want to be his appliance?
You could take him back. But, for what? Have you got amnesia?! No offense. 🙂
Stay under the radar. Best and safest place to be. Gray rock technique and NC are your answers to sustained freedom, peace and SANITY.
Why enslave yourself again? Even in your thoughts?
I think (IMHO) that we (speaking for myself) get hurt feelings from the sense of rejection. “Oh, he doesn’t want me anymore. There must be something wrong with me. What does she have that I don’t?” The answer to the last question is: STUPIDITY.
That whole line of self-abusive pondering is the Komodo Dragon Toxin speaking. It is poison.
What?!! Like he is some prize?!! LOL. Let’s be sane about this.
It helps to make a list of his “good” qualities (ha ha ha) and his “bad” qualities, including everything he has done. The list is always shockingly revealing. And, it is always somewhat embarrassing. Then we wonder in grief, “What kind of fool was I?!!” Oh, well, at least we know now, right?
Well, we can go round and round about him, about our misguidedness, blah, blah, blah, etc. but, at the end of the day, it just helps to be grateful that he is gone.
Truly, good riddance!
Sane…you give me such strength! Your words ring so true.
“He is like a masturbatory machine”! I love that! Mine would call me at work and want me to have phone sex with him daily!! He would call me while I was driving to have phone sex with me. REALLY!! Like I can drive and do that!
And enslaving ourselves. Very true. I felt like I was living in a box all the time. Waiting for him. I was in my own personal prison. Not wanting to do anything in case he called, etc.
Goodness what a horrible life I was semi living.
Ugh, if we were not together (and, I assume, he wasn’t with someone else, haha), mine wanted phone sex. He called it “a story”. It had to be a very specific script about me with another woman. If I tried to improvise to make it more interesting (Zzzzzz) he’d complain and instruct me to stick to the script or else it threw him off. Ridiculous.
When he discarded me for the final time, it’s ironic that one of his complaints was that the phone sex was “rote” and he felt like I wasn’t giving it my all.
Yup, I was a prisoner of my cell phone. It was like he KNEW it was inconvenient and then he’d call.
He called me one morning when I had been at the new house 2 or 3 days and suddenly had to “call me back” (better call coming in I assume). I put the phone down, walked into the garage to get a roll of tape and locked myself out. I didn’t have my phone, didn’t know anyone, and had to walk door to door to find someone who finally let me use their phone to call a locksmith. I finally got back in the house an hour or two later, and had several increasingly pissy voice mails from him. I called him to tell him that I got locked out and he reamed me for not keeping my phone on me at all times SO I WAS ALWAYS AVAILABLE TO HIM. I said – I need to take the cell phone into my own garage!? He never asked me if I was ok, or even how I got back into the house.
Don’t miss it. At all.
HM, I know the feeling. Mine would know what I was doing and he would call and say…am I interrupting. Knowing full well that I was with family or on a business trip. I was a complete prisoner to my cell. He would say..you don’t have to answer if you are busy. But I always would. GOD! I feel like a total idiot now thinking about that!
‘Masturbatory machine’ is an accurate description. I had a sense that everything my ex P did, by himself and with others, was just ‘diddling with himself’ or masturbating, because EVERYTHING was about himself playing with himself – others didn’t really exist for him.
Hanalei
Exactly, any “normal, loving father” would have been concerned and helped us get the ants of his son. Instead he made it about him . I can still hear the words “you guys are so stupid, I can’t even get a picture of you”. All about him. always. I want . I want. I want sex this minute , I want I want. I was like a puppet. And I was trying to please him so he would be happy.
What a life did we have ? Yours just leaves you in a big city at s restaurant. Who do they think they are ?
I read an interesting article today about dangerous personalities and it stated that the reason an N or S appears to be understanding, empathetic, loving and all the good qualities we wish they had is because they are aware they lack these qualities and would rather pretend they have these nice qualities rather than have to explain why they are not loving or understanding so they pretend, so they must know they aren’t the norm in that case…
I meant to say at the beginning during the love bombing phase they appear understanding and loving and not during the whole relationship….
Saneandfree
That is where I need to get to in my thinking, attitude and responses!
I think I will feel better once I have got over that first face to face contact.
Elsa you have to STOP focusing on seeing him again…seriously you are fixated on seeing him..you are ingraining this into your mind instead focus on the fact he is evil and you need to follow the no contact rule…focus on walking away from him without him seeing you if you see him out in your town not “face to face contact”.
If you have “face to face contact” with him he will once again mess with your mind and once again you will need to start day 1 of no contact.
What do you want from this evil guy still?
Good morning ladies. I took some time last night to just let it all go. I cleared my mind and my soul. I know that I still have a long way to go but knowing that I am moving in that direction is good.
When he sent me the I Hate You email, it was the best thing that he could have done. Yes, he had said snide remarks to me in the past, told me that what I was thinking wasn’t right or disagreed with me, looked at me like I was dumb or just completely ignored me but he never once said I Hate You. I know why he said that. He said it because I ruined his little bubble. I exposed his lies yet again. Those 3 words cemented exactly what he is and what he does. They were full of anger and spite. He is a user and manipulator. A liar and a cheat. He has been all of these things for a long time. He will not change. He can put on the charm and suave but he is what he is at his core. I am better off without that in my life. I do not want the chaos. I do not want the stress. I want to live. I want to be. I need to be…free…
Freedom15-
CONGRATULATIONS!
You have succeeded in raising the ire of a sociopath. You must have done something VERY right!
A great many of us feel that we need to look for closure. And we expect it will come in the form of an understanding, an admission of guilt, the kind of parting that morally intact people are prone to.
Instead, we need to understand that the anger they hurl at us is their admission of guilt. Don’t try to change it. Revel in the fact that you got through to them in a meaningful way! They are harmed by your awareness of them. You touched their nerve. And they are lashing back to let you know.
The opposite of love is not hate. It’s apathy. And its that apathy that we strive to achieve in NC. Hurling hatred, vulgarity, anger, indicates their recognition that they did something very, very wrong.
Hear it. Rejoice in it. And move on with your personal recovery.
Joyce
I respectfully disagree that the spath hurling anger or hate at a target necessarily means that they have been gotten through to in a meaningful way, and that the hate and anger they hurl at a victim is real.
In my experience, spaths don’t experience personal meaningful emotions; rather they use anger and fury as tactics to control. My ex P, like many with the disorder, would act angry and rage and if it didn’t work he would turn on a dime and act kind or try some other tactic. Real rage can’t be turned off instantly, it requires time to calm.
Even better than rejoicing and reveling in a particular tactic or response of a spath (he is likely to change the current tactic quickly), is to focus one’s thoughts, emotions and energy on one’s own life, on meaningful relationships with good family and friends.
Thank you, Joyce.
I know that I will never get a truthful, “I’m Sorry”, because he is incapable of that. When I say that I am sorry to someone, I feel it.
I think that only thing that I have done right is to finally accept who he is. To finally accept that he is nothing. To finally accept that 99% of the words that come out of his mouth are lies. That all of his actions with me have been lies.
I am not going to say that I am 100% ok. I still have pain and hurt and know that is normal. I am sure that I will still tear up and cry. But it will not be because he has come into my life again only to discard me again. It will be because I am healing and part of the any healing process is to go through the pain.
This site has saved me. This site has actually helped me get through this final discard. When I found this site over 2 weeks ago, I was day 1 of NC. I read everything I could. I learned so much about him and what he is. Then when he contacted after 7 days, that thing was triggered in my brain and I said, one more time. And 7 days later, he discarded me again. This time I was armed with resources and knowledge. This time I fought back for me.
We all have to keep fighting for ourselves. That is the most important message that I have taken away.