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
JD,
She just said it was a long time- not good or bad. 🙂
NWHSOM
Glad to get some good pointers from you. It’s been a while since you’ve been on, I’ve missed you 🙂
Yes he was quite a big talker. Not to say everything he did was a lie but some of his stories and things he wanted to do were pretty silly to a normal person.
He was always putting himself in a position of “the best” with everything he did, and with people he met. He was always “extremely busy” when I would try to contact him. He would say to me I just don’t grasp how busy he is…ok the man had no job, he was not busy he just liked to think he was. Always looking for contracts or work and saying the best of the best people
Contacted him.
His ideas and thoughts were pretty far out there at times and were not likely to happen, as well as the people he met were always people who were considered to he “highly important”
I do know another trait for them is their inability to stay in one place too long, I used to call him a nomad because he wanted to be all over the
Place. He just couldn’t stay put or he didn’t want to be too long in one place. Always wanting to travel and end up where the wind blew him. A very intelligent person academically but very ignorant and dumb in other aspects I used to say.
Glad to hear from you NWHSOM 🙂
Not what
Thank you so much for your kind words. You have always been a hero to me. Yes, the truth set me free. Living his lias kept me a prisoner.
The discard was one of the biggest blessings. It gave me clarity, rational thinking , my freedom and my sanity back.
Like you I was portrayed as the crazy, mentally insane wife. You know what. I am the one who is happy and at peace now. He is the crazy one.
Hello Survivors…
I guess I am experiencing aftermath depression and it is pretty darned bad.
I have been touched by pure evil. I housed it in my apt. under the guise of love and forever and all the while it was robbing me, exploiting me, deceiving me and draining me.
can someone tell me this will pass?
will it?
I am seeing therapist.
I am on antidepressant now.
I am in a lot of pain.
If anyone prays out there…. I ask for some and I thank you.
Kittylover, it WILL pass! I won’t kid you, it will take time, hard work and well, more hard work”but it will pass, slowly but surely.
In August it will be four years for me after a 7 year relationship. I’m still dealing digging out of the extreme financial loss he caused, and that will take awhile. My trust in people is shot, but I can see that every day, I am more myself (the pre-him me I mean) and especially in the last 6 months or so, I’ve noticed that I am much more focused on my day to day life (as I was “pre”), and the need to think about the whole crappy thing is leaving me. I went to two years of therapy and it was a lifesaver.
What you are going through now is a necessary time. Let your therapist guide you to healing, feel the pain (since there is no choice) and slowly move toward the light. Most of us here used meds to some degree at some point to get us through and there is nothing wrong with that. Your therapist and you will know when you don’t need them anymore.
Taking a minute each day to find something to consciously be grateful for helped me a lot, (my purring kitty, a beautiful cloud, my healthy body) and reminded me that there was more in my life than the long list of abuse, pain and losses. I had a habit of slipping into black and white thinking, more or less that that everything was bad, but really, we can all find a tiny good thing. The exercise is worth it, no matter how silly it feels. If all I could come up with was how good the first swig of a really cold diet coke tasted, I was glad for even that. Just an idea, it may or may not work for you. It takes practice to find good in every day when you are so broken, but it can be done.
I will keep you in my prayers. I know you can do this! Your life and heart matters! xoxo
Kitty,
I too ended up with severe depression and weight loss…
It does take time hun, but it will eventually get better.
You have to go through the process of grieving.
Sorry you are in emotional pain.
Hugs and prayers to you.
remember…
thank you for your support.
and compassion.
and for reaching out.
Hi
I too am dealing with depression. I had one afternoon of energy and the rest I go from being completely just down to balling my eyes out. I just keep replaying the last few conversations in my head, the hope I had before going into the hospital and surgery–and then waking up to what happened and the warnings. I’m trying to make sense of what happened. Why was he so mean to the medical staff? Why couldn’t he just be supportive and be there when I woke up. Was that his actual gf who called. Why would someone move on that fast? I couldn’t possibly think of touching or being touched by someone so soon. I could have died. How could someone move on so quick? And just sad that someone else is getting to live the promises he made to me. I was so hopeful. I thought he was finally growing and seeing what was important in life. I believed him and I was an idiot. The days are bleek. With no pet the house isn’t the same. Not only do I feel like one of my best friends have died ( my unconditional loving pet/furbaby), but the other love of my life died too. Although this is worse. He decided to treat me badly. Does this pass? Is this grieving? I decided to make an appointment for the trauma therapist to see what they say. The appointment is tomorrow. I’m also following everything my lawyer is telling me to do.
Kitty- I don’t know about Krispy crime. Never heard of it but over here we have Dunkin doughnuts.
I hear you. I’m proud of you. You are not alone. I’m thinking this is the process. At least- I hope so.
Because PTSD resulting from surviving victimization by a spath is initially experienced usually as an emotional trauma, survivors don’t easily recognize how badly they have been harmed. It took me a long time, years, to see how much damage had been done to me.
It is helpful to keep in mind that emotional trauma leaves wounds that are as deep and as damaging as serious physical injuries. In addition, many survivors have been repeatedly traumatized over long periods. Healing will happen with the right treatments and hard work, under the right conditions. It takes time.
Consider that you are probably not an idiot for believing someone who lies for the purpose to deceive you. You did well in getting yourself out of the ‘relationship’ when you realized it was harming you.
It is unlikely that anyone else is living the benefits of promises your ex made. He is a liar and he breaks promises. He does not change his character with a different/new victim. If he were the sort of person who keeps promises he would have kept his promises to you. He is not keeping a promise because if he did, he would keep all promises. Keeping some of them is not promise keeping, it’s a manipulative tactic.
Spaths blame their behavior on their victims. Your ex, just like the rest of them, will tell you and everyone else if he gets a chance, that the reason he did or didn’t keep a promise is the victim’s fault. The truth is that he does whatever he feels like doing at any given time and whatever he thinks will get him what he wants. He is not committed to keeping his word.
It is likely that his current victim will experience exactly the same abuse, harm, neglect, game playing, etc. because he does what he does because that is who he is; and it has nothing to do with you or his new victim.
Blue light
It does pass, yes. The way I best explain it is it feels as though we are going through a grieving process of someone we have lost. The only problem is, we “really” haven’t had them in the real sense. We are mourning something that was false.
The other woman is not getting a better person. She is getting what you had. And she too till go through what you are. It may not be the same way
Cathas9lives
Good for you! You followed your gut. If we all had done this at the beginning when we first met out ex we wouldn’t be in this situation.
If your gut told you there was something creepy with this guy, then most probably you know the signs and there was something off about him.
You are better to be cautious than to end up in a situation of running into another spath.
And if he does in the end check out to be ok, you did nothing but protect yourself from a potentially uncomfortable situation that could have been.
You did well 🙂
Sorry about that I’m
Typing on my phone and I ended previous comment.
I was saying each case is different as they may go about each fake relationship differently. But it comes down to the hard cold facts that they didn’t treat us honestly, their promises were bs and they go on in life treating others the same.
The healing process is long. It’s almost a year and I have good and bad days. I sometimes wish he could contact me if I unblocked him. I sometimes think what we had was real and all his promises will
Come true. Then I think realistically and I outweigh his very few good traits and his bad traits and it sort of snaps me back to reality.
I have alot of questions as to “why” but I know they won’t be answered.
I know as well that while we were together I wasn’t the only one. So there are many he did this too. They may not have been serious or long term the way he and I were but he was out there trolling. He made many trips to many different countries to meet women while lying and telling me he was away on business. I was never one hundred percent comfortable with things he told me. I always had something nagging me in my mind. I spent too many hours in a day dissecting everything he said and what it meant. That’s not healthy. If it becomes to this point there is a
Problem.
How do I know they treat their new gf or wife the same? Because he did the typical recontacting me after we split telling me he loved me and making promises. That he dislikes his new wife and she is nothing to him. Who does that? Now I know if he is doing this behind her back, he has proved he is an S or N or psychopath. I didn’t even have to find proof, he did it all
On his own. Besides all the red flags i ignored, his rehoovering was the icing on the cake. Textbook behavior.
I hope your therapy session goes well. You need time and you will heal. This site
Is wonderful for that.
I wish I had known what “hovering” was a year ago.
I just thought… awwwwww…. (he had told me his exgfriend cheated on him. HUGE LIE.)
He has trust issues b/c (as he kept telling me) had been SO BETRAYED by the love of his life.
I thought…. maybe he really liked me…
but you know what else…
I felt angry. Yes, angry..guess I am getting more in touch with my feelings that I buried out of fear of losing him this past year.
How dare he be in his car, parked next to min at my job at 5:01 pm… and NOT TELLING ME HE WAS THERE…
and even texting or lying to me.. as if her were somewhere else.
he said… he was worried that I might walk out with a guy from work.
oh my god. he was living with and off of me. I had dedicated my life to him. I have never cheated on a partner.
I would have been offended… instead of scared and defensive…
and kicked that hoverer to the curb.
we would sneak into my office after hours. purposely make no noise.
always trying to catch me doing something when I had not interest or intention nor the type of personality to cheat on him or anyone else.
HE WAS PROJECTING….
wish id known that year ago also….
why did I allow this to happen to me?
Last night my therapist said I am doing great with all of this except for not forgiving myself for being so taken advantage of and lied to.
how the hell do I forgive myself for this?
what an evil evil evil existence he lives.
thanks for listening.
kittylover
hoovering is when they reappear from the past…this is what i take it to be..
for example if you have been re approached by your ex in some sort of way…perhaps he left for another woman, or he was married the whole time, and you are dealing with the pressures of what has happened..suddenly he starts the re contact.. making you more nuts than before because now you believe he didn’t mean anything that happened in the past, he does the classic love bombing to reel you back in, it gets your mind going and thinking that he isn’t so bad…this is because his ego needs reassuring that you do still want him, this is classic behaviour of a S or N…i know thats what i have dealt with and he is textbook narc/sociopath behaviour
the only way to solve this is to go NC and not respond to anything from him
kaya48 has dealt with this and has taken the proper steps to overcome it all..she probably has a better description than i do, she is much further along
Hoover (vacuum) because they ‘suck the victim in’ again.
Spaths can reapprear years and even decades later. The behavior can be understood in the context that the spath never bonded with the victim(s), he never mourned the end of any ‘relationship,’ and he neither missed the victim nor ever ‘got over’ the loss, in the normal way. He trolls for victims to exploit for something(s) he wants; and his attitude towards the victim and the fake relationship is exactly the same the first, second, third, etc. time he engages a victim. The spath varies his tactics and the content of his lies according to what will work at any given time.
Janedoe,
Great explanation. Mine did this all the time and as you described it was worse each time.
He made some comment the other day about how good looking he is…I USED to tell him oh yes, you are my sexy man..this time I just said oh brother. He was speechless!
Stronginthecity
You are so right to be very angry at your ex for his evil and disgusting choices. Anger gives us motivation to act to make needed changes to protect ourselves and improve our lives.
Does your therapist have any thoughts on how to forgive yourself? Do you know a way that you can stop blaming yourself? I think things out when I need to by making lists – maybe this would work for you, if you could list the ways you blame yourself and the things you blame yourself for. Think about what you could have done differently with the information you had at the time. In my experience when one looks at the details logically, you may see that you did the best you could at the time, and you are not responsible for what you did not know.
You might also make a list of the things you did to protect yourself, to get away from someone who harms you, to recover and to move forward. Then list how the things you have done for yourself have helped make your life better.
Kittylover,
I am so proud of you for not breaking NC, even with a RO it can be tough because we want answers.
For me coming to terms with there are no answers because it’s just who he is. He enjoys who he is.
He is ok with being a parasitic scumbag.
You sound like a lovely lady.
He will eventually have his day.
It WILL happen.
He will mess with the wrong person at work or some other woman and it will come back to bit him big time.
You are doing a great job taking care of yourself.
Just remember this…he will never ever change.
NEVER.
I know how hard it is to imagine that people slither through life this way but knowing and accepting will bring closure for you.
Your LF buddy,
Stronginthecity
I’m sorry you had to go through that. All of it.
Sigh. I thank you very much for the response and heads up. I guess I was just feeling very down. Things have been hitting hard. I went to my appointment. I brought my lists. My list of his behaviors, his reactions, how he would treat me positively and how he would treat me negative. It was confirmed he is a sociopath with narc tendencies but an abuser. When I explained my situation a little bit of my past, I was stopped mid way to discuss how I’ve healed. I was asked to communicate my needs and feelings and how my childhood effected me. Then I was asked to move forward. At the end it was explained as to why. Needless to say he was not confused by my communication and it was clear and he used everything to his advantage. The silent treatments are abusive. No matter around that. No excuses, no reasons or anything. If you have someone who refused to speak to you- deal with you, or situation. Get out. Emotionally it reeks havoc and once they do it once it is a sign. A sign now I will get the hell out of there. But it was broken down for me exactly what it’s meant to do. The fact he would do that during monumental times of my life ( birthdays, holidays, when I was upset, when I had something to celebrate, and when I had to fight cancer in the hospital- is nothing but abuse). Because it was a different form and he used gas lighting and manipulation on me ( that it it was my fault because of this is what happened to me as a child…), is just short of abusive and the therapist shook her head in a discusted sorts. In short I am suffering form ptsd, I have to make appointments for hormonal levels and other things to see how it’s effected my physical health. She red transcripts he had with medical staffs and his stories kept changing. There was no consistent supportive man. He was pushy, rude, and whenever questioned unaccountable. Blaming me for this or that, and I was unconscious or in chemo room or getting a blood transfusion. It was interesting to get to actually see they had transcripts and he actually called to see how I was doing or more so demanding to be updated. ( he never told me). He wasn’t nice I’ll tell you that. He treated them like his slaves and didn’t hold back in telling them that either.
Anyway I am relieved I went to the professional. It’s expensive so I don’t know how often I can go but at least I have an option. I was given ways to cope, and different methods and I made another list ( I know me and my lists, but my brain is so foggy atm it’s the only way I can remember so I can look back on it when I’m feeling sad, or missing him). This guy was not a loving man. I was given what normal loving people do ( what we’ve discussed on here) vs what was done and what his motives could have been doing such behaviors. In short it was all about power and control for him. Meanwhile for me it was about healthy balance loving relationship to SHARE lives together. To gain control was remove the sharing or give little bits here and there.
It was a huge red flag that whenever I went to his work I was not welcomed and hidden.
Not to mention I was not allowed to meet his work people.
In any case there were many red flags but the most is the fact that he was willing to abuse me.
I got clarification and I see now why my doctor was alarmed and how in this circumstance why he chose to bring to light. He saw the treatment clearly because really loving people treat one another lovingly. I also realize he made me believe I was unlovable and just nothing good. Which in fact is not true. He needed for me to believe that to remain isolated.
It’s really sick. But I’m glad I went. I’m also glad I found this site. ( I mentioned this site and she was very interested). Over here we do lack public support for domestic abuse and it generally has to come to paying for a professionals time in order not to get the run around. I’m just glad I’m not alone anymore and I’ll just take one day at a time. I also am focusing on looking at the positives and listening to myself ( I completely lost being able to because of what the silent treatments and his lies would do the constant playing with my hearts emotions).
One step at a time. I just want to say thank you to everyone who has supported me this far- and I am so thankful. I hope everyone is having a bit of joy in your life today.
bluelight
so happy you went to the therapist to sort out your thoughts…
it helps to at least know what you are dealing with and that nothing about this is your fault..it helps to know what his diagnosis is as a person and again, nothing you can do about that either.
it is inexcusable that he did what he did to you..regardless what he is! if he were just a normal person but went without contact while you were in the hospital…goodbye charlie. there is not a reason in the world someone who was normal or had empathy would do that. this just proves he isn’t normal and he does not have any empathy or remorse.
you will now deal with the ptsd, you know what you have and you can work on you.
one question though.. why did he call to find out how you were instead of stopping by?
I’m still in the learning process as well and everyone really has different stories but it really comes down to the fact they are not near normal but abusive mean satans
The reason why the spath does anything can be best understood in the context of his goals, which are generally to exploit others for something he wants, sex, money without working for it, a place to live someone else has paid for, feelings of power and control from duping someone for glee, power and control from seeing someone suffer due to his actions, and similar.
Spaths also like to do confusing things for the fun of keeping their victims confused and frustrated, and to keep them focused on the spath wondering why he is doing what he is doing. They don’t care what kind of attention, they often prefer negative attention because it makes them feel more powerful and more in control in a perverse way.
Once a survivor knows that a spath is harmful to her and he is not going to change, recovery is faster and better if the survivor focuses her valuable time and energy on not having contact and not keeping the spath and all the negativity and harm that he is, in mind.
Thank you for sharing. It sounds like the counselor understands abusive relationships and has some things to offer to help you heal. Your progress in doing the hard work that it takes to get free and to recover is inspiring. It sounds like you are moving forward really well.
Very good comments here from everyone.Surviving a marriage or long term relationship is like surviving a bear attack or a shark attack . It left me scarred and courageous at the same time. I had to pick up and move FORWARD through my life . Once the sociopath who harmed you is gone, they are very much like a wild animal that has disappeared into the woods or ocean. Most likely they won’t be interested in you anymore or wanting to come back . If you keep in contact with them, even with ideas of revenge, you would only attract their interest all over again, and they will ALWAYS be better at harming you . You must save yourself and run the other direction.
“I don’t always kill things, but when I do it’s because they are things and I am a bear .”
I found that the moment my kindness and optimism returned to me was the moment my ex husband was truly defeated .
I did not want to waste another precious moment of my time hurting because of the pain he inflicted on me and my son.
Eventually the arrogance and recklessness of my ex husband and his inability to keep track of his web of lies will wreck him against the rocks in the end .
Cutting of all contact saved my life. For NOTHING will I ever give him the opportunity again to blame me for his selfish, inappropriate , evil actions .
Life is so much better without the poison in my/your life.
I never ride rollercoasters!
My days are filled with regular tasks, but things that couldn’t get tended to with him in my life.
I get so much accomplished. There is peace.
I was insulted,played,and disrespected…
So my reaction to that is No Contact Forever!!
Remembertoforget,
I like that comment.
Very nicely said.
All the false promises, all the things he was going to do around my house..not done. NOTHING.
Everything is still broken but I will get them done.
I really like the part about daily tasks.
Simple. Peaceful.
Stronginthecity