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
Jane doe
Yes , it is total regret that I felt when reading no contact. I was dazed, confused and in a state of shock. Once again I was like “wtf?” And he just went on and a “romantic” dinner at the ocean with one of his minions , while I was laying in bed crying and shaking from the pain. No care in the world for him, he was probably laughing about his “stupid ” wife .
Nothing good and healthy comes out of communication with them ,nothing.
I love my new life. I don’t want to wake up next to liar, a cheater, an abuser. It was very difficult for me to detach myself from the only life I knew. You will be ok as long as you don’t “lose ” yourself in the past. I learned to not go back there. It will eliminate the urge to contact him .
Kaya
That’s the key not to lose yourself in the past. Looking at the past we tend to look
At what we thought were special times.
I do notice when I’ve told him I miss this or that, he will mimic the same thing the next time he contacts me. Almost like he writes down what I said and repeats what I thought was special knowing how to pull me in.
I remembered something that was awful behavior recently. Before me, he had another girl he was involved with, a young, poor foreigner, (those are the types he chooses for wtv reason, probably easier to manipulate) and they ended their relationship. On his way back home from her poor country, he stopped in another country and met up with another young poor girl he’d been in touch with, probably telling her all kinds of promises. He spent a few days with her and continued home.
Sounds pretty remorseful on his part after just ending a two year relationship.
When we began seeing one another it was shortly after that and he relayed the story about the girl he met up with telling me how she won’t leave him alone, claiming she loved him and he couldn’t get rid
Of her so he just ignored it all. Funny though the ex gf never appeared again. I bet she dumped him.
That sh have been my first red flag warning.
A least when I look back I can find some horrible things he did and not just “good”
JD,
I know, imagine if we had a group gathering!
We would wear name tags of our aliases!
Lol
🙂
Remember
As I write to each person on here I try to have a visual image of what each looks like sometimes…sometimes that helps when j can put a face to the name 🙂
JD,
I get that!
Thank God we found this place huh?
🙂
Remember
Oh yes it is a godsend being here.
I’m chuckling as I write because I’m in the backyard relaxing in the sun with my feet up in an old pair of shorts and tank top.
I don’t think that’s what I would be picturing of another person…or perhaps another would be imagining of me right now lol
JD,
Oh she was in love and wouldn’t leave him alone? Right…
Just sayin, their grandious self image. I think guys who brag and boast are full of crap.
My ex told his cousin I could have any girl I want right now, but he wanted me. LOL. Wow, ANY girl? That’s a big claim.
Sure.
grandiose….spell check
Remember
Oh yes she was in love with him and wouldn’t leave him alone…mm hmm ok.
You’re very lucky he chose you out of ANY girl, aren’t you? 🙂
If narcissists love themselves so much, why are they such crappy beings?, I mean isn’t loving ourselves the first step then we can love others? And if it’s really that they hate themselves, yet act like they love themselves, then that’s just some sick twisted sh**t.
Remember, I have been reading a lot about Narcissists lately, particularly covert, since I believe my ex falls into that category.
If I’m an interpreting correctly (and that’s a big if!), its not so much whether they love or hate themselves. It’s that they are empty pits that constantly need and seek validation from us. They want complete adoration and worship from their supplies. We are their drug. They need us to fill the void. But its not love. It’s like they are trying to steal our light. They will do anything to keep us under their spell.
Enter all the lies and manipulation, love bombing, etc.
We should understand that they will never have enough….. No one woman can fulfill their need. Hence, the multitude of partners.
Once they see or feel our complete devotion wane, they may begin the discard process.
What they fear most is losing their supplies before they decide to discard. They fear being found out…. Enter more lies and manipulation.
Yes, very sick and twisted.
I learned that spaths think and ‘feel’ so differently from normal people that it’s not accurate to view their words and actions in the context of the paradigm of a normal person’s behavior. My ex psychopath does not feel love nor hate for himself nor anyone else. He does not experience the same emotional life that normal people have. His ‘feelings’ are limited to contempt, resentment, glee at duping other people, power and control at manipulating and abusing others; and he desires status and prestige in society.
Ameille22,
Sounds right. Let’s say they are GREEDY.
It just seems though often that they think they are so great. I guess that’s just the ego from getting what they want all the time.
Mine was a covert N too, with a mix of sociopath or some other flavors…
It has got me a tad this week.
You have come a good way since this ordeal yourself. 🙂
Very nice to see…
We’ll all get there.
Anette
So true. Getting a divorce is usually hard on the kids. It’s emotionally shredding and difficult. When I got my divorce, it was a big relief instead.
Nothing is worse than abuse, including divorce. The unknown can actually be a nice place.
My 20 plus year marriage ate away at me from the inside out, day after day, until I was so weak that I did not care anymore. Living with a narcissist gave me stress lines on my face, dark circles under my eyes…within weeks of his discard this all disappeared. There was a huge physical difference in me.
My ex was never the father to his son he should have been. Once I was free of him, I was liberated and strong. Before I was intimidated and weak. And that was always the goal of him, to keep down in the darkness. We might think that a discard is the end of the world, it really is the beginning of a new chapter in life. One that is incomparable to my old life. One that is sane, happy, calm and free.
JD,
Nice!
Well it’s a cloudy, slightly rainy day here and i’m working at salon.
🙂
It’s my Friday!
You got it…that’s EXACTLY it! My family (brother, daughter, son, husband) all feel like I do not deserve any sympathy because they warned me and I chose to ignore the warning! I keep trying to tell them that they do not understand, but nothing will change their minds. I am deemed stubborn and wanted to go my own way despite the advice of people who had only my best interest at heart and tried to warn and protect me! They cannot understand why letting go was so hard for me….I must be a sucker for punishment for continuing to go back after obvious signals of abuse. And they cannot understand why I haven’t just “written her off” as far as my thoughts are concerned….
You know how I feel? I was abused by someone who lied to me and tore my heart wide open in order to serve her own agenda. To this day, if I was still in contact with her, she would have an excuse for everything that happened and tell me that she loves me to the moon and back…for 1000 years! I guess I wanted to believe so badly. So obviously her mouth was full of lies and I will never get closure from her because honesty is impossible. What makes it that much harder is that I cannot talk a bout it with my family EITHER because they are too judgmental of me and cannot understand. So we really are alone! If family and friends cannot understand and therefore be supportive, then we talk to each other, to our therapists, and to God.
I never realized before now, not only that there REALLY ARE bad people in the world but that I could be in a situation in which talking to family would actually make things worse. So we smile, pretend we are OK, and write in our journals, PRAY, and go to love fraud every day. This is where we are understood. The world is NOT the place we thought it was…
Never again
Very very accurate and well put. I do not discuss with anyone anymore because they either think it’s my fault or I simply won’t let it go. They even snicker when I have said “until you read about this and are in this situation nobody just can get over it…I have gotten into heated discussions with a close friend who does not agree and won’t hear me out. And that’s fine and so I choose to not discuss it even if she asks if I have heard from him…I just say NO.
As far as closure…ha that is one big joke that I am learning to accept I will not get. When it all happened and inwould message him in detail about what he had done he wouldn’t respond. As though three years with a person did not exist. He was so caught up in his own world and marrying a new person that I did not cross his mind and I gave up emailing and went NC.
I now understand the things I have learned over the past year, why he is the way he is. I don’t or haven’t asked for a reason for his behavior, because now I know, I don’t ask how he could do this to someone he loved so much, because now I know, I don’t ask why how he can flip from bejng with me one week and get married the next, because now I know…he avoids anything I contact him about and that’s what made me go nc. But, when he is “missing me” or whatever it is he wants, he suddenly has all the answers to my questions…they are all lies and he has answers at the time Of his contact because he wants something and he knows I was looking for answers…it’s only when he does the contact that he will give me answers. They are all bs answers about how I’m the love of his life and she isn’t and he’s made a mistake…yeh wtv.
I now know they are all lies, just like you saying she will love you to the moon and back…she knows you love to hear that and it will make you happy to hear it…she DOES NOT mean a word of it. She will use it when she feels the need to speak to you and when she doesn’t need you those words to her are nothing but meaningless until the next time.
You’re correct about speaking with family making it worse. I’d rather pretend I’m fine than to discuss it with ppl that don’t know what advice to give, it doesn’t help and even makes it worse
Because spaths don’t bond, three years with someone don’t mean anything to them, but they fake it to get things they want.
It’s sad to me that friends and family do not listen and take what someone says about their feelings and their hurt at face value without judging. Taking the attitude of “I told you so” is not the best way to help someone feel better.
Never,
Yep, even our own friends and family can’t understand, leaving us feeling more crazy, more alone and isolated.
The world looks different to me these days. No more rose-colored glasses.
Eyes wide open, and I see them EVERYWHERE!
NeverAgain
Your last sentence is such a jewel of revelation and insight. You are SO correct. I think it was one of the hardest conclusions that I had to internalize.
I had a certain world view, a view that I had control, that what I chose mattered, that I had friends/family that loved and supported me. That if I did good, then good would be the consequence. That I accepted myself, warts and all, but on the whole, I knew I was trustworthy and honorable and empathetic.
By the end of my marriage, NONE of this was true.
My world had turned into a very hostile place and the sooner I accepted my reality, the better I could protect myself.
I did get lucky and got free from my marriage, a long and difficult process that was blamed on me, when in reality, he kept sabotaging it. He didn’t want me, but he wanted everything on his terms. He wanted me to stay and “take it”, wanted me to stay so he could point at the pathetic me and scapegoat and ridicule and humiliate me. And at the same time, blame me for leaving him, the man who gave me numerous STD’s, encouraged people to assault me, and nearly ended my life.
But, I learned, I had no real support from family and friends who said my marriage woes were merely opinion and the poopoo’d the mindgames. “No one can hurt you without your consent” they paraphrased Eleanor Roosevelt. They refused to hear me educate them on covert abuse, or how gangs of my husband’s family would coordinate abuse. They said I was being exaggerating. Invalidation was the “support” I received from family/friends. It was ONLY Lovefraud that I found people who endured the mindgames and traumas that I lived. ANd I learned to keep my mouth shut, that this is my emotional support. Even my jewel of a therapist, while she helped me escape an abusive marriage, she didn’t understand the depths of the emotional abuse and how very EVIL the mindset of my ex. She is GLAD that I am free of him but STILL thinks he just needs therapy to get in touch with his feelings. She sees him as dangerous to me, but does not think there is any such thing as EVIL.
For a long time, I did smile and pretend everything was okay. I was lucky and moved thousands of miles from my ex. So, eventually I came to discern how far to trust different groups of people, but I never trust anyone outside of LF with the truth of the nightmare of my life with a sociopath. I tell people I had a very difficult and painful divorce and that’s all I say about it, my short explanation shuts down all questions about my past. I live my truth of who I am, what I love, how I give and share, freely and openly. But my past is not up for discussion.
MY entire world view has changed. I am wiser and far kinder to myself than I had been my entire married life. Things are different after a sociopath, but I found a path back to the “ME” who was before the nightmare and I found happiness because of WHO I AM, in spite of WHAT HE WAS.
Thanks for the kind words. Unfortunately, we ALL learned the hardest way possible that our kind hearts and kind eyes could be abused. And we learned the hard way that we don’t have all the support we thought we had because this is a “must have been there to understand” situation. Reality has hit us in the back of the head and said, “DEAL with it.” But, you know, I hear strength in the posts from EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US. We may have been victims once, but we are on our way to becoming survivors now. We are not down and out. We have rough days, but each day we get stronger. And the lessons we have learned and are learning will NEVER be forgotten because the pain was too deep. Ours is a great SUCCESS story. I believe that!
So, often when the weekend comes my recently single friend invites me to go out, out being a place I could possibly have a run in with the spath, and everytime I say thanks but no thanks. I did go the one time and it was safe!
Anyways, I always mull over in my head saying the reasons why I don’t want to go to my friend, she and they always say…f that just go, and act like you don’t care.
It’s just funny the process that I mentally go through, and I don’t give any reasons whyto her, but now that I think about it…the reason is, I don’t want to go near ANYWHERE he could be!!!!!!!
Remember
See how easy for your friends it is to say f that? Because they don’t know what you will endure if you do see him again because “you’ll just get over it”
If you think there’s any possibility of running into him then you stay away..if you did go knowing he could be there it’s as if you are attempting to break nc, and you’d have to start all over again
Have your guards up and protect yourself like kaya
You’re doing the right thing for yourself not to risk running into your ex. Is there a different place you and your friend could go out, where there is no chance you could run into the ex?
A,
No, because she is going with other people and invited me.
it’s ok anyways I am perfectly at peace staying in and relaxing with my dog. lol
🙂
That makes sense. There are always places to go and people to go with, that suit your situation.