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
Annette
Ironic
Yep typical behavior of them when we have something to call them on. One time the day before he was to be here for two weeks to spend together, I was speaking online with him. During our conversation I receive an email so i went to check my message…well it was from him, sent to me, but the message was to another woman saying all kinds of sexual crap and that he loved and their trip to Tahiti was around the corner.
The funny part of this is I was on computer at same time with him and said “oh guess who I just received a message from…you!” I relayed the message back to him and he got upset saying “that message was for you, fool! You know I’m going to be with you tmw for the next cpl weeks and I wanted it to be a surprise and now you’ve ruined it!”
Of course I was pissed during his trip but he actually had threatened me that he would not visit if I was not going to believe him and he was more upset that I ruined his “surprise”
That’s got to be the funniest shit i ever heard come out of his lying mouth lol
But was he ever defensive and angry once he was caught..just like yours
Jane doe
I was reading your comment. I think at one point we all come to the conclusion “enough is enough”. I used to beg my ex to come back home, to not throw away his family, to think about the damage is doing to his son. And I still think that a family is the most precious possession you can have in life. To walk away it to lie, manipulate, blame should not be a part of a “family” or relationship. It’s not normal and it’s not healthy to be in constant turmoil, drama and crazy making. Just today my son received a message from him “I miss you so much, if you need anything let me know, I love you “. Translation : “I feel very angry that I lost control over you and your mother and if will do everything in my power to make her life miserable “.
This marriage to him brought out the worst in me and for nothing will I ever let him intimidate me or my son again. He chose to cheat, lie and discard. That’s his choices. Maybe the minions are not capable of replacing the love and respect my son had for him. It’s too late and he needs to face up and let it go and go on with his life.
kaya48
thank goodness as you have said before, you have your son on your side and he turned out to be as wonderful as he is..because theres nothing more significant in life than having your family by your side, and i think you have that with him you did something right for him not to be “fooled” by his father, and where children are involved, you fight for them in a situation like this…its a blessing that you had your child because you may have been married to your ex and had an even harder time dealing with this if you didn’t have your child to fight for!! theres a reason for most things!!! 🙂
Notwhathesaid:
i think i may recall something a while back about your ex and murder, or something to the effect of being implicated in something, am i correct? in your case he is a sociopath and narcisissist? what about psychopath?
i do understand there are so many disorders and its hard to put them into a specific category..one day i will think, yes he is a sociopath, then i read something that makes me think, no he isn’t, but maybe he is a narc…it goes on and on loll
i almost hope that indeed he has a personality disorder versus being “normal” without a disorder..that way it justifies what he has done to my life if he is indeed corrupted..does that make sense? or am i being selfish hoping the worst for him??its almost though i would be disappointed if he weren’t considered to have a disorder and to be able to be a nice person who just took me for a ride! lol i think i watch too much tv 🙂
Psychopaths and sociopaths choose to do what they do. They know right from wrong. They know that they are hurting others. They understand others’ feelings, but they prefer to hurt others rather than act in the best interest of others.
A personality disorder is not the same as a mental illness where someone is delusional, hears voices that aren’t there, or is incapacitated in some way. Spaths understand reality very well, they just like to harm others in subtle confusing crazy making ways. They like power and control, they like others to obsess over them. They enjoy duping others by lying. They prefer to exploit others instead of cooperating.
A personality disorder can also be described as a character disorder. Another appropriate label is ‘evil’ per the definition of ‘evil.’
On the money!
Mental health professionals used to use the classifications of sociopath and psychopath as separate character dusoders. Often you’don’t hear “sociopath” from a psychologist and ‘psychopath” from a psychiatrist.
It was thought that psychopaths came by their disorder through genetics and sociopaths formed as the result of social interaction. Today’s mental health professionals seem together on the concept that both genetics and social interaction play their part in development of the disorder and will use the terms interchageably. Sometimes, people ascribe ghoulish behaviour to the term “psychopath,” and relate better to a non ghoulish (chop you up and eat you for breakfast,) psychopath as a sociopath.
Joyce
sometimes when i get the feelings for my ex flooding back and i ask myself why he did this and what will be the outcome…i get onto this site and hear what everyone has to say…their experiences and advice and i know i am not alone..i thank this site for giving me sanity and peace at times when i need it!! thanks so much :))
Hi Jane-
The simple answer to “why” he did it is because that’s who he is, and even though the characters will change in his life, as he burns his bridges and moves on, his behavior and mindset never will.
As long as you have a memory, you’ll have those thoughts. But it’ll get easier to manage them by time, distance, and living in reality.
Thank you Janedoe
You are so right. For awhile I was seeing my therapist after I filed for divorce. She once told me “do not let the ex use your son as a tool to get to you”. And that’s true. The ex is probably in his narcissistic rage. Not over the loss of the marriage (they don’t value the past ) but the loss of control. It must hurt his ego so bad. I am sure in publix he portrays himself like a caring father and ex husband. But behind closed doors he is raging. It’s very difficult to deal not only with a divorce but also with the fact that he will never understand or feel the pain he caused. Divorces are always challenging , financially and emotionally. A divorce or seperation from a narcissist brings additional conflict. They don’t experience the pain of losing a family. I now realize this man never loved me at all. I was just an extension of him. And so was his son.
I am indeed blessed that my son sees the father for who he is. A manipulator. He cannot except that he lost the privilege to be apart of this family or apart of my sons life. Not just for a fee weeks or months. It might be for ever. Did he think about this consequence before the lying and cheating ? I think they live and exist for their pleasure alone.
Jane doe
I feel the same way. This site has been such a blessing. Most people cannot relate to the drama and turmoil. I could just “throw up” when neighbors tell me “you should be friends with your ex, he is the father of your son, you don’t have to so ugly and demanding in the divorce, why do you deserve alimony , why do you need a lawyer” and so on. They don’t understand that you cannot rationalize with evil, you cannot fight this war alone and must important “you could never remain “friends”. There is no way. And I feel very sorry for women who share minor children or a business with the ex. It must be just a continuation of the drama. I would not know what to do if I had to remain in contact with the ex.
Thanks to everyone here for your inspiring , honest stories and I can tell that it is hope but keeps us all going on. Without hope we would be lost.
NotWhatHeSaidofMe
Sometimes the term Narcissistic and Narcissist are confused. Someon who is Narcissistic, indeed, principally considers only themself. But being Narcissistic and being a Narcissist differ. A Narcissist, indeed, is categorized as a Cluster B personality disorder which, at it’s core means that the person is void of empathy or conscience. Narcissists are Narcissistic, but not all Narcissistic people are Narcissists.
The difference is the element of harm they will inflict on others. A Narcissist will throw their grandmother under the bus to achieve self agrandizement. They will deliberately fabricate situations that harm others. A person who is Narcissistic will be selfish and self-centered, but may have a degree of caring that prevents them from deliberate harm toward others.
All sociopaths are Narcissistic, but not all folks who are Narcissistic are Sociopaths. All Narcissists, however, have little empathy or conscience.
Joyce
Joyce,
Can you direct me to read about “clusters”? I try to learn but also keep in my mind which is opinion, which is an actually study, which is DSM codes or criteria. I haven’t found the source for “clusters” but I do see people refer to the disordered as cluster b. Makes me wonder what happened to the cluster a’s, and if there are any other clusters.
I do find though, that narcissist have empathy and conscience, but… it only applies to themselves or what they see as an extention of themselves. And I understand that sociopaths can have empathy for their victims but instead of caring, they FEED off the feelings of their victims, getting pleasure from victims misery…like parasites feeding off their host.
Janedoe, if you look for the article on the signs of sociopathy, it lists all of the traits. If your guy is a spath, he will exhibit many of those traits. When I came to the site, someone had mentioned that my guy was a sociopath, and she told me to google it. When I finally read the definition, a light bulb went on. It suited him to a T. I’ve dated other run-of-the-mill jerks who were not sociopaths, but this guy was a classic one. You will know when you find that article if he is or isn’t. Either way, he betrayed you in the worst way. At some point you need to come to terms with your anger over that betrayal and try to understand why you stayed in the relationship after that. This will bring the focus back to you and your own path of healing, because he doesn’t deserve one more minute of your time.
stargazer
yes i have seen the list of traits and yes he exhibits many of them, i suppose they don’t need to exhibit all of them to be sociopathic. there are so many different things to understand such as what joyce above explains the difference of being narcissistic and narcissist…
Not and Jane-
People don’t have to tick every box on the Hare checklist to be a “cluster b.” at the core of their condition is lack of “affective” empathy. That’s the “ouch” that you feel when you see someone get injured. Without it, you can’t develop a conscience. The only thing that prevents you from harming others is fear of exposure or consequence to one’s self.
They can be over sensitive about their own pain….. That’s not empathy. Empathy is felt toward others.
Also, they can have a highly refined “cognitive” empathy. That’s the ability to grasp what is going on with another person.
Robert Hare’s book on Psychopaths is good reading for those who’d like more information.
Thank you jm
It is quite confusing with all the terms and then they have a few of the traits from each category..sociopath, narc and psychopath…while mine ha the capability I showing empathy in certain cases ( a sad movie, a lost child, even when we say goodbye and he boarded his plane back home, he always used to say the image of my face a he was leaving on the plane when we first met,will always haunt him, good I’m glad!) and then his empathy doesn’t show in some cases is where I tend to get confused. Is he truly sorry for what he’s done when he says he is…maybe/maybe not…but I will look into the cognitive empathy you mentioned as well as the book you suggested. Thank you
Dear Jane,
The scientific word is Louse.
Love, NoContact
No contact
Your a crack up!
Thanks for the laugh…
Regards Ironic ★
Jane Doe,
Consider if your ex spath may have been faking empathy in the cases of sad movies, lost child, etc. My ex faked it with the right words, but his actions didn’t match. He tended to get calmer when someone was hurt or suffering in some way. When he was cruel and abusive, his heart rate went down and he showed other physical signs of becoming calmer and more relaxed. He would lie and say he was bothered by others being hurt, but his actions didn’t match.
Also consider if your ex may have SAID he was sorry, but did his actions match that sentiment? Did he stop doing what he said he was sorry for and do the opposite? Did he make amends in any concrete way for what he said he was sorry for?
Annette PK, your words on fake empathy are so true! My spath always laughed at others pain or had no reaction whatsoever. I could always tell his truths of crimes he had committed because it was the only time he told stories in a calm matter or he would laugh and it was like he’d be patting his own back for a job well done. However, if a sad movie was playing or in the beginning when he sensed I was about to be upset, or when he wanted his friends to play into him…hello crocodile tears!!! Those tears always bothered me, because he had no appropriate words or sincere reactions…his eyes and words said it all. Funny I questioned his tears yet let those same tears convince me otherwise. It’s so important for people to realize the seemingly small signs!
Thank you so much for these great explanations. I know my therapist labeled my ex as a narcicisst. He absolutely had no empathy or compassion for others. Not even his family. When do people become narcissists ? Is it something they develop during childhood ? I know my ex was the middle child of 5. There was not much love or closeness in his family. His father treated the mother badly , ended up cheating on her and leaving her for a young coworker. I am wondering if my ex inheritad a gene from his father ?
I definetely saw the lack of compassion early on on the marriage. It was all different when he was hurt or in pain. As far a me, he was never proud of me, never made me a compliment.
After 20 plus years it became the normal but now I know it was not “normal ” at all. Still glad he is out of my life.