Lovefraud recently received the following e-mail from a reader:
How do I process a relationship that had so many lies in it that I don’t know really with whom I was involved?
I miss the person I thought I knew so much, but at the same time, he was involved with someone else, and others, since at least last June. I thought he had had one affair—but not anything to the extent that it looks like now.
How do I process a relationship I never had? Was he lying the whole time acting out the “I love you’s”, the romantic comments, and the idea that we should be together? Is it all an act?
Most of us are reading and posting on Lovefraud because we were intensely, callously, brutally deceived in a relationship with a sociopath. The betrayal was so deep, and so profound, that all we can say is that the person we thought we knew, the relationship we thought we had, didn’t exist.
Much has been written here on Lovefraud about the different aspects of recovery. But in response to this reader’s e-mail, I’ll review some of the key points.
Understanding sociopaths and “love”
Sociopaths do not feel empathy for other human beings. Therefore, they do not have the ability to love as we understand it. There is no emotional connection, no true caring for the target of their “affections.”
What is going on when sociopaths say, “I love you?” They are not all the same, so there is a range of explanations for what they mean.
At the clueless end of the range, sociopaths may view the target as attractive arm candy, or may like the attention they receive from the target, or may enjoy sex with the target. Sociopaths may label as “love” whatever it is they feel with the target. So, “I love you,” means, “I like how I look when you’re with me,” or, “I like the fact that you’re showering me with attention,” or, “I like having sex with you.”
At the sinister end of the range, sociopaths know they are cold-hearted predators and view their targets the way cats view mice. These sociopaths play with their targets for awhile, then, when they tire of the game, abandon them, leaving the targets battered and gasping. Or, some sociopaths will go in for the kill, usually figuratively, but sometimes literally.
The reader asked, “Is it all an act?” Often, the answer is yes.
Accepting reality
The sociopath may have painted a picture of an exquisite future of unending togetherness and bliss. Or, the sociopath may have latched on to our own nurturing instincts, and convinced us that they can only survive with our caring and support. Then the mask slips, the story unravels, and we learn that everything we believed was a lie.
We must accept this reality. We must believe our own eyes and recognize the truth.
This may be really difficult. We thought we were working towards our dream. We made important life decisions based on what we were told. We may have spent a lot of money—maybe all of our money—at the behest of the sociopath.
We don’t want to believe that it was all a cruel mirage. We argue with ourselves—there must be some other explanation, some other reason. We may say, “I must have misunderstood; no one can be that heartless.”
Yes, sociopaths are that heartless.
The reasons they are heartless do not matter. Yes, in some cases they have had bad parents and a terrible childhood. But as an adult, they are not going to change. They are what they are, and the sooner we accept that, the sooner we can begin to recover.
Time and permission to recover
The psychological and emotional damage that we suffer because of our entanglements with sociopaths is often extensive. We may experience anxiety, depression, guilt, self-hatred, and perhaps even post traumatic stress disorder.
Some of us are so angry with ourselves for falling for the scam that we punish ourselves by blocking our own recovery. We say we will never trust again; never love again.
Please do not feel this way. If you never recover, giving up on trust and love, the sociopath will have truly won. Deny him or her that victory. Give yourself permission to recover.
Recovering from this damage is not an event; it’s a process. Readers often ask, “How long will it take?” The answer: It will take as long as it takes.
We may need to move forward in several directions at once, but it’s okay to move forward slowly. Some steps to take:
- Protecting our physical safety, if the sociopath has made threats, and what remains of our financial assets.
- Taking care of our physical health—eating right, getting enough exercise and sleep, avoiding alcohol and other substances.
- Finding a way to release the pent-up anger and pain within us, without showing it to the sociopath, because that will backfire.
- Rebuilding relationships with family members and friends that were damaged because of the sociopath.
- Letting moments of joy, no matter how small, into our lives. Joy expands, so the more we can let in, the more it will grow and the better we will feel.
The Lovefraud Blog has many more articles that focus on how to recover from the sociopathic entanglement. You’ll find them in the following category:
Believe in yourself. You can do this. You can get past the experience. You may have lost your innocence, but in the end, you’ll gain invaluable wisdom.
eb,
Yes, i have no doubt about it. Mine, before i started suspecting strongly, though still i have already started a bit, he told me, several times, that his frustration in life had been not being a rich man and he mentioned very proudly that his older son had as girlfriend the daughter of an important German theater empresario. I realized he was serious about being money and fame his most desired ambitions in life. He was not able so he expected his older son (psychopathic too. The younger one it’s “just” seriously mind fucked) to fulfill this ambition.
That’s why he behaved with me as if he were a perfect gentleman till cracks in the mask appeared. By the way, he thought i had more money than i have (which i have not) and he also thought i was more ambitious economically than i am.
Eva:
Seems we have all ignored the red flags in the past, but no more. Never again. We are all too smart now.
OK, going to the gym now. Don’t post too much for me to miss while I am gone!
I can only comment, on this “script” thing, that sometimes the way people become sick is a big signal of their script. If someone’s script is helplessness, they certainly get a stamp of approval on that if their disease is breast cancer. Ditto for AIDS, M.S., and a few other diseases that do really big box office on the pity circuit. This does NOT mean that the only reason people get these diseases is a script involving pity. But it certainly is telling in some people, isn’t it?
And although I don’t the data can ever show it conclusively (too many cofactors), repressed rage has to be a big factor in cancer. (I can see how that might make it more common among the victims, not the perps.) I think Wilhelm Reich even wrote about that. It was controversial at the time — so much so that the U.S. government destroyed all his papers. But does the U.S. government destroy crazy-bananas stuff that’s capable of discrediting itself anyway? I mean, why bother? There must be something to it. . . .
So I’m sitting here going over that “relationship that didn’t exist” with my sister. Time for some reminiscing. And I get a lot of nice memories. She doesn’t remember any of that, unfortunately. It “didn’t exist.” I was totally not there. She wasn’t there. Nobody was there.
Sister,
I like your attitude, and agree with much of your statementabout breast cancer research being a money pit and I think you are on to something about spaths and cancer. Changed, please don’t be offended, I admire your compassion and dedication to a cause you believe in. But I no longer swallow hook line and sinker ANYTHING that the pharmaceutical companies are involved in.
Personally, I believe spaths cause cancer through stress, but they can give themselves cancer too. The connection here is : Emotions. (of course!)
We know they can cause US cancer by subjecting us to soooo much unbelievable stress by playing with our emotions.
My understanding is that they have shallow emotions. Or in other words, they don’t FEEL any emotions very strongly, so they seem to be fearless, uncaring and cold. I’ve started to research something called Alexithymia, in which the emotions are disconnected from the physical sensation of the emotional response because of an inability to LABEL the physical sensations, AS EMOTIONS. In other words, the person has the physical presentation of the emotions but not the emotions themselves. So where did the emotions go? I believe, they go straight into the body as chemical/electrical or other physiological reactions.
My spath went through a stage of panic anxiety, where his heart would speed up with tachycardia out of the blue and he was nervous about it all the time. (this from a guy who taught himself to fly helicopters – he has nerves of steel) He eventually subdued it after about a year of several episodes.
I think it was alexithymia. So if this is the ways spaths are, it is actually that they are like infants, unable to manage their emotions and just freak out constantly by the collage of physical/emotional sensations that they have mislabeled and misappropriated. No wonder they blame everyone for everything, they really DON’T know why they feel like they do.
Anyway, it seems to me that there is a chronic stress in them and that it could cause cancer. My spath had chronic heartburn and acid reflux, which, is known to cause cancer of the esophagus(sp?) if not treated for years. I now understand that excess stomach acid is a symptom of suppressed rage.
Our bodies ARE intricately connected to our emotions and suppressing them or ignoring them can very well be detrimental, so cancer for spaths is not out of the question.
That said, are you SURE your spath sis has cancer? spaths use the cancer pity ploy alot and they lie alot. All evidence needs to be double checked.
skylar:
I have a comment somewhat related to what you said. I think my X spath is afraid he is going to be dead by the time he is 54. He will be 44 on Friday; I think that is another reason I am thinking about him because his BD is coming up. Anyway, he told me that his dad’s dad died when he was 54 and his dad died when he was 54. Yikes! They do say that things like that are genetic so I said “Is that why you act the way you do?” His dad died of leukemia, but I don’t know what his grandfather died of. But it makes me wonder if there is something about the repressing of the emotions and cancer.
Nolarn:
Yeah, but I thought they just need “supply” not necessarily drama. What is really the definition of supply?
I have another question for everyone. What do you all think of spath’s who are covert I guess you would call it? I mean, I have heard story after story on hear about men and women who spew profanities, do drugs, steal, lie, cheat, beat, rape, etc. What about the person like my X spath who is truly without a doubt a spath, but is not physically violent, does not beat his women, is actually kind of sweet? Isn’t it in some ways more dangerous? I realize that physical abuse is VERY dangerous; it could take someone’s life and I totally get that, but you all know what I am getting at. Does anyone have comments about this?
eb-mine was not at all physically violent, in fact with me he was sweet. The nurses at work hated him and said he was a loud mouthed arrogant know-it-all who thought he was GOD. He did have a really big loud voice and you could hear him all over the unit but when he was with me he was a soft spoken gentleman and he smiled a lot when he was around me. He spoke to me very sweetly and was always respectful and listened to what I had to say. He would call me sweetheart and baby all the time and sometimes he would just grin like a big kid. He was also extremely protective of me. If another MD was giving me a hard time and we were disagreeing about something, if I vented to him about it, then the guy would be apologizing the next day. One time the night charge nurse was being really mean and nasty to me and he called her bitch in front of everyone and told her to lay off me. He was sweet. That’s why it was confusing when he would do things like starting a fight per text message or starting a fight when he was going to be around her and we couldn’t talk. Sometimes too he would say things that were insensitive too. His best friend lived by me and was having a party one day. He called me on his way home and said that he just drove by my house and he was on his way home. I was hurt and asked him why he didn’t come over and he said-“it would be a little hard for me to do that when my wife was following behind me in her car”. So definitely his behavior was confusing.