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.
Hi Sadme. I can totally relate to that finding your hand in the middle of the night. When my exsp was totally snoring asleep to the world, he’d still find my hand, pull me close to him, make sure we were always, always, in physical contact. If I ever questioned his love for me (and I often did), I reminded myself (and him) how much he truly loves me because when he is dead asleep he is reaching out for me. He could not stand to not be held or holding me in bed. We cuddled for hours. We poured out our hearts and cried over our lost childhoods, holding each other as long as it took to ease the pain. We asked each other repeatedly “Who Are You?” when overcome with the realization of how lucky we were, how no two people could ever be so intimate, ever. And yet, given all that, there was always that sinking feeling as well as that feeling of knowing this was not right, that something was very, very wrong with him. It was easy to ignore those warnings while so blissed out. Eventually, it caused a major split in me, which is why I am so grateful it ended when it did, three years into a likely forever. Despite my gratitude, I still miss the night cuddling and him reaching for my hand. I don’t doubt he needed that. He needed and wanted my love all the time IN THE MOMENT, but I finally realized that all he said and did in the moment never added up to anything meaningful. It was all about right now; he loved to say “when I promised to commit to you and raise your son with you I really felt it in the moment… I meant it when I said it,” etc, but he never ever followed through on anything and when and if he did it was with resentment. I recently read (here I think) that one of the reasons we cannot get let go, stop thinking about him, etc, is because of the initial “love bombing” which does something cracklike to our hormones so that we try and get back to that state of bliss… sort of like spending our lives trying to get back to the womb… I feel for you, I woulda coulda sometimes too. If only he was normal… (he would not have left his wife either… nor left me or threatened to leave me or… ) Nighty-night, B
thanks Bodhi
I understand that bliss of thinking in his unconscious moments, he reached for you. My husband is now doing that with another, but there have been LOTS of anothers. I came to realize, all the women were interchangeable. He habit/need/desire was the same, it didn’t matter who the another was.
That’s the sad part. He did feel it at that moment, whatever it was and “it” was never loyalty or respect or honor or cherish. Problem was, moments follow moments and he didn’t feel “it” then.
Interchangable. Sorry. Thats the answer “how he could do that?”. You. Me. All Interchangable to someone who can not connect and therefore, the next moment didn’t matter to him.
adamsrib – as Hens says On my! Your Northern Irish guy sounds very similar to mine
By biker I mean motorbikes, anything that he could afford or that I bought him lol. He could also drive. Not sure if he ever cycled, but I did later find a comment he had made on a skateboard forum. I have no idea why skateboards as he had showed no interest in the 10 years with me.
Mine too was an alcoholic and was having serious health problems, which he wouldn’t tell me about, when I threw him out.
We used to go to the pub on every St Patricks Day. Our local would sell Irish stew. Wouldn’t surprise me if mine had drunk himself to death before St P’s day. I’m so glad now that I don’t have to go to any events.
This is the Oh My bit:
He was a card carrying member of a paramilitary group but was here in the states because he had a daughter born in my city. If he had done time in NI he would not have been allowed to travel but he just never got caught in his “army duties”.
Mine claimed to have been in that too. I don’t want to post too much about that obviously, you can imagine the stress of living under that sort of thing. We used to go to gigs by…. can’t remember the group’s name actually, but I’m sure you know who I mean.
After I threw him out the police sort of informed me he had a wrap sheet as long as my arm, although wouldn’t go into details. Another contact, an ex army guy, confirmed that he was being watched by the security forces, but they weren’t sure if he was actually involved or just hung around on the fringes. So very very scary, especially when he said he had people following me and when he rang friends and told them he was going to kill me. I’ve said to people if I’ve ever found dead to make sure the police chase him as he will be the prime suspect.
adamsrib – Been thinking. I haven’t heard anything or seen anything of mine since 2007, which makes me think he’s dead. You said yours died about 3 years ago. The timing is similar.
Mine said he couldn’t go abroad as he was being watched, so we always holidayed in the uk. Perhaps he didn’t want me to go to the US?
Is/was bird watching a hobby of yours before you met him? Mine had an interest in history, but then so do I. But he could be into anything anyone else was.
what did he look like? I’ve got a nagging feeling it might be the same guy. Did he go by a particular nickname?
I am sorry if my analogy triggered unsettling memories to anyone. It is the only way I can describe what I discovered. You see, one night a woman showed up at my front door, just as I asked him to re-wash the door glass because he’d done a poor job of it. He opened the door and this woman hauled off and slugged him in the face. He told her to go away and she did, but later that night she texted me and told me the story of her relationship with him that had gone back 2 years. She had been left by him 4 times, lent him money, bought him clothes, paid his rent, etc, etc, etc and finally threw him out for the last time. But she threatened me, telling me that he was only with me because I was his woman of last resort and if I took him in she would continue to see him behind my back.
She knew everything about me, about me and his relationship, intimate details that only he and I knew (I thought). She said he hated me but was willing to use me to stay off the streets. Then she forwarded me a dozen messages from him where he put me down, professed his love for her, asked her hand in marriage, blah blah blah.
Then she proceeded to list the other women she knew about that he had cheated on her with. She was confusing me. I didn’t know why she hunted him down at my house and hit him if she’d just thrown him out.
I was devastated. She proceeded to text me and commiserate about how bad she was feeling and betrayed and lonely, not once understanding that she wasn’t talking to a girlfriend of hers, but to a woman who thought she was getting back together with the man of her dreams. I new nothing about her, or the existence of these other women. The thing that was so horrible about this is that her story, as she relayed it, was like looking in the mirror. We were both living the same life, being played by the same man, in the same way. And there were others.
The night before she showed up I received a text message an hour before I was due home from work. It was 11pm. I had been sick and he said he’d spent the evening making me chicken soup. but this text message, from his phone comes to me, and it says…I’m with Os…y right now, bitch.
I was stunned. Why would he be with a woman when he’d just moved back in with me? And why would he let her text that to me on HIS phone?
Enough about my saga. I want to give my observation about why became so devastated when I found out this man wasn’t who I thought he was. And I wonder if this applies to others as well.
In my situation I’d left a 22 year marriage that was loveless. We were friends, we co-parented, we spent, we owed, but I never felt like I was loved. In retrospect, I think hubby has spath tendencies, too. But this new man listened intently to what I wanted and crafted his behavior to meet my expectations. I was dumbfounded when I finally met a man who didn’t like bananas or coffee! how rare was that? Neither did I. Its that type of character development that they are so good at. And when I realized that it was all an illusion it felt like waking up from a coma and finding out everything that I experienced when I was catatonic was fantasy, and that reality lie outside of my memories. This is so hard to wrap one’s mind around.
thank you all for your support.
Effie – I can understand the thing about coffee & bananas. Mine claimed to be allergic to garlic, which I thought was strange. I had never heard of it before, but yesterday I heard that my aunt can’t eat garlic as it disagrees with her, so some real cases exist.
Its so strange how they twist reality.
Bodhi:
You took the words straight from me. I almost could have written your post. Mine was also totally in the moment just like a child. Not thinking about anything except the here and now. He also could never follow through on anything; was so unreliable. So many things you said I wrote to him in a letter…asking him if things that he did; is that what he needed at the time? I also told him how it was so cruel to make plans with me; ask me to do things that got me excited (like asking me to go to our NFL team game) and then just never following through. Wow. You put is so well. Thank you.
Bodhi – at first we used to ‘spoon’ as he called it, where one would sleep directly behind the other with our arms round each other, but over time I hated even being in bed with him. He would sleep so he took up as much space in the bed as possible. I struggled to stay asleep in a tiny little corner of the bed, while he had most of it. I couldn’t bare him to touch me towards the end, he became such a slob. He really let himself go, didn’t wash properly etc. I ended up buying a single bed and sleeping on that, next to the double bed, which was the one I later smashed to pieces with hammers.
I survived:
What I was referring to was the mirroring that took place. I am the one who doesn’t like bananas and coffee and when he said he didn’t either, that blew my mind. One more reason I was sure he was my soul mate.
My spath was so good at what he did that he would change himself physically. The third time I took him back he immediately shaved his mustache and beard, I complained they cut my face when we kissed.
Then the 4th (and last) time I took him back he came to me freshly clean shaven, but 2 weeks into it I noticed it all growing back. I asked him what was going on with his face, but then recanted saying, “you know what! I don’t want to know.” Because I already knew, he was planning his exit, grooming himself the way the next woman liked.
Creep.
I hope you all don’t mind my ranting. I haven’t really dealt with the anger yet. I am hoping to eventually write about each and every little thing until it is all out of my system.
Bodhi: I had forgotten about that trait of non-reliability until you mentioned it. I couldn’t count on him for anything, either. Keep posting. I don’t want good memories to cloud truths like they are starting to. Thank you for that.
Sadme: My heart breaks for you. Really, truly. No one, NO ONE deserves that treatment. And I understand and validate your pain as my spath stole my wedding ring and my grandmother’s diamond ring. Probably gave it to the OW who contacted me telling me he asked her to marry him. I’m not trying to trump your story, just reiterating that I understand and why.
I wonder every day when I will be healthy enough for another relationship. If ever….