You’ve finally figured out what is wrong with an individual who has taken advantage of you, abused you, perhaps even assaulted you. Reading Lovefraud, you realize that he or she is a sociopath.
Now, you’re an emotional wreck. You’ve been profoundly betrayed. You’re justifiably angry. Plus, the sociopath has caused you real problems. Perhaps all your money is gone. Or you’re in a vicious child custody battle. You’ve lost your job, your savings or your home. You suffer from anxiety, depression or PTSD. You feel so far down that you don’t even know which direction is up.
You are outraged by the sociopath’s actions. You are further outraged that after this individual bulldozed through your life, he or she seems to be facing absolutely no consequences. The predator has simply moved on to a new target, leaving you in a heap of ashes.
You want your life back. You want to sociopath to be accountable for the destruction he or she caused. And you want to make sure he or she never does this to another human being. But the predator turns on the charm, or plays the victim, or convinces everyone that you are mentally unstable. No one seems to be able to help you. In fact, no one even understands what you’re talking about.
It’s infuriating. If you were honest with yourself, you’d have to admit that you really want revenge.
“Living well is the best revenge”
This proverb was recorded by the English poet George Herbert in 1651. Perhaps whoever originally said it hundreds of years ago knew about sociopaths.
Right now, with your life in tatters, you probably feel like “living well” is an impossible dream. But you can start working towards that goal immediately—and stick it to the sociopath in the process.
The sociopath’s prime objective in life is power and control. If you deny the sociopath power and control over you, you take away what he or she wants most.
The power and control that the sociopath exerts is primarily over your thoughts and emotions. You can break that power and control, and it doesn’t even have to cost you any money. The first step, of course, is No Contact. We talk about No Contact all the time on Lovefraud, but if you need a refresher course on how to do it, read:
It’s true that No Contact is difficult in many cases, such as if you share children with the sociopath, or you work together. In these situations, you need to get to Emotional No Contact. That means you detach emotionally; you do not allow him or her to upset you. There are caveats to this as well, because sociopaths are capable of atrocious behavior that really pushes your buttons. In these cases, you certainly deserve to be upset—just don’t let the sociopath see it.
Remember, they want power and control. If they see that they have triggered you, they know that they still have power and control over you.
The key, therefore, is to focus on healing yourself and improving your life. It will take time. It will require processing the pain, disappointment and anger of the betrayal. But if you decide to recover, you can do it. For more on this, read:
5 steps to recovery from the sociopath (they’re not fast or easy, but the healing is real)
This does not mean that the sociopath should get away with what happened. But if you want to hold the sociopath accountable, you need to do it from a position of strength. Working on your own recovery is the best way to develop the strength.
“Revenge is a dish best served cold”
The source of this statement is also unclear—it was first translated from French to English in 1846, but apparently was already a proverb by then.
It’s not a good idea to consciously go out to seek revenge. (Another proverb attributed to the Chinese philosopher Confucius states, “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”) But as time goes by and you build your inner strength, you may suddenly find yourself faced with an opportunity to hold the sociopath accountable.
The sociopath, of course, will continue a life of destruction. Eventually, he or she may target the wrong person or seriously break the law, and someone may contact you to find out what you know about this disordered individual. Then, in a calm and collected manner, you can describe your experience, provide evidence that proves a pattern of behavior, and contribute to some type of justice—whether it’s getting the individual prosecuted, exposed in the media, or just ruining his or her efforts with yet another potential victim.
Revenge may be possible, but probably not right away. So focus on your first priority, which is healing your own life. Then, be patient. By releasing the pain and upset of your betrayal, you’ll be ready when an opportunity arrives for justice.
To you, justice will be sweet revenge.
fight,
I hope everything works out the way you had planned.I can understand your hesitancy to possibly get the wrong kind of renter.If that need should ever come back up;just describe the type of person you want to rent to-be specific.Best if it’s a woman.
As long as spath is there,stay as detached as possible.Don’t let him decide for you when you’ll watch TV or what program you’ll watch.You have the right to your privacy.And you have the right to speak up!How many renters actually have such a cozy arrangement?That’s alot for him to expect!
One more thing.Can’t remember if I’ve ever posted about this or not.It is surprising what a mobility-challenged person can do should they become enraged!My husband who spends most of his time either in bed or his wheelchair,actually managed to open up his wheelchair,get in it and push himself down TWO HALLWAYS WITH HIS FEET WITHOUT USING ANY OXYGEN!He had come looking for me because I was gone from the apt longer than the time limit he’d given me.I was walking out into the hallway from another apt when I saw him.I can imagine the look on my face,though I tried to look calm!I could only think,”If he could manage to do all of that,WHAT ELSE MIGHT HE BE ABLE TO DO?!”
Blossom: Thank you very much. I agree that they can do things when they want. But, he has no key to my place. I did make the decision to watch the show and I do know how to get tired and need to rest. I believe he is mostly an Anti=Social Personalty Disordered spath so when I still had hope a couple of years ago, I was the one pursuing while he rejected. Now, I have a friend to talk to on the phone, this website, my gardening for the spring and summer, lots of classic movies and TV shows I like to watch by myself, etc. He prefers being alone. I am lucky in that. If I get lonely, I can visit my friend or be outside with the birds and flowers. We also have completely different sleep schedules. I am a complete night person and he wakes up just as I am going to sleep. The only power he has is over whether he stays next door or if he goes to the VA housing. The only decision I have to make is how much money I can save until the housing for him becomes available and what I will do after he is gone to get the right person in there. I have given myself six months without renting it to get to live alone and rest. I have saved enough and I can trim my budget enough to do that.
Since this article is about revenge, I would advise people to be very careful about it. It is best not to tell the spath if you have warned another woman. It is also best to make up a fake email, FB page, anonymous letter, or dial *67 to block your number if you call someone else to warn them. Ultimately, revenge is a dish best not served. The other victims won’t believe it any more than we would have, or did, when their previous victims tried to warn us. The best revenge is no contact/safe contact after they are gone from our hearts and lives. They don’t get to be with you. The best revenge is never to loan them money or give in to their lies about drama that only you can fix. The best revenge is “to thine own self be true.”
Fight, you said “He knows I know what he is, and he is very unhappy about it.”
So do they know what they are? How much self awareness do they have or realization that they are sociopaths? Are they merely aware of not being like everybody else, or do they clearly know they have a serious mental or personality disorder? I’d really like to find the answer to this question. It’s something else that’s been nagging at me. My husband used to get in melancholy moods that could last for days. I’ve read that bipolar disorder is common with spaths. He seemed to really get it that he was a loser at life, often in trouble at work, the black sheep of his family, etc. Then he’d snap out of it, get that smirk on his face and say something inflammatory to me like, “Hey there wifey, what’s for my dinner? You haven’t started cooking yet? A man’s hungry so get busy.” He was right back to the bullying and degrading treatment. Do you think he knows he’s a sociopath?
Hi Imarriedit:
I don’t think a sociopath knows without being told. And then they go into complete denial or you could be putting yourself in danger. I have been studying Narcissism and Sociopaths for about a year now. I have been reading books about those “disorders” and other books about verbally abusive relationships. I don’t want to answer your questions for you because you will find your own answers as time goes on. I would say that you will want to read, read, read and stay connected here at this web site which I have found to be very safe and helpful.
My spath knows because I began slowly showing him things. I got out my copy of Patricia Evans’ books and made copies of the types of abuse I encountered from him. I asked him if he was willing to read them. He seemed surprised and said, “I do almost all of these.” I can’t read his mind so I can’t say for sure that he knew his behaviors really were as unacceptable as I had told him the first time he lived here and from week 2 of the second time he lived here. But, he seemed to see himself through my eyes for the first time that day. I am absolutely not recommending that anyone do that. First, yes he admitted what he was doing. But, he then went back to doing all of these things and never took a single step to stop them unless I got false hope and forced him. IE: Once he had admitted it to me, I got him into anger management group counseling. He sabotaged it three weeks in and blamed it on my “attitude” about it.
I think for the most part, sociopaths say what they think we want to hear at all times….and then they only do about 10% of anything good except for a few weeks here and there when we are ready to dump them, or have dumped them. They want what they can’t have and they will fake a whole other personality to get it.
I feel for your fear and anxiety about him. I would definitely recommend that you continue to learn and not say anything to him. I read a lot, tried to ask him to change his words and behaviors and saw that he was not going to do that. He is a 57 year old man and he has gotten his way from doing and saying those things throughout his lifetime. I won’t ever change that. I tried twice now. It took a lot of research and a little luck to find out he cheated on me the first time multiple times. It was obvious at the time, but every time I would bring up seemingly inappropriate behaviors,he would become enraged and tell me I was jealous and crazy. Now I know the truth. We live separately in the same building and he is old and feeble from his lifestyle choices. So, lately I have been letting him know what I know. I have given him printed out materials from reputable medical sites listing the behaviors of sociopaths, narcissists and anti-social personality disordered people.
When he tries to smarm me, I now immediately think “What does he want?” 90% of the time. That is my first thought any more. In one book I read, the author suggested saying, “You’re so transparent.” I also began telling him that he was a textbook narcissist and that he was not unique at all. I told him there were millions of people EXACTLY like him. THAT was all to draw my line in the sand and let him know that I know what he is and he is not anything special or unique or any different than every other sociopath out there and I KNEW it.
I can’t recommend that for anyone else. That is just where my journey with him took me. I will tell you that once he seemed to break down a little when he was very ill after coming back from the hospital. I asked him why he continued to make things miserable here if I spent much time around him at all. I asked him why, if he loved me more than anything or anyone as he continued to say, would he be so cruel, call me such ugly names and rage at me over nothing. He told me, “I have to win.” I asked him if winning was more important than loving to him and he answered, “Yes.” He answered Yes as if THAT were normal to consider winning a small disagreement more important than showing someone respect and love.
Mine has also tried the “I’m no good” junk. After I began revealing the creature (him) I was experiencing on a nearly daily basis to him, he began telling me “stories.” He told me a few days after I introduced the work of Patricia Evans, that he was surprised at what a loser he had been all of his life. He shared a story about being 6 or 7 and that he had thrown a rock at a neighbor baby. He told me that when he was 10, he was transferred to a science and math school for gifted students and after a couple of weeks, the students had all signed a petition saying they didn’t want him there. So, he was trying to seem deep and pull at the heart strings. Yet, those stories are pretty harrowing and describe a sociopath from early on. The way he told them was odd and an act.
I think a part of them knows. I think they enjoy it most of the time and they pretend to “let their guard down” when they are “losing” instead of “winning.” And I know for a fact they will NEVER change. NEVER. I have known this man off and on since 1996. I will never know all of his secrets and I know some pretty pathetic ones. But the one thing I do know is that he knows enough to make a decision to stop it and he will never make that decision. He will always be a sociopath until the day he dies.
And that is true of 99.999% of them. I have read about therapists whom have said they fixed one or two. I have heard of women whom have said their spath changed….usually when they are old and sick. But, the solid truth is that most of them will never change, never feel real love, never have any depth, cheat, lie, steal, and do a lot more than we can see for the rest of their lives. The only reason they can be so very charming when they want to be is because they are so awful in reality. If they only showed the “real” them, how would they find such nice people to abuse? They have to be super charming….not just regular people.
Mine is a cheater, a liar, a thief, and a creep. He likes transvestite porn. He likes all other kinds of porn…as deviant as he can get and still be legal. He has a foot fetish and he looks at feet all of the time on line. He rejects and then says he misses me…usually when I am right next door. He doesn’t call to TELL me he misses me. He says later that he misses me all of the time…with me right next door. Sociopath.
Yet, when he wants something, he can be the most charming, humorous, intelligent, and fun guy in the world. This is a pathology that not even professionals can completely explain. A brain malfunction they may never figure out. The only choice is to research, study, get support here and possibly through therapy, or groups for codependents, and pay attention to everything he says and does to make your decisions that are best for you. I can say that if you are young and do not need him for support or money or because of children, get therapy, study yourself, raise your self esteem and begin looking for truly nice men. If you have children or are older and you feel your best choice is to stay in the relationship for now, I would suggest keeping your own secrets and revelations to yourself (or outside support you can trust), and pretending as if he is a ventriloquist’s dummy and know in your brain and heart that anything good or bad that comes out of him is not coming from a real person. You are dealing with a sociopath. If he says something ugly, don’t take it personally. If he says something wonderful, don’t take it personally.
Fight, good post. When I finally was told by a therapist that mine was displaying sociopathic qualities and that they were rprobably elated to his childhood growing up in El Salvador during the civil war and witnessing people dying in front of him as a child I started to talk to him about this….
He too was starting to question himself and knew INTELLECTUALLY that this was true but EMOTIONALLY couldn’t process it. Near the end he couldn’t even have a conversation with me bringing the word “sociopath” up or he’d lose it and shut down. So much as that last month it ended in a physical altercation. So I agree that it can be dangerous!
Its hard being a teacher…a biology teacher!! its hard not to want to explain what’s going on and why. I learned a hard lesson that’s for sure.
Thanks for the post.
Dear all in this lovely healing community,
I am some 15 months on….. Just earned myself an inevitable little lawyer’s letter from spath.
I felt such a moral imperative to warn the new target. I couldn’t bear the thought of another life devastated, another soul pillaged, another charade for spath to notch up.
The aftermath was intense for me. The utter incredulity of being so duped, used and humiliated.
I am having a crisis that Donna’s whole programme of education is futile.
Women who are entranced and deluded by the self serving, opportunistic spaths DO NOT WANT to know.
Nobody wants bad news. Nobody wants the illusion to shatter.
Do we have to experience such indescribable trauma and evil before we reach for insight and healing literature and support forums?
Is there no hope for preemptive, educational media?
Chastised and downcast 🙁
mo: I think we all have to learn our own lessons. My first husband whom I will say had some sociopath tendencies said something I will never forget following our divorce. He had put off picking up his stuff for months. I finally called him and told him it would be out front in two weeks if he didn’t pick it up. He had many friends, was a member in AA, etc. He brought two friends and a big moving truck. I was so distraught. I said to the men, “Keep him away from your sisters, your daughters, your mothers and any women or he will drive them crazy.” The friends, of course, chuckled and I DID look crazy.
My ex-husband said, “Stop it. You can’t save the whole world, you know!” He want on to marry a woman a couple of years later who was just like him. She was in AA and she was stealing drugs as a nurse. She got him into debt. She did more to him than he had ever done to me. Many years later, he called to make amends to me and told me about it. He wanted me back. He seemed like a figment of my imagination by then. I felt no attraction whatsoever. Nobody warned him about her either!
We can warn our younger relatives. We can recommend books to young people about potential relationships. But, other than that, we have to protect ourselves and let those people learn on their own. The spaths get old and no one wants them any more. They lose that swag and nothing is less but grumpy old man. And the creep was right about one thing: You can’t save the whole world.
Thank you Fight. this has been the hardest part for me as I am passionate about justice… I have made myself look very unhinged.
Let’s hope the ageing process is accelerated in their case.
Ugly, ugly beings that they are.
I pray for IT to become a mere figment of my worst nightmares.
be well and happy Fight x
fight,
I’m glad that your spath likes being alone and that your sleeping schedules are different!
You said something in another post that caught my eye:”They want what they can’t have and they will fake a whole other personality to get it.” Basically I already knew this,but it stood out as a good reminder!My spath has been showing up at congregation services more frequently lately.I have remained NC.He is clearly there because he wants me back.Before I left,he was content to listen in on the phone line.He won’t initiate contact because I sent him a certified letter early in the year telling him I wouldn’t keep him from a public place of worship but I expected him not to start any scenes inside or outside;just to leave me alone.He’s hoping to “wear me down”.
MbingSadly most of us get to learning about these disorders after not before encountering them which is why Donna’s programme is critical. Mo is right once the lovebombing has begun the uninitiated arent going to heed warnings
Sorry all can’t edit my posts on my phone
This is so true, but so hard for me to still walk away from. My first marriage was abusive, but this boyfriend and the way he used me has ripped my soul out. About 2 weeks ago I went to a dance where he was, he has been looking for his next victim even before we broke up. To long of a story to tell but in the end he pushed my buttons and I ended up looking like the crazy one. Now he has gotten me banned, so I’m sure he thinks he has the last laugh. I go between leaving it alone and no, I’ll show him. I’m so depressed I don’t know what to do and don’t understand why. This site has helped me so much.i had lost a husband 2 yrs. and he was a high school sweetheart, I just fell for it hook line and sinker. He was separated but still married, and trying to win her back behind my back, used money I loaned him to buy her birthday present, and never spent a penny on me. I’m so mad at myself.
Hi kathyj.
I understand completely I can tell you with my ex he had me convinced his ex gf was crazy
but in time all things start to become undone I started to see cracks he couldn’t hide it forever. Now I am positive he is saying the same things about me. As nasty, unfair and as cold as this treatment is they are not worthy of your energy or time. Just try to tell yourself eventually the truth will come out it will take time to recover but just think there is someone out there for you someone better its not your fault in time things get better my advice to you is try to be strong and cut contact completely or as much as you can that way u can focus on healing many blessings to you I hope you get to a better place soon stay strong.
fight, I thank you for your reply. It was full of good information and I will re-read it many times, I’m sure. I noticed yours is 57 years old, and mine’s about to turn 57. He’s totally obsessed with transvestite porn too, (and shemales.) We’re supposed to be OK with that, too.
I had a funny experience when I provided the process server his photo for delivering the divorce papers to him. I said I really didn’t think Spathy wanted a divorce. She said, “Of course he doesn’t! Look in the mirror- you’re cute, and he ain’t no Casanova!He’ll never get another like you!”
She then said, “You don’t believe that, do you. He’s made you think you’re not attractive.” How did she know? He made me feel stupid and ugly so I wouldn’t think I could ever get anyone else and I might as well put up with him.
To this day I treasure her remarks. He can troll all day long for men, women, couples and trannies, but he ain’t no Casanova! Like other posters said, when they get old nobody wants them. Instead of reeling in goldfish, now he’s bringing up carp, haha. Being able to laugh at them sometimes is so therapeutic!
We can all just keep reinforcing each other like this and I believe a whole group who knows the truth sharing with each other is the best. I am so glad someone directed me to this web site.
We all KNOW the truth after we study about spaths, narcissists and other creatures with personality disorders. It the TELLING of it to each other and support that will get us through anything. As long as e keep sharing here, they can’t truly isolate us or fool us.
This sums up why LF has been such a source of strength and comfort to me fight, love to you.
Victims want justice; targets of sociopaths want and deserve no less! Engaging with them keeps us in their web. We have to heal and restore our lives and know the day will come that brings to light the smoke and mirrors of the sociopaths who tried to destroy what they couldn’t take: us! I can’t wait to finish the book started, with humor and integrity, to shine that light! We found strength in numbers!
While seeking revenge, dig two graves — one for yourself. – Doug Horton
Recovery is sweet! It is that strength of character a sociopath never had….and never will!!!