When people realize that that they are involved with a sociopath, the standard advice from Lovefraud is that they should, as quickly as possible, cut the predator out of their lives. That means no phone calls, no e-mails, no texts, and certainly no in-person meetings. It means No Contact.
Of course, there are times when this is difficult, as when our reader works with the sociopath, or they have children together. In these cases, they need to implement No Contact as best they can. But let’s now talk about situations where it is possible to get rid of the person, such as in a dating relationship.
What is the best way to establish No Contact? Clearly, firmly and permanently.
The rules of No Contact
The book called The Gift of Fear, by Gavin de Becker, devotes several pages to the topic of rejecting an unwanted suitor, and these pages are among the most helpful of the entire book.
De Becker writes in the context of a woman who decides she doesn’t want to be involved with a man. Do not, the author says, try to “let him down easy.” Here’s what he writes:
One rule applies to all types of unwanted pursuit: Do not negotiate. Once a woman has made the decision that she doesn’t want a relationship with a particular man, it needs to be said one time, explicitly. Almost any contact after that rejection will be seen as negotiation ”¦ If you tell someone ten times that you don’t want to talk to him, you are talking to him—nine times more than you wanted to.
Here are more points that de Becker makes in the book:
- If you get 30 messages from a pursuer, and finally call him back to say, “stop calling,” he learns that after 30 attempts, he will get a response.
- If you make an excuse like, “I don’t want to be in a relationship right now,” the stalker assumes you will want to be in a relationship later, and keeps calling.
- If you say, “You’re a great guy, but I’m not the one for you,” the stalker thinks you’re just confused, and will come around in time.
- Never explain why you don’t want a relationship. If you give a reason, it gives him something to challenge.
- A nice or delicate rejection is often taken as affection.
“The way to stop contact is to stop contact,” de Becker says. “I suggest one explicit rejection and after that absolutely no contact. If you call the pursuer back, or agree to meet, or send him a note, or have somebody warn him off, you buy another six weeks of his unwanted pursuit.”
Giving in
What happens if you’re wishy-washy about No Contact? Not long ago, Lovefraud received the following letter from a reader who we’ll call “Lenore.”
I literally had to count the days that went by as I refused contact with him, and on day 120, I celebrated because I felt healed. Well, on day 121, he emailed me, and against my better judgment, I emailed him back. He told me he had been in therapy, he realized what he had done wrong, he was on medication.
I was cautious and wary, and decided, amidst warnings of concern from my friends and family, to perhaps work on a friendship again. We worked on being friends for a few weeks, and everything was great and fine. I felt in control of the situation.
Then his old behaviors started creeping in. He installed a GPS app on my phone so he could track my whereabouts. He began calling and texting incessantly, and flipping out if I didn’t answer right away. The verbal and psychological abuse had begun again. Fortunately, this time it did not escalate to physical abuse. He began lying again, gaslighting and acting erratically, and began seeing other women on the side. Last night, it once again became too much and I told him not to contact me again because my heart and my spirit couldn’t take any more pain, and his inconsistency is so bad for my son.
So today begins Day One again without him. I am writing you today to tell you that your no contact advice was the best advice I didn’t take. For 120 days I went without him. It took a while, but by day 90 I was happy and free and at peace. Now I am back to square one.
No Contact is the path to healing from an entanglement with a sociopath. The stronger you can be about No Contact, the faster you will recover.
Ayyyyyyymmmmmeeeeennnn! Haalleluyer!!!!!!.
Girl, you can preach. You got me goin 🙂
Spiritual abuse is still abuse regardless of what the dogma is be it Muslim, Christian, Jewish , Christian, Hindu, Christian etcetcetc…LoL
g’nite all.
Hey, AR, throw a few bucks into the collection plate, I’m a little short this week and need to pay the Bently payment and the payment on my mega-mansion! LOL Maybe hire me a boy-toy to give me a massage! I won’t be sending out photos on my cell phone though! LOL I hope that creep winds up broke and destitute on skid row!
Now in addition to 4 charges of sex abuse with young men, a woman came forward and said one of his henchmen was trying to sex her then when she complained ended up firing her. X-wife of the Rev came forward and said he beat the chiat out of her when they were married (no big surprise!) so things are growing now, along with a big mortgage he is in default on! Just keeps piling up! AMEN!!!!!
Here! Here! Oxy!
silence is not always golden.
Thanks Oxy for the calorie intake guide. I think it’s time I measure what I eat….the whole bit about stress ending up on the tummy makes sense too….but most of all your point about being happily in relationship with yourself is the essential key
So today I am going to measure out the calorie intake…well to morrow…because I just can’t just cold turkey…mmmh cold turkey!!
I have mastered also my “negativity” intake. I can “feel” when someone is vampire sucking my energy and I can put a stop to it efficiently.
I can clear my aura daily of the debris that has been flung into it. I have cut about 6 major cords to dysfunctioning family members and the P and noticed an incredible surge in energy as a result. I’m no longer tired and can handle what were prior to now stressful events.
I use assertiveness when I feel someone is having a stroll over me and the results are astonishing …I get respect or avoidance, both are better than being used as a doormat.
I reckon I had to master that first, now I feel ready to tackle the stone of weight around my middle. Walking is great…I am a very fast walker so it suits me down to the ground (very grounding too)
I’m beginning to love life all over again and see the colours of the sky more clearly, feel joy in my bones , taste food and I can nearly touch the amount of love available to me from situations, people and nature…I feel blessed.
Expressing myself here was/is very very very healing….something occurs, some alchemy where bitterness and pain is turned to love again.
Thanks to all the ordinary decent posters who constantly wade through the negativity of their experiences with a determination and power that can only succeed in the end…
I am now adding energy spirituality to my working methods and helping people turn the negativity around…I am working with 2 teenagers, both made suicide attempts during the year through overdosing on prescription and street drugs…one has very bad liver damage…they are making great progress, and have both received spiriual guidance from their own spirit source…both in very different ways..but what is so amazing is..by coming close to dying they realised how much they wanted to live, and nothing was worth worrying about except …just life and choosing to enjoy it not worry about it. They have both shed alot of inner turmoil and have not dropped out of school.
I think also by coming so close to a psychopath/which is a kind of death…(everything you thought was real is a lie) we eventually choose life again, and when we do life seems to just come and meet us back (with open arms) so never give up…we come back washed of ignorance and see the world through real eyes and it is even more stunningly beautiful and available to us at a new level….we have been through a process forcing us to become more vulnerable and more hurt and it’s right in that fragile beautiful vulnerable part of us (that managed to survive the evil) that there is huge power, and mastery over dark forces that leaves us strong and ….I dont know…. shining even brighter.
If this theory is true…I would have no further use of anger at psychopaths, and I guess that would be the end part of the healing process???
I enjoy hating them too much. I’m attached to the ego -tistical version of ” He did me wrong and I will get him” and the other egotistical illusion we can protect eachother…maybe we can’t FULLY protect each other and it would rob us of valuable life lessons….
Dear BP,
Helping others heal from their own demons is a salve to our own souls, soo that is a good thing, as long as we do not give them ALL our energy, and as long as if they fail we don’t own their failure as ours.
I’ve owned too much failure in my life that didn’t belong to me, it belonged to the person who failed. By me taking ownership of their failure I was depriving them of the lessons learned from failure.
Failure is a wonderful opportunity to learn.
Yep…I often wondered if any of the people I work with ended up actually taking their own life would I feel it was my fault for not doing something that might have stopped them?
After the experience with the P I have ended up knowing now very deeply..(had no choice except to learn this) that I have very little influence over peoples lives or even know who they are completely as even aspects of myself are a mystery…
psychopaths leave you with your life in pieces on your lap….open mouthed and in total shock you watch them stroll off into the sunset with the best of you….you feel sure they will turn around any minute and put you back together…..but they never do.
so, its like tipping over a version of reality that never really existed…and time to start all over again….I felt like the most incredible failure after this!!!
1) I failed to read the signs, red flags, sirens and flashing lights
2) I failed to love him enough so that he would feel his humanity
3) I failed to have an impact on him other than a convenient rip off
4) I failed to reach him, hold him accountable, take responsibility
5) I failed to care for my money, my safety and my life
No matter what way you face…there is failure….and you are right it ‘s a fantastic opportunity to learn
HE IS THE ONE WHO FAILED
Looking back at the relationship I had with the man who I think was a psychopath after my husband’s death. I may not have noticed the red flags right way, and when I did notice them, I didn’t respond right way, as quickly as I wished later that I had, but I WAS THE ONE TO NOTICE, and RESPONDED to those red flags, and broke off the relationship.
So I SUCCEEDED IN STOPPING SOMEONE FROM CONTINUING TO HURT ME.
I SUCCEEDED IN NC
So I don’t think the relationship with him when you look at it in THOSE TERMS was a failure on my part at all. I SUCCEEDED, HE FAILED.
He FAILED to be truthful. He FAILED to be monogamous. He FAILED to be kind and caring. He failed to be RELIABLE. He failed to be SOBER when he drove.
He FAILED. I SUCCEEDED.
He has since remarried, and I am not the least bit jealous of that woman because I know he is treating her like he treated his first wife, like he treated his other girlfriends, and like he treated me. I would be willing to bet The FARM that he has the same girl friends now that he did when he was dating me—that is except for me, and the ex whose house he burned down while he dated me. Nah, I don’t envy the latest Mrs. Psychopath in the least. I feel really sorry for her in fact because I know shes hurting and wondering what she can do to fix the situation.
Bulletproof:-
You haven’t failed. Failure is a powerful word that carries a lot of negative energy. Don’t beat yourself up as a failure. We make mistakes in this life. Dealing with a Sociopath is never going to be a straightforward experience. Unfortunately, you don’t necessarily see what the experience was until you are out of it. You made the choices you made at the time because they seemed the right ones. You didn’t fail. Don’t take ownership of the whole relationship as your personal failure. When involved in any pathalogical/toxic/unhealthy relationship the “normal” daily things we do don’t apply. You were up against something you werent’ aware of. You may have had little warnings, but you only know how significant they could have been with what you know now, not what you knew then. It’s not about failing. It’s about finding your own inner strenght to pick up the pieces, learn what you need to learn, love yourself and move forward, one step at a time. 🙂
Adamsrib: If anything I say offers some solace then that is more than I can wish for. It is about you – use all your energy to concentrate on you. They don’t deserve one more moment of your time spent thinking about them, they really don’t.
Love and peace to you all,
LJ x
bulletproof,
I don’t think that you’re a failure in any way. Like the rest of us, you didn’t know that you were involved with a sociopath until you’d had enough nightmarish experiences (courtesy of “the loved one”) , that in time you could recognize that the man was “off,” a true rebel. If I hadn’t done my own research (suffering tremendously at the time), I possibly would still be in the dark, not having a clue about what ails my h-spath. Thankfully, YOU and I (and all the others) don’t have this condition. In my opinion, it’s the worst mental disorder to be afflicted with.
Ox,
Oh. H yes, I haven’t laughed that hard in a loooog time.
It was because of the irony and the simplicity of it all. When you put it like you did, it was like this arm reached all the way from the farm in ARK and whammed me with that skillet of yours. It knocked the foggy stupidity, that had built up FOR ALL THOSE YEARS, right outta me. I just had to laugh when I realized the craziness of it. You have to know how very cathartic that was for me. Well, there’s ten years I won’t ever get back…
Now, I really need to put something in the plate for you!! 🙂
You were mentioning the profile of the spaths GFs. I call it a profile vs. criteria, as these types always profile us before they move in for the kill.
My “laddie” once told me he liked “insecure women”. DANG how much redder could that flag have been but yes I was taken in by the movie script charm. Even the small towns in Ireland look like movie sets. And, well if you saw him, right out of an Irish Spring commercial….but I regress.
Also you mentioned the financial indebtedness that these types like to get us in. I am thinking of the gym spath on this one. Seems to me they do this because they want us to be dependent so they can victimize us. The items they buy us are not gifts in any sense of the word. And like you refer to ‘free love” we really DON’T WANT THOSE “HIDDEN” FEES DO WE?
The only way I will take anything from a man now is if he is my partner or husband. Small mementos ok but large ticket items, NO WAY!! You will pay for it somehow.
AR