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.
Dear AR,
Glad I was able to “reach through” the screen and grab you!!! Ah yes, I’ve been there myself, SO BEEN THERE! I am such a romantic! (Believe that or NOT, but I am a CLOSET ROMANTIC) I have to keep up this front of being “independent and strong” so no one will know I am this romantic being. I do my “strong’ in public and my “weak” in private.
I remember after learning that the P son had killed a girl and I locked myself in the house for three months, cried NON stop, didn’t sleep for a week (no lie–can you imagine how crazy I was by then just from sleep deprivation!) and didn’t eat a bite for 14 days. Only drank pots and pots of coffee….didn’t answer the door, didn’t answer the phone. My friends thought I had died or something!
It was the worst time of my life, when I knew in my heart he was guilty but I didn’t want to believe it. I roamed the house 24/7 howling like a gut shot dog whose pups have been stolen away. Actually, looking back now, I probably should have been hospitalized, but that wasn’t how we dealt with things, we hid and we howled but God-forbid we let the neighbors know what was going on.
That was January through April of 1992—and until January through august of 2007, it was the worst time of my life! Worse than losing my husband in the crash, worse than anything I can even imagine….and during that time in 1992 there was NO COMFORT, no one to hold me and tell me what was going on. My husband was hurt as well, but he didn’t know what to do for me. I wasn’t about to seek “help”—I didn’t realize how badly I needed it. Nothing could help me because I didn’t know where to look.
Fortunately, that June, a friend of mine who was a director of nurses for a psych hospital (I’d never worked in psych) kept badgering me to come to work for her in any capacity I wanted. She was desperate for nurses. I went to work “part time” (and that worked out to be 12 hours a day 7 days a week before long!
But I got an education in working with borderline and psychopathic kids (though we didn’t call them that) and realized that 1) I wasn’t alone and 2) my kid was not the worst one in the world–there are others worse than murderers.
I will always believe that God sent me to that job, and that it was His way of sending me comfort when I so desperately needed it and didn’t know where to look.
I also believe the hand of God was in me finding Love Fraud that horrible summer of Chaos in 2007.
There’s been a LOT I NEEDED TO LEARN, and a LOT I STILL NEED to learn, but all around me are the teachers and the lessons, and all I have to do is to be willing to LISTEN and to APPLY THOSE LESSONS to my life—and presto! Life gets better!
“Sometimes God will calm the child, and sometimes he will calm the storm.”
The point is that we have the strength we NEED to get through the things we need to get through. We just have to believe that and keep on doing the best we can.
AR just be glad that you weren’t the one married to the “laddie” no matter how “Irish Spring commercial” beautiful he was.
Yea, being “independent” is a good thing, and I have gotten to the point that I would rather sleep in a card board box under a bridge than to sleep in a mansion provided by someone I couldn’t trust! (fortunately I don’t have to do that, now but I know I am WILLING TO if it ever comes to that!) Realizing that my egg donor was willing to join up with my P son and his dupes to drive me out of my home and off the farm made me realize I had been totally right to not trust her and to not depend on her for my shelter! As it is, my home is tied up on the land trust until her death, but she can ‘t put me off as I built and paid for this house, and pay the taxes on it, so it wasn’t a “gift” from her though it is sitting on the family farm lands. I was and am willing though to leave here if I must to keep safe, and I won’t ever look back if I have to leave, because I do NOW realize that “home” is where you hang your hat, not sticks or bricks. This farm I loved so much is just another piece of dirt, nothing sacred or holy…just real estate. It never loved me back. The care went all one way…just like with a psychopath.
Dear Ox,
It never ceases to amaze me just how resilient we humans are. What you describe is heart wrenching. I have sons and I can’t imagine what it would be like to experience what you have and still are from reading your posts.
I so resonate with that intense, deeply crippling feeling of loss. I too howled at the moon with craziness for days and days after I lost my Anam Cara. Like a wolf who loses his mate will howl for days. This is what your story reminded me of. Saw a show on PBS just last night about the Lobo and how they mate for life. I truly believed he was my mate-he was; in my heart, soul, body, and spirit. In every sense of the word I was fully married to him. More than to the on paper husband I was legally married to before. Only the loss of my children would have gutted me more.
I am very emotional tonight from today’s revelation. I know with every ounce of my existence that he knows what is transpiring within me right now and that he caused it. Not even death severs the Anam Cara bond. Sometimes it goes sour but it remains a bond.
You are SO BLESSED to have had your husband as your Anam Cara. Sounds as if he was a gem. Thought mine was too but this past week it all unraveled as I realized I probably was spathed in the most insidious way; when the spath is so “kind and loving” and he presents as a True soul. So sad.
BUT, the hope is this: I have pulled myself up by my short and curlies many a time, my dear. Sounds like you have too.
God Bless you brave Oxy. You give us inspiration.
I will close my day by remembering the amazing laugh you gave me earlier!
AR
Dear AR,
LOL ROTFLMAO, of course I have pulled myself up by my “short and curlies”—to the point I’m BALD! LOL ROTFLMAO You gave me back a really rousing belly laugh THANKS!!! I needed that! Oh, Lordy, I NEEDED THAT!!!!
Yea, My H and I were a pair that’s for sure! 20 years of a great friendship and 20 more married! He used to say there was not another man west of the Atlantic that would have me, and I said “that’s great, cause there’s not another woman east of the Pacific that would have YOU! And we were both right! LOL I never laughed so much in my life. Even if we argued we laughed, even if we shouted we LAUGHED! It was just PURE FUN to be around him. We lived through some tough times together, and we didn’t always know how to comfort each other’s sorrows but we were always THERE for each other. We lost one of his sons to brain injury and then death, we lost one of mine to prison, we faced adversity together—and Oh, God I MISS HIM! But at the same time, I know he would be saying an “Atta Girl” to me at the way I’ve survived. He never doubted my ability to survive. He used to tell me, “Girl, they could put you down naked in any city in the world, and give you a year and you’d own the place!” It wasn’t true, and I never believed it was,but just KNOWING that HE BELIEVED IT WITHOUT A DOUBT was all that mattered.
Everyone in the world should have ONE soul in the world that believes in them, REALLY believes in them at least once in their lives. Doesn’t matter if it is a lover, friend, parent, grandparent, a horse or a dog, and doesn’t matter how long that relationship lasts, but I think everyone is entitled to one relationship like that!
Good night! and thanks for the laugh and the sentimental tears! (((hugs))))
Filing a no-contact order is really not an easy thing to do. Either you got strong proof or you are strong enough to stick to your guns.
I didn’t have proof. I had to stick to my guns when they minimized my story.
He came home drunk and said his bar buddies said he is “whipped” and that he should go home and “whip the bitch”. He said I am lucky that he doesn’t do that to me.
The personnel intaking the restraining orders smiled that ‘good news’ smile and said “he said he wouldn’t do that!”
I got mad and said that is a veiled threat and you know it!!!
Well, finally they caved and I got my no contact order.
I also pointed out that he kicked our daughter in the stomach. They said that was a month ago. I pointed out he said he would rape me the other night when he came home drunk. This didn’t make a difference. The only thing that made a difference was the thing that happened the night before I filed. (which was the upper thing I posted)
Ox,
g’nite my friend 🙂
jeanine812 – my sympathy that you have had to endure the exponentiation of evil and stupidity. so sorry.
Dear Jeanine,
It hurts to be invalidated! To have people who are supposed to care NOT GIVE A RAT’S BEHIND! I’m sorry that you went through this!@....... Hang TOUGH!
BE SAFE! God bless (((hugs))))
One_step and Ox,
that was years ago, and yes it still hurts, thank you for the posts!
I mainly posted it to the post about “no contact” order.
I bite my tough when I started to write how I got burnt out by dragging my husband to court. I think he liked the attention and purposely screwed me around so he could sit near me in court. I finally stopped taking him to court and I ate dirt.
I was so worn out from him trashing me in the court room. No one listened to me. They only listened to his smart ass blurts.
I gave up on getting him to pay half of the kids medical. (I’m sure it’s law, but it was never written in the court order) He didn’t put the kids back on his medical insurance after he got back to work from being laid off. He screwed our kids over in other ways too.
I was so worn out and tired. That I just worked more hours to pull up the slack he left me.
To this day I cannot step foot in a court room. I have panic attacks.
Dear Jeannie,
There is an old saying “once a cat has jumped on a hot stove, you can’t get him on a cold one.” We develop aversions to places we have been hurt! DUH! I can’t say as I blame you.
Sometimes it is better, easier, takes less energy to just walk away upright rather than to fight for a few extra bucks in CS or whatever. IF (AND ONLY IF) you have the energy to spare is it worth it. Sometimes it just isn’t worth it to keep on fighting just because you want “justice”–sometimes justice is priced too high.
I’ve been in both places, where “justice” just wasn’t worth what it “cost” and other places where I had the energy and I was gonna go down in flames before I gave up! It just depends on the TIME AND PLACE as well as “is it worth it.”
Years ago my late husband was cheated by some con artists out of his business and he fought for 10 years and everything he had to get “justice” and he “won”—but in the meantime he was tired, broke and what he got back was an EMPTY company name without any assets. He “Won” but at WHAT COST!???
I used to be like that, but at the same time I have learned a BIT of discretion since then and instead of just automatically fighting an issue, I sometimes just sit down and weigh the options and various costs.
Some things are WORTH fighting for in my opinion, win, lose or draw. Others, just aren’t. You just have to make that decision for YOURSELF in each situation.
I hope your kids know and appreciate what you did for them, and the bravery it took to do it! Sometimes the BRAVEST thing is to retreat! (((hugs))))
Oxy,
You have the frickin’ BEST one-liners.
This one from an above post on this thread.
“I SUCCEEDED IN STOPPING SOMEONE FROM CONTINUING TO HURT ME.
You have also said (and I think it’s one of THE BEST lines on the site)…
“We start out learning about them and end learning about ourselves”.
And the line about how “Once a cat jumps on a hot stove, you won’t get him on a cold one.”
I think this is how I will feel for some time about the idea of being with someone new at all.
I’m on Day 6. Weekends are TOUGH. I notice how he tries to reach me during the work week. Weekends are just to busy with his new flavor of the month to think of me. Not that I give a damn. But PLEASE, like I’m going to respond on a Monday to some gushy, fake email, after you’ve spent the weekend with the latest victim! Ah, not that I would respond to ANY gushy notes. It’s the NERVE (that we are always amazed at how much they display) that I can’t believe.
I also love Oxy’s lines
“So I SUCCEEDED IN STOPPING SOMEONE FROM CONTINUING TO HURT ME.
I SUCCEEDED IN NC
He FAILED to be truthful. He FAILED to be monogamous. He FAILED to be kind and caring. He failed to be RELIABLE.”
You are good, Oxy.
I think I will likely take a break from LF for a few days. For me, I just need to see if not being here helps make me think less about You Know Who.
Oh, by the way, I HIGHLY recommend the book Self Matters, By Dr. Phil.
This is a WORK BOOK, so you have to be prepared to write things down , which does not seem to be a challenge to all of us here…..who seem to be able to express ourselves rather well. LOL.
This is not a weekend read. I actually think this is a 6 month project…..and would be something we would return to often (like old posts on LF) to remind ourselves of what we wrote, learned, felt.
I listened to the audio version on one of my many marathon drives, to understand what it was all about. Now I’m going to sit down, SLOWLY with it and start the work.
Hey, is anyone else like me and when you learn something that helps you, you want to provide that info to your ex? I actually sent the “Essence” article by Steve to him…..When I listened to Self Matters, I was thinking of the answers HE would give to the questions, more than my own? Clearly I have a WAYS to go here. LOL.
But hey, I started yoga yesterday and will be doing it 4 days a week and other classes as well…..So I’m working on doing things for me that are JUST for me……without him seeping in.
Either way Sisters, I don’t beat myself up for anything I feel, think. I’ve had enough of someone telling me what a stupid, worthless, idiot I am. I don’t need to continue to abuse myself by continuing the pattern. So if I think of him, I think of him. If I spend hours a day with LF, then I don’t beat myself up about, “should be using that time to be more productive”. If I decide to take a break from LF, then if that’s going to help me, I’ll do that too.
I am ALLOWING my recovery to go at the pace it needs to go at. I ALWAYS want to RUSH things. I CAN’T rush this. My WILL will NOT make this go faster. The ONLY WILL I need is to keep the NO CONTACT rule.
I AM taking measures to help myself each day. I’m doing the things that are good for me. So I’m patting myself on the back for being above ground (it was touch and go there) and that I am functioning……In fact I’m functioning WELL, for the most part.
The BIGGEST thing I’m doing for myself is NO CONTACT.
Peace Sisters