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 Why Me
She will I guarantee it get Hers in the end. The money will be all gone and he will literally screw the daylight out of her.
How do I know this you ask????? She knew about you, she didn’t hold herself to a higher standard, uses even poorer judgement when it comes to money. Oh yeah she will be screwed and won’t even see it coming. Pity her girl, thank her for taking him out of your life so you can be whole again. I am headed for bed now, my last thought will be of you and I am praying for your recovery. I only mean well when I speak to you. I wish you a good night.
Stay Strong Stay Safe and Stay Sane. I am Seeing Clearly
Thanks Oxy. Yes I agree with you 100%. The ex is NOT “normal”. I just wish I saw it AND ACCEPTED IT so much sooner instead of living in denial and knowingly believing his lies. That would have spared me so much heartache and pain.
Dear Seeingclearly,
Yep, you ARE seeing clearly and that is EXACTLY what will happen to her and she won’t even see it coming until it is too late to duck.
The NEXT VICTIM after is is indeed a victim whether they know it or not, because if they KNEW he was cheating on us and went along with it anyway, they get what they knew was coming but didn’t want too see/admit, and if they didn’t know what he was doing, then they are in the same boat that we were in and will get blind sided until they finally get enough and kick him to the curb or until he deserts them for the next victim.
They have NO way of winning—only losing.
Goodnight!
Hi Oxy,
Sounds like you have had a good day! Was your late husband a licensed pilot? If not, an experienced sportmans license? I’m just curious for my own experience. I need to get educated on this.
I am copying and pasting you…
if this JERK WAD was from SC, that would be my exspath!!! LOLOL Sometimes it can be a small world!
“He is such a jerk wad, irritating, but harmless, not like a psychopath!”
OXY>>>>>> YOU LEAVE DOUBT THERE!!!!!
That sounds like prince charming jeff!!! LOLOLOLOL
Sweet Dreams!
soimnothtecrazee1!
Dear notcrazee,
My husband was a professional pilot all his life and aircraft engineer. He had his first plane at age 14, and had all the FAA issued instructors licenses ground and air except balloon pilot and he was working on that! He had retired, and built a small airport here on our farm and had two apprentice aviation mechanics and 10 or 12 student pilots at the time of his death in a crash caused by one of his advanced students who choked on take off….a major snafu.
The guy who bought the last little plane was one of the student pilots and he is irritating as heck, but harmless…but he worshiped my husband. My son D and I joke that he will set the plane up as a shrine to my husband and bow down to it. It was a bittersweet thing to see the plane roll out of here on a truck though. He wanted to fly it out but I no longer keep up the insurance on the airport so I’m not about to assume liability for anyone else’s take offs and landings unless they have insurance and since the plane wasn’t current in annual inspection, etc. there wouldn’t have been any company that would have insured an illegal flight.
The P-jerk-wad that owned the land across the road where the plane crashed in his pasture sued me for $50K for HIS “mental suffering” because of the crash. Of course he did NOT collect a sent but still the insurance company had to send an attorney to fight it!
I did have a good day really, and I intend to work at having one good day right after another as long as I am on the green side of the dirt!
I NEED TO VENT…..I’ve staid NC, and felt total APATHY to the EX-S- in my life…but tonight was more that I coudl bare as I ran into him at an un-expected dance cocktail party that in the past he would never attend!
He was there with one of the women he betrayed me with in the past, and made every effort to show off his affections toward her. This woman was a prime target because she was looking for a “sugar daddy” as he was looking for a “door matt ” to moove in and take care of him….they danced ever so sensually ever so closely….I know he’s SICK and she’s sick too as she is equally looking to to use him …but why’o why do I feel so jelous and played with???? knowing all I kn0w???? why do I still feel so betrayed when it’s been over for a while???? Also found out he’s going on a cruise with her….GGGRRRRR somthing he used to do with me…..
It’s one of those teeth grinding moments were I’ve lost all my sence of self determination temporary “nirvana”. I’m having a weak moment….I know this too shatll pass…..but in the mean time I rage with anger all over again!
Aeylah – you don’t have to accept your ‘version of reality’ – you can say to yourself – ‘I know the truth, and i am acting like i don’t, but i damn well do! and i will do or think about other things until this delusion falls away.’ Don’t give it any power. feel all this, but view it as if it were happening to a friend and basically you sit with her until the hallucination ends.
Aeylah, {{{hugs sweetie}}}} I understand why you are feeling the way you are, I think most here would. It sounds like both the user and abuser put on the best performing act they could for your benefit.
I did some processing today after a dream I had last night. I think its posted somewhere above this response in this topic. I posted on another topic my thinking things through today. Maybe some of it will help you tonight. I am pasting it here for you to read.
In thinking over the relationship today, I started to think about why so many of us “love” even after the hurt, lies, cheating, etc. How we continue on even after the mask comes off, like in my dream I shared on another topic here today.
As most of us here say “we still love him/her” But why? Do we just love being “in love”? Was it just that we loved who we “thought” they were. Like most relationships that fall apart, there is always that honeymoon phase. Eventually, we see who the partner really is, there true character.
So I started thinking, no one can truly love someone until they have revealed their characters to us. Why is this so? Because character comes with the true actions that are shown to us with consistency.
Until we know someone’s character/true actions we can not say in truth that we know or love who they ARE. This explains why people fall in love with their imagined version of the other person and don’t become acquainted with that other person’s character until enough time has passed for the consistency of their characters to be revealed, or in our cases when the mask finally comes down.
We each have a will. How we exercise our will means the choices we make. The choices we make affect our behaviors. The consistent behaviors a person exhibits is the truth of who they are. Behaviors are the revelation of character. Behaviors reveal what has been happening in the unseen realm of someone’s thinking. He/She revealed what his character truly was. We have a sudden, horrific revelation of what their thinking and choices have added up to. This forced us all to see what an evil character had been developing quietly step by step and choice by choice while we were unaware. We often heard our ex protest after being caught in some bad behavior that “it isn’t like me to do this, or I will do xyz again”. No, it is like you, it IS you. They chose to do what you did. They revealed who they were, not who they aren’t, when they cheated, lied, they were showing us exactly who they are.
If, after having a clear view of someone’s personal character traits, did we ever have respect, admiration, feeling secure and trust in that person? Only then can we state that we loved who this person really is/was.
When we have finally gotten to know the personal characteristics of an individual, and we find that we can not say we love those characteristics. Yet we insist that we still love the person. Never mind that this person lies to us, cheats on us, slanders us to others, even physically abuses us”we insist we hate their character traits but we love the person. It is this so-called “love” which justifies why we are still holding on after leaving it. Whatever the reason for it , this is describing someone who has created a fantasy around the objectionable character. We are not in love with the person”we are/were in love with the idea of who we’ve decided this person is in spite of the evidence to the contrary. This is not reality-based thinking. To insist a person is “good” despite what bad things they actually do is an exercise in imagination only.
Perhaps we insist that we love what this person could be if they only tried (been there a hundred times). This too, is a refusal to live in reality. To keep insisting that we love the rotten character, is our way of holding on to what/whom? We white-wash their character in order to convince ourselves we need to stay connected to them.
When I finally stopped pretending that I loved a person who was actually hateful towards me was I finally able to “let it go”. The key component of mental health is the mind which insists on living in reality/in the truth. We are not doing our mental health any favors by engaging in these mental games which allow us to stay in a bad place. If we don’t love what a person does then we can’t accurately state that we love(d) the person. When I was basing reality on his web of lies and finally wanted to break free to be healthy again”“why was I concocting my own web off lies. I allowed myself to stay “connected emotionally” basing my feelings that were all based on lies, the mask, the fantasy. After removing myself from his web of lies, I needed to undo my own web of lies that kept me emotionally hooked to him.
I’m in my own internal therapy mode today. Sorry for all my rambling posts. There are some (many)days I read and want to say something and just couldn’t get it out in words. Maybe my dream helped me over that next hump of healing. The moving past it all. The excepting reality. Just doing a lot of thinking and wanting to get out my thoughts and share with those who understand what I am processing.
Dear One step,
Hallusination it is…thank you so much for grounding me and helping me see throuh the illusion!!!!
It’s crazy how these illusions of reality wreck havock on our minds. It really takes constant reminders that their show of “happiness with someone else doing what they did with you is just that….an illusion”.
Dear Findingmyself,
keep writting away of your dreams and thoughts….it’ healling for you and all of us to read these things again…thank you.
I rode my bike 30 miles today, did the same yesterday…do consious efforts to mainaitn a healthy life style, releasing my anger and anxiety in excersizing, eating right, meditating, etc…..constant practice to avert stress and health issues….avoid contact with the S…..yet it never fails the moment I encounter him it all goes to pot. I have even considered completely moving out of town since being tied to the same social circle makes it sooooooo hard to avoid running into him and dealing with all that “in your face” crap!!!!…but then again running away form your troubles and hearth achens isn’t going to make it all disapear.
This is thae hardest thing of all….to know that obsessing about it and staying in anger will not set you free…..it keeps you in bondage…allways! Reality is that we have to be patient with ourselves and know that time heals all wounds.
Namastee
Aeyla:
They only have one ‘code’ of conduct.
Remember…..he’ll do the same to her….he can’t start off obviously wicked….or he’ll NEVER place the hook.
In reality…..the jokes on her……UNLESS….she wakes up soon enough and PLOWS HIM OVER IN THE STORM.
The fact he was on YOUR turf, with the new dupe is an emotional experience for you…..has to be……but notice how your processing this…..and it will ‘pass’ as you say…..
Be thankful that she wasn’t you on that dance floor….your SO MUCH FURTHER along…..she may not even know how she’s being used/duped at this point.
Vent away baby……
it’s growth for you!