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.
The reason saying no is so hard to do is that it feels unjust, unfair to that person. But I’ve realized that the world is not fair. More specifically, there are worse injustices around than my rejecting someone who was “only trying to be nice.”
I’ve been having conflicts lately about dumping that one friend last summer. I have so many sweet memories of her . . . but there’s no way her abusive other side is going to change.
So I shared with my ex-boyfriend (a healthy, non-spath ex) — shared with him my glee at the awful way I treated her at the end, with unreturned phone calls and such. I actually enjoyed the injustice of it, being the oppressor for a change. Trying out a role, against another mere “actor.” I know I still have the ability to love and be loved, with other people, and to waste that energy on some who don’t get it would be a bigger injustice.
I remember something else . . . She told me repeatedly how much she hated it that people throw away relationships like so much garbage and just move on. Well, hey, that just happened again in her life, didn’t it? There are 6 billion people in this world, and yes, SHE is expendable, replaceable, just like the rest of us have been at times.
Thanks for the encourgement Ox and it is getting better and so many things go through my mind, i went to see my dad’s monument yest, passed my brother and my stepmother on the road, they not knowing the vehicle i was driving, toxic to me all of them, and i will be so glad when i get this estate crap settled, seems you get rid of one toxic and 2 more jump in and i’ve never been more aware of them and how i have such a dam way of attracting them and weak boundaries . The stress of the last 8 years with all the crap in my life has left me sitting here sick and tired of stressing myself out . I’ve been thinking lately that ole saying “ignorance is bliss” wishing if i were as stupid and thoughtless as these people i’ve had to deal with, i’d be much healthier. Kind of funny really isn’t it, to wish to be a dummie , it’s like they have some free pass for being morons haha. I so resonate with all of the posts above, in fact it blows me away how much we are all the same, too bad we can’t just go buy a hard ass armour for the days we want to be jackasses like them, gosh that would be fun, but then i’d feel guilty and it goes round and round. I recently was helping a woman in AA who got involved with a con artist and i am detaching fast, she left a horrible mess on my machine, just becasue i was late picking her up to see her attorney, she didn’t realize she had phone on, and you know i knew it deep down, she was trouble and there it was , the proof . I can hear it in her , she thinks she still loves him and will prob go back but it’s her prob, these types have taken up so much of my energy i just don’t want to waste anymore time. As for my s, i think i’ve come a long way, don’t think i ever loved him, just the illusion as was mentioned, so glad im able to see that. We have a saying in AA, just one drink away from a drunk, and same with the no contact. I remember the compulsion and how strong it was, i had to call or go there, a bad adrenaline rush as i didn’t know what reaction i’d get and yes im pretty sure it’s prob like doing heroin. Sometimes i think of all the wasted time in his garage or just in his presence and it almost seems like it wasn’t me, and in reality it wasn’t me, i was never me. It really is surreal as i feel like my body was kind of invaded by body snatchers(the s) and programmed and to think all those years went by. Mostly i just worry about the damage i did to my health, the rest is just not worth thinking about . love kh
Dear Kiindheart,
WEll, staying P-FREE and drama free isn’t easy, but it can be done. Even in situati9ons where some we love is attached to a P b y marriage or whatever and you have to have some interaction with the P in order to be with their partner.
I’ve finally gotten to the point that they don’t “irritate” me like they did, I think I am just getting to the point that I let it go in one ear and out the other, what does it matter.
Well, eyes still at half mast so going to bed. Good nite all!@.......
I haven’t posted in quite some time. I am now 105 days NO CONTACT!!! The Spath is back in prison and is trying to call me from the facility where he is…..like I am going to take a call (collect call mind you!!) from him….NOT…..DUH!!!!!! This is the longest I’ve ever gone without any contact whatsoever. There have been times where I knowingly avoided his phone calls because I did not recognize the number on caller ID and because I didn’t, I did not answer…and many times it was him….he always eventually left a message of some sort and so many of them were his half-baked attempts at luring me back in either by the pity play, compliments such as “you are the only one that would ever be completely honest with me”, I need someone to talk to or need some advice…yada, yada, yada…always the same ole’ sob story. He finally got so bored with his life, he finally went off and stole a “friend’s” car, money and diamond jewelry and then was stupid enough to drive it around town for about a week in broad daylight until he wrecked it and then tried to run from the police…which he actually loves by the way…very sick man…..but oh so very convincing….if you look up con-artist in Webster’s you see his picture….master manipulator. And, yes, he did the same thing to be about wanting to remain “friends”….I told him “why on earth would I want to be friends with someone who treated me like you did”? Put my life on hold for 3 years while you were incarcerated (in the past) with dreams (I know that now!) of a “normal” life with you once you got out and got settled? Yeah right…whatever….I accidentally did answer the phone a couple of times not knowing it was him and then a few times answered the phone knowing darn good and well it was him. The dance is truly an addiction….no way it is love…although that is what I felt….he didn’t…I know that now, too. The pain of that realization devastated me and still hurts, even though I have moved on and have found a good, healthy relationship.
NO CONTACT….although it is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do….gets easier as time goes on….and it is the only way to break the bond, heal my wounds and keep moving forward!!! Insanity truly is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results!!!! I finally get it!!!!
Blessings to all and if you fall, just get right back up and keep moving forward!!! I am and although I still have bad days, not because I miss him so much as I am trying to accept that I was so deceived for so long and allowed it to go on…..the bad days are getting fewer as times goes on….:)
Ellejay,
wow! really good description. You should have that made into a poster. It would sell.
strongsurvivor… wow! you really are a strong survivor, you sound so good, and congratulations on the 105 days of NC!!! That is fabulous!!! I know it’s hard to do, good to hear someone say it gets easier, sometimes I forget, yes… some bad days… I am trying to talk myself out of those now, trying to keep my thoughts in a good place. So good to hear from you.
Hi Oxy, ErinBrock, Hens, Bulletproof, Wini et and all the people I’ve chatted with previously.
Just wanted to say a quick how d’ya do and reiterate my thanks to everyone who supported me this year. Things have been going from strength to strength for me and a really big part of this was down to finding LoveFraud and getting educated in so many ways. So for all newbies – there IS life after Sociopathy. I’m living and extremely grateful proof. I don’t give a flying gnats chuff about my exN these days. Once I was close to killing myself. Now I find it hard to remember that I even felt any pain over exN at all. If I do have memories they’re kind of ‘greyed out’ with no real emotion attached to them.
I’ve been following a few threads for a few days. But mainly I wanted to come back to a theme that’s very close to my heared – about Sociopaths in the ‘internet’ age – often called ‘Cyberpaths’ elsewhere on the internet.
Basically I’ve started thinking about this stuff for two reasons. One because exN was a massive FaceBook wh*re and used FaceBook as his primary source of NS supply with all the usual cheating and backstabbing and lie and Spathy games that ensue. But latterly because I’m in a band (like Jupiter).
The band are doing gigs regularly now and are starting to have to promote ourselves a bit and this is a massively new experience for me. Basically my whole life, aside from paying basic attention to hair, nails, teeth and having clean clothes I haven’t put alot of thought into my ‘image’ per se. I imagine like alot of other empathic people, my gut instinct always told me that working on my ‘inner strength’ was where I wanted to be as a human being. I had an inner person to express and so choosing clothes or hair was no biggie really. There was something inside me to express a human soul and a human feeling. Finding what to wear kind of just came out of knowing myself unconciously and reaching for the things that expressed that human soul. This comes from my search for personal authenticity. So actually I was living with a massive ‘blindspot’ – I could not accept or understand folks who live solely for external narcissistic ego gratification. I literally couldn’t ‘spot’ this type of person, I thought everyone was an Empath like me. This, when I look back on it was kinda foolish. I look back kindly on that naive and good hearted young woman. I guess my heart was in the right place anyways!
Now – I’m been doing the FaceBook thing, the My Space thing, the You Tube thing and it’s been a massive education – cos I’ve realised that what I’m doing to promote my band’s ‘artistic’ vision entails alot of narcissistic type behaviour. Everyone has the capacity for this behaviour – when it’s needed in my case in order to support my band members and try to make sure we capture the attention of people who could be into our music maybe. We want to share that good feeling we’ve had making this music with as many folks as we can. I do it – but it’s a bit like pulling teeth for me!
My point is that I somewhat belately realised that what I’m doing ‘for a project’ – with much trepidation and feeling slightly odd about having a ‘persona’ as a pose to a ‘personal’ image is: That this narcissistic type ‘self-promotion and self-creation’ is what the sociopath does ALL THE TIME, even unconciously! The Sociopath creates images not just with clothes – but takes every aspect of their life as ‘theatre’ – the friends they hoodwink into supporting them, the credentials they falsify, the fake attitudes, facial expressions and borrowed words of more vital souls they have ripped off in the past, from books, TV, culled from quick readings from psychological texts etc etc etc.
Do you know there are people on FaceBook- at least 15,000 who will add you as a friend instantly without even knowing who you are using the ADD ME application? My profile could be 100% carp. I could post pictures 10 years younger, delete people who don’t ‘fit the image’, use someone else’s picture, add new pretend people – and get them to post on my identity’s wall.
Well crikey – there are probably loads of people doing just this. WHAT A GIFT the internet is to the Sociopath/Cyberpath. My exN has 500+ friends, before I found the ADD ME application I wondered how this was possible. To be honest I actually felt a little bit of a ‘Billy no-mates’ compared to exN. Now I finally ‘get it’ (I was being a bit STOOOPID before) exN doesn’t even actually have 1 single friend, no-one who really gets to know him trusts him at all. FB friends are like ghosts. They’re there and not there. No-one from FB is gonna take care of you if you get sick, ill or have any troubles, they’re not gonna phone you up to ask how you’re doing etc etc. That’s the province of ‘real time friends’.
Now obviously I use LF – so I don’t think that you can’t have genuine friends at all on the internet – it’s just that the majority (but not all) of peeps using social networking sites are hiding behind a fake created image. Everyone’s their own PR person these days!! LOL
The other thing is that this ‘internet PR’ way of life is incredibly boring and tedious hard work. No wonder S’s N’s and P’s are so unpredictable and – not only are they pretending ALL THE TIME on the internet, they are pretending ALL THE TIME every waking moment of their life. This kind of existence is exhausting (as I’m finding from my internet socialising) it also has no real colour, no sensuality, no vital anchor to the human soul. If every image, every contact, every experience is intrinsically interchangeable – life is experienced as both chaotic and dull in equal measure – and also utterly without meaning. I don’t have much time for Sam Vaknin – but he does describe this state quite well in relation to his writings about Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Sociopaths live in anomie – constantly looking for some desperate high to make them feel ‘alive’ even for a moment.
No wonder then that Sociopaths, like vampires are drawn to Empaths to ‘feel’ again – even if only for a little while. They are most drawn to the brightest, most alive, most vital Empaths. Often these are people who’ve lived through abuse and pain and are waking up to their spiritual nature and purpose. These people who’ve known pain, people who ‘feel deeply’.
When they have drained their target and their world returns to colourless and empty sameness, with no inner emotional or ‘moral’ compass to guide them forward. If there were no Empaths to ‘feed on’ -the Sociopath would quickly become depressed, in my (non-professional) opinion. Maybe this is why is why they must ‘cling’ to their former sources of NS- even as they tell everyone and themselves that you are a creature to be despised or ridiculed or demeaned or abused. Perhaps they hate you for ‘not making them feel good anymore like you did before’. That their dependence on the Empath should be revealed is the bleak horror that lives within themselves – denied, repressed, unconcious demons lurking that constantly threaten to overwhelm them should their intrinsic weakness be perceived by another. They get good at manipulation because it’s emotional ‘life or death’ to avoid exposure of their weakness and handicap. Some will kill to ensure that their weakness is hidden behind a false (though grandiose) mask of horror and death.
Normal humans make decisions based both on logical thinking and emotions – Sociopaths don’t have this ability. Although their Machiavellian approach often allows for gains at times in material terms of fleecing money, finding a new lover, having a roof over their head for free, persuading a partner to have a child etc. What I’ve realised is that the Sociopaths inner landscape is so bleak that there is no lasting ‘joy’ nor even much fleeting pleasure in their temporary victory and they are compelled to destroy their lives over and over again – just to be able to feel their existence at all. They cannot truely experience human pleasure and passion. They are truely void.
I have 800 FB ‘friends’ following my band now from my ‘narcissistic’ efforts “You look really cool in your photo and blah, blah, blah”. It’s good for the band and should hopely lead to a few more opportunities, but ultimately I derive no pleasure from the majority of my new FB ‘friends’- I don’t know them and they don’t know me. Of those 800 around 10 are truely friends and I have rich emotional connection with these people. Having said that – some new FB contacts may become friends – and unlike the Sociopath I’m not planning to rip anybody off in any way whatsover. I put thought into my posts and try to be as authentic as I can given the limitations of the medium.
A Sociopath would honestly believe that those 800 people ARE as good as actual friends, such is his/her paucity of connection to the human race, and his/her belief that people are just ‘interchangeable’. This is why the emotionally retarded and destructive Sociopaths believes that they are superior to you the Empath! LOL.
So don’t ever think that the Sociopath experiences love, friendship or pleasure the way that you are able to. It makes it a little easier to not be ‘jealous’ of them in the earlier days of NC.
Smell a flower and feel pleasure in it’s scent and form, look at the sky and feel your connection to the universe, revel in the warmth of a friend’s hug – truely meant, smile at a person in the shop and have 1 second of ‘connection’.
If you stop and ask yourself ‘who am I’ – I guarantee there is someone inside to answer you! Even if that person is tired, ill, frail, murderously angry or depressed – I know you can feel your ‘you-ness’ inside however faint. The Sociopath cannot feel these basic pleasures, like a jealous ‘satan’ – in their bitterness and deeply hidden despair want only to prevent you feeling these pleasures or from knowing your own human heart. They literally want to destroy you out of a deep, cold and murderous bitterness – a bitterness they deny even to themselves. Their ultimate goal is murder by suicide of their Empathic ‘target’!
NC is the only way forward.
Blessings to all on LF. Hello to old friends and to new ones too!
Delta 1
Dear DElta1,
Thank you so much for updating your status!!!! I’m glad ot know you are doing well and what you said above is WONDERFULLY WISE and SAGE advice to us all.
You deserve a BOUNDING CRY OF TOWANDA!!!!!!!!
It makes my heart sing when I realize that there is truly another person who has escaped from the pits of psychopathy! To fly again!!!!
Good luck with your band!!!! Keep safe on the road!!! ((((hugs)))) and God bless!
Drawn, wow your description is deadon. Makes me think of one of his past relationships with a woman i called years ago out of desperation and she used exact same word as you The Dance, and that was 13 or 14 years go, the def do not change . kh
Sorry i meant Strong, and thanks for updating and posting, i like you am at the same point of no contact and haven’t been posting for awhile and glad to hear you see what a moron he is, i too see it but from a healthy distance. love kindheart