How to protect yourself from sociopathic charm

Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following article from a user whom we’ll call “Fiona.”

I’m currently being discarded. He has someone else lined up already, I found that out by reading his cellphone.

I have moved towns already and he may have been sleeping with other people on and off throughout our relationship. I have found “no contact” very difficult. However, I think after my last visit back to see him, I’ve reached a stage where the absolute pointlessness of it is impossible to ignore.

I know he has never cared for me. I don’t want to tell the details of my story, but rather to point out a couple of things that I’ve found to be lifelines out of this situation. I knew it was bad from about the third day in, but I spent 14 months labouring under the delusion that he was on the verge of a big change and that he would love me as I loved him.

Keeping protected

These things helped me stay in a position where I was able to keep myself protected from the effects of his charming:

• Keep a place in your heart free from any kind of belief in anything he says. I wanted his gushing love-claims to be true, but I knew in my heart he was emotionally shallow and fickle. If you believe that he loves you — which is what you want — he has more manipulative power over you.
• Do not get pregnant. He stated repeatedly that he wanted a child with me. He says this to every woman that he manages to draw in. I am certain that he would have no qualms about using a child to try to destroy me, or about destroying a child. No offence meant to anyone who has had children with a sociopath.
• If you can, have either enough money to change tenancies, or family or other support to stay with when you need to physically remove yourself from his reach, or the temptation to stay in touch with him.
• Read sites like Lovefraud to help you recognise the person for what he is. Follow the sirens wailing in your heart — no, it’s not you being crazy, he really is hurting you that much, and he really is doing it on purpose.
• Lean on your religion or spiritual belief and don’t let go of it. This guy claimed to love God and to be a “special person” in God’s plan. He then abused my religion randomly and repeatedly. Stick with your belief.
• Don’t get involved in sexual swinging or multiple partners. If the spath you meet is anything like the one I met, he’s been there and he would be perfectly happy to drag you down any way he can, this way is fine, just as good as any other. I’m not judging this choice, but I am saying that to do these things with a sociopath is a recipe for disaster.
• Don’t get involved in drug or alcohol use with the sociopath. These people do not have a conscience and destroying you with drugs or alcohol is meaningless to them.
• The day you understand what he is, keep growing a place inside yourself that knows you will walk away one day. If at first you don’t succeed — normal. Don’t give up on your ability to do this.

Step by step

Nothing new in any of this, I know. But this is how I managed to extricate myself, step by step, from someone I had fallen in love with, who I desperately hoped and wished would do the same once his “wounds were healed,” but who, in reality, has probably always hated me. Certainly, he couldn’t care less about me if he tried.

And, tell yourself until you start to believe it that he is not capable of loving anyone. It isn’t just you, he will do the same thing again and he has done the same thing in the past. These people are not normal and do not feel like you or I feel.

They are actors. The charm can be so astounding, you’re practically blinded by the glory. Acting and probably the high testosterone?

You want more

Praise the day you realise you want more from a sexual relationship — ie, loving, caring, sharing, togetherness. He cannot ever go to this place with you, except as an actor. This is one pathway out. Focus on that feeling and know it’s real and you are capable of so much more that is real — as are other “normal” people.

Keep yourself safe. You are the number one priority here because the person is disordered; you cannot have a caring/sharing, two-way relationship with this person. Put as much effort as you can into trusting your own mind and instincts, and emotionally and mentally preparing to stop seeing this person.

This information is probably better suited to people who have not made a formal commitment or moved in together.

Hope it helps someone out there, as this site and others like it helped me to see what was real in a very confusing and manipulative situation.

Anon.

Healing is my job

Last but not least, yes, it hurts. It hurts like hell. Why me? Why does he hate me? When he seems to genuinely like her, and her, and her? Why?

Because he’s a freak of nature, that’s why. Because hurting gives him the most pleasure anything can. Because you are normal, loving, caring, kindhearted. Because he is none of these things. Because you crossed paths. It’s not your fault. He can never heal the hurt he’s given you.

That, for me, is the hardest thing to fully realise — he will never make it better. That’s my job. Once you get out of the hurting/healing dynamic and find the courage to live with the fact that he never heals what he hurts, he just picks at it and irritates it and causes you more pain and agitation, you have taken a big step.