I recently received email from a woman whom we’ll call Adriana:
I am told I am a very beautiful, intelligent, fun, woman, but that is all subjective. I am 61 years old but pass for late 40’s; good genes. I have been divorced for 10 years and engaged once during that time. I have dated so many men and feel that I have no purpose because I can’t find “him.” I don’t find most men attractive don’t have chemistry with them and I don’t want to settle. I have not been successful in love at all and have tried to look within myself to see my faults but the truth is I just want to love and be loved.
Anyway, I am so tired of dating and getting my hopes up each time I meet someone I really am attracted to. I was setting up a booth for a trade show and a man from the booth a few down came by and gave me a bottle of water (he is a manager for a water company) and I said thanks and did not really pay much attention to him ”¦ he was ok looking.
The next day he was all dressed up looked so nice and he came to my booth looked me dead in the eyes and said “so where are you taking me to lunch?” I was so charmed by his approach and of course we ended up having lunch and then went out that night, but he conned me into dinner than back to his apt. Where he put the move on me. I am a savvy woman, but I must have been stupid. We spent the weekend together and he began to change plans on me, would get all emotional and cry but I never saw any tears, anyway bottom line is he is a liar, he never asked me for money ever, but the rest of the stuff on your sociopath list he is guilty of.
Everything is about HIM AND ONLY HIM, I think his cold hot actions were to throw me off and keep me under his control. Anyway my question is how could I have such deep feelings for this man I have known for two weeks, and if he is only like eight out of your 10 markers does that mean he is not a sociopath? He has done so much damage to me that I prayed to die. I feel worthless, unworthy, lonely, and I still miss the jerk.
I tried to level with him and told him no more games, I wanted to be loved and he said he could not give me that now. That was the first honest thing he said to me I think.
Please help me figure out if he is or is not a sociopath ”¦
Adriana’s first question was, “How can I have such deep feelings for this man I have known for two weeks?” The answer: Adriana was the target of calculated seduction.
She didn’t provide a lot of detail about her interaction. But a man who walks up and says, “Where are you taking me to lunch?” has obviously targeted her. So I assume he also employed the rest of the strategies in the sociopath’s playbook, such as love bombing and the sudden soul mates tactic. I explain them all in my book, Red Flags of Love Fraud—10 signs you’re dating a sociopath. The bottom line is that for two weeks, Adriana was probably subject to over-the-top attention, and she responded.
About her second question—If Adriana saw eight out of the 10 Red Flags of Love Fraud, then that’s warning enough. It doesn’t matter if the guy doesn’t completely qualify as a sociopath, he certainly qualifies as bad news, and that’s exactly what I told her.
Emotional void
But reading this email, I was more concerned about Adriana’s frame of mind. She came out and said, “I feel that I have no purpose because I can’t find ‘him.'”
This is precisely the type of emotional void that a sociopath will happily step into.
I am not criticizing Adriana. I know exactly how she feels, because I once felt the same way. I was smart, successful, attractive, looked younger than my years—and none of that made any difference to me because I was without a partner.
The emptiness in my heart was certainly palpable to me—and perhaps to the sociopath as well. James Montgomery quickly figured out that I was an easy target. He complimented me, poured on the attention, proclaimed I was the woman he’d been waiting for all his life, painted a shimmering picture of how wonderful our life together would be—and I swallowed it all, hook, line and sinker.
Vulnerabilities
Sociopaths specialize in preying on lonely people. So if you are walking around with a big hole in your heart instead of the fulfillment of love, imagine that you are also walking around with a big, red target tattooed on your forehead. KNOW THAT YOU ARE VULNERABLE.
Sociopaths have an uncanny ability to sense emptiness. For this reason, if you feel lonely, it is critically important that you know the Red Flags of Love Fraud. Because sociopaths all seem to use exactly the same strategies and tactics, I’m beginning to believe that involvements with these destructive individuals are totally preventable, if you know what to look for, and, if you spot the signs, you get out.
But you also need to know yourself. Sociopaths target vulnerabilities, and there are many more vulnerabilities besides loneliness. You can be overly trusting. You can be wounded from past betrayals. You can be suffering from grief.
Vulnerabilities are not necessarily flaws. We are all vulnerable in some way. It’s part of being human. In fact, we must allow ourselves to be vulnerable in order to have a fulfilling relationship. But we must recognize that vulnerabilities also leave us open to exploitation by sociopaths.
Red Flags of Love Fraud Workbook
To help you become aware of your vulnerabilities, and recognize when someone is trying to take advantage of you, I’ve put together a companion for my new book called the Red Flags of Love Fraud Workbook.
It’s a small book—only 40 pages—with checklists and questions to ask yourself, and spaces to record your answers. Its purpose is to enable you to think carefully about your internal reality, so you can strengthen your resistance to predators. And if you’ve already been snagged by a sociopath, answering the questions will help you figure out how it happened, and what you have to do to get out of the involvement.
The Workbook will be available exclusively in the Lovefraud Store, and will be free with the purchase of the printed version of Red Flags of Love Fraud.
The key to keeping sociopaths out of your life is to know that they exist, know the warning signs, and know yourself. The two Red Flags of Love Fraud books give you the tools you need to stay safe and healthy.
I know there are a lot of us out there, but I am also guessing (could be guessing wrong) that the number of divorced parents who are non-spath, greatly outnumber the divorced parents who are trying to co-parent with a spath parent.
I am guessing this (though I could be wrong) because of reading some of those therapy books written for therapists — one of these books was a real eye opener, and it is called: “If Only I Had Known: Avoiding Common Mistakes In Couples Therapy” — this was one of the books which helped me realize that my situation (trying to work out a relationship with my spath — for the sake of the kids) was a highly unusual situation for therapists to deal with, and one which therapists often got WRONG. Because they didn’t recognize that we were one of the extremely difficult couples where one (or both) has a personality disorder.
Anyway… it just got me thinking, and guessing, that maybe there just isn’t a whole lot of useful advice out there for people in our situation, because it might not be that common. Or, this is the book that has yet to be written.
Because I think a lot of the general advice on how to handle divorces with kids is good, and applies generally to most divorced couples. But in the case of a spath parent — not necessarily so. It is like a hall of mirrors, where not all is as it seems (yet some of it IS, and you need to keep your head, to know what is real and what is not). And it is also like a thicket full of wild beasts, and you have to go through it, even though you don’t know what you will encounter next. Always on guard.
But many of us want something better for our kids. We left the marriage because it was unhealthy. So, how to navigate through all of us this, keeping our heads screwed on, trying to give our kids a normal life — not just a life that LOOKS normal, because that is exactly what the spath does. I want so much for my kids to have a REAL life, even if it isn’t always pretty. I want them to have REAL connections to people, and to understand their feelings, to know where they end and other people begin, to know when someone is a wolf in sheep’s clothing… even if that person is their dad. And I hope to set a good example that recovery is possible, and a good life is possible, even when you have been subjected to abuse.
20 years, you have a very good point, and many therapists and most judges etc don’t get it. They think the old myth of “it takes two to fight” and “there are two (valid) sides to every story” etc. which keep them from seeing that one of the pair involved in the P/normal divorce is not going to behave rationally.
Yes, the book remains to be written….Dr. Leedom??? Here’s your next book!
And part of the problem too is that when you have a child by a psychopath sometimes you get a p child as well as a P x and you are dealing with a worse than hellish situation. There is no doubt that there are some genetic aspects to the disorder as well as environmental.
My P sperm donor had 4 kids and only one turned out to be (I think) a psychopath but my youngest biological son is no doubt as psychopath…he also had P genes from his father’s side as well. (both grandfathers were Ps) My oldest biological son has decided not to have children due to the P genes floating around in our DNA…I’m glad he made that decision. I would love to have grandkids but I would rather do without than to take a chance on more Ps being introduced into the world. If I knew then what I know now, I would not have had kids myself.
Plus, 20-years, our current model for therapy, of any kind, is about helping normal ‘walking wounded’ deal with their neurotic fears, and subsequent coping behaviors.
Personality disordered people are not neurotic, not in the true/psychological sense. They have disordered CHARACTERS. All therapy is based on the essential goodness of neurotic people, not people who’s entire personality is pathological.
So, we don’t even have a psychological basis for understanding them, much less treating them.
Donna reviewed a book, just recently, that is called something like Character Disturbance, blah, blah…I read it and it really made a convincing argument (as above) about why current psychological tools are failing with these types.
In it the author asks something like…’when was the last time you saw someone with hysterical blindness?’ Never.
And then he goes on to say that back when Freud was developing his psychotherapy theories, things like hysterical blindness WERE truly happening, because people were so neurotic about sex, and feeling guilty and oppressed, they went blind (or crazy, or OCD, etc…). But, bottom line neurosis WAS the mental health issue of that age.
The author suggests that NOW, it’s personality disorders. And they DO NOT spring from neurosis. We need a whole new psychotherapeutic paradigm to understand and address this age’s mental health issue.
Slim
Slim,
There were psychopaths back when Freud was practicing, but he didn’t know about them…and so only addressed the neurotic.
There have been tremendous strides made in mental health and brain disease in the past 100 years, heck in the past 20 years. As we learn more about genetics too, and pharmacology improves we make more progress.
I wish I could be around inm 100 years and see what has been learned by then.
In the meantime, all we can do is to educate ourselves so that we are not targeted again.
Yes, Oxy and Slim… and I did just finally watch the I am Fishead movie, and I thought it was pretty good.
I’d love to see a book that does not pull any punches in unmasking the dynamics of having a spath in your family: parent, child, spouse, sibling… what that’s like, but also what to do about it. If you are a spouse, you can leave, but if you have children together, that is a very mixed thing.
I found some books written for adult children of mothers with borderline personality disorders… none written for adult children of dads with narcissistic personality disorders (why???) and none written generally for children (adult or not) of spath parents — just the borderline moms or maybe parents with alcoholism…
I wanted very much a book written for me, telling me how to raise my kids when I am legally bound to co-parent with a sociopathic dad who wears a mask in public and takes it off to us in private. I didn’t find this book. I do not get to divorce the dad, ride off into the sunset with full custody of my kids, and have sufficient income so that I don’t need his child support… it is so very complicated.
And through it all, I am blamed at least 50-50 for everything bad that happens. And he just smiles through, charming everyone, and I look like a sourpuss for not smiling along.
Slim, I would have been so grateful if we had landed with a couples therapist who could have quickly assessed the situation and said to me, it is hopeless; he has a personality disorder and there truly is no hope. Get out now, and save yourself the trouble of trying to meet him halfway. But that’s not how couples therapy works.
The whole experience (my life over the past 20 years) has been so wearying.
But yeah, I still got kids to finish raising. And yeah, I’m still (remarkably) standing.
Thank you all so very much for all of your advice and support. You are all so very helpful.
I know I haven’t been doing as much as I should in terms of documentation. This is mostly due to the daily chaos. Trying to co-parent with one of these wonderful souls is like trying to perform brain surgery in the middle of a war zone.
I have to agree though, that in some cases, keeping the adult issues between the adults may not be the best option. I have protected and hid my ex from our children for a long time. I just recently figured out this wasn’t working. By them not being informed about the constant abuse they’re suffering, they simply cannot cope, especially when they cannot even identify. Sooner or later, you need to do damage control. Why do we teach or children about the danger of strangers? Because without this knoledge, they may very well walk right into the trap of a predator. Abuse from a parent is no different. Without the knoledge, it’s rather difficult to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable behavior by a parent. Where we have to draw the line, is bad mouthing the parent. Talk to them about the behaviors, not the person, or what you think of them.
I was torn for some time (how much disclosure?). What finally helped me decide was talking to friends from broken homes, many of them, quite possibly having a psychopathic parent. It was unanimous. Those who’s parents didn’t tell them all the facts, hated that fact and were write upset with the normal parent for not telling them as this could have potentially saved them from a lot of heartache.
On the flip side, those who had been told, at first pushed the parent away in disbelief. But the seed had been planted. They started to above the behaviors themselves. Eventually, they end up being super close to the parent who told them the truth. The children who weren’t informed end up torn and resentful. They have one parent who is a manipulative liar, and another they cannot connect with because he or she didn’t trust them enough (in their opinion) to be able to open up to them. They preached to them about full disclosure, and that they could discuss anything with them, but then they find out they were hiding the ugly truth. They feel betrayed. I realize however that this is a very sensitive subject, and you have to be very careful to stay between the lines. You have to be very careful of parental alienation. Think long and hard about your answer when your children ask you questions.
Thank you again for your support. You have become like a second family to me (only more understanding. lol).
Btw. Thank you for the humor. MiLo, some of your comments have made me laugh so hard.
God bless and take care.
20years, “validating” a child’s feelings or perceptions is not the same as involving them in issues that they do not have the emotional maturity to process. “We do not get along,” is far more preferable to tell a 12-year old boy than, “Your father repeated raped me and dared me to call the Police.”
Children do not have the Life’s Experiences or the emotional/mental maturity to process much of what adults tend to foist upon their fragile shoulders. It’s not that we mean to do this, but we are in such agony for ourselves and our children, as well as so concerned for their well-being, that we often tell them more than they are able to wrap their heads around.
Hugs….
Oh, and I agree 100% with being truthful, but choosing our words carefully is very important. Believe me, children will or won’t sort it out in the long run. We always need to keep in mind the dynamics of Stockholm Syndrome when we’re talking about children of spath parents: “the absence of abuse is viewed as an act of kindness.”
Truthspeak, you are right on! Choosing our words carefully, and speaking to the BEHAVIOR not the person. We can VALIDATE the child’s feelings….such as “I know you are upset when people make promises to you and then don’t come through with what they promised.” You don’t even have to say “mommy made a promise and didn’t keep it” just say that you understand their feelings when ANY ONE doesn’t keep a promise.
One of the things that hurt me as a child was I was NOT ALLOWED to have feelings, or to feel hurt when someone did something mean to me. I had “forgive” them (which meant pretending it never happened) Not having validity for my feelings was very painful to me as a child and I think led to the problems I experienced later with not knowing how to set boundaries.
Now I am learning to set my own boundaries and to VALIDATE my own feelings as REAL.
Good points truthspeak!
PS to Dying DAd,
You also need to read up on and become familiar with STOCKHOLM SYNDROME or the trauma bonding.
Patrick Carnes has some good books on this and I suggest that you get them and read. “Trauma bonding” is a great one. The push pull that your X will do with the kids, one minute pushing them away and punishing them then love bombing them will tend to make them trauma bonded. You can counter this, but you must know what you are dealing with. The abusive parent gets the kids to become HER SUPPORT and act as the adults in the relationship taking care of her and feeling guilty if they don’t take care of mommy. Poor mommy, she needs to be taken care of.