Editor’s note: This article about the importance of boundaries and belief in herself was submitted by a Lovefraud reader.
It has been about a year since my story was posted on Lovefraud, Not one thing about him was real. It has been two years since I broke off the short relationship with this disordered man. It is a year and a half since he stalked me. I hope to share at least some practical points that have helped me in the healing process. It does get better. And it is a process.
I wish I could say that others may be helped PRIOR to involvement with a sociopath, but as we all know, sometimes the inevitable entanglement occurs before we even realize we have been manipulated. This entanglement would have ended much earlier if I had had clear boundaries, zero tolerance for lies and bad behavior, and the will to walk away alone and create my own closure.
There are many events and bizarre experiences with him, his family, his indiscretions, the pathological lies. I now realize that the ONLY purpose to ANYTHING he did was to make himself look good, please himself, hide the truth, devalue others for his own perceived greatness, impress people and get off on his lies and deceptions. He loves that he manipulates people to admire him as the hero, and to come to his defense as the broken victim that he plays so well. He doesn’t want you to realize he IS the stereotypical villain. He was just good at imitating the qualities that are truly admirable like modesty, bravery and dependability. Telling people he was a Navy SEAL hero, working for the NSA, CIA, using aliases, killing terrorists, giving away fake medals, telling stories of being tortured. It’s always about him. And what he calls LOVE is more like an OBSESSION.
He surrounds himself with people who are weak, easily manipulated and vulnerable. They WILL turn their heads to the truth. He wants them to need him. It’s tantamount for HIS very survival. Smart people will question him. Weak people will live the lie, sometimes because they need something from him and sometimes because they are just too weak to admit they have been conned. It’s tantamount for THEIR survival. I know because I was there for a short time. It’s a vicious circle and a world of denial that feeds his sociopathic hunger. In reality, he needs his victims more. He is only as good as the reflection he sees in the eyes of the victim. When I questioned his veracity, I was disloyal. But I was right. I asked good questions (eventually) and he could not keep up the rotting facade of his fabricated life.
Back to basics
I had to get back to basics in order to trust others, myself, my instincts, my intuition, my belief system, religion and all the rules I used to live by. I had to respect myself, gain back my self-esteem and learn to be tolerant but ONLY of those who do not violate my beliefs and boundaries. I also had to learn to stop accepting bad behavior much earlier and stop the self defeating behavior I recognized in myself.
I made lists of those “boundaries” and used them along with real life examples of behaviors that were no longer tolerable. The will to keep those boundaries safe came from the anger I felt after revisiting conversations and events and learning all of the lies. It was painful. I needed to forgive myself, not him, and I decided I would never allow that behavior again EVER.
Read more — Quiz: Are you a target?
I was mind raped. No doubt. I lost an innocence, not unlike being a rape victim. The abuse and exploitation is so ambient at times that you don’t even realize what has happened. It is ridden with intermittent generosity and professions of love while your thoughts, actions and behaviors are so closely controlled through undermining manipulation, guilt and shame. You are in a whirlpool of words and actions that are so inconsistent. And manipulation that has you believing you are wrong, and that everything you learned to date is wrong and that what you are witnessing must be real, while all you know to be right and good has defied you. My intelligence and good rationale failed me. Still I wanted to believe and have hope and faith.
I made lists
It was therapeutic for me to make lists:
- Things he took from me.
- Things I gave up to him.
- Lies he told.
- Red flags I ignored.
- Names he called me.
- Things he did and said to violate me and my children and friends and all the things he did (behaviors) which were inconsistent with the things he said.
I was too manipulated for far too long. NO MORE. Finally I understood that there was nothing of substance there in him to begin with. I thought he had more to offer me than I had to offer myself. But it was I who had what he wants and needs desperately. Perhaps he saw an innocence, a vulnerability, a naiveté about me and he knew I could be conned.
As much as I read and studied narcissism, sociopathy, and any number of disorders, I still could not comprehend why he lied and cheated as he did and why I allowed him to keep coming back for more. Someone told me that normal, healthy people cannot make sense of irrational, impulsive and sometimes delusional behavior because we simply rationalize. People who are disordered and impulsive just do what they do because they can and it benefits themselves in some way. It truly is that simple.
Creating boundaries
There are things I have learned to practice that have allowed me to find closure, take my power back, regain my confidence, which hopefully will keep me from EVER making this mistake again. I don’t need someone else to provide closure to a bad relationship or situation I never did. It was in me all along.
Creating Boundaries: These are mine:
- HONESTY — I ignored my instincts and the facts even when I caught him in lies.
- INTEGRITY — He was not and never will be a man of his word.
- FIDELITY/LOYALTY — The best indicator of future behavior is past behavior. (He cheated constantly on his previous wife, on me and on his current wife. I have been told she is wearing the same engagement ring I wore.)
- RESPECT — (The verbal abuse, the cheating, the lying, the inability to do as he says are ALL encompassing of issues of respect). The bad behavior, spitefulness, drug abuse and allowing all of the above with his adult daughters.
I learned all over again to verbalize my rule of zero tolerance. I didn’t always speak up in the presence of the sociopath because he HAD to be in control and raged or had a tantrum for days.
The closure I seek these days, which I learned as a practice from my therapist, is that when someone is disrespectful, lies or doesn’t treat me well, that I need to close it off with direct communication about what I think and feel and to NOT let them back in again. When I do, I feel like I am in control of my life, my beliefs, and displaying respect for myself (and in an appropriate way). I have truly taken my power back. It is important for me to say, “Don’t contact me again. You are behaving inappropriately. I am not interested in you any longer. I don’t like what you just said to me.” IT IS ok to protect yourself first. I explain this at the risk of sounding juvenile or patronizing but I truly had to relearn these practices, which came so naturally to me previous to the sociopath.
Recognizing my value
All of our lives are eventually a result of the decisions we make. This is particularly true of the sociopath. In fact, I prefer to believe that his life is like a constant panic of desperation to gain what others have, what he needs to see in our reflection to fill the emptiness of his disturbed soul. He can’t fulfill his own fantasies fast enough and so he scrambles daily to find victims to manipulate in order to feel superior.
Listen now — Don Shipley: Exposing phony Navy SEALs
Recently, this man’s family and new friends found the truth about him on an internet site where he has been exposed as a military impostor and con man. He has known of the exposure for two years after an investigation. He chose not to respond then. He has dishonored those who served and gave of their lives. Other women/people have now come forward and also identified him and his stories. Justice comes in strange ways sometimes. He counted on all of his victims to cower to his intimidations but HE is the coward. Those who continue to live the lie are the cowards. Yet he still has potential to be prosecuted for his crimes. HE IS EXPOSED. I prefer to be on this end simply observing the drama that he is creating with his new followers and family, with no involvement.
At some point I saw more value in what the sociopath had to offer me than in what I had in myself. And I was willing to give myself up to be what he wanted, demanded, expected. The abuse I suffered as a target of a sociopath has taken a toll. To recover, I first had to clear the fog, find myself, and understand my value and importance.
There is a kind of confidence that is exuded when we know who we are and what we want and don’t deviate too much from that. People see it in us and respect it as well. The road is long and this experience with this dysfunctional man will stay with me for a long time. I found myself through recognizing my value and making sure it is respected and appreciated, if not by someone else, by ME. After all, I am the one who has to face me every day.
Learn more — Survivor’s guide to healthy people and healthy relationships
Lovefraud originally posted this story on Dec. 9, 2009.
Advice for dealing with sociopaths: Don’t take it personally
skylar, another “common sense” thought regarding your point about the P’s ability to “pop up” in their old loves/friends’ lives: What these disordered people do is try to make you feel you are worthless and have to jump through hoops and fill voids in them that no one can possibly do — or be for another person.
They do anything to keep the upper hand and make you feel devalued and unappreciated. They do not consider what is fair and reasonable, because they want to keep you suspended in uncertainty.
I’ve never told my full story here on Lovefraud. When I arrived at this site, I was struggling about limited contact/no contact because I felt obligated to allow the ex-N/S to be part of my life since I still owed him money he had loaned me for my start-up business (I love working from home, which means I have flexible time to do my ongoing healing coming here on Lovefraud to learn, and keep up with my work as well).
My ex is 44 and I’m 47. He had no kids and was an only child. I have a 13 y/o son. We had discussed marriage and possibly him working with me in my business. At the time we met, he was caring for his elderly dad at their home and did not have to work full-time himself.
But my ex N/S became more abusive (limited physically, but primarily emotionally) and I started attacking back when he tried to assault my self-esteem in different ways, and it became draining. I felt I was in the twilight zone at times because — despite being a thinking person — I didn’t ever really know what the “real issues” were as we began arguing a lot. I would be open and honest about what I wanted and how I felt about most things. There obviously were hidden agendas on his part, but he wouldn’t take ownership for anything.
I had been so appreciative of him loaning me money, but the price I paid was having a man who almost took over my life.
He once told me, “You can’t get away from me” and said if I left, no one would want to deal with me because I was so difficult — I guess because I had a sense of self when I met him and resisted his attempts at control, even though I had no idea how far he would go with me with “mind f**k until much later.
He confused me a lot — I had reasonable expectations, standards and values which he said he also shared, yet we often had “tension” and “uneasiness.” He said hurtful things out of the blue — from no where — even once told me he needed to find him another woman because my self-esteem was “too high.” WHAT?????
When I started setting clearer boundaries — tellling him I couldn’t see him as much because I had to focus on my work, me and my son more, even though I still wanted the relationship with him at the time — that’s when he upped the games, telling me his exes were available, reminiscing more about his past, making innuendos, etc. It was a way to de-stabilize my confidence, for him to get more attention — as if to say if you’re not there (for sex, attention,etc.), someone else will be.
Despite my flexibility with him, providing support and assistance and other action that demonstrated I was real and cared for him, he imposed the “world” onto me — made me feel “invisible” as if I were not an individual, suggested I was part of the collective world that he didn’t trust. He complained about people in the “system/” government — as if trying to make me responsible for all the bad things that had happened to him (I’m sure now he had a role in all of it). He created more drama — with various mind games, increasing contact with exes because he needed someone to “talk” to, and insinuating abandonment of our relationship.
He did so much “testing” of me to get me to prove I was a good person — to wear me down so he could gain full control over me.
I finally told him I didn’t give a damn if he couldn’t fully see and appreciate me, and I refused to hear another complaint unless he was planning to take action and come up with solutions. As I continued to feel I was not seen or heard and my boundaries were not respected, I started withdrawing even though I still felt love and hoped we could work things out.
By the end of the 1.5 year relationship, I had been bombarded with so much non-sense and ambient/emotional abuse, I knew it would be difficult to even try a friendship with him.
I so get why people on this site say total NC is necessary. As I continue No Contact, I have regained my bearings. I no longer feel guilty for not giving him access to my life just because I owe him money. Because of my integrity, I will pay him back. But I’ve already told him I plan to deduct some of the $25 K he loaned me since he took so much of my time with his neediness and in many ways, I provided “counseling” and lots of practical, day-to-day support for him and his dad that money cannot buy.
Based on odd things he later said and “confessed,” I now look back and think he loaned me the money as an “investment” in me — thinking he would get at least double his money back once my business took off, and probably never intended to have a legitimate relationship that could have led to marriage as I’d hoped.
I think he wanted me to “save” his life — as if he wanted to “absorb” me. He verbalized several times that he “owned” me.
I also realize he wanted me to do the major managing and mental work for our relationship while he could coast and “play” — no responsibility for issues, no sincere apologies for hurtful words and actions that he thought I should just let it all go.
He always wanted to accompany me when I had business and other errands to do, but rarely invited me to go on his routine errands except events when he needed my direct help.
He was moody and would punish me with silent treatment for not reading his mind — as if I should have known how he felt and taken care of something he didn’t make me aware of.
He could tell me he loved me one minute, then turn around and lie to me or attempt to destroy my sense of worth the next minute.
He would attend professional networking events with me and focus later on all that was negative about the situation, and what was wrong with the people who attended. He took pride in pointing out others’ flaw and shortcomings.
Rather than figure out what he needed to do to make his life more balanced with new hobbies or male and female friends (he had very few), he would engage in out-loud “criminal thinking” and ask me about potential scams to get a reaction from me, then when I said there was no way I would do something illegal for a man or anyone for that matter, he’d say he was kidding and had no intentions of doing some of the illegal things he’d previously suggested.
He seemed intelligent and responsive when I started discussions, but also seemed to change his disposition on important things including his “values” a lot.
Come to think of it, I see now that he had no real rich inner life. He simply could not appreciate small things, notice little progress or value beauty in everyday life. Nothing was ever “enough.” He had a negative orientation toward everything and nothing could ever be innocent. I began to question and suspect everything he ever said or did.
It all became too mind-boggling, too much/ too taxing. WHO THE HELL WAS THIS PERSON? TALK ABOUT CONFUSED…
Now, with his absence from my life, I am returning to a calmer and saner place. With distance, I can clearly see things for the non-sense so much of it was. I can now know not to take him seriously. He enjoys the game more than having a real life.
I still owe him money, but I know my intentions. I also know I am responsible for my own well-being.
recovering,
so much of what you wrote reminds me of my own X-Periences!
The difference between us is that you had some very real boundaries and expectations, which I did not because I was 17 when I met mine. I’m surprised that your xP would even target you, but it sounds like you have benefited very much from the X-Perience. In addition to starting your business, you have learned the fundamentals of the N/S/P’s – not bad for a year and a half investment. Pat yourself on the back.
I’ve come to the conclusion that there was and is no REAL X-P. He makes up a new personality from moment to moment as the need arises or if one facet doesn’t work he will shift that portion to the 180 degrees of what he was channelling a moment earlier. I’ve recently learned that he is actually mimicking one of his other “n-supply friends” for a portion of his personality.
But the negativety which you mention, THAT seems constant. It’s the part of them that they can’t hide, they really do hate everyone and everything. They have no good will towards anyone. They have an overwhelming feeling of being cheated and impoverished so they want everyone else to feel the same way. They want everyone to feel the envy that they feel and the shame that they feel. Because my xP projects (he accuses others of what he is actually thinking) I’ve come to realize that he is a sadist who gets very excited at the thought of pictures of people suffering (nazi concentration camp pictures). I know this because he told me that my P-sister and P-BIL would really enjoy such pictures.
Skylar,
How ARE you…?
I think you really have a point there. Watching the progression from the ground up….I see the disorder maturing in a sense. Although there is a very immature quality to the behavior that manifest within this disorder….There is a definate pattern with the “projection” part of it. When I first found myself in this situation having his feelings/behavior/personality traits, projected back onto me….I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. I thought it manipulation….And although this CAN manipulate a situation as I see more and more of it happening it is a definate projection of themselves onto others.
It is something difficult to understand. And I am still coming to terms with this. What I have come to understand more recently is THIS REALLY IS the most honest form of communication you will ever recieve from a person with this disorder. Projection is how an S/P/N communicates to you because they can’t tell the truth in a regular conversation.
skylar and witsend, your additional comments really help me to see the absolute insanity of people who try to make others feel crazy. The projections of the N/S/P, their distortions of reality (what we say and do, our values), and trying to view us as if we were them — all ways to invalidate us, and diminish the very best positive qualities we possess.
In their need to control, they’d be happy if we became depressed as a result of their worldview and depended on them as the only respite from the rest of the “big old bad world.”
Not a chance. I’ll take my version of reality — there is both good and bad in the world — albeit now much wiser in knowing there are people beyond help, whose personalities that are so disordered — and their issues so ingrained — that they won’t ever acknowledge what’s real.
Hi Skylar and recovering,
Skylar: Just saw you on the board, and haven’t for a time and want to say hi, and glad you are still around.
Reading over the last few posts it struck me (once again!) how the projection stuff is baffling when we don’t know what is happening. All the huffing and puffing to make themselves look bigger so we will feel the lack and envy that they suffer from, and will not acknowledge. All the threats of abandonment, running hot and cold, so we will feel the fear and loneliness that they won’t. The constant manipulations to create stress reactions in us, so that we are more easily ‘handled’, and feel the devastating emptiness that they live in. The baiting and switching of subjects to make us angry, so we can get a taste of the rage they embody.
It goes on and on.
On deeper and deeper levels I understand how no single movement they make is anything more than the distortion they suffer from. Every move is a defense mechanism, protecting the malignant and angry ego. It is all a giant, horrible, temper-tantrum.
As I have looked back, and through hearing some ‘current events’ of the S-ex, I have begun to see how important it is for these creatures to move on. How much they need naive, nice, new, needy, ignorant people to engage with. Because anyone who has finally opened their eyes to The Disorder of psychopathology, can see every move exactly for what it is. Their sickness becomes SO blatant once we know HOW to see it. Once we see the pattern, experience the repeated betrayals, the false tears, the flattery that is followed by deception, the disarming charm applied only for personal gain.
I was watching something last night and one of the characters asked “Why does he DO that?”. And his friend answered “That’s like asking ‘why do birds sing?’, and the answer is because that is what birds DO”.
Psychopaths only do what they do. They don’t do anything else. It is an endless hamster wheel of lies and manipulations, because they are psychopaths.
I on the other hand, yipee!, have choices. Lots and lots of them, that I can make to live a peaceful, civil, loving, fortified, REAL life. Even more so now that I am not disabled by my personal attraction to chaos and destruction (which I most certainly was).
Oh, meant to include witsend in my greeting to recovering and Skylar. Oops.
slimone — thank you for putting into well-summarized words what I experienced: “All the threats of abandonment, running hot and cold, so we will feel the fear and loneliness that they won’t. The constant manipulations to create stress reactions in us, so that we are more easily ’handled’, and feel the devastating emptiness that they live in. The baiting and switching of subjects to make us angry…It goes on and on.”
I WAS HEARTBROKEN TO REALIZE I WAS SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY, a MAN I ONCE HOPED TO MARRY. I KNOW NOW THE LOVE HE PROFESSED WAS NOT REAL, BUT MEANT FOR MANIPULATION JUST AS THE MONEY HE’D LOANED ME FOR BUSINESS.
AND THEY TRY TO MAKE US OUT TO BE “DEMANDING” OR “DIFFICULT” FOR CONFRONTING BULLS–T AS IT UNFOLDS, BLAMING US WHEN WE DO NOT NOT BUY INTO THEIR NON-SENSE.
Well said slimone, “I have begun to see how important it is for these creatures to move on. How much they need naive, nice, new, needy, ignorant people to engage with. Because anyone who has finally opened their eyes to The Disorder of psychopathology, can see every move exactly for what it is. Their sickness becomes SO blatant once we know HOW to see it. Once we see the pattern, experience the repeated betrayals, the false tears, the flattery that is followed by deception, the disarming charm applied only for personal gain.”
Dear Recovering,
I think we were dating the SAME MAN–mine tried to ‘buy me things” but got angry when I refused (I am absolutely paranoid about taking money or “gifts” from others because too many times it comes with a PRICE TAG that is not “reasonable interest”) My egg donor used to always try to give me money too, which I refused—because I knew it was a down payment on CONTROL and GUILT. LOL
Yes OxDrover, we can LOL.
When this many people have the same experience and there are the same patterns, there is something to it. I had hesitated for a long time in viewing my ex as a Sociopath, starting out with a belief that he was mainly NPD. But with time, it is clearer to me — I “know with humility” and such knowledge is freeing, even if tinged with sadness.
I took the day off from work today for the most part except for a few business errands (having one’s own business allows such flexibility, but I’m working the whole weekend) because I knew I was at a turning point mentally and emotionally in this journey, where I was letting go more about what was and accepting more what is.
I needed reinforcement with my ongoing No Contact and the determination to move forward and put this whole N/S experience in perspective and eventually behind me.
Lovefraud warriors — you have not failed me.
All of you who provided insights from your own experiences today added to my accumulating wisdom and sense of relief.
It has been my pleasure to spend much of the day at this site on and off — for healing time.
I’m signing off for the night, and send my regards to you all.
I text the liar an told him that basically he’s a user con artist that he uses woman for money to forget he ever knew me and all he done to me is gonna come back on him! I know it really dont matter to him but to me this is my closure, He have a lot of things from when me an my kids was living at his place that he wont return he keep ignoring me asking for my things back so i just got fed up a told him fuck you! to keep the things because he is petty. NC is my goal I don’t never wanna talk to that sob again. I got used and played