Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following letter from a 24-year-old woman, a graduate student.
He told me he was all I needed; he told me that he was the only person who cared. He told me my friends hated me because they were so mad at me because I got sick. He told me they were just all bitches like all of the other girls in the world. Like his ex-girlfriends, like his mother, like (me).
I had no idea that sociopaths existed. I thought that “sociopath” was only a word thrown about on TV, late night news, America’s Most Wanted.
My therapist told me that my ex-boyfriend is one of the worst sociopaths that she has heard about in her 12 years of practice.
Abuse starts slow
The abuse started out subtle; the control started out slow. He told me that I’d look cute if I just started dressing a little more suggestively. He told me that a slight heel (high heels) would do wonders for any girl’s appearance. “Didn’t I want to be the girl all of the other girls were jealous of?” He would tell me how to dress in order to make guys stare.
He would walk me down the street, hand around my neck, but whispering, “Babe, you look great. God, baby you’re my good thing; look at all of them watching; they think you’re so HOT.”
I now think they were wondering what was up because I was dressed like a whore and my ex boyfriend would ask random guys if they would pay me to provide sexual favors for them.
Controlled everything
I dated this man for two and a half years. He would control what I did, what I wore, what I ate, when I slept, how I slept, what I was required to wear to bed, what I could do in bed, IF I could move in bed ”¦ He wouldn’t let me move; he would get angry if I woke him up. He needed his sleep so he could “go out and make money the next day. You know you’re just a needy woman. You need me, the big strong man…”
And he’d laugh at me. He would ridicule me. He would make fun of me. He would laugh if I thought I was smart. He would laugh if I thought I could do something. He would introduce me to people as “the retard.” He would tell me not to talk—why would I bother? It wasn’t like I knew what I was saying anyway.
He would tie me up tell me it was sexy and that everyone else was doing it. He would punch me in the stomach, but he would tell me that he was seeing how tight my abs were. He would show me horrible, horrible movies about what women do when they’re hurt.
He showed me the movie Secretary, where the woman gets sad and then cuts herself, gets found out by her boss and her boss says something like no, don’t do that. And they proceed to have sex while her boss beats her butt with a wooden paddle. My ex would force me to have sex while slapping my butt and digging his hands into me, saying it was love.
Getting out
The list of scary things goes on longer than I want to remember right now. It got to the point that my parents were afraid. My ex-boyfriend was losing control, and I was stuck in the middle.
I would do anything for him, but then I did the one thing he forbade me to do. I got out. I realized that my parents didn’t hate me. I realized that my friends didn’t hate me, and I realized that I am stronger than he is and that I didn’t have to be his “good thing” anymore.
Then he told me that he made a huge mistake. He told me that he was “so sorry,” that it was normal to fly into insane rages when one loses something that he loved. He tried to get me back. I broke up with him. He stayed around for a few months trying all of this.
He convinced me that we could still be together if we were just “F” buddies, because I was the best girl for sex or at sex that he’d ever had. I know that is complete b.s. now, but at the time, when he told me I was the “only one” and “oh so special,” it worked to keep me around.
But, yeah, I mean there’s no doubt in my mind that if I had stayed with him, he would have convinced me to kill myself, or killed me himself. He would tell me to take pills. He said it was a way for me to show the world how “hurt” I was (all said in a condescending and convincing tone).
Anyways, there’s more, but yeah he tried to get me back. He tried telling me how heartbroken and lonely he was without me, which didn’t make sense to me, because when he and I were dating he told me he didn’t get lonely, he just didn’t “feel” it. It’s weird because when I was with him and he was being manipulative and abusive, he almost always told me what he was doing, but he always said, “But baby, it’s okay because we’re different. No one else is like us; we’re better than everyone; just trust me.”
Apart for six months
I can say simply that when I was with him he was emotionally abusive, physically abusive, sexually abusive. He would always say, “You can’t rape the willing, and you know you’re always willing, don’t bother saying no, because I know that no means yes.” Mind games and everything. He would get me so confused and afraid that if I said no, he’d be angry, and if he was angry he would hit me. Or at least I was terrified that is what would happen, because he would always tell me that he was bigger and stronger…
I have a restraining order against him now. I am in therapy now. We have been apart for six months, but I am still so shocked from it all. It still hurts really bad. I was with a man who told me he loved me, but that was just so that I would keep playing his bitch, keep being his doll and keep being his slave.
henry.. I’m not really under that spell anymore, in fact I never was fully, I was the one who called it off because he wouldn’t respect my boundaries.. but I miss the way he made me feel, which nobody ever has and sometimes I fear nobody ever will again.
Anyway though, although my life often scares me, it’s good to be living MY life, reaping the benefits of some of the good choices I’ve made, looking forward to working on myself some more this year. I’m not really a piece of abandoned flotsam waiting to wash up on someone’s shore, I just feel like that sometimes.
Wish I knew what was worse, the pain or the emptiness.. I’m so tired of both.
Dear Kat,
Losing my husband left me with that “emptiness” in so many ways, it made me very vulnerable to the P XBF, because just having someone around who “thought I was wonderful” made me feel wonderful and got rid of the emptiness. It was “heaven” to not feel empty and lonely.
Getting rid of the emptiness made the pain receed. But it was all FAKE.
When I kicked him to the curb, I was more lonely than every, more empty than ever. It was only when I resolved the grief over the loss of my husband, and processed the X-BF’s injuiry to me, that I was finally able to FILL MYSELF—to be WHOLE, without anyone else to “prop me up”—I would like to have a “relationship” but even without one I am OK. I am FULL, no longer empty. No longer in pain because I am “alone.” ONE is a whole number, not only half of two. Now I am no longer NEEDY, I’m not just a “loose” half of a two-some, I am a WHOLE ONE. If I do find someone to SHARE that with me, that’s great, but they aren’t necessary to my happiness and my completeness.
I think that is why so many victims fall prey to another P because they are so empty and they use the next “relationship” to prop themselves up for a while. The Ps come on so strong, and they are like wolves scenting our weakness and our vulnerability, our wounds and our fears. They play into that.
Working on myself was the salvation. To QUIT focusing on HIM and to focus on MYSELF, to find what I needed to fill myself again, to be complete again. Not to depend on ANYONE to make me complete except myself.
kat: truer words were never spoken as in your ex’s “I have no soul.” he’s right.
here is my last exchange with the freak in my life:
i said, “you worry so much about what you look like every second … are you really that empty inside.”
he said, “i’m totally empty inside.”
it’s amazing they have even that much introspection and self-awareness. point is, they don’t even care that they’re empty. it’s just one more excuse in their extensive ‘excuse repertoire!’
they’re not worth one second of self-doubt, one minute of feeling bad about yourself.
for me, the emptiness and loneliness are fading as i gain the emotional understanding that feeling empty and lonely is a far better deal than having to feel like he made me feel everyday: like the ugliest, most useless, most insignificant bitch on earth! (after he knocked me off the proverbial pedestal of perfection, of course!)
the pain you feel is a normal reaction to a completely abnormal situation. but at least he can no longer add to it!
TOWANDA!!!!
Dear LIG,
You said a mouthfull GF!!! “feeling empty and lonely is a far better deal than having to feel like he made me feel every day; like the ugliest,,,,etc.”
The empty and lonely too will fade, LIG, it won’t last forever, as you fill yourself with SELF LOVE you will feel less and less lonely and empty. That is the thing I think for most or all of us even, is that WE ALLOWED them to “fill us up” and what we should do is FILL OURSELVES., be WHOLE ourselves, and then we can SHARE our completeness with another COMPLETE and WHOLE person in a healthy relationship.
If we are not complete within ourselves no one else can really fill us up, they just give us the ILLUSION that we can depend on someone else to “make us complete” and that is never the case. I lost my husband and somehow I had let our “couple-ness” be my completion, and when he was gone (he died) I was empty. And in my emptiness I sought someone else to fill that “hole” in me, and a P stepped right up and applied for the position—but he couldn’t fill it—ONLY I CAN FILL MYSELF. (in a healthy way) We are here on this earth ALONE, and according to Ogden Nash’s poem, “Listen” we are “solitary beings trapped in solitary confinement inside our skulls” No one can truly get it and we can’t get out or inside anyone else’s head—the best we can do is to be complete within ourselves and SHARE that completeness, but NO ONE can truly “complete” us. We have to do it ourselves.
The Ps are empty inside, and lonely as well, and they don’t know how to love, so they seek other kinds of things to offer them “completeness” but nothing is satisfying to them, nothing really reaches them, or touches them. It amounts to “having no soul” because what is inside us, the ability to LOVE and REACH OUT to others with that love is what can make us complete within ourselves. If we are complete we will not allow someone else to abuse us, we will set boundaries etc because we know that WE ARE WHOLE and no one has the right to abuse us. I’m OK. If you like me that’s good, but if you don’t like me, that’s NOT THE END OF MY WORLD. My world does’t depend on anyone but ME.
i go to a church on sunday that is more spiritual than religious. the lesson today was: Love is a Verb
point is, when someone says they love you, over and over and over, and there is really no concrete evidence of that love … it ain’t love!
the s/p in my life told me 1000 times in the past 6 months how much he loved me, but he was cheating and lying. my 50th birthday came and went and while he was with me on that day (he always said his love was spending time with me — ”my mere presence is what i give” (no, i’m not kidding!), there was no outward expression of love. there rarely was once he realized i was hooked.
now, with his new girlfriend, he told me he is VERY affectionate and loving toward her (she’s not hooked yet, i guess), AND he’s still with his wife. i’m sure he tells them he loves them too, but again, LOVE IS A VERB …
so, if there is no expression of the love they profess … run like the wind.
TOWANDA!!!
Wow, Kat, I’m amazed that the P actually can introspect like that. It’s actually fascinating, in a creepy kind of way. It’s like he knows he’s evil.
I really do feel that these “soulmates” (as they seem to us) come into our lives for a reason. I noticed since I have broken up with mine, I have become stronger in other ways. For instance I finally had the courage to stand up to a massage client yesterday who has been disrespecting my limits for a year. She immediately became verbally abusive, and I had to ask her to stop or to leave my home. I’m very proud of the way I stood up to her. But the best part is that I feel I did it with love. I followed up the confrontation with an email giving her the choice to work things out with me in a constructive way. I told her that I care about her, but that I can only have people in my life who respect my feelings, too. I feel this has made an impact on her and will help her deal with some of her narcissism. She reminds me very much of my mother, who is a narcissist. My mother is unwilling to hear my feelings, and I have not figured out a way to get through to her. So I have distanced myself. With the client, I feel I have another chance to practice my communication skills. I wasn’t this strong before the S came into my life.
Still Standing,
I am keeping you in my thoughts as it gets closer to your court date. As Takingmeback said, you have a whole network of support behind you.
StarG
Dear LIG,
Your lesson at the church today that “Love is a VERB” is so right on, though I have always said Love is an ACT, meaning to DO something, not a “phony act”–The Bible tells us to “LOVE your enemies” but it means to DO GOOD to them, it doesn’t mean “have a squishy feeling for them” as in “Love your child” kind of love. The English language has only one WORD FOR LOVE, and there are so many different types of love from “I love Ice cream” to “I love my child” and “I love my husband” etc. One word is not sufficient to translate other languages into english, unfortunately.
You are so right, LOVE IS THE WAY WE BEHAVE. It is not only a “feeling” but our BEHAVIOR indicates our feeling and people who LOVE YOU are NOT UNKIND TO YOU.
Stargazer,
GOOD FOR YOU!!! You are setting and maintaining boundaries and that is the way we protect ourselves. We do NOT need people in our lives who cross those boundaries. Many times when we set and maintain a boundary and they do not respect it we lose the relationship, but at the same time, WHAT have we actually lost? Someone who won’t respect us? That’s NOT MUCH LOSS. Good for you.
Stargazer,
You rock! The lessons we learn following these “soulmates” in our lives can be so immense. Taking the opportunity to look at areas in our lives where we can develop stronger boundaries and take better care of ourselves is such wisdom. I have found myself being more assertive and very appropriately as well. I have actually gotten rid of some people in my life who I now recognize have never had any concern over my feelings. As LIG wrote, love is a verb. These people never showed love in action and so they are no longer a part of my life.
It is amazing that they S/Ps can introspect. They don’t seem to analyze themselve’s as we do but I do believe that they know they’re different. I have shared before on these pages how my ex literally defined to me who is over time in his own words. Here’s what he said for a recap LOL.
-I’m not a very nice person.
-I was a horrible husband.
-I hold grudges.
-I always seem to blame you.
-I don’t think I’ve ever loved anybody.
-I hate myself so, no, I can’t walk in anyone else’s shoes to know how they feel.
-I only give gifts because it makes me look good.
-I really don’t like people.
-I’m no longer fundraising for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society because they didn’t publicly acknowledge me for how much I raised this year.
-I don’t apologize when I hurt your feelings because I feel shame. I should have known better in the first place.
-I’m not wired to forgive.
-You were trying to make me homicidal.
-Yes I’ve been inconsistent but I’ve been trying to figure things out. So, no, I haven’t been inconsistent.
-That was awkward and didn’t come across as Mr. Mellifluous…later…you didn’t deserve my vitriole (Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde)
-So what you’re the better person now because you know what’s wrong with you and you’re doing something about it and I know what’s wrong with me and I refuse to do anything about it?
-I think I’m co-dependent
-I think I’m anti-social
-I can act like the anti-christ and people still come to me
-I’m suicidal and playing chicken with cars and trucks in the road (ahem..that’s also homicidal)
-I had to stop seeing the therapist because I couldn’t trust her (said just after my suicide attempt days after telling my family that he was seeing a therapist and begged me to get help…lie).
-I have no ability to love but I know you will always love me
-the hardest part is forgiving yourself (directed at me)
-and the kicker…I’m not so sure I’m not the one that made you sick!
There’s a nice sampler for you. My ex was in a crisis having lost his wife to Leukemia a year before, his g/f whom he started dating just months after her death didn’t trust him, then I broke up with him. His sources of supply were depleting. This crisis allowed him a glimpse of the truth. But it didn’t lead him to change his behavior one bit.
What’s scary is I can write a list of things he did that follow the script of a sociopath so well. Beginning with mentioning marriage so quickly, telling me we were “soulmates”, etc. If you look up the 5 tools of a narcissist you can follow what my ex did. They don’t often stray form their course and it’s unbelievable. You’d think they really do have a manual somewhere with operating instructions LOL.