Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following from the reader who posts as “Kerisee04.”
How does a person know if they have engaged in a friendship with a female predator? So often it is the romantic relationships that are discussed, and usually about male sociopaths.
First of all, it’s important to note that if you are a male, to the female sociopath, you either a sexual target or a source of financial gain. In my experience with the female sociopath, in her mind, there is no man beyond her reach. She has sexual fantasies about all men she encounters and runs scenarios in her head to accomplish her goal. In my naive state of mind, I had no idea this particular female sociopath was after my husband.
There really is no “friendship” with a sociopath. While the female target may feel a sense of obligation and social grace toward the female sociopath, the sociopath feigns sincerity. Some of the signals I missed were:
1. Back-handed compliments. “You dress frumpy. You need to find clothes that fit you better.” Or, “I know you don’t give your husband everything he needs.” Or, “Do you know how hot your husband is?”
2. Immediate soul-mate connection with my husband. “He and I are so alike.” Or, “It’s like we’re brother and sister. I understand him.”
3. Fake displays of emotion, similar to histrionics. She would fly off the handle over any changes that were made to plans, she would manipulate everybody to feel sorry for her and eventually give in to her out of pity.
4. Lack of boundaries. She would come over every day and stay until I literally kicked her out at 2 a.m. After I had surgery, I managed to stay up until 1 a.m. with her and my husband until I passed out from exhaustion. I found out the next day that she stayed until 5 a.m., alone with my husband in my living room.
5. Lack of shame. She would pull me into sexual discussions of fantasies, comparing sizes of anatomy, and playing games of truth or dare. These are things I would never under normal circumstances allow myself to take part in. No subject or dare was off-limits to her, and I was given the impression that she was my best friend and would keep all my secrets. Only later did I find out that she took mental note of everything I said to use against me when her lies finally came out.
6. Her attempts to be alone with my husband under the guise of platonic friendship. “He’s coming over to hang pictures for me.” And, “We met for lunch since we were both in the same area.”
There are so many flags I missed. Or maybe I didn’t miss them; I just ignored them. The most embarrassing of all is my nonchalant attitude when her affair with my husband came out. My husband (now ex-husband) had fallen victim to her seduction. Granted, things were not great in our marriage to begin with, but we had managed to be faithful to each other for seven years until she entered our world. My husband had a guilty conscience and finally came forward with their affair.
Read more: Guidelines for dealing with female sociopaths
When the female sociopath found out about this, she immediately resorted to histrionics. “I can’t believe he would do something like this to me. I finally trust someone, and they stab me in the back.” And, “It was an accident. We just went a little too far during the truth or dare game. Now you’re going to hate me and I’m going to lose my best friend!” She was flipping out and crying.
I had no time to think about the implications. I was thinking about the ways in which I could have unknowingly facilitated the affair. That’s exactly what she wanted. When I finally pulled away and talked with my spiritual elders, I told them I was worried about her. She was so messed up mentally over this that I feared she might hurt herself. After all, I was her friend. Then one of the elders told me something that finally turned on the light in my head: “Anybody that would do something like that to their friend is NOT a true friend.”
It took me a few hours to let that sink in and realize the magnitude of my situation. In the coming days and months, the story came out in bits and pieces. Some from my husband, who was trying desperately to hold on to me, and some from the female sociopath, who was trying to downplay the affair until she was backed into the corner with the truth.
When all her numerous affairs (we stopped counting at 30) came out, her husband slowly began to realize the predatory trap that she held him in. She had cheated on him throughout their entire marriage, sometimes dropping their two kids off at daycare for a “mom’s day off” and driving to another town for a quickie with one of her men.
When she talked with our mutual friends and elders about the situation, she was sure to exploit every secret I had confided to her and she would twist the truth to seem as though I coerced her and my husband into doing what they did so that I could divorce him. It all seemed so sincere. Except, there wasn’t a shred of truth to it. In fact, she was using projection. Her goal was to get me to say and do self-incriminating things so that she would have ammunition against me when everything hit the fan.
It was truly a time of awakening for me. There truly isn’t good in all people. Just most people.
Though healthy individuals like to believe that change is possible, I have come to the realization that when a person is animalistic in nature, contains no actual emotions or feelings, and looks for manipulation in everybody she meets, there is no possibility of healthy change. This female sociopath’s parents have held on to the hope for the past four years that she would change. They have even at times helped her out financially, only to be confronted with more of her lies.
There is much more to the story. This, in fact, is only a chapter—the first chapter of my entanglement with this particular female sociopath. But I feel it’s important for people to understand the complexities of so-called friendship with a female predator. It’s important to recognize the signs and for your own good, to never give them what they want.
Learn more: Survivor’s guide to healthy people and healthy relationships
Lovefraud originally posted this story on Jan. 19, 2011.
LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: I lied to myself as I became close to him again
Dear Grandmother,
It sounds like that poor child is surrounded by the disordered. I hope that you are able to reach him with your love. I hope he will get into counseling, but even counseling for the boy isn’t going to improve his environment as long as your daughter and her husband are alcoholics and the child is growing up inside a pressure cooker of stress and drunkeness.
As for your guilty feelings about enabling your daughter all along, I suggest that you stay here and read and continue to read and learn. I also enabled my sons (now adult) and I thought I was helping them, or trying to, at the time, so don’t beat yourself up over this past behavior. You didn’t know then what you know now, So don’t blame yourself about the decisions you made. You have taken responsibility for those decisions, but leave the blame and guilt in the ditch! ((((HUgs)))) and God bless
Hi Skylar,
Sandy was making people pay for all the wrongs of her life. You got Sandy figured out.
I submitted my blog last night to a writing contest. It’s worth a shot.
thank you for your confidence in my writing
Jeannie
Jeannie,
Awesome, I was really amused with you story. It is relevant to the society we live in today.
If it gets to someone with a brain, they will publish it. If not, re-submit it elsewhere, until it does. Not everyoe gets it.
You can tweek it and hone it for the particular publication you submit to.
As amusing as it was, I feel sorry for Sandy. What a waste. But, you know what? If one “sandy” out there reads your story and recognizes herself, then it will be worth the effort to submit.
I was looking for an article about female psychopaths and I couldn’t find exactly the one I wanted but here is one about female psychopaths, and I think the woman in the article below is a good example of a female psychopath. She is obviously a liar, lives a chaotic lifestyle and now she is a murderer.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/04/14/north.carolina.lacrosse.accuser/index.html
I have know several women who were high in psychopathic traits, most of them “functional” in society, not criminals, yet abusers and users and who frequently posed as “victims” of others even though they were the ones who were either abusing or attempting to abuse others. They were liars and cheats, dishonest and uncaring. Manipulators and attempted to control others and filled with rage and malice.
Ox,
interesting subject. Since i know the traits of a psychopathic personalty i’ve came to realize there are more psychopathic women than it is said. I don’t believe there’s such a disproportion between male and female psychopathic incidence. Male chovinism, paternalism, less psysical aggressivity in women, etc. allow the experts ignore the fact that there are probably as many psychopathic women as psychopathic men.
Wow. I really enjoyed reading this one. Didn’t think about the other side of the spectrum. Not only must we beware of Spath lovers but if we hitch a good guy we must look out for female Spaths too! OMG…this is hard. Reminds me of the lady in the movie Obsessed or the MANY movies I have watched on Lifetime! You would think with Lifetime we would know all about Spaths and LF would not be in existence! LOL
Ox, this is an interesting subject especially given that I think a good friend of many years is probably a spath female. I keep my distance these days but have not gone completely NC.
She is so abusive, I can’t stand to be around her for very long and I’ve watched her abuse others around her too.
LL
LL,
the spath females I’ve known are subtle, manipulitive and deceitful. They fly under the radar, and stab you in the back.
It’s weird how ALL the spaths I’ve known are that way. Is it something about me that attracts back-stabbing spaths? Or do they just know that there is no other way to approach me?
Why can’t I meet a nice, upfront-abusive spath, like normal people?
🙁
Sky
ROFLOL!!!!
Well, get this. She’s abusive as abusive can be. BUT she can also flip all of that and be your very best friend in times of trouble or need. The many people she has helped have been insurmountable..and for that I applaud her…but to be in her presence is more often than not, very stressful. She backstabs me too. Writes horrible status shuffles aimed at me. I often wondered why she hated me so much, yet claimed to love me so much…when I tried to make the friendship work, she was VERY needy. I wasn’t allowed to say no to her….and it wound up pissing me off because she became demanding. I don’t know how her husband puts up with her. He’s pretty quiet overall.. and a very kind man.
I don’t get it, but what i do get, is that I need to keep my distance, so that I don’t get sucked into her vortex again.
Sad thing is, that now when I see her, as I did the other day, I can see classic spath tactics in how she abuses her family.
yuck.
I”m just so done with spathdom. To me, I guess right now, they seem to be everywhere, Sky. 🙁
Sky,
Ya know what’s weird? I can spot a female spath a mile away. It’s the same shit. The pity play. I watch for it no matter whom I’m connected too. There is a really huge difference between those who deserve our pity, who are truly struggling than a big huge sob story, ya know? I read that in Martha’s book and amazingly, since I’ve been watching for it, I’ve not been wrong once. It’s helping me fine tune my radar. Unfortunately, this is creating a situation in which my circle is getting smaller. I don’t want to seem like I’m stuck up, because really, I do like being around people in general. I just can’t trust them anymore….
It sucks.
LL