According to Dr. Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist, romantic love is an addiction. The drive to find a romantic partner is buried deep in the brain, and biologically intertwined with the brain’s reward system, which is linked to wanting, motivation, focus and craving. To hear Dr. Fisher explain this, watch the video.
Dr. Fisher points out that when you love someone and are rejected, the addiction is worse. Not only do you continue to feel the intense romantic love, but you love your beau even more. Your love becomes an obsession. It turns out that the brain system associated with rewards becomes even more active when you can’t get what you want.
So what happens when you fall in love with a sociopath? Why is it so difficult to emotionally disengage from a sociopath, even when you have discovered what they really are? I’ve spoken to many people who know, on an intellectual level, that they are involved with an exploiter. They absolutely understand that they must end the involvement. But they can’t.
The following letter from a Lovefraud reader is a case in point. We’ll call her “TammyLynn.” The other names have been changed as well. I will comment on her case, and why it’s so hard to break away from a sociopath, after her letter.
TammyLynn’s letter
I’ve just turned 41. I was married in 1996 and separated from my husband, David, in January 2009. All during this time, my best friend was male (I’m female). Jeremy and I became close, and when I separated from my husband, I pretty much went straight to him.
Jeremy was everything to me. The PERFECT man. He had almost no flaws ”¦ I trusted him 100%. I told him my secrets, relied on him. We both worked in law enforcement, so I really thought he had the same values.
Fast forward to March 2012. He got arrested for embezzlement from our own agency. (I had been off work for two years at the time for an injury.) We were broke, or so I thought.
After the arrest and a lot of questions on my part, I finally discovered Jeremy had been cheating on me. He denied it until I showed him printed proof at the jail. Yes, I still went to see him.
Jeremy owes me over $27,000. He insists he will pay, but his money is locked up in his divorce. (This part is true because I got power of attorney and was able to view all finances and that’s how I found the other girls.) He’s now in prison and considered a “con” by the media.
Money is an excuse
I need the money”¦ I also know it is an excuse, because once I get the money, I keep telling myself I will cut ties, but I miss what I thought we had. My brain is smart, I’m educated, but my heart is totally stupid and broken.
I love David, my husband, but we don’t have the same relationship. With Jeremy, it seemed expertly loving, exciting. Said the right things ”¦ etc. Although I love my husband and he is stable, I miss the relationship with the sociopath. I’m humiliated, angry, my kids were also devastated, sooo incredibly sad.
EVERYONE is telling me to run. But even David, my husband, and family, tell me to “con the con” to try to get some of the money back. I’m just not good at it everyday some days I feel like I can con him, others not so much.
Jeremy believes that we will get back together after prison, even though I have told him we won’t, that I do not trust him (God I wish I could). I know I am attractive to the opposite sex, funny with a kindhearted personality. Kids, old people and dogs are my favorite things in life ”¦ I feel pathetic and stupid.
Why can’t I convince myself?
Why can’t I just convince myself what my brain knows???? I don’t get it. And why does he seem to think it should all be understandable because of his own “mental breakdown that caused him to do horrible things.” His words, not mine.
My experience w the sociopath was so entirely different from what my reading, investigating and what I’m hearing. It’s like reading about a totally different person. I’m having a tough time making a clear parallel to the same guy. The guy I loved is NOT what I’ve now been exposed to. It does not seem real. My heart is not recognizing this. My brain says no way, never again. So sad.
I don’t care if you post this, if I could read responses, or if you will take the time to tell me not to be a dummy. I just need other people to help me with my backbone lately. He will be out in a few months, I know I will not be with him, I’m just asking for help with my thinking ”¦ he’s messed me up big time.
Donna’s comments love with a sociopath
First of all, I think it’s fair to say that Jeremy is a sociopath. He swooped in when TammyLynn was vulnerable. He pulled her into a relationship that was both personal and business and then embezzled from the business. The fact that Jeremy is now a recognized con artist and in prison is telling.
But notice how TammyLynn described Jeremy he was “the PERFECT man. He had almost no flaws.” This is the impression that Jeremy wanted to create for her.
Sociopaths engage in calculated seduction. They figure out what you are looking for, turn themselves into that person, and then declare that the two of you are soul mates, destined to be together.
Notice what else TammyLynn said about this man “With Jeremy, it seemed expertly loving, exciting. Said the right things, etc.” Jeremy undoubtedly engaged in love bombing overwhelming attention and affection. This level of adoration is exhilarating, and most likely intensified TammyLynn’s feelings of love. The normal, stable love of her husband just couldn’t measure up.
Sociopaths are different
I don’t know of any fMRI brain studies about sociopaths and love, but researchers at the recent SSSP conference that I attended did present information about how sociopaths’ brains are different. Maybe some of the deep brain mechanisms that Dr. Fisher described do not operate the same way in sociopaths. I do know that sociopaths do not form bonds the way the rest of us do.
Although sociopaths are great at convincing us that they love us, it is all deceit and manipulation. They are not capable of complete love, love that involves truly caring about the welfare of another person. Sociopathic love is fake love.
Because they don’t bond, sociopaths are capable of unceremoniously dumping us when they’re bored, or when a juicier target comes along. We, however, can become obsessed with regaining what we thought we had, even though it was a mirage.
By the way I wonder if Dr. Fisher screens for deception in her Chemistry.com online dating site. I’ve heard from people who say they’ve met sociopaths on Chemistry.com along with Match.com, Pleny of Fish, and every other dating website.
Advice for TammyLynn
TammyLynn knows that Jeremy is a con artist, but she is still feeling the pull of romantic love. This is because of the changes her love for Jeremy, which is real, have made in her brain.
The solution is to realize that leaving Jeremy requires breaking an addiction.
TammyLynn must have No Contact with Jeremy. She must stop all communication with Jeremy luckily, he’s in prison, so that should help. Then, like anyone kicking a drug or alcohol problem, she needs to take it one day at a time. Promise herself she will not contact him today. Then make the same promise tomorrow. And the same promise the next day. The longer she stays away, the more his grip on her will dissipate.
Unfortunately, it sounds like she’s not going to be strong enough to “con the con.” If she tries to deal with Jeremy directly, she will be drawn back into his web. He’ll use the pity play on her, telling his tale of woe about his “mental breakdown.” I am certain Jeremy knew exactly what he was doing, and is expressing remorse only because he got caught.
Even if TammyLynn retains an attorney, just having to think about a legal case will keep Jeremy, as Dr. Fisher says, camping in her head.
I’m all for holding sociopaths accountable. But in this case, it’s more important for TammyLynn to rebuild her life. She may have to take her lumps and walk away from the $27,000.
Wow, I hope that person wasn’t making fun of me for dancing. That would be the end to my posting. I don’t know what happened that is making you cry, but I hope this is not your main source of support. At its best, this place can be a godsend. But it is still an internet forum, and those can have all kinds. I hope you have some support out there in the world.
Edit: I saw the comment about dancing. I did not take this in a hostile way at all. But that’s me.
Stargazer, I watched a comedy the other night called Waiting For Guffman. I recommended it to Blossom as she’s had a stressful week ( see ‘ the Sociopathic Perspective’ thread.). She watched a clip if this film on youtube. She and Iexchanged lighthearted references to the comic way a character in the extract delivers the line ” let’s dance!”. Please rest assured, there was no reference made to you or your Salsa dancing, implicit or explicit.
To get back to your situation, here’s my thoughts. Oxy used to remind posters a lot that recovery is a journey, rather than a destination, as I’m sure you’ll remember too. Reading your posts, it’s clear that ( as with much in life really) there are costs as well as benefits to participation in the Salsa scene. The benefits are clear from your posts, you get simple pleasure from dancing, a sense of personal acheivement, companionship and camaraderie, travel opportunities. Plenty of pluses. But some clear costs, too. There is all the emotional labour which you are undertaking in your interactions with J, and in managing some unpleasant emotional responses to his partnership with your friend, and when another female dancer appears a possible attractive partner for J.
I brought up the journey analogy as 5 years is not that long to be out of a sociopathic relationship. No doubt you had scars. It seems that some aspects of Salsa leave you tired and feeling vulnerable, despite its many positive aspects. Be sure to weigh up its costs and its benefits Stargazer, and be sure to take the time you need when you feel you want to work on further developing good strong boundaries, awareness of energy reserves being depleted, and on self acceptance.
Fight, I did see the comment and I did not take it offensively. If it was in fact malicious, then this says more about the poster and how they feel about themselves. It has nothing to do with me, so I don’t take it personally. On every forum there will be people who like you and people who just don’t, for whatever reason. It is not a huge deal to me because it is not really about me. After all, these people don’t even know me. It makes me sad when people are hurting so much that they project so many negative things on me. My sister does this. It’s sad but there’s not much I can do about it.
Fight, I am very hesitant to give you advice, but I am burning to do it. Oh what the hell – I’ll just do it anyway. 🙂 Don’t focus on the negativity here. It will bring you more of it, here and elsewhere in your life. Focus on the positive things you want in your life. This may not be the best place to get those things, but if you change the station in your mind, you will attract more positive things into your life and less drama. I am working on doing the same. I’ve been thinking about how wonderful it will be to have a loving and kind man in my life who actually wants me and is attentive to me. It is really helping me break the addictive thinking patterns with the unavailable ones. 🙂
OK. My posts are being removed and hope the people can see this now. Thank you, Stargazer.
Thanks Tea Light. No offense was taken. I tend not to take things too personally. FYI the relationship with the spath lasted 2-1/2 months and took me a year to get over. I am truly over it. However, I am clearing other issues from my upbringing that contribute to the current situation. And you’re right – it’s a mixed bag. I think if I can be strong enough to get through it, salsa could potentially be very beneficial and even lucrative for me. Dancing is my passion in life. Every dance scene is fraught with drama unfortunately.
I just wanted to add that with the estimated 2% of the population being sociopathic, if someone has dated a lot of men (like I have), chances are a sociopath will cross their paths. I know some friends who are extremely healthy but who in one time in their lives dated a sociopath. The difference is when the bad behaviors started, they got out quickly and moved on. I think in my case, my dating that spath was the luck of the draw. I didn’t know what a spath was and didn’t recognize the signs (I do now). As soon as I figured out he was lying and playing some kind of bizarre game, I got out. However, I do have the issue of being attracted to unavailable men so this is what I’m working on.
Although, come to think of it, J and the last one I longed and pined for who was unavailable (a neighbor) are both men who when they rejected me, I couldn’t physically distance myself from them as I would normally do. This is where the pain comes from. In my past I have dated some wonderful men who loved me and wanted to commit to me but the relationships did not last for other reasons. There is no set pattern to the type of men I’ve dated. They’re all over the board.
What I seem to be hearing is that whenever a good man actually was available, you ran!
Isn’t this all just fear of commitment, fear of true intimacy? Or am I being too simplistic?
Anyway I’m sure you’re right about salsa being beneficial. You have to be pretty limber to do this stuff:
YouTube—World Salsa Champions 2007
Stargazer, Stillreeling and Still-Standing,
My posts above were removed….not by my choice. Thank you all again for your supportive comments. Supportive comments are good and helpful to victims of sociopaths.
I am a mostly lurking semi-old timer checking in. I haven’t been visiting here much lately because I’ve been busy. Around the time when the format of this blog changed, I’d been weaning away from this place because I was finally feeling like I was healed enough from my spath experience. I wanted to log on because when I was more actively reading, I read a lot of what Tea Light and Stargazer wrote, in no small part because each of you express part of my feelings in my spath experience. So I mostly wanted to say it makes my heart happy and gives me hope to see both of you here having made progress in ways that shines through your posts.
I have had zero contact with the spath who tangled with me. He sent me a text on New Year’s in an attempt to lure me back. I ignored it and processed my feelings within a few hours. I feel healed. I have not found a new love relationship but in the past few years, through therapy and some delving into family history, I have learned so much about myself. Also, for years my work has touched on mental health issues but I have other professional training. Before, I never really understood personality disorders and now I do!
The spath is hardly ever on my mind at all. I did think of him a few weeks ago (and fairly quickly realized that I associated that time with some events of significance in our realtionshit that happened during the same week 2 years ago) and I googled him. In the past, even that level of contact would leave me a little shaky and upset. This time, I felt very neutral, close to indifferent. I learned that he lost his job (which he had started during that same week 2 years earlier). I felt some satisfaction but it was mostly for feeling correct anticipating that he wouldn’t be able to keep that job. At the time, I had been supportive, “lending” him the money for plane tickets to fly to the location of his new job and start working. Now I felt some relief that I no longer have to support him (and be pulled into all his madness) and vague wondering about how his next victim (who married him months after I broke up with him for cheating on me with her) is doing now that she has to be the main bread winner. Plus ca change plus ca meme.
Finally, I want to recommend a wonderful song by Sade. It’s called Skin and there are versions of it available on YouTube. In the weeks after I broke up with the spath (but before I understood what he is), I happened to start listening to that new Sade album. I’d bought the album for another song I liked but that one turned out to express exactly how I was feeling at the time.
I wish you all peace and godspeed in your healing journeys.
Update: I *thought* I had backslid, but I actually have been making forward progress. Tonight I went to two back-to-back salsa classes in the town that is 45 minutes away. Not only was it a blast, but I was probably the best dancer in both classes – they are solid intermediate classes. There were about 40 people in the second one. The instructor didn’t have his partner there, so he used ME as his partner, and I surprised myself by doing a great job following his complicated patterns. So I’m on cloud 9 realizing that my dream of being a salsa teacher might not be so farfetched. The best part is that J is not involved with this group. And I have a new gf from these classes who is sort of taking the place in my life of my gf L. I don’t talk much to L anymore, even though we used to be really close and even went to Costa Rica together. Since she started the salsa apprenticeship with J, it’s all she ever talks about. It’s not malicious – it’s just the way this panned out for us. But my new gf G is very sweet and we are having a great time together in classes and at the clubs. And she doesn’t know J. What a relief. I can have a break from all the triggers. I am feeling more and more distant emotionally from him the more I get involved with other things and people that don’t involve him. It’s just what I needed. I think by the time the cruise rolls around in November, he will just be a speck on my radar screen. Keep your fingers crossed for me!
Hi sparklehorse :). I remember you. So glad to hear of all your forward progress!
Hi Redwald, to respond to your question about fear of commitment……when I had the loving wonderful men in my life, I was in my 20’s and they were all a little older. They were more like father figures to me. I was young and didn’t know what I wanted. I certainly didn’t really want a commitment then. I probably wasn’t really ready to settle down till my late 30’s. Though there may have been a fear of commitment issue there, since I really didn’t know myself very well, I couldn’t have chosen a mate then. I did work out a lot of abandonment stuff with some of those guys, and they were very gracious about me doing it (they were very spiritual). But they were not the men I was meant to end up with. I can see that now. Back in those days I was a late bloomer and exploring the world of men. Whenever I slept with a man, we were instantly involved. I was never without a bf more than a few months between the ages of 20 and 40. Fortunately, I’ve spent many years alone and am in a much healthier place. Whatever relationships I attract will be on a much different level.
Hi Stargazer, thanks for explaining that. That does put a different complexion on the whole matter—and a more positive one at that!
In your 20s, apart from not feeling ready for a permanent commitment yourself, I’d say that marrying an older man who served as a “father figure” was not the best way to go. A marriage like that starts off with the partners on an unequal footing, and the partner playing the “junior” role is more likely to outgrow it in time, leading eventually to a split.
Although the men you’ve dated may not seem to constitute a set pattern, I wonder if what some of them have in common is that you’ve been able to learn something useful from them at each stage of life. That was true with these earlier, older men. Then there was the “sociopath” you mentioned from five years ago. That had to be a painful experience, but if it only lasted three months—well, I imagine it could have been worse. In different circumstances you might have wasted many agonizing years stuck with someone like that. So on the one hand, if one thing you learned from those earlier guys was what a nurturing relationship should be like, that could have helped you to spot something “wrong” with the sociopath that much sooner. And on the other hand, having learned from the sociopath himself what people like that are like, that might help you to avoid an even worse one in the future!
What about this guy “J”? Is there anything useful to learn from him? He doesn’t seem to be shaping up as a serious partner for you. Yet oddly enough, it sounds as though you and he are in a similar position at present. In an earlier post you talked about “the way dating should be, having many options and taking your time with the man smorgasbord.” Doesn’t that sound like what “J” is doing as well—having many options and taking his time with the “woman smorgasbord”? He may be doing it ineptly, but I gather that’s where he’s at right now. So in theory the two of you could be friends and dance partners with a bit of enjoyable flirting on the side—if it weren’t for the addictive tendencies that have been troubling you. So maybe J’s role in your life is to help you learn ways of mastering those tendencies?
It’s a theory, anyway. Good luck, and I hope you have a good Fourth.
Redwald,
Yes, it’s the biggest challenge of my life right now to break this addictive fear. I totally accept him dating other women. It’s just hard imagining that some of them are my friends or people I know that I have to see him flirt with. If is was just him I was dealing with and we weren’t in the same social circle, it would be easier to detach. I have control over myself around him. But I cannot control what happens with him and the other women I know, my salsa friends. That’s where all the pain is coming from right now. As far as me dating the smorgasbord of men, I am ready and available to settle down if J were to step up to the plate or if someone else really special were to come along. He is not ready.
It wasn’t clear reading your post whether you knew that I did not marry the older men in my 20’s. I have never married – yet.
Tea and Everyone,
I found this video on youtube and wanted to dedicate it to you.Although Bernie(the blonde singer on left end) succumbed to breast cancer today,she fought a brave battle.We should all look for the joys in life because we never know when our lives might end.The joys are there~~~we just have to adjust our attitudes at times and look for them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqkyITZ-gu8
This is another video that a friend emailed me.It really makes you think about how how you’re spending your life! The jellybean analogy is vivid!
http://biggeekdad.com/2013/06/a-lifetime-of-jellybeans/
I spent my day with dear friends…laughed, drank good wine, ate tons of food and then saw the fireworks!!! LIFE as it should be led…Even had the great pleasure of an old friend call my ex a “freak”…for choosing to not enjoy our company!!! So Blossom, I chose to savor my jelly bean for today…..May all our jelly beans be delicious for ALL of us!! If jelly beans do not tickle your fancy, well ladies and gentlemen, trade them in for chocolate!!!
Blossom and Imara, Happy Independence my colonialist free American chums! Blossom, I used to dance as a child when that song came on the radio or ‘Top of the Pops’ the BBC’s weekly show which played the chart hits of the week. Thank you for that. I’m going a buy a box of Jelly Belly beans in town, inspired by these posts. And they will , as ever, be delicious. Especially the coconut and the peanut butter ones…