Ever since Lovefraud launched in 2005, my goal has been to educate people about the dangers of sociopaths—preferably before their lives are shredded. One effort in that direction is the Lovefraud high school education program—I’ll be doing my first three classes next month.
Another effort is my next book—tentatively called Red Flags of Love Fraud—Signs that you’re dating a sociopath. It will identify behavior that may indicate a prospective romantic partner is not all that he or she claims to be, and explain how what seems to be expressions of love may, in fact, be strategies of manipulation and control.
We’ve discussed our experiences here on Lovefraud, and through the telling, identified many behaviors that all seem to “come from the same playbook.” However, I’d like to collect that information in a more structured way so that I can use it in the book. Therefore, I invite you to participate in the Lovefraud Romantic Partner Survey.
Most of the questions are multiple choice, but there are a few places where you can write out your observations. It would probably be best to do the survey when you have about 20 minutes of free time.
Thank you for your contributions. To start the survey, click the following link:
It is one of my little life philosophies to collect perfect moments. It started when I learned about God’s perfect love when I was 9. When you live a miserable childhood, you find ways to cope. I decided if God was perfect and he loved me, I would collect those moments that I felt that perfect love just like I collected fireflies and butterflies.
It was one of my secrets I shared with my husband. We were supposed to be collecting moments together to recall in old age. So when I say that he systematically went out and destroyed our memories as a vindictive attack on my soul, I mean it. He took OW to MY sacred places, ridiculed my “collection” to others as proof of my crazy thinking, and trivialized EVERY unique memory. He knew it was how I comforted myself when I was miserable and THAT is what he attacked.
Then one day when I was giving my daughter a “do over” b/c she’d messed up, I realized it applied to my sacred memories. (DUH?!!… but when you are hurting, sometimes all you think about is the hurt, and THIS hurt was an incredible attack on my soul, attacking my connection to GOD.)
So since then, I have been re-collecting moments of perfection where I feel a connection to GOD. I might be with another person, but that person is not central to the memory, it is the EVENT that is the central connecting moment, connecting me to when my life at that moment is PERFECT, just like GOD… truly feeding my soul connection to my life force.
As my life has progressed, I have times when I feel validated in my little philosophy such as Julie Andrews song, “These are a few of my favorite things” and Gratitude journals…but graditude lists don’t go as far for me b/c I NEED unique moments to recall when I am desperate and terribly alone, NOT b/c I am ungrateful or need to remember blessing but b/c at those times when I am looking into the abyss, I NEED to feel a connection from GOD to me. It doesn’t work for me to write them down b/c they weren’t at the level of sacred connection if I needed to write them in order to remember. The point was to recall them no matter when/where/life circumstances.
Does that make sense to ya’ll, that collecting perfect moments is MORE than gratitude (and gratitude is pretty darn important!).
Katy, who is able to share her core vulnerability with strangers only b/c you don’t know me from Eve on the street…
Katy,
I think that is a beautiful sentiment and if that’s what connects you to God, it’s an even better thing.
I understand how you feel in that your ex destroyed your memories with a vindictive attack on your soul. It’s still amazes me how they wound us in the deepest of all places with things they know are sacred to us. It is the BIGGEST betrayal of all and I think, the most painful to heal from.
“katy, who is able to share her core vulnerability with strangers only b/c you don’t know me from Eve on the street”…..
That is sooooooooo true and soooooooo profound for me right now.
RB
Katy, I love your philosophy about collecting perfect moments. And Oxy, you are right, those moments can absolutely be in the present. They don’t have to be any grand events with famous people in exotic places. Sometimes I am cuddling my cat and my eyes tear up. I think to myself, “I want to remember this moment.” I have had perfect moments goofing around online with my internet friends.
When I was at my most devasted over the sociopath (and other hurtful men in my life), I remember feeling grateful that I could feel. I felt grief, therefore I knew I was alive and human. It sounds like a small thing, but that kept me going.
Dear Katy,
Yes, it makes sense to me. Strange sense too, in that I can recall wonderful moments with my P son when he was a little boy and what wonderful memories those are, in spite of the fact that that little “boy” is gone forever—just as if he died. The memories of those special times I enjoyed with my cute, sweet, funny, smart little boy are precious to me and I won’t give them up, just because that child is gone.
My husband is gone too, it is difficult to believe, but he’s been gone over 6 and a half years, but I can treasure the sweet memories of our time together and nothing can take that away from me as long as my memory works.
I haven’t seen my son C in over a year since I asked him to leave after he lied to me….but there are wonderful memories of moments with him when he was a child that I TREASURE above rubies and gold! Those moments will be with me forever. The fact that he has not turned out to be the kind of man I can trust isn’t going to rob me of those special moments.
Even with some of the relationships that I have more recently either loss or discarded for one reason or another, there are some good memories in those as well. My I guess now X-Best friend (haven’t heard from her in over a month since I left texas) is a relationship I had and treasured for 30+ years and it may be completely over now, but even if it is over now, there were some wonderful memories with that friendship and I feel blessed to have had it, but at the present it isn’t a healthy one.
And that sort of thing happens. Just as physical health can SUDDENLY deteriorate or a person can “drop dead” in a split second, relationships also can sicken or die rapidly, but that doesn’t mean that everything that went on prior to the “illness” wasn’t good or valid.
Relationships can get “terminal infectious diseases” just like people can, and those relationships can be toxic to us if we get or stay near them, but that doesn’t mean a person who is “infectious” didn’t ever have anything positive about them or that the good times we shared aren’t valid any longer just became in the end they or the relationship became unhealthy.
Katy,
it makes sense to me.
Gratitude is the thing that kept me safe from all the hell my exP put me through. It continues to keep me alive today. He wanted to make me feel that my life was useless and hopeless and that I was a failure. And many times I did feel that, but I knew that God had His plan for me and I didn’t need to know what it was. This was revealed to me in those special moments that you speak of in which I could see miracles happening. They were little miracles that spoke DIRECTLY to me and my circumstances.
They were not moments at the vatican or in an exotic locale, they were moments where everything looked bleak and I was delivered. Or moments where I rose above exP, without even trying – not by my own efforts, but by the grace of God.
Moments of coincidence that shook me and reminded me that God has my back.
The day I knew what exP was, when a stranger in a sushi bar told me to look up “malignant narcissist”, was one of those moments.
The day I ran into my BF, a man I hadn’t seen in 25 years but who had been friends with my exP for many of those years, is another moment.
Thanks Katy for reminding me to collect and be grateful for those moments.
I don’t mean to imply moments have to be at exotic locations. But for me, they were UNIQUE moments outside my daily routine. The gatherings at our ranch, under the summer stars, with bagpipes played at the rivers edge (we lived at the mouth of a river, no one but us, and miles between us and the other side.) That was 50 ft out my back door.
Now when I go camping, I take a celtic cd and sit out under the stars and say goodnight to GOD and I step back into that very same feeling, b/c unlike others, I do NOT feel GOD at every moment (that is my deficiency, proof of my lack.) but when I NEED GOD, my perfect moments connect my humanity to my soul to GOD.
Katy when I go camping I take a cd of exotic birds – no music just different birds singing – loon’s etc.. freaks out the neighbor campers – i get a kick watching the peeps lookin up in trees…lol
What a joker you are, hens…You learned a bit from the bad spath jejeje
boink ~! it’s actually very soothing sounds of nature – my X spath could care less about things like that – yeah I can be a joker – my x didnt like anything like joking around – he was all serious and moody and bored all the time – boink on your noggin eva….
What’s the meaning of nogging, hens?
That’s actually funny to have the poor people looking for the exotic birds. Don’t boink so easily, hens, or you won’t find any non spath boyfriend ever 😀