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:
hens, seems you’ve missed your therapist appointment too…. 🙂
I can’t afford therapy so I dig in the dirt instead. My grandson gave me a cute little flower pot for xmas. It say’s”I make dirt look good..” just had to throw that in…what do you mean anyway woman? you saying I need therapy? I dont need therapy I need a LIFE~!
Hey, Hens, I’m enjoying the LIFE I have!
It may not be LiLo’s and I may not have as much excitement and media coverage as she has, but you know—I ain’t facing jail! I can’t decide if that girl is bi-polar or psychopathic or ADHD or all of the above! I know that whatever the “diagnosis” is that girl is in a WORLD OF HURT and isn’t digging herself out of it very fast, in fact, she is the one digging at the bottom of the hole getting in deeper and deeper.
I know one thing, SHE is the one who needs to GET A LIFE, not you and me, personally I think you and I are doing JUST FINE!
Oh yes I know your right Oxer… I have sooooo much to be thankful for..but please let me whine a little bit – I just wants a friend……Lilo? is that what they are calling her these days? I think she is just a product of two Narc parent’s..I bet you a donut hole she will be dead before she is done….
Ox,
She just went to court. Why is it that this girl gets a slap on the wrist and they give her the same stupid speech over and over? ONE MORE CHANCE TO GET YOUR LIFE TOGETHER….ummmm???
I’ve never seen anyone get so many “chances” in my life!
If she were merely a “pagan” she wouldn’t, would she?
GREAT example for youth her age, wouldn’t you say?
LL
Henry, darling, NONE OF US GET OUT OF LIFE ALIVE! LOL ROTFLMAO
Yea, she may OD or do a suicide gesture before long. Wouldn’t surprise me a bit! Whatever is wrong with her she’s got some sort of “Cluster B” problem Me thinks. I would like to see her go to jail though, not because it will help her, but just for the benefit it would be to show other stupid kids that there are consequences for the things we do. So far she doesn’t seem to have had much in the way of consequences.
Yea, I think her parents are worse than bad, and her apple didn’t fall far from those two trees…
The last court date she wore a skirt up to her XXX this time she wore slacks and a blouse cut down to her XXX….she just doesn’t get it.
court is her only gig these days – she has to dress for the pop a rot see…
Talking of court, hens, my SIL has told me he intends to take my spath Daughter to court to try to extract some child support money from her.
Her response was.{“Go right a head, but you wont have any luck there, as i dont have the money”.} she is apparently concerned she is about to be evicted from her shared flat,{condo}. he said, I cant believe the coldness and sarcasm in her voice, hell, they are her kids too, and she basically doesnt care, only about saving her own skin. My guess is that her reputation as a thief has preceded her, and shes now vitually unemployable., except for small writing jobs for travel mags.
Im now scared that she will ring me again {after 2 years} with the usual sob story. If she does, I will have to steel myself, and just reiterate the same as Ive said in my emails and letters to her, ie,ONE boundary, non negotionable forall the rotten things shes done to me.
Wont happen, but if it does, I know it will mean squat, just a means of sucking me dry all over again.
Im rehearsing what I will say to her, if she DOES ring up.
ie,
“Boundary unchanged, Im sure youll work something out,
have to go now, someone at the door, have a nice life, ” and HANG UP!!
Love,
Mama gemXX
Ox (and others), if you really want a good laugh, google “Cougar Barbie”. It’s pretty hilarious. I have been considering a few nips and tucks myself; maybe once I get past this midlife crisis, I will reconsider. I’m feeling better about myself today. I just had a major healing over the neighbor boy (see my post on the other thread), so I’m not as sad. Sometimes I feel like my insides are like the inside of a golf ball. Have you ever cut open a golf ball? All this tightly wound stuff just springs out. When there are little holes cut in my tough exterior – the poker face I put on for work – emotion just comes springing out. The more that comes out, the better I feel. Some day (soon I feel) I will be completely grounded. And then maybe I’ll be on the other side of the mid-life crisis.
Dear Star,
yea, sugar I had that “midlife crisis” when my husband died. Never noticed I had gotten “old” in the meantime LOL (for it to have been mid-life I would have had to live to be 114!) LOL I remember a conversation I had once with my grandmother who was 82 at the time. She was tiny and dried up and looked like a little APPLE DOLL FACE, in her youth she had been an AMAZING BEAUTY. She told me that INSIDE she still felt like that beautiful young woman and when she looked in the mirror and saw that old woman looking out she felt like the PRINCESS WHO HAD BEEN KISSED BY THE FROG AND TURNED INTO AN OLD WOMAN, but INSIDE she still felt the same.
A friend of mine about my age was telling me about this CUTE young guy who came over to install something in her house and how she sort of looked at him lustfully WITHOUT HIM KNOWING and how cute she thought it was that we are sexually invisible to these young men, who would NEVER BELIEVE that we (sweet little old a-sexual ladies) would look at their cute tight butts and have lustful thoughts. Hee hee LITTLE DO THEY KNOW!!!!
Just cause there is snow on the roof doesn’t mean there isn’t fire in the stove!
So, Star, just because you are not the 20 year old “cute young thing” any more is no reason for grief, or giving up on your own sexuality or sense of self being okay. There is a great bookk written by a psychiatrist, can’t remember her name now but it is “Crones don’t whine” and it is about EMBRACING our maturity and enjoying it. There are a lot of things that are the BETTER VERSIONS of what we were at 20. I may have looked really hot and sexy when I was 20, but you know what, I was a child then, not a woman and I am a WOMAN now—hear me roar!!!!! I don’t depend on what the outside of me looks like to BE WHAT I AM…and that is an empowering feeling. I don’t even depend on what someone else things of me to be who I am and sure of who I am. It’s all a LEARNING PROCESS and an ACCEPTING process —accepting of what IS REALITY, not living in fantasy and hope in winning the emotional-hook-up lotto or anything else. Just accepting who and what I am where I am when I am. It’s pretty cool, and funny thing is, now when I do look in the mirror, I SEE a different vision than what I did when I was so depressed because I was “old and fat and wrinkled” I actually think I LOOK BETTER THAN I DID. I’m not sure if I really do look better or just think I do but in either case, it doesn’t matter. I’m happy with what I see. I accept what I see uncritically.