Lovefraud recently received the following email from a reader whom we’ll call “Eleanor.”
Thank you for your wonderful site Lovefraud! It has helped me tremendously. I am still with my sociopath husband, but am quietly and surely planning on leaving. We have a few children so it really makes it more complicated.
He has now gone up to the next stage in what I’ve read sociopaths love to do. I’m so thankful that I read about it before he did it and know how to react and what to expect! He’s started to call up my family, giving them a sob story about how broken he is and how I won’t get any help (we’ve gone through a few counselors, with no obvious results as they’ve all been taken in by his acting abilities).
Now my question to you is, knowing he’s doing this, how can I have my close family not be influenced by him or believe him? To know it’s useless to fight him that’s a given (except in court, I will do whatever I can so that he doesn’t get custody of the children). But what can I say to my family to let them not take sides, realize he’s lying to them, and have them not believe him? I tried to tell them this but his authentic depressed behavior got to them more. I don’t want to be left alone without any support and want to catch this in the bud.
After I read your wonderful site I realize he’s been doing this for years. He’ll see I’m talking to a specific friend too much, and suddenly she’ll stop calling. I tried hard to think if I did anything to offend her, and I didn’t. Before I just had vague suspicions, but now I see clearly that he probably called her or her husband and spread lies that I told about her (I have only said good things about her, so there’s nothing truthful that he could say that would be bad). This has happened with past counselors also. One I finally had the courage to call and told her what he said that she said, and she was very upset and said she never said that about me and she’ll clear it up.
People don’t know
The problem Eleanor faces is that people in general do not know that sociopaths exist. They do not know what sociopathic behavior looks like. So because people do not understand that there are people who intentionally feign distress and unhappiness, casting themselves as the victim, they do not realize that what they are witnessing is nothing but an act, and they are being conned by a sociopath.
Eleanor needs to educate her family about sociopaths, but she needs to do it carefully. If she rants and raves that they should not to believe her husband because he is a sociopath, they will probably look at her like she is nuts. In fact, her husband may already be telling them that he’s very concerned about Eleanor, because she’s becoming mentally unglued. The family may begin to think that the husband is right, and Eleanor does, in fact, have mental issues.
Why would they think this? Because they probably believe that sociopaths are all deranged serial killers. If Eleanor’s husband hasn’t killed anyone, or if he isn’t violent, then she must be nuts.
Silence of the Lambs
A few days ago I watched The Silence of the Lambs. This is, of course, the movie that features Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter, the cannibalistic psychopath.
Even though the movie came out in 1991, I’d never seen it. I don’t like horror movies or scary movies, so I never wanted to. But since we spend so much time talking about how people don’t understand what a psychopath really is, I figured I needed to see the movie that created so much misinformation, so I ordered it from Netflix. I was so apprehensive that I actually had nightmares several days before watching the film.
Two things struck me about Silence of the Lambs. First, Jodie Foster was really young in the movie. Second, no wonder people think psychopaths are all brilliant, cold-blooded serial killers.
The movie won five Academy Awards, including Best Actor and Best Actress for Hopkins and Foster, along with Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. The American Film Institute named Hannibal Lecter, as portrayed by Hopkins, as the number one film villain of all time.
In the beginning of the movie, the medical director of the prison where Lecter is kept says, “Oh, he’s a monster. A pure psychopath. So rare to capture one alive.” And Lecter does display psychopathic behavior. But his behavior is so off the charts that I don’t know if there are any real-life cases as bad as he is.
Lecter is highly manipulative. The problem, however, is that his manipulation is obvious. His evil is obvious. And, of course, the guy is in prison for crimes so heinous that they put him in a straight jacket, strap him to a gurney and put a full mask on him to prevent him from literally biting someone’s head off.
I can see how the image of a psychopath from The Silence of the Lambs could be seared into someone’s brain. Unfortunately, the cartoon image of Hannibal Lecter may prevent people from identifying the real psychopaths who live among us.
After watching this movie, I feel like my decision to use the term “sociopath” on Lovefraud, instead of “psychopath,” was correct. No matter how many academic papers psychology researchers publish about the behavior of psychopaths, they’ll never be able to overcome the image of Anthony Hopkins ripping a cop’s face open with his teeth.
Red Flags of Love Fraud
Lovefraud’s goal is to educate people about sociopaths and what they’re really like, especially in intimate and family relationships. Towards that end, today I am sending my second book to the printer. It’s called, Red Flags of Love Fraud 10 signs you’re dating a sociopath. Here’s the description from the back cover:
What everyone who wants a loving relationship needs to know about social predators
Charisma, charm, so much in common and sexy too—is your romantic interest a dream date, or a sociopath? Millions of these social predators live among us, and they don’t look or act like serial killers. Rather, they present themselves as the love you’ve been waiting for all your life. Red Flags of Lovefraud identifies the clues and patterns of behavior that may indicate your partner is actually an exploiter. This book explains why you may be vulnerable, how the predators seduce you, how you become psychologically bonded, and how to break free of the trap.
I asked a former employee, whom I hadn’t spoken with in many years, to proofread the book. It turned out that she, too, married a sociopath. She told me, “If I’d read this book 10 years ago, it would have changed my life. Literally.”
My hope is that people will read the book, recognize the behaviors and realize that they’re dealing with a sociopath. My bigger hope is that people will read the book, learn the warning signs, and avoid becoming involved with a sociopath in the first place.
Explaining the behavior
But back to Eleanor she’s dealing with a husband who is full manipulation mode, trying to remove her support system by lying to her family and friends. My guess is he’s also running a smear campaign, subtly disparaging Eleanor to make her less credible.
First of all, I am really glad that Eleanor had the nerve to tell one of the counselors what her husband said. I’d be interested to know how that situation plays out —does the counselor start to get what is happening? Or does she fall for the husband’s lies again?
As far as the rest of her family is concerned, I think Eleanor needs to thoroughly educate herself about exactly what a sociopath is and how they behave. One way to do it is by reading Lovefraud carefully. She should learn about the key symptoms. She should even be able to quote some statistics about how many millions of sociopaths live among us.
Then, when appropriate opportunities arise with individual family members, she can present this information coolly and calmly. In fact, when her husband does something right out of the sociopathic playbook, she can explain how it is typical sociopathic behavior. For example, his sob story about how broken he is is an example of the pity play.
It’s important not to get upset or angry while conveying such information, because that would create the image that Eleanor is nothing but a scorned woman. People can’t listen to someone who is upset; they put up their defenses. And, presenting this information while upset could play right into the hands of the husband, who is probably saying that Eleanor is mentally unbalanced. So the best way to communicate this information is dispassionately.
What else can she do or say? Do you have any suggestions for Eleanor?
Quote Donna: So the best way to communicate this information is dispassionately.
Donna, this is SOOOOO important, but it is the HARDEST THING TO DO I think there is, because when we are WOUNDED and scared, to appear dispassionate and logical and calm is almost impossible to me. At least for me it was.
It is normal to be angry when someone smears you, and apparently her husband has been smearing her behind her back for years, making himself appear sympathetic and throwing on the pity play, making her appear the mean one.
I would encourage her to gather documentary evidence of hubby’s bad acts if possible, then I would encourage her to LEAVE ASAP….
If she can’t provide documentary evidence or witnesses to his bad behavior, lies, etc. then she must not appear to be “kicking” the poor depressed darling, or do anything that appears “mean” to the average person…simply say “I want a divorce, I am not happy with John” and that is enough reason for a divorce.
Her appearing calm to her friends, and the court should go a long way toward undoing his lies.
She must also be careful not to “bad mouth” him unless she has EVIDENCE she can display.
She may still lose some of her support base but there is no way we can completely counter the “smear campaign” which is typical with psychopaths, and the devaluing of us that they do. The psychopaths are well skilled in the smear campaign and the pity ploy for themselves. Poor dears.
Donna ~ This is such a great article to use as an educational tool. It has all the important information in one place, especially if you click on all the red highlighted words and read what comes up. It is easy to read and understand.
I am printing it out for a quick reference and also to show to people that don’t understand the concept of spaths. That might be a good idea for Eleanor also. Like Oxy suggested, document some of her husband’s behaviors, show them to family and friends, then give them a copy of this whole article, including the highlighted reference pages. I would also think that the fact that you singled out her story and printed it here will add credibility with her family and friends.
I agree, remaining dispassionate is indeed the hardest thing to do when dealing with this. In my personal experience, I have always been a truthful person and just the fact that someone was questioning my word and believing the spath lies, almost always left me acting like a complete “crazy person”. You almost have to practice remaining calm and to the point, no matter what.
This is a wonderful post. If I’d had the answer to this question years ago my life would have been quite different. Not sure how applicable it is to you, Eleanor, but below are the things I’ve learned that I wish I’d known earlier.
First thing I’d say is that, as hard as it is to hear, you need to be prepared that you won’t get all, or even many, of your old supports back. Psychopaths basically do the equivalent of ‘salting the earth’ as they go; you’ll need to accept that your world will be forever changed and there is no going back to the old. Decent people do their best to make alliances and cooperate; psychopaths divide and conquer. But one of the positives wills be, if you can successfully intercede in his machinations, that you will indeed find out who the saints and the swine are – but only if you are careful and observant.
Viktor Frankl used a little poetic license when he said that:
““Sigmund Freud once asserted, ’Let one attempt to expose a number of the most diverse people uniformly to hunger. With the increase of the imperative urge of hunger all individual differences will blur and in their stead will appear the uniform expression of the one unstilled urge.’ Thank heaven, Sigmund Freud was spared knowing the concentration camps from the inside. His subjects lay on a couch designed in the plush style of Victorian culture, not in the filth of Auschwitz. There, the ’individual differences’ did not ’blur’ but, on the contrary, people became more different; people unmasked themselves, both the swine and the saints.”
That passage has resonated deeply with me ever since I’ve read it. But I think the above doesn’t only apply to life-threatening crises, like life in a concentration camp. I think it applies equally where a social group is influenced by a psychopath – exactly like yours. Yet (this is where the poetic license applies) further on in his book he really refers to *three* groups: swine, saints, and the herd in the middle who haven’t yet made up their mind – whereby he implores each of us “to do our best” to join the minority:
“You may of course ask whether we really need to refer to “saints.” Wouldn’t it suffice just to refer to decent people? It is true that they form a minority. More than that, they always will remain a minority. And yet I see therein the very challenge to join the minority. For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best.”
”
So hopefully there will be some wise people in your social circle who are also those “saints” who will eventually come to your aid. But to protect yourself, you shouldn’t count on that. The challenge will partly be to educate and empower the “saints” in your family, if there are any. But I think your main target audience are the ‘herd’ in the middle, who generally find it easier to follow the pack that blindly follows authority (and shmooze) than to think for themselves unless there are good reasons to do otherwise.
I think the best you can do is, as Donna and Oxy said, softly drop information that help people educate themselves, and help them think their own way to the right conclusion; as they’ve said above if you try to educate them in any other way it will feel alarming and uncomfortable – factors which automatically escalates someones mistrust and skepticism. Most people do not want to look horrible information ‘in the face’, and will use pretty much any reason to shoot the messenger. So, as the messenger *as well as the target* you must be very careful here.
Not sure if this applies here, but one of the best things that ever happened to me was something my soon-to-be ex-husband did for me after my mother had completely salted my earth: even after 7 years of NC she spread all kinds of malicious gossip about me to his extended family; many people I had never met and my husband hadn’t seen in years. Luckily, we had a very friendly, cooperative and collaborative divorce – we didn’t go through a lawyer and did all the paperwork ourselves. He only heard about this at the point where we had newly separated, when his father told him that it was just as well because I was “trouble” – accompanied with what I now know are the usual lies: I’d been institutionalized; I had a drug problem; I had a criminal record; etc…. The truth was that I was the Dudley Do-Right/Good girl/straight A student of my family and social circle. My husband hit the roof and told his father the truth, and tore a strip off him for listening to malicious gossip without checking it out with us. He interogated his father and found out who had been spreading the rumours, and then called me to tell me this. He contacted my brother, who lived 2000 miles away, and bought a ticket for him to fly to where we lived. And he planned a route where the three of us went together to each person who he had been told were spreading the rumour, and asked them (gently) if this was true. HE told them it wasn’t true, and asked them where they had heard this. Of course, all of them pleaded innocent and disavowed any knowledge of this. None of them would disclose the source of the rumours. But it didn’t really matter, the gossip had been countered, and henceforth I doubt my mother would be able to get away with her machinations without people being aware that her opinion wasn’t to be trusted. And it’s so much easier to hold your head up high in the midst of malicious gossip when someone has clearly come to your defence. No matter how many problems we had in our marriage I will be forever indebted to, and grateful to, him for supporting me then.
Unfortunately our actions served to further salt the earth I imagine, and I doubt this is a path you (or anyone for that matter) should consider lightly. After all, people are quite comfortable spreading gossip, but rarely comfortable being confronted about it. But from what I could see the earth was so thoroughly salted that reconcilation with people we barely knew wasn’t really an option. Getting the truth out so that people had some kind of defence against my mother’s ‘dark arts’ was however, and my ex’s unwavering support of me even during our separation/divorce carried a lot of weight.
I feel for you; I’ve rambled a lot here because this is so very triggering. I didn’t know how to counter this, and went NC with my entire family. If I had it to do over again I would have tried to cultivate at least a few allies, but at that time I had barely even heard the words psychopath or sociopath and was defenceless. As Frankl says, people who will stand up for what’s right when the chips are down are a minority, and it can be very depressing when you start to see how very few there are. The gift that can come out of this is that you will start to see people unmask themselves.
Oh, forgot my original point. I soooo wish LF had been around when I was going through this. At the time there was no defence I could use to counter my mother’s manipulations; now, thanks to Donna, there is hope.
We all owe Donna a debt of gratitude for raising awareness on this issue.
Eleanor ,
You will get through this. Go back through the archives and read. I just read under Authors, Dr. Steve, Aggression. Sarah999 had some excellent posts under that thread. There are many experienced and knowledgeable posters here. I’ve read many books about psychopaths but no one knows the animal the way lovefrauders do. Now for my advice : not knowing the specifics of your situation – age of children, if you have a job or money of your own, etc.- I’ll start with some fundamentals. Any and all time spent with the psychopath around is time spent in isolation. I can’t emphasize that enough. Isolation is your worst enemy. It sounds from your writing that you have not kept up your relationships with your own family and your own friends. Fix that now- start today! Start spending all your spare time socializing with your family and your friends ( the remaining ones). But you need to do this without the psychopath around. This might sound impossible but it’s easy, really. Have fun with them and don’t harp about the sociopath too much. And definitely don’t refer to him as a sociopath or a psychopath until you are out of it -divorced. Try to get out and make more friends and never let the psychopath around them. Do tell all your family and friends how unhappy you are with your marriage and give specific reasons. I know how hard it can be to articulate why you hate him, fear him, distrust him, especially early on in the foggy quagmire. You need to discredit him the way he has been discrediting you. There is a poster on lovefraud that calls this “backspathing”. You are going to have to fight fire with fire. And the psychopath will be shocked that you have used this play. If you can’t articulate many specific behaviors, make them
up. Examples: You caught him masterbating in front of the computer.
He hasn’t been coming home until late on many evenings. You think he is screwing around (he probably is). He is hoarding money from you and the kids (financial abuse). He is a gambler, sex addict , he’s ‘on the down low’ -my ex was!. He won’t talk about his problems. He does the silent treatment (emotional abuse), etc. Don’t let having documented proof of any of his behaviors stop you from undermining his manipulations. LIE if needed. You have found yourself legally married to a psychopath.With kids! This is bad! It will be very hard for him to disprove any of these negative accusa
Newt Gingrich being cheered during primary debates is sad evidence regarding the public’s lack of education regarding psychopaths.
I lost the thread I was on . It’s probably a good thing. I was getting really worked up! Just to wind it up- What is important is that you start
compartmentalizing him just the way he has been doing you. Put him and his people in a box. And put you and your kids, family, and friends in a separate box. Talk as little as possible to any of his people. You have to let go of his family and cohorts. Cut them loose. Concentrate on your people. Strengthen your relationships with YOUR people.
madhanna,
I think your advice to compartmentalize is excellent.
However, I’m not so sure of the advice to lie. For purely pragmatic reasons – leaving aside the ethical considerations – decent people stink at it. For good reason; it’s not a socially desirable skill to acquire (unless you’re a path) hence decent people never practice it enough to get good at it. And the odds of being caught out in a lie are greater for us than for the paths in our life. Nothing will set you up to never being believed again more than being caught in a lie while painting yourself as the aggrieved victim.
I believe ErinBrock backspathed by judiciously using the truth at the right time, not by lying.
Besides, it sounds like Eleanor has more than enough truthful examples to use.
Annie,
All of your advice is excellent and right on the mark.
I would add that Eleanor should get a little mp3 recorder and record his BS antics to save for the future as needed. They may come in handy. Another way to get the truth out is to “accidentally” dial your cell phone (make a pocket call) to someone while he is streaming his BS in private. Save that tactic for the very BEST moments.
Keeping this evidence is important, but I would not deploy it unless absolutely necessary. I much prefer the end result of what happens when a spath slanders you: It separates the wheat from the chaffe.
In truth, there are many bad people in our lives who hide their disgusting nature. Evil gossip reveals them because they revel in the slander. They pass it on and it titillates them. A true friend, doesn’t stoop to that. With the help of a spath you can reveal who else is a worthless person in your life. Then you can cull that from your rolodex.
I completely agree with Annie that lying is not ever going to work. When we backspath it has to be with the truth and hopefully with some evidence.
Thanks skylar,
Speaking of good advice, I’ve been meaning to ask you and ErinBrock to submit a post documenting your advice on ‘grey rock’ and ‘backspathing’ respectively.
I wasn’t reading regularly when the topic of grey rock first came up, but I believe that it was you who introduced it. I was quite confused at first, but after wading through a lot of posts figured it out, and I’ve since found it to be a powerful technique. In my opinion it deserves its own post so that people can find it.
Same thing with backspathing.
BTW, I came across a thread where you and Oxy were coming up with trite ‘grey rock’ expression to use – and they were hilarious!!! That could be a separate post all on its own.