Like us, Claudia Moscovici had her run-in with a psychopath, one that almost destroyed her marriage. Since then, like many of us, she has thoroughly researched this destructive personality disorder. She started a blog called “Psychopathy Awareness,” and wrote two books: a novel called The Seducer, and an upcoming nonfiction book called Dangerous Liaisons.
In her review of my book, Love Fraud—How marriage to a sociopath fulfilled my spiritual plan, Claudia writes, “I didn’t think I could learn much more about the subject, but Donna’s book proved me wrong.”
Read the entire review on Psychopathy Awareness.
Love Fraud is available in the Lovefraud Store.
Claudia,
He can be in SERIOUS trouble if he contacts me again. He could lose his job over it. PRECISELY why I let him know NOT TO CONTACT me again.
I’m resolute.
Ox, thank you for your input, but I’m okay with having responded with regards to my situation with him in do not contact me again.
LL
Oxy, before participating actively on this blog for a week, as opposed to being just a passive reader, I really thought that the psychopath’s wife was almost as evil as he is. I couldn’t understand how someone could stay for so many years with an KNOWN EVIL person without being in some ways like that person (unless they were physically forced to, of course). All of us are victims, but as you said earlier, we all had different locks and they used different keys to open us up emotionally. For me nice, romantic and encouraging behavior opens the door, but overt abuse, even for one day, closes the door, forever. For some, however, intermittent abuse combined with “niceness” opens the door even wider than just nice treatment. Which is why, in my opinion, it’s so important that we articulate our experiences and perspectives to inform the public.
Claudia,
I don’t think I can get a restraining order against him for just contacting me via the means that he has. But I CAN get him fired. I prefer NOT to ruffle feathers that way, as I still remain a client, however, if he does this again, I will do it. I feel good about responding the way that I did.
So now, moving forward. 🙂
LL
Claudia, if there was a “message” in your post to me above I don’t quite “get it.” So you might try being more clear in what you are trying to express.
As for LL, I still stand by my opinion that breaking NC is counter productive. I just broke NC a week or so ago with my egg donor for a “good reason”—-and I shouldn’t have done so, I paid a price for it. The “experts” (including DeBecker), and most former victims as well, espouse NC for a REASON—and there are very FEW exceptions to breaking NC and just to tell them “don’t call me” isn’t one of those reasons. I didn’t see that myself at first because I WANTED so badly to tell them off, to tell them “I AM NOT SPEAKING TO YOU. So THERE!” But NC, if we stick with it, does a much better job than telling them to “kiss off don’t contact me again.” I am not going to change that opinion and I will continue to tell posters here that NC is the only way they will truly ever break free and actually get the guy to GO AWAY and stay away, and even then, some people will continue to STALK you either to irritate you or possibly like one poster here on another thread today to seriously harm or kill you. Either way, NC is the KEY to our own emotional healing and shutting them down. Eventually we get to where we don’t care if they contact us or not (unless it is a real case of potentially lethal stalking). Even as far as I have come, I realized I made a big mistake responding to her LURE.
Claudia,
I saw my ex’s wife as the evil bitch he painted her out to be. Until about a year and a half ago now. Through their separation and divorce, I saw more of what was going on. Not through her responses, but through HIS to the situation. Little by little the lies he told me were falling apart.
She is a very devout Christian. I think she stayed in the marriage for the same reasons we all do, underlying, part narcissism, an appealing to our narcissism as well as trauma bonds. I think his wife was fearing what the neighbors and church would think. He used that as a hook, as well as the submissive wife crap out of scripture. She was also dependent upon him financially. Then she began an affair outside the marriage and that pretty much sealed the deal for her.
While he was piously beating the crap out of her for her “violations” he never bothered to tell her that he was still engaged in an affair with me and has been the entire time. So I told her. I’m glad I did that, because I think it gave her the justification for herself to leave. She’s happy now and I”m happy FOR HER.
I never thought she’d leave either.
But I didn’t think I would either.
LL
Ox,
I don’t disagree with you about NC. I felt differently about it last night. What’s done is done.
I’m choosing to move forward.
LL
Oxy, to clarify: in my previous post I was saying that you are taking big steps in your blog posts to inform the general public about not just a) how psychopaths lure women (which I describe as well), but also b) how they hold on to their victims even as they abuse them (which you and several other contributors describe), and c) how and why the victims sometimes collude with them (the trauma bonding, co-dependency, etc). I was saying that since communicating with other victims on this blog, I learned a lot more about points b) and c), which I had no personal experience about.
There’s not enough of this kind of information published out there, especially about points b) and c), which are not intuitive (why would anyone “voluntarily” stay with bad people who mistreat them?), and which only victims who have been through this experience can describe best. I see a potential book coming out from all your posts, if you’d be interested in writing it. Of course, the posts you write help others in themselves.
LL, that just goes to show that we can’t accept what the psychopaths say about their wives or lovers or anyone, because they do a smear campaign towards everyone.
Claudia,
Yep. I’m really “lucky” coming out of this because I was the OW, well………..that’s too much of a liability for him lol!!!
He’s not going to tell his new gf about me, that’s for sure, but he WILL use his ex wife as his pity ploy. I hope the lies come for poor gf in the future, because when she finds out about that….ohhhh boy….
This is another reason that I think he contacted just to irritate me. He DOES NOT want new gf to find out about me for sure.
I have a good feeling that everything is going to be okay for me. He’ll slither away.
If I make it a big deal, then he remains in my life. I need to see it as a blip on the radar screen to continue to move forward.
LL
LL, I think your strategy is good. We can’t control the psychopaths themselves, of course. But we can control our own behavior and how we move on with our lives with as much dignity and strength as possible.
Thanks, Claudia, I have learned a great deal since coming here, and I have a great deal more to learn….learning is LIFE LONG and as long as we are learning we are growing, but when we quit learning we quit growing and when we quit growing, we WITHER.
I’m glad that you continue to learn, Claudia, because it is when we think we know it all that we fall flat on our faces! ASK ME HOW I KNOW! LOL There are some “basic truths” that we need to learn and not let them be twisted either by others or by our own denial. I have let others twist the truth, and I have let my own denial of the truth twist it. I can’t control others’ twisting of the truths, but I can control my own acceptance of their twisting.
Learning to set boundaries both for others and for myself has been I think one of the BIGGEST learning experiences I have had. Deciding what my own TRUTHS are and sticking those truths, and yet being able to discuss my rationale for why I think those things are true for me, without being threatened emotionally, is important. I have looked at the things I accept as “truth”—some very basic concepts of right and wrong, up and down, left and right, and have actually changed my mind 180 degrees on some of them. I am no longer “in favor of” the death penalty. Not because I think it is “wrong” so much as I think that the way it is administered is unjust, unfair and unfortunately, there is a high risk of it being WRONG. If a man is sent to prison for a crime he didn’t commit, he can be released, but there is no chance a man can be “released” from the grave if DNA evidence later finds him innocent of the crime.
I have also come to believe that our “justice” system is indeed our IN-justice system and part of the reason for that is that the public and even the professionals do NOT UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF THE PERSONALITY DISORDERED must be kept away from the general population. Unfortunately, only one group of the “PDs” are actually prosecuted and put in prison and they are not kept there long enough—the rest of them are in CONGRESS!
There is a scandal going on now about an American “sex offender” NY billionaire who had underage girls that he pimped for his political buddies, including Prince Andrew of Britain and a LONG LIST of American political cronies who partied hardy on his private islands and his boats and planes. 17 of the 20 cases were “settled out of court” and he went to prison for a short time for ONE charge…BTW on his last day in office Bill Clinton who was one of his buddies PARDONED one of his billionaire buddy’s friends who had been convicted and was the only “friend” who had visited him while he was doing time in the Federal Pen.
The GOOD OLD BOY NETWORK is at work shielding the rich crooks from those that rob liquor stores. Pardoning those for crimes who have “connections” with the presidents and the princes. It is a CRIME for an adult man to pay a 15 year old for sexual services, unless he is rich or famous or powerful and can fly her off to his private island retreat in his own helicopter with the President and his secret service body guards. So, justice isn’t just, and life isn’t fair…and there is no tooth fairy and no Easter Bunny and Santa isn’t real either…but I can still accept that I am not responsible for all the ills in the world, and I can’t fix them either, but I AM responsible for how I behave and allow others to behave toward me.
Here is one of the links of many about this girl and the American man… http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1363431/FBI-reopen-case-Prince-Andrews-sex-offender-friend-Duke-claim-diplomatic-immunity-avoid-quiz.html