Lovefraud received the following e-mail recently from a reader, who we’ll call “Iris.” She was married for 20 years to a man who she now realizes is a sociopath.
I avoid talking to my ex-husband as much as possible, but he is 4 months behind on court ordered spousal support as I am in school getting my business degree and working. He has to pay $600 a month for 3 years. The court also ordered the support to pay me back for $11,000 I had to put into our house and property to make it “sellable” after he left me in the dust and moved to another state. He left me with 5 acres, a house falling apart, a barn with code violations, and our 3 family dogs. I went into survival mode and got it all fixed and sold and re-homed all of my dogs (who I love and miss very much) through a wonderful adoption agency. He also owes me for a mortgage reimbursement check he forged my signature on and cashed after he talked the mortgage co. into sending it to him in Calif. I filed a police report.
I was hoping you could help me. I e-mailed him with the threat of taking him to court and he called several times before I answered. I try to avoid talking to him because I always feel I am being manipulated. Within our conversation, he was mean, evil, nice, ugly and caring and same old guy. I brought up that I know how he operates and that it took distance for a lengthy period of time to see that he was a sociopath and smooth talker and that his agenda is to “win” and manipulate. I said many other things also. HE ADMITTED THAT HE OPERATES DIFFERENTLY AND DOESNT FEEL THE SAME AS OTHERS. I was blown away. The only other time that he ever came close to this was when I was about to leave him several years ago when I found out he was cheating on me again. His exact words were, “I can’t help it; I’ve always gotten a RUSH out of getting away with stuff. It’s been like that since I was a kid.”
I guess what I “need” to know is, why did that hit me so hard? Why did it make me so emotional when he said he operates differently? Why did it make me feel sorry for him? Why do I feel so exhausted and why can’t I stop crying now? Does his admission make it that much more real? Did the reality that he really is a sociopath and my whole marriage was meaningless overwhelm me? I have been divorced for a year and a half and apart from him since Nov. 2008. We have a 21-year-old son. We have not even had to communicate much.
All I know is, I am still affected in a very dark way because of being with him for so long. I’ve been to a psychologist once a week for quite a while. It helps, but she doesn’t KNOW what it actually feels like. Do you have any words of wisdom to help me move on? I am ok most of the time, but I don’t trust anyone and can’t even think about dating. I feel paralyzed sometimes and felt that way throughout my long marriage. I still find myself resorting back to thinking, “maybe it was me.” Am I damaged for life? I am usually pretty busy, but when I have time on my hands, things still get dark and I am tired of feeling like this.
Extreme difference
One of the hardest things to wrap our brains around is the extreme degree to which sociopaths are different from us.
On the home page of Lovefraud.com, I state that sociopaths have no heart, no conscience and no remorse. Think about it. Sociopaths are missing all the qualities that make up the core of our humanity.
This is why coming to terms with the idea that sociopaths exist is so difficult. In order to grasp the concept of sociopaths, we have to give up some of our most cherished beliefs about what it means to be a human being living in our society.
Exploding myths
In our society, we may have differing points of views as old or young, men or women, liberals or conservatives, religious or secular, management or labor, or any other polarity. Still, some cultural ideas are so widespread, and so entrenched, that they are regarded as axioms.
When sociopaths are factored in, however, these axioms are nothing but exploding myths. Here are a few:
1. We all want to be loved. Sociopaths don’t care about love. They don’t even feel love. They certainly do not feel empathy for fellow human beings. When they appear to be acting out of love, it is probably nothing but manipulation, a tactic to advance their agenda. Sociopaths only want three things: power, control and sex.
2. There’s good in everyone. This, unfortunately, is not true. There are people in the world who are rotten to the core, and they’re the sociopaths. But unaware of the inherent evil of these predators, we believe that everyone deserves a chance, a second chance, and even more chances. Sociopaths milk this belief by promising to reform, but they never do.
3. Parents love their children. Most of us probably believe that, even if our childhoods were imperfect, our parents loved us and did the best they could. We don’t want to consider the idea that some parents simply don’t care about their kids. But if sociopaths have any concern about their children, it’s roughly equivalent to the concern they feel for an inanimate possession, like a flat screen TV. There is no real love.
4. Truth and justice will prevail. Many of us end up in legal battles with sociopaths, such as filing for divorce or claiming fraud. We approach the legal system assuming that we’ll get a fair hearing and justice will be served. But for sociopaths, court is show time. They lie to suit their agendas, and judges either don’t see it, or don’t care. Court isn’t about truth, it’s about winning, and sociopaths are wired to win.
5. We should live according to the Golden Rule. “Do to others what you would like them to do to you—”this rule of ethics is at the center of every major religious tradition. But if the “others” are sociopaths, living by the Golden Rule sets us up to be exploited. Treating them as we want to be treated, we’ll eventually find ourselves drained, and the sociopath on to a new source of supply.
Recovery
So how do we deal with the loss of what we thought were unshakeable truths? I think recovery has three aspects to it.
1. We accept that they are what they are. It is extremely unlikely that any sociopath, by the time he or she is an adult, is going to change. We must give up feeling guilty, or responsible, or even concerned. We may need to release grief or anger over what happened to us, but we must realize that there is nothing we can do about them.
2. We are grateful that we are not them. Although sociopaths probably don’t realize it, theirs is an empty, barren existence. They do not feel love, they do not feel human connection, they do not feel the warmth of belonging to anything. We may be in pain, and temporarily feel paralyzed, but we can recover our humanity. They don’t have a chance.
3. We resolve never to be exploited again. Now we know that sociopaths exist. We know how they think. We know how they act. We will never lose this knowledge, and knowledge is power. We take back our power, establish our boundaries and move forward.
Yes, the experience of a sociopath rattles us to the core. But it is possible to learn from it, gather ourselves and live again, with much more wisdom than we had before the nasty encounter.
Agreenbean ~ Love is something that is meant to be shared. That, in and of itself, is a very good reason NOT to love a sociopath. They are incapable of feeling or giving love. I believe that is part of their curse, and also what makes them what they are. They feed off of our emotions because they cannot feel anything themselves.
Relationships are supposed to be give AND take. NOT just give, and certainly not just TAKE. That is all a sociopath will do take, taKE, TAKE!!
We are never supposed to change ourselves for someone else. That is giving up our right to BE ourselves. A loving, honest relationship consists of compromises for sure. Those compromises MUST come from both sides, not just one.
Take care of YOU. (((hugs)))
Greenbean, I don’t have the answers to these questions. I sometimes get caught up in them myself.
I feel a certain pity for them. I tend to think of them as broken spirits, incarnate. The problem with that is our extreme empathy, and how it is used against us. We have to guard against being taken in, so, I think we defend against it by detachment, and sometimes anger. We dehumanize them, in order to escape their extreme power over us.
Who is to love them? I’ll leave it up to God, because any human being that does is bound to be hurt, and badly.
That doesn’t mean you have to abandon your feelings of love for this broken person, that would be a denial of your feelings, but you can love him from a distance, and you can stay true to yourself, and what is right and good for you.
agreenbean,
A sociopath is entitled to love and respect if he wants it and takes/accepts it from another on fair terms. The text you quoted was probably not intended to have “no matter how much abuse and betrayal he or she may have heaped onto the person expected to do the loving” appended to it. Just like it probably would not have been intended to be followed by “no matter how many innocent children he or she may have tormented and killed after repeatedly being told how wrong this is” or “no matter how many acts of genocide he or she may have participated in”. The right to love and respect is a starting point in my opinion.
I would also say that that even if a person is entitled to love and respect *in the abstract* because they are alive despite having lived venally for the most part, they do not have the right to be entrusted for the umpteenth time with trust they have historically pi**ed all over again and again. That is absolutely not anybody’s right.
You may very well miss that person — you can hardly be faulted for this, and your experience is probably the norm. It was my experience in my most significant S experience. But often what a sociopath’s victim is missing is an illusion. At the very least missing cherry picked momenrts and not the whole of the other person — because the whole was an awful person and an awful experience! I still miss my S in some ways, but I know he is almost certainly beyond fixing, no matter how wonderful and giving a person I might be to him. And possibly some part of him respected the women who told him to get lost *more* than the ones who kept giving.
I don’t know if you saw my comparison of a sociopath to an alligator with a brain tumor. I added that maybe it was a worm eating through the brain precisely to undermine any linger “desirability” a predator might have to his victim and substitute for it a little bit of “Ewwww!” factor. the fact is that for most sociopaths, there are countless women that *don’t* want the guy. They are either more alert to what he is because of previous experience and so he inspired in them only an “ick” response, or maybe he is just plain not their type for other reasons. But I think it is helpful to keep in mind that at best these people are buffoons and ultimately not attractive people. And some aspects of them can be plain gross.
As to “why not me?” I say the answer is: because the person is such an idiot that he decided he didn’t want it to be you. And is probably so stupid that his mind or feelings won’t change, ever. Plus, with time it becomes clear that such people either did not want to change, or they lacked the dicipline to work toward the change they briefly believed they wanted, despite YOUR investment in them, and I mean patience and love, not necessarily a financial investment.
The thing about the alligator living on Iris’s meadow was that it was just SO adorable in the past when it was a toddler alligator (even though the pathogen in the brain was already there waiting to damage the brain in a way that would later make the alligator sabotage its own life on top of being a cold blooded reptile focused only on dinner at any moment). The toddlerhood of the alligator was not the whole picture or story of the alligator — more that happy, innocent, safe moments or era that can’t be returned to.
Being alone is such an opportunity for peace and recovery, despite the fact that some aspects of being alone can suck. But opening one’s self up for yet new abuses puts the peace and recovery at risk right away.
I love all the comments about grey rock and apathy. And of course “no contact” is the ideal medicine.
LouiseRosen,
“de nile” — hee hee. Crocodiles, alligators, pretty much indistinguishable to me! Sharks, cobras, boa constrictors… all scary in my book…
Greenbean,
I agree so much with what Raggedy Ann says…and Kim and Hope2 as well….
The Bible says “love your enemies” but LOVE in that context is not a squishy feeling, it is an ACTION, a verb, not a noun.
It simply means to be honest and good to people…even those that treat you badly, but it does not mean that you MUST ASSOCIATE WITH THEM no matter what they do.
Even Jesus and St. Paul told us that if a “brother” (someone close to us) sins against us that if we can’t get them to stop doing that we are to TREAT THEM AS A HEATHEN, and NOT EVEN EAT WITH THEM….doesn’t that sound like NO CONTACT to you? It does to me.
As a human, even a psychopath deserves to be treated with “love” (kindly) but that does not mean that they do not get the CONSEQUENCES of their actions…and that might mean prison, or even execution….IT DOES NOT MEAN that we must continue to allow them to abuse and use us.
Why do you think you are obligated to allow THAT particular psychopath to CONTINUE to abuse you?
We call it the “fog” or FOG which stands for FEAR, OBLIGATION and GUILT….and until the FOG clears, and you see that you are NOT OBLIGATED to allow anyone to abuse you, you will live in FEAR AND GUILT….but you don’t have to. (((hugs))) and God bless.
Zoey,
Treasure your solitude and know you will trust again. Just give it time. Both time for your healing, and time regarding any individual you know… quietly observing them when they are not focused on you, and noting any red flags when they are focused on you. And don’t ever again put up with unexplained mysteries, unresolved confusion, or anyone’s insistence to you put them fisrt and not yourself.
I hope you feel better soon. And remember you are not completely alone at all. You have your children, and you have everyone here. 🙂
Hi everyone. I am so thankful that you are all out there. I thought for a long time that I was damaged goods. My picker is broken. I doubted myself for years. I believed the P in my life that I wasn’t good enough, that I couldn’t live without them. Even my best friend of 18 years, I thought I couldn’t live without them telling me what to do next.
Now a year later, no more girlfriend, she ran off with the live in boyfriend. Her true colors are clear as ever today. I am with all your help started to trust my own judgement, and believe whole heartedly that God is doing for me what I couldn’t do for myself. Thank you God.
I am taking time to heal, big time. As the days pass and I have removed myself from the people, no contact, I really see that I have a voice and value. I shake hard at times, but I know it’s the feelings of fear and scare that I lived in all my 50 years. Today I feel that fear, but knowing I am safe today, safe alone and trust that I with God’s help can get thru this pain so deep in my gut.
The relationships with these sick people are coming to an end, I can feel it. Two weeks ago the ex was calling in the middle of the night threatening to come and get me that he was right behind me. The old me would have trembled and cried and locked myself away. I have a voice today. I called the police, wrote a statement and took care of myself the best I could. The old me would have thought I was doing something wrong, that he didn’t really mean to threaten me, he just misses me. Honestly, I still think that, but with your help here a LF I am taking my power back, slowly, but I feel it. I walked from anyone involved with these people, best friend and even family too. As soon as I hear, ” Oh he and she are’nt that Bad”, I just turn away. Yes it hurts, hurts bad. I know that there is light beyond all of this. I am experiencing a glimpse of it. What’s funny is I have never felt this strongly about my well being before. God is doing for me what I was always afraid to do for myself cause I thought I was the bad gal. Not a Bad Gal, An Unhealthy Gal trying to get Well.
Thank you all so much and God Bless, Gotta Love you all.
Dear Anne,
Congratulations on your new found backbone!!!! and as we say here TOWANDA!!!!! Great! Good job!!!!
It is important to get away from the dishonest people in our lives and NOT make excuses for them and their bad behavior.
I know it is difficult to recognize that some people we love are not good for us, and are damaging to us or they are just hoodwinked by the bad guys, but we cannot fix them…we can only protect ourselves.
Sometimes over time people change too…someone that we may have loved for a long time becomes toxic to us, self absorbed, abusive or just dysfunctional…but we can’t allow that to pull us over the cliff as well. Remember the old saying our parents probably said to us or we said to our children ‘Okay, everyone else is doing it—if everyone else was jumping off a cliff would you jump too?” We must hold ourselves to a standard of protection no matter what others are doing. We must put ourselves FIRST when it comes to protecting ourselves. (((hugs)))
I believe I was groomed as a child to protect the P, to be loyal to them at any cost. Cause if I didn’t stay loyal I would be all alone. Where there was harm I would bring love, where there was unjust I would bring just, where there was sickness I would bring health. Today I know that I am not that powerful to be able to bring all the good loving things into relationships that they cannot comprehend. I use to beat my head against the wall trying to stay loyal against all odds.
One day 16 months ago I stood up said no more, why I do not know. All I remember was I was sick and beat down. All used up. It takes a lot of energy doesn’t it to invest in such futile relationships. I was scared to death and made a lot of mistakes 16 months ago, but those mistakes taught me to endure. No matter what the whole town thought of me, what rumors these people said about me. Somehow I endured. You are the first people I relate to. I am no longer all alone. I see that pain is the toushstone to recovery. Lots of pain, confusion and second guessing, but it is paying off. Not all the time but a lot of the time.
I worked for the army for 28 years and I started to learn about PTSD and in that process I learned about living with the fear and unability to say no to the ugly things in life. PTSD support people understand this harm. But LF is showing me a way out.
It feels good to be honest with myself today, and trust I can make better life decisions today for me. Every once ina while I get very angry at the people who hurt me,a nd I want to act out, just as they did. It’s not pretty, but I am trying to use restrained, cause it wil just open that door to a fight or flight response from me. N/c is the best thing but not the easiest thing. I feel hate deep in me, to the bone, but they won’t get it if I fight them one on one. You all taught me that. You fight with an idiot and you loss. Right?
Huggggggs
Dear Anne,
Yep, you are getting there I think! Hang on, the hate/rage/anger will pass…and then come again, it is like a roller coaster ride I think sometimes, and even now I have an up and a down sometimes, but the ride does start to smooth out as it goes along.
Keep on with the healing, the learning and the growing. It DOES get better, but it takes some time. (((hugs))) and God bless.