Lovefraud recently received the following email from a reader who posts as “Salvation2012.”
Thank you for helping me decide when I needed to cut my losses during my divorce. I did cut my “losses,” yet the total I received tallied up to a number similar, just not in all cash. Because I settled in his eyes, he told everyone I was just proving how I was the guilty one and didn’t want to risk being exposed. To the end he will deny permanently injuring me and bleeding me of money, and cheating on me (which I only later found out about the extent).
My recent concern is watching him seemingly have no consequences. I’m not a vengeful person, so this is a distressing area for me, but I just thought karma or something would move in. How was he convicted of a crime, and given no contact and stay away orders from civil and criminal courts, and still have his job, and still be with the woman he was with (apparently for the last 7 years. We were together since January 2007, so their relationship lasted the entirety of our time together), and his friends are happy for him.
Maybe I’m staunch in my morals, but if I had a friend who was found guilty and the judge took away his first time offenders rights because 1) the severity of the injuries and 2) it was only the first caught act of violence, I would not support that person anymore. I would say that person dug themselves a big hole and it’s theirs to climb out of or stay in.
I am finding peace in my new location, yet struggle with reality checking and normal people actually being normal and trusting that. He seems to be just fine and has announced to all the love of his life, and he is finally happy happy happy, and has been with her since last May, which was while we were still married, and is the incorrect start date as her husband contacted me and has been following them for 7 years of his marriage (they are now going through a divorce).
It’s not a jealousy, but an envy of how he is so unaffected by what he did to me, even with law and court representatives telling him to his face what they saw in him. I don’t want to have to figure him out anymore as it prevents me from fully moving forward. So how do I turn off the switch when the spath is moving on easily and I am still finding my ground?
Salvation2012 brings up two issues here that seem to be intertwined, but they really aren’t. The issues are what happens to the sociopath, and what happens to us.
The sociopath
Chances are very good that sooner or later, karma will move in on the sociopath. At some point sociopaths usually screw up. They go too far over the line, anger the wrong person, get sloppy, run out of people to exploit, or suffer medical consequences after years of unhealthy living.
But this is not going to happen on our timetable. In fact, we may never even hear of the sociopath’s unseemly collapse.
In the meantime, sociopaths seem to be getting away with everything. And yes, they are unaffected. But think about why they are unaffected: They are hollow, empty shells of human beings. They have no heart and no conscience. This is what enables them to shred us and move on without a second thought.
I’d rather keep my heart and conscience and suffer the pain than live their eternally barren existence.
So what do we do? We let them go. We let go of our experience with them. Our goal should be to get to the point where they simply don’t matter. They are non-entities.
Our own path of healing
Letting go of the sociopath is actually one of the best things we can do for ourselves. When we stop worrying, or even wondering, about consequences for the sociopath, we can focus our energy on our own healing.
Salvation2012 asked, “How do I turn off the switch?”
The first step is to viscerally accept what happened to us. Usually the switch that connects us to the sociopath is jammed on because we’re still beating ourselves up for falling for the lies, or wishing that what happened in our life did not happen.
We don’t condone the actions of the sociopath. We don’t like what happened, either. But we do have to get to the point where we can say, “It happened, and there’s nothing I can do about that now, except move forward.”
Then we take steps to process the pain. We look for our vulnerabilities and address them, so that we never fall for a sociopath again. And as we go along, we make sure to be good to ourselves.
Yes, we were hurt, but that’s because we have a heart and a conscience — both of which we want to cherish.
My dear the best revenge is living well.
You must realize that the sociopath is a miserable human being (misery LOVES company). I don’t know if you believe the AKJV 1611 bible but I do and I can tell you this. The sociopath has no conscience because God has given him over to a reprobate mind. This is a person who has ignored God’s call on his life and his conscience by choosing evil and ignoring his conscience time after time. God sees that he/she is good for nothing (selfish) and WILL NOT choose to do what is right or acknowledge or be thankful to God. Read Romans 1: 18-32 AKJV 1611 and you may be able to understand why they behave the way they do. God’s restraining power, via their conscience has left them, their conscience is seared as with a hot iron, and this is what accounts for the emptiness inside, this is what accounts for the boredom, this is what accounts for their vindictiveness and lies. God is no longer restraining them, he has left them to their own devices and they are working out their own damnation.
I have seen the end of a sociopath…in my own home…my own child. And I can tell you that it is not pretty. My child ended up sick..seizures, epilepsy, brain tumors and cancer. Several craniotomies that made his condition worse after each surgery. My child became dependent on their prescription drugs and added alcohol and marijuana to that mix. I counseled my child to eat healthy repeatedly, to learn to control his out of control emotions, to stop being lazy and keep clean, to stop LYING – he was a scammer, using people and taking their money and even admitted that he didn’t care about the things that he did to people. He even stole $2,500 from a friend and ran a sneaker scam on another friend and some of his friends who became angry when they didn’t get what they paid for and wanted to murder my son. I knew nothing of this until my son died. He lived in my house along with his children. He never thought about the consequences of his actions, much less what would happen to us had those people come to my house.
The stories I could tell. I learned things about my child after he died that I didn’t want to know, wished I didn’t know.
He stole from me for years. I should have put him out but I didn’t want to throw the children out too and I didn’t trust him to care for them properly anyway. I loved my son…but he was an absolutely incorrigible menace. He didn’t even care for his own flesh and blood – his children. He was wicked. He maligned me, lied on me to anyone that would listen, smiled in my face, ate my bread and enjoyed the security I provided in the home and dug the knife deeper every chance he got. No, I was not a perfect mother. But who is. Yes, I wish I had done better. But he had a choice. He chose only evil and paid for it with his life.
It is a sad thing to watch someone die…especially if that someone is your child.
I loved him…and I hated him, hated what he was. But I can tell you that he was miserable. HIS LIFE WAS A WASTED LIFE. He blamed me for everything – not being able to get or keep a job, not going to school, etc. I became the scapegoat. Why? Because I told him the truth about himself. He refused to see that acknowledging responsibility is a first step in growth. Without it, you will never grow, you will only get worse. Blaming others is a death sentence really. It kills you eventually.
Your ex is only bragging about how happy he is because he wants you to know that you don’t matter…but the truth is, his ego is bruised and you DO matter to him in a sick way. They can’t stand the demise of a relationship unless they end it, they are out of control when this happens and to maintain some semblance of control they lash out vindictively. These are spoiled, selfish children in adult bodies whose growth is stunted by their refusal to listen to their conscience AND their refusal to accept responsibility for their actions. Understand this. For all his superficial bragging, he is NOT happy and will never be. Instead CHOOSE to be happy yourself…start with the fact that he is gone and that should make you want to dance!
If he hasn’t done the same thing to his new wife that he did to you already, he will, I promise you that. He was married to you and was cheating with her, and if he did it to you, he’ll do it to her because he has no morals and no regard for anything or anyone outside of himself. He is beyond any change for the better. No need for envy, don’t let yourself become like him.
Learn from your situation, learn how to spot this kind of person immediately and avoid them like the plague. Don’t worry about His consequences, he’s already experiencing them and will continue to spiral downwards…you don’t need to see it and to be honest, you don’t really want to…seeing someone waste their life and observing the consequences doesn’t make you feel any better about what they did to you. He’s taken up more than enough of your time and is not worth another thought.