Sociopaths as much as anything exploit your faith in them”¦over and over again.
In many ways this captures the essence of sociopathy in particular, and exploitation in general: The sociopath, or exploiter, seduces your faith, only then to intentionally violate it.
The more seriously you take him, the more you are vulnerable; the more vulnerable you are, the more the exploiter is licking his chops.
And so the sociopath, or any exploiter, wants you to take him seriously! Indeed it’s his modus operandi to accumulate currency and credibility with you—the more the better, as this better ripens you, better fattens you, for the payoff he’s chasing.
Not all exploiters “get off’ on the suffering you’ll incur arising from their exploitation. Sadistic ones will; they’ll derive a portion of their satisfaction, if not their motivation to exploit, from your pain.
But more often the sociopath is flatly uninterested in your “expense.” He neither relishes, nor regrets, it deeply. What interests him, again, is his payoff; his prospective gain, not your loss, concerns him principally.
And so a core aspect of exploitation lies in the exploiter’s purposeful grooming of the faith of his victims, only then to purposely betray that faith.
And in cases of sociopathy there is the additional heartless indifference to the victim’s experience of that betrayal. Indeed, one measure of the depth of his heartlessness and audacity is the sociopath’s tendency to repeat this cycle regularly, abusing old and perhaps fresh victims.
When you think about it, what sociopaths and other exploiters prey upon—our faith—is what most of us are naturally inclined to give. We want to have faith in others. We want to believe that others will have our backs, not stab our backs in order to take something from us and then leave us, heartlessly, to grapple alone in confusion and despair.
We want to believe that, God forbid, were we lying on a deserted roadside, grievously wounded, that that stranger approaching us will have the intention to help us, and not, while issuing kind, reassuring words, to lift our wallets.
And so it’s no big accomplishment to exploit others. Sociopaths and all exploiters are going after something that’s as easily coaxed as it ought to be honored and safeguarded—our faith.
(My use of “he” in this article was strictly for convenience’s sake, not to suggest that females aren’t capable of the attitudes and behaviors described. This article is copyrighted (c) 2009 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
PaleLuna – dear stuck moth to the spath flame,
I was shocked when i read the last line of your post.
I know nothing of the challenges you are facing, but
PLEASE LEAVE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. OR SOONER.
I know – money, etc. I KNOW.
all best,
take good care and get out asap,
one step
PaleLuna, I echo what one step and EB have written on here.
He will NOT change, no matter how many chances you give him.
Please GO NOW to a place that is safe. I did that myself.
Take care of yourself and stay safe. Where you are is toxic to your health in ALL ways.
Keep coming back here. This has been my healing place, my education on the REALITY of what they are and are not, and a source of encouragement.
Sending prayers and courage,
Cat
katiebug,
You go girl! Once you’ve had a taste of freedom, it’s not something you want to let go of. It’s AWESOME. I could feel the “positive” in your post. I loved it! This site has helped me too. I come here to learn, gather courage and heal. Wonderful place with wonderful people.
Hugs,
Cat
Forgot to add that I hope that one day, I can be as much help to others as so many are on here. Gotta give it away in order to keep it, as they say.
Alone in a foreign country for a new career… I was lonely and a bit scared. Thats when I met Dave P. He was from Newport Beach –just a short drive from my hometown so I felt an instant familarity. Letting my guard down was a HUGE mistake… 4 months later I was so confused, emotionally drained, and physically sick that I almost lost my job. Fortunately Dave was relocated to Morrocco by his company but continued to call / email me, claiming I was THE ONE. Stupidly, I kept in touch not wanting to believe the real truth – that this handsome, seemingly successful man was a sociopath. I thought I was being “too needy, sensitive, etc” and that is was just grief over a failed romance…. but something kept nagging my conscience. So I kept his emails. Now I KNOW he was definately a sociopath and would like to warn others. Is there anything I can do legally back in the US? Also, I’m a single woman living alone in a Muslim country so I have to be careful.
AbuDhabiEyes,
What do you mean “is there anything I can do legally back in the US?” Are you a US citizen? Is He? Where did the crime take place or the fraud> Is it a civil matter or a criminal matter? I’m not an attorney, but there is a man on here, Matt, who is an attoorney in NY and can answer some questions, but your question I do know is too vague for him to have enough information to be able to formulate an answer.
There are several web sites that list men and “out” them as “dontdatehimgirl” or something along that line. I have never listed anything on them.
Keep in mind, too, if you take vengence on him, he may very well retaliate, and if you are a single woman living in a muslim country that might be dangerous.
This is my story of a ten year relationship with the biggest con artist I have ever met. I had been manipulated by others all of my life, but this con’s manipulation conned me the longest — a decade.
Back in 2000 I met someone who overwhelmed me with praise and attention. We talked on the telephone for hours each day and emailed back and forth often. Our song was, “I Knew I Loved You Before I Met You.” It should have been, “I Knew I Was Going To Use You Before You Did.”
In the very beginning, when we dated, I took her to my cabin in the mountains. I also went to her town home for a few dates. Even in the beginning I wondered why it had taken her so long to unpack her boxes and move into her own place that she had said she longed for for so many years. She hadn’t unpacked those boxes because she was hovering. She didn’t tell me this, friends on the sidelines explained this to me. My con artist was seeking out prey. She hadn’t intended of unpacking and moving into her own place completely. Her intention was to stay there long enough until she found someone to take care of her. Then she would merely move those boxes and unpack them with that person, me, and my two homes.
In the beginning I also wondered why she lived with others and this was her first place of her own? She was nine years older than myself. I was in my late thirties and she was in her late forties, by now we all should have learned to take care of ourselves. I had. She explained that living for over twenty years in Santa Barbara, California before moving to Colorado was too expensive to live on your own. She lived with other people out of necessity. It sounded as if it made perfect sense, I knew I wouldn’t be able to afford a place on my own in an expensive city. So, why was she still hovering in her own place here in the Denver area? She had a good job, she could afford her town home, why not be excited and embrace all the wonderful emotions of setting up your own abode? I know I loved setting up a home. I couldn’t imagine living out of boxes. It would seem cluttered, disorganized, and most of all temporary; something I just wasn’t.
Her patterns were many. They started to add up, but as anyone that has been conned for years knows, the honest one that is being conned pushes the red flags aside, believing because they behave honestly, and that the one they fell in love with must be honest too — wrong.
In the beginning she seemed to be honoring her commitments. After all, she had to be able to honor commitments in order to get a loan for her town home. Well, eventually she just moved in with me and rented out her town home. Then she allowed her town home to go into foreclosure and ended up selling it in a short sell. My friend was her realtor. She walked away from that transaction owing my friend money. I was the one that paid my realtor back in order to save the relationship with my friend that had been cheated in the course of helping my con artist out. Later that year my con artist filed bankruptcy and I was paying for nearly everything. I refused to pay for food and the cable, the two important things in my con’s life. I knew whether or not my con was in my life or not, I’d still need to do whatever it took to keep a roof over my head. She wasn’t contributing to the mortgage, utilities, or any other bills. All she had to do was buy the food and pay the cable bill. When she finally left, I ended up paying the final cable bill. Was I shocked? Nope. I expected it.
Not long into the relationship I couldn’t figure out why she no longer wanted to touch me or why she withdrew when I attempted to touch her. I knew I was her first lesbian lover and she had been with many men, but I figured she just didn’t know how to initiate intimacy with a woman. Many times I tried to innate intimacy but was slowly pushed out of my own bed. When I tried to get her to just hold me, she wouldn’t. I asked her what kind of lesbian she was? I asked her if she wanted to go back to men? She never gave me a clear answer. Instead she just would cry. We tried couple’s counseling, but that ended up with me and the therapist doing all the communicating and my con artist would sit there crying, not saying a word. It became a moot point and we stopped going.
She was not capable of opening up to people, yet, she’d openly and freely hold and spoon with our dogs. Eventually I began sleeping in another room. I figured I might as well have a bed all to myself and not only have to fight for room in the bed, but attention in the bed. I was dangling on the edge of the bed anyway. Not only fighting for attention, but space on the bed as well.
One time, again, in the beginning, I did kick her out. I put all of her things out of the house in Aurora, and said I was done. Eventually her intense eye contact (unblinking, fixated, and emotionless — certainly not a sign of empathy —- an effort to assert control), brought me right back to the feelings and belief that she did care for me. After all, she looked me straight in the eyes when she made her worthless promises.
I thought if I bought her expensive cruises, jewelry, even a marriage in Canada, things would change and she’d be able to show me some form of intimacy. Nope. After she admitted to me that she hadn’t loved me for years, I snapped. I immediately threatened her with reporting her for criminal trespass if she didn’t leave my home immediately.
She went to my second home in the mountains and lived. Earlier in the relationship I put her name on the titles of the homes. We were legally married in Canada, she was my wife, she was to be put on title like any spouse of a marriage. Years later when things started to fall apart, I insisted that she pay for her own cell phone and sign a Quit Claim Deed for both homes, giving me back control over my property. Somehow she agreed, while saying, “Sure, I’ll do it, I told you I wouldn’t cheat you.”
After I snapped, I forced her to sign a Memorandum of Understanding in order to feel as if I was the one being fair and practicable. It was taken from the wording of a legal Separation Agreement. I told her if she refused to sign it, I’d have her arrested from the house she was residing at in the mountains for criminal trespass. I made sure I told her that a Fifth Degree Criminal Trespass charge comes with jail time and fines. She had the agreement signed and sent to me the next day via priority Mail. I knew if I eventually raised the weekly rent and she was a “Tenant-At-Will,” I could get my property back in my legal possession. I forced her out.
I guess she thought she could tell me she loved me one day and the next day tell me she hadn’t for years and still live off of me. After all, until her words matched her behaviors toward me, she got away with living off of me and not having to show me affection at all. Her own words confirmed for me what I had suspected for years. I felt betrayed. I felt trust had been broken. I felt lied to. In retrospect her shameless techniques she used to keep me stuck were:
1. Charm — She is very good at charming others.
2. Recognizing a person who is decent and trusting — the perfect target — me!
3. Emotion seduction (“Come Here; No, go away.”)
4. Crocodile tears — especially when she was about to be confronted.
5. Plan B when she was about to be confronted — moving back to her family after being away from them for decades.
6. Gaslighting — making me doubt my own perceptions (The term “gaslighting” comes from a 1944 movie called Gaslight, in which gold-digging husband marries a rich, innocent woman and tries to make her feel like she is going insane. Sociopaths are experts at it).
Life for my con artist was reduced to a contest. I was her game piece; moved about, used as a shield, used for a roof over her head, and eventually ejected. She may think she won, but she didn’t. I have my homes back, my life back, my control back, but post traumatic stress disorder has set in and I find I am angry and hyper vigilant. I don’t trust anyone and sometimes I question my own perceptions and choices now.
Even during the last encounter with my con artist (as I had the opportunity to tell her good bye to help with my closure), she attempted to suck me right back in by looking me in the eyes, with tears from both of us, while she promised to work on herself and that she’d be back one day. She asked me to save her grave site (that I had pre-paid for). She showed me that she pawned her gold jewelry in order to buy new tires for her car. That showed me two things, first, “Look what you made me do?” — sell my wedding ring. Second, she lied to my face once again at her last attempt to emotionally manipulate me. “I’m sorry.” She was not sorry. I realized that after I thought about the wedding ring that she wanted to keep as a precious keepsake and instead she sold it for tires, she was not sorry.
I walked away wondering why at our good bye was she telling me these things. Why at our final good bye was it the only time she tried to french kiss me passionately and hold me the way I had always wanted her to hold me throughout the ten years together? She was attempting to leave the door open by finally giving me what I begged for all along — affection.
I felt cheated in so many ways. Cheated in time wasted. Cheated in money wasted. Cheated in the false finality of our good bye. I realize I have PTSD in how I was manipulated to one area in my own homes, while she ran the entire rest of the homes.
I felt as if “my room” was my solitary confinement. Now that she is gone and living in the Buffalo, New York area, I have a difficulty with living space. I tend to want to go back to a one room, when I have two homes to choose from. I can only relate this to what a Prisoner of War must go through. There is a scene in the movie “Cast Away,” where Tom Hanks is in his hotel room. His room was catered with sea food — food that he probably was sick of. No one considered that he might want a steak or Mexican food. Something different. On the other hand, he had been conditioned through his survival that even though he had a warm comfortable bed and lights now, he was only conditioned through his survival for years to be comfortable on the bare floor, while turning the lamp on an off. No one considered that what he needed wasn’t a plush room, rather a small space. To everyone else the large space and plushness is inviting, to Tom’s character, it was something to have to get used to again. I too only feel comfortable in the one room at a time where I was allowed by my con artist to occupy. It was my own space minus of her. I learned to know no different. I am now having to get used to space again, my own space again, minus her. One minute, hour, day at a time.
As I begin to heal, I learn that no matter what I did I could not “cure” her conning ways with my money, time, or “love.” I couldn’t change anything and expect her to be satisfied. I couldn’t even get her to begin to understand how I felt and how much she hurt me. She really didn’t care.
To a sociopath (my con artists), I was just “supply.” I was a source of money, housing, or whatever else people were taking from me. Even though my former partner said, “I love you,” the words meant nothing. Her sole objective was to keep the supply coming. The intensiveness was the so-called “love” fraud for both of us that kept us both stuck.
So what did I do? I cut my losses and got out. I am in weekly therapy learning essential skills on healing. I am learning and understanding that I’m not a fool, I was targeted. Yes, I am angry, very angry. I’m working on that too. Sociopaths are expert manipulators. They spend their whole lives perfecting their acts. There are millions of sociopaths on this planet, and each has conned hundreds of people. I know I am certainly not alone.
Getting help for me was not from my son or friends. No one really understands what I went through unless they, too, have been targeted and conned. Thank G-d my con artist is hundreds of miles away. The space and eventually time will help more and more deceptions become even clearer. I can work through those issues as they come up. I work on ridding of my anger through writing and working out. Obsession of this situation at times seems out of control too. Research has shown that attempts to suppress a thought can cause an increase in the frequency of the thought. If I find myself thinking obsessively about an event or person, I attempt to interrupt the thoughts with, “I release you and any hold you have on me.” This sounds so simple, people often laugh, but it works. I’ve found that I have to do this over and over throughout the day — perhaps for weeks, months, or even longer. It helps me live in the moment.
Although I still receive email from my con artist, the last one I opened she was communicating that her departure is a bad dream to her. I needed to cut all ties and I have learned to block her from emailing me, so I will not be tempted to be sucked right back in from her seeming kindness and pity attempts. I know she is hundreds of miles away and has her own work to do. Ten years of touch deprivation and no affection whatsoever took a huge toll on my body, mind, and spirit. I am learning to take care of my needs and recognize others attempts to control me. I have learned I surrounded myself for years by a few people that loved manipulating me. I begin my healing by telling those people that I am working on making my life healthier and I will not longer tolerate others’ attempts to control me and to not attempt to manipulate me. If they ask me for something and I don’t feel comfortable about it, I tell them, “No.” I have learned these people were toxic to me as well. Setting clear boundaries made it very easy for me to see who was going to stay or who needed to go. I have lost many people that I thought were “friends,” but as one door closes others open for me. Friendship is about equality and balance in a relationship, it is not one-sided. Those that exited my life, were the one-sided takers, not givers. It was about their needs being met and mine not being addressed at all. I am clearly able to see manipulators and con artists coming and I just don’t have anything to do with them now. I thought I’d be lonely, but I am enjoying my time by myself and my dogs. I still keep busy with my volunteer work in the Jewish and Veterans’ community where I reside. That helps me feel as if I am giving of myself. It does my soul good. I have dear friends at my synagogue and they are helping me though this rough spot too.
I did find a book on the Lovefraud.com web site that explains the dynamics of these toxic encounters. It is very helpful and I recommend it for anyone that is being emotionally abused through con artists or any relationship where they are being manipulated. Much of the manipulation stems from our childhood trauma bonding. We take what we learn from our childhoods and still live these sort of dynamics as adults. This book explains it all: “The Betrayal Bond – Breaking Free of Exploitive Relationships.” By Patrick J. Carnes.
Anshel
AnshelBomberger:
So much of what you wrote resonated with me. One year ago today my article describing my experience with a man whom I had gotten involved with was published here on LoveFraud. I was a criminal defense attorney, and I still got conned by an ex-con. Unlike you, I didn’t marry him — and thank God I didn’t because I would have had to pay big to get rid of him — prenup or no prenup. I don’t know if you have formally filed for divorce with this woman, but if you haven’t either divorce this viper or get an annulment.
You are in a place of healing. Welcome.
Anshel – Your story resonates. Thank you for sharing. My X Sociopath BF – has been gone almost two years. I will know I am me again when I no longer fear looking in his eyes…’you’ understand that…welcome and it will get better. I recommend “Meaning from Madness” by Richard Skerritt.
Dear Anshel,
I have to sincerely thank you! This really resonates with me as well.Your ex spath wife, sounds EXACTLY like my 45 year old spath daughter. I have printed out your entire letter,and underlined all the similarities, its SCAREY how alike they are! I think in some ways its even harder to cut off your own adult child. but I know for my sanity, well being, bank balance,[which is slowly recovering} I MUST stay NC with her. It was a year on the 8th Dec. since I last saw Deb, and total NC by email or phome sine end of June this year.My boundary to her was ONE ,apology , only one, for all the unbelievably cruel, hurtful disrespectfultreatment meted out to me. It doesnt look like Ill ever get it, and even if she did say “sorry” it would only be a ruse to try to con more money out of me. I didnt have a clue till I found LF re gaslighting, mirroring, projection,etc, I have learnt so much in 6 months!
I have been physically abused by her, conned out of large sums of money, lied to,emotionally abused, my home, art studio, and small flat,{condo} were all wrecked by her.She lies like she breathes. And the crocodile tears! The pity partys!
The fraud! She banned me from her wedding, but invited her dad and my second husband,{who naturally didnt go}She sees herself as an superior entitled,flawless person. Its always always someone elses fault. She has been separated for 3 and a half years from her long suffering husband, who now has the 3 kids full time,”until she sorts herself out” Like your ex, her stuff is in boxes, in store or parked with he ex husband. the kids dont appear to miss her. Kev is MUCH the better parent, and Im so relieved he has then full time now.I have forgiven her over and over, but as she would never ever acknowledge shed done anything wrong, shed never apologise to me for anything.I still love her but I cant stand her, does this make any sense?Over the last 3 or 4 years, she must have conned over $10,000 out of me. Now that Im not enabling her any longer, she has lost her rented flat,{condo}, and is flat sitting for a girlfriend at the moment. What then? She has basically thrown away a loving gorgeous husband, her home, her kids, her Mum, good jobs, good friends whom she has used once to often! She has no car, no full time job, no credit rating,no home,and she still thinks shes a smart, intelligent, suPerior being!! For 30 years Ive worried myself half to death about her. NO MORE! Shes 45, a mature woman,shes on her own now, IVE HAD IT!!Im 70 now, and Im sick of it,she only ever used to ring me if she needed something, never to say,”how are you, Mum?” Ive had enough.NC is hard, but I know its my only salvation from her.Thanks again! Love, geminigirl.XX
Ps, Ive also now got the following books, and am reading them all,”The Betrayal Bond,” “Meaning from Madness”, People of the Lie” by Scott Peck,-they re all helping me to see what she is truly like.Very sad.