Back in August of 2010, I told my story of being defrauded by a sociopath as “star” of the premiere episode of Who the (Bleep) Did I Marry?, a TV show that aired on the Investigation Discovery network. Well, since that first exciting night, the show has probably aired 30 or 40 times. It aired in Australia. It aired in South America. On Friday, it aired on the Oprah Winfrey Network. Hey, I’ve finally been on Oprah!
I never know in advance when the show is going to air—I only find out when I start receiving emails from people who see it and identify with my story. A couple of months ago I heard from a man who saw the show and was beginning to suspect that a woman in his life was using him for money. We’ll call the man “Howard.”
Three sociopaths
Howard arranged a consultation with me. He told me his story. Listening to him, it was easy for me to see that the woman was clearly a sociopath, and was clearly using him for money. But that’s not all. As Howard told me more about his situation, I realized that he was involved with three sociopathic women at the same time.
One was his wife. They had married in their early 20s, and she was controlling and emotionally abusive from the beginning—and that was more than 30 years ago. Howard was not happy, and a few years ago, Howard connected with a woman from his past, whom we’ll call “Cindy—”she’s the one who is now bleeding his money.
Well, Cindy love bombed Howard, promised him the world, and he started an affair with her. He also started divorce proceedings from his wife. But when he was about to make the move to be with Cindy permanently—supposedly what she wanted—suddenly she didn’t want it any more. Then the wife, who was happy to divorce when Howard gave her all the proceeds from selling their property, suddenly didn’t want a divorce any more.
Howard, essentially homeless, started staying with another woman as a housemate. Based on what I’ve heard about this woman’s behavior, she’s another sociopath.
Howard is wracked with guilt about his wife, even though she was abusive and is using him. He feels obligated to Cindy, even though she discarded him, but still wants his money. And the housemate—well, she’s laying the groundwork to make a move.
All Howard really wants is to find a woman who really loves him. But in one of his emails, he wrote:
“I guess I don’t believe that a woman will love me.”
Changing the belief
Howard believes he is not deserving of love. That belief is the core of his problems.
When we believe that we are unworthy of love, or respect, or even life, we become vulnerable to the sociopath. Why? Because sociopaths prey on vulnerability. They have an uncanny ability to figure out what we are vulnerable to, and hook us with promises that they will make our vulnerability go away.
They promise us the love that we always wanted but feared we would never find. They offer us recognition, praise, validation. At least, they pretend to. And we, wanting what they promise so desperately, fall into their traps. Then, we find ourselves psychologically bonded to them, so we can’t escape.
This is what happened to Howard. On an intellectual level, he knows that the women are using him. But because of his long history with them, he is so wrapped up emotionally, and so psychologically bonded, that he is struggling to see his way out of his situation.
Making the change
So where do these beliefs of unworthiness come from? Often they are rooted in negative experiences during our formative years. Perhaps we were neglected or abused as children. Perhaps we were teased or bullied in school. Those of you who have read my book, Love Fraud, know that I also believe we may have been born with these ideas as remnants of past lives.
But the truth is, where the false beliefs came from doesn’t matter. Looking at the conditions of our lives, we can see that we have them. Our job is to change our minds about what we deserve. This change is never going to come from the outside, from some other person or situation. It is a change that we must make for ourselves.
How do we do it? First, we must make the decision to change our minds. It’s not just going to happen; we must choose to make it happen.
Then we consciously let go of negative beliefs and replace them with positive beliefs. We decide that we are deserving of love, and start treating ourselves that way. We no longer let sociopaths, or anyone else, walk all over us. We consciously remove people who disrespect us from our lives. We start treating ourselves better.
It takes time and effort to change old thought patterns. But when we do, our life patterns will change. We will be able to find peace and happiness. And eventually, we’ll probably surprise ourselves and find love.
Howard is making progress. I believe he will find the strength to remove all of these parasitic women from his life. And, continuing on his healing path, one day he’ll come across a real woman who truly loves him.
All of these positive changes come from believing in ourselves.
Can I jump in about the hoarding topic? I also know hoarders. Jim is one, and my sister’s husband is one. His mother is also one.
Those people don’t respect boundaries. There is NO concessions. They will pile-up on their side of the fence and on your side of the fence too. They expect to have the say-so even though it’s on your side of the fence.
They are vicious if you try to stop them.
Jim would dump his shit on me. I still can’t figure out how he dumped so much of his clothing here when he was NOT spending the night. One time he lined my driveway with junk he bought from an auction. He said he was dropping it off so he could get back to auction quickly. Months later my driveway was still lined with the debris. One neighbor asked me if I’m on dope. She said only people on dope would keep that junk in their yard. I hauled all that shit to dump in Jim’s yard and hauled it in my little car. It musta been 20+ trips. Jim didn’t lift a finger to help. It did not bother his conscience a bit.
My brother-in-law is still hauling in endless bags of groceries. even though there is no room in fridge or freezer. Chest freezer is packed too. My sister is giving away food. She’s throwing away food. While he brings in more and more bags of food. I can just picture him coming through the door repeatedly with arms full like the Sorcerers Apprentice.
My sister tries to reason with him. He says he doesn’t know what she is talking about. Then he brings up the subject in front of company, and says she has a problem about him doing the grocery shopping.
It creates gang-up on my sister. People believe it’s wonderful for a man to do the grocery shopping…..because they aren’t living with the problem of having bag-loads dropped on them to put away when there is no where to put it.
Talking to these people does no good. I think they are trying to grab-at some control they lost in their life.
My mother hoarded cups of milk. My mother had a brain tumor. This tumor wrecked havoc on her. She lost her job. Lost her license to drive. She lost her health to it. She eventually lost her life to it. She became the sickly mother who we had to care for. The only control she had was over cups of milk. She insisted that we save her cup of milk. Save that cup of milk in fridge. Of course someone would later rummage through the fridge and accidentally the cup of milk would spill.
I got so tired of having to clean up the milk spill. It always seemed to happen on my lunch hour. Or I would find someone else’s milk spill on my lunch hour.
I tried to encourage my mom to drink the leftover milk. She said no. She wanted a fresh cup of milk. I was curious. I suggested that I throw away the milk in cup. She said NO!
That is when I realized the cups of milk were her last bit of control in her life. I had so much empathy for my mom. I put a clean and empty cup in top shelf of fridge(I never told her what I was up to). Mom, never questioned if there was milk in that cup. She was too weak to check, or should I say mom never expected anyone to figure out this is an obsession. As long as she could see her milk cup in fridge she was happy.
I gotta point out again that the only reason why this worked is because mom didn’t check.
Hoarders need help that we as lay persons cannot help them with
Thank you Hens for your words of wisdom. This is how I would get caught up.
Also if you meet someone for the first time and it seems as if they’re not respecting their own boundaries by telling you history of their childhood (no apparent reason at all). This is how I always get hooked. I have too much empathy for the victims in this world. Unfortunately Sociopaths see this as a weakness in me and set the hook with telling how rotten their childhood’s had been. I need to constantly remind myself If I don’t know the person well enough (takes time) I need to walk away from them. My therapist had asked me if I cry on the shoulder of complete strangers. I replied absolutely not because I’m too humiliated to admit it.
“Hens says:
slick as slime ”“ some are tricky some are icky ”“ they just tune into what we want and zap us with what we want and need to hear ”“ therefore don’t be an open book to anyone ~!”
Jeanne812: I agree with your statement of not making excuses for people’s bad behavior towards our self and others.
I believe this was for me a coping mechanism to survive my childhood. Maybe this might be true for you too. My therapist helped me with this one too. We have to explain at times if our behavior was antisocial towards someone. If an apology is required we immediately try to mend the emotional damage we have done. A Sociopath needs to take responsibility in explaining their hurtful treatment to us too. This is one of the ways to catch them off guard because their use to everyone making excuses (they’re so compulsive to how they appear to everyone from the outside of their own families) for them. If I would ask they will lie and claim what I saw or heard didn’t take place. Mind Games. If we feel like we are going crazy most likely we’re dealing with a sociopath.
my exspath seemed to be fascinating by hoarders.
The first one, I saw was the woman upstairs. She hoarded so much, nobody could walk through her apartment.
I never thought to ask why he was in her apartment.
Anyway, she was obsessed with him and he liked to keep the drama going by playing tricks on her.
Spath was enticed by anyone he perceived as being eccentric or different. Those were his easy prey, his small meals in between larger con jobs, just to keep in practice.
To go back to the earlier post by Hens: ‘the right partner will complete a missing part of ourselves, finally making us feel whole… No one can give us the ultimate answers for our own lives’
Until recently I would have disagree, said that a life shared was what was important and that having a partner ‘validated’ my life and made it more. But now I see that it is the opposite. I don’t need a partner to validate my life or my value. If I don’t value myself, how can anyone else be expected to. It is too easy to be subsumed in a relationship and someone elses view of you, that in fact you cease to exist as an individual. It is so obvious to me now, that although it was a loving(?) relationship, it was all about him – how He helped me; how He gave me pleasure, how He took me on holiday, how He was committed to me. Even if we had an argument and he was in the wrong, it was about His guilt never my pain. And in all that I stopped being ME, but only existed as his extension.
My moves to regain my independence, that seemed impossible only a few weeks ago are now real. And after xmas I will make the move to be free and regain my full independence. To be who I am, and not part of Him. Although I do still love him and value the time we had together, I have to be Me and the two worlds cannot come back together.
thank you all for the thoughts on the various posts that together to show new routes and ways of living.
Time to be lovefound not lovelost!
LoveLost
I get what you’re saying. Getting distance from the self-centeredness of the SPATH enables a newer, larger perspective on things, where it’s YOU centered rather than the SPATH centered.
I was feeling bad this morning about what my spath did to me. The lies. How I kept going back to him being good, being kind, adoring him, trying to “fix” the relationship. And I’m feeling BAD about it.
Why, if we’re the VICTIM, do we feel BAD?
Because I wasn’t wise enough, fast enough?
We have to remember what happened to us was abnormal. This doesnt happen to everyone, it’s very different than breaking up or ending a bad relationship. These were predator’s that tap into our imaginations and enjoy twisting and turning everything we imagine as wonderful, into something dark and confusing, almost destroying our identities in the process. That’s why I say no contact with them is our only salvation..because they have no limit’s, they will twist and turn and distort our realities forever if we allow it, this give’s them a reason to live..
It has been almost four year’s no contact for me, I wish I had not focused and obsessed so much on getting over it and stopping the pain. Because in the end this was a life lesson that he represented and will always represent when I visualize who I was then and who I am now, his face and name will always come to my mind when I put a face to the damage that caused a change in who I am now.
It’s so true, Hens. The reality distortion is really easy to do. Human beings do tend to manipulate reality. Our collective beliefs are what bind us. Spaths know this. They don’t have any grounded beliefs, so they can believe anything, even their own lies. Then they get us to believe it too.
Athena, I think the answer to your question is “if I was the victim, why do I feel so bad? ” is that we lost TRUST IN OURSELVES to keep us safe from bad people. We lose trust in our own judgment.
BUT…we can RESTORE TRUST in ourselves by keeping ourselves safe by EDUCATING ourselves about psychopaths, red flags, etc. and then by HONORING THOSE RED FLAGS and keeping ourselves out of harms way in the future.
Since I have gone NC with the primary sociopaths and dysfunctional people in my life: my P sperm donor, my egg donor, my P son, “friends” etc., I have still encountered psychopathic and dysfunctional types from time to time and started a friendship with them….but AT THE FIRST SIGN OF DYSFUNCTION, DISHONESTY, MEANNESS, etc. I RETREAT. I keep my self safe from those people and do not allow them to hurt me. Since I am on the LOOK OUT for signs of red flags, people don’t “love bomb” me deeply and get me hooked. The CAUTION I exercise in relationships is just that, CAUTION and setting BOUNDARIES.
If someone treats me in a way I would NOT treat someone else, then I do NOT TOLERATE IT. If they show no awareness of this being bad behavior then I do not interact with them any more. I with draw my association with them.
If it is a store or company that refuses to treat me as a customer, then I take my business else where…if it is a neighbor, a friend, or whomever treats me poorly, I set the boundary. Then protect it.
Today a man from an oil company that is putting a pipe line across my land came to the door and wanted me to sign a contract about putting in a second line. The contract he presented me was essentially a BLANKET RELEASE OF LIABILITY for any damage they did on the entire place. I wanted to read the contract for myself rather than just take his word for “what it said” which seemed to upset him a bit, but I insisted that he remain QUIET so I could READ it. I didn’t like what it said at all, and told him I was unable to sign a BLANKET RELEASE OF LIABILITY, the way it was written if they had run a bull dozer over my house they would not have been liable. I said that to him and he said “well, you know they aren’t going to do that, what it means is…..”
I said well, I will sign it when it SAYS what it MEANS. He left with the contract unsigned.
He was obviously not happy, but I obviously didn’t care. Egg donor had already signed because she said “he said it meant….” and I called her and told her that I could not sign it until it SAID what it MEANT rather than a blanket release of liability.
Funny how when someone is trying to put one over on you, they try to tell you that a contract doesn’t mean what it says. DUH????
Are all salesmen types gaslighters?
“they will twist and turn and distort our realities forever if we allow it”
True. True. True, Hens.
They will forever lie and con and cheat. They will NEVER stop doing this. I don’t even think they can, with genuine awareness, conceptualize living honestly, treating other’s with kindness and respect….living with integrity.
The disorder appears to have driven them to tear the fabric of humanity and social caring/altruism to shreds. They are destruction ‘machines’. It is like their genetics/DNA are warped somewhere in the basic survival area.
Normal genetics compel us to act with altruism when needed, and also to have good boundaries, and a ‘healthy’ sense of self-preservation.
Though they appear to be ‘protecting’ themselves, their behavior doesn’t generally ensure either their survival, or the long-term survival of the human species. Their behaviors are consistently antithetical to the genuine human drive to perpetuate the species, and their own genetic line. (Sorry if this is so sciency!, I have been thinking on this lately, due to some reading I have been doing).
Instead they are protecting a shallow/illusory image of a self, that has nothing what-so-ever to do with real and lasting ‘survival’. They protect only their false egos. And would actually, in many situations, destroy themselves to destroy others.
They make babies, but don’t behave in ‘normal’ ways to protect and nurture their own genetic offspring.
I guess what this drives home for me is that they are DEEPLY defective. And as Hens wrote it creates a ‘limitless’ ability to deceive and enact behaviors that are profoundly damaging to those around them. They have NO embedded genetic inhibitors for destruction, and none that drive them to act humanely.
Though I agree with many who post that this does not, in any way, absolve them from being responsible for their behavior. I do believe they may not possess the ability to control themselves. I think this idea may in fact be another way we ‘anthropomorphize’ them. We hold them to a standard that is only possible for people who are ‘well’. I am not sure I believe that ALL of us can make ‘the right choices’. (I am not meaning to offend here folks, just saying where I am at, right now).
Looking at it this way, for me, helps me accept and let go (forgive, as Travis is writing about). I am not pulled to ‘feel sorry’, or try to help. It stimulates my compassion, AND my need to be self-protecting.
Gotta get back to work!
Take care all….
Slim