Lovefraud frequently hears from readers who have been discarded by sociopaths, but still feel like they’re in love with them, and can’t get them out of their minds. We frequently tell these readers that sociopathic relationships are very much like addictions.
Now, there’s proof. A recent study found that “the pain anguish of rejection by a romantic partner may be the result of activity in parts of the brain associated with motivation, reward and addiction cravings,” according to Science Daily.
Read Romantic rejection stimulates areas of brain involved with motivation, reward and addiction on sciencedaily.com.
Link submitted by a Lovefraud reader.
For those recently discarded for another partner.
I found this article before I found LF. It helped me alot to really ‘get’ that the new ‘soulmate’ of my exN was really his new ‘target’.
http://www.heartless-bitches.com/rants/manipulator/special.shtml
The exN would send me messages in the first few days after discard saying that he knew how much I loved him and therefore he knew I would want him to be happy with his new ‘soulmate’.
Ha – he cheated on her loads and stole money from her too.
Still – I really believed his carp about the soulmate rubbish and was as hurt by it (at first) as I was supposed to be. Wish I’d found LF b4 though gosh darn it. He wanted me to be jealous so as to ‘bring me back into line’ as I’d been seriously questioning his b/s and was getting ‘out of control’ (his words!!!)
So to all newbies..or anyone still struggling with this particular issue. He didn’t make you happy and he won’t make any new partner happy either – though he/she may put lots of effort into convincing you otherwise.
Blessings
Delta 1
Thanks Delta1…that really hits home…and a few more hard hitting facts, (as if you hadn’t enough!!)
1 They MAKE you feel sorry for them
2 They MAKE you feel worried and afraid
3 They give you the impression you OWE them
4 They MAKE you feel used
5 You suspect more often they don’t care about you
6 They lie to you and decieve you
7 They take alot and give back very little
8 They MAKE you feel guilty then use that to manipulate you
9 They take advantage of your kindness
10 They ar easily bored and need constant stimulation
11 They do not take responsibility and put the blame elsewhere
Bulletproof,
Your list is great, except I have one thing to add, and that is NO ONE CAN MAKE US FEEL ANYTHING…..we may have the OPPORTUNITY TO FEEL GUILTY, or used or anything else, but we decide whether to DO it or not, to “feel that” or not.
Last summer I took in a woman posing as a victim of a psychopath, who was “down on her luck” to the point she was living in her small truck/RV and I mean SMALL! She posed as the pitiful victim and boy was she good at it. I eventually saw, however, that she was attempting to CON ME.
I told her that in the 3 months she had been here at my farm she had made NO ATTEMPT TO GET A JOB, and no use of the opportunities I had extended to her. She was in the SAME position she was when she first came here, and I thought since she was not utilizing any of the pro-social opportunities I offered her, that she should “move on”—you should have seen the PITY PARTY she started to throw. She accused me of being mean to her, not helping her get needed medical and dental care (I had arranged for her to see a free medical clinic and free dental clinic and she had not done so) and so on.
However, as much as she TRIED to get me to feel GUILTY, I chose to NOT FEEL GUILTY because I am in CHARGE of my feelings.
We CAN choose not to feel guilty—-because we don’t have to agree that WE are at fault for their choices. We are NOT responsible for their feelings. We are responsible for OURS.
They can “threaten” us but we choose to be afraid or not. They can appear pitiful but we choose whether to feel pity for them or not. The P-woman did her best to get me to accept responsibility for her plight, and to pity her and to feel guilty, but I CHOSE NOT TO ACCEPT her accusations.
It may seem “natural” for us to accept responsibility for them and their “plight” but we must learn to NOT go down that path.
We CAN set boundaries and NOT feel guilty or bad about it. We deserve to be treated well. First we must treat ourselves well and believe we deserve good treatment! Hasn’t been easy for me, but I’m making progress! We all are! TOWANDA for us!!!
wow, thank you all SO much everyone for your comments.
This morning I woke up and was a mess. I can’t stop crying. I know it is silly but I just want him to call me. He knows that he is torturing me right now, and that this is the worst thing that he can do to me.
He did this back in April to me as well, left for 3 weeks (everything was ‘fine’ between us) he just did not want to be near me and took off. No phone calls, no email, nothing. I was a wreck. He called me when he was out of money and had no where to go. I took him back in with open arms, and he treatmed me like crap, so I keep trying to please him more and more in hopes that he would love me. I would give him money, take him to dinner, gave him a place to stay, all the while he was loving someone else.
I really feel so hopless at this point..but I am willing to do anything and will continue to read and read this board, and the recommended books.
Thanks again eevryone,
oh, I also wanted to mention that I make sure that I am getting out, talking with friends, but its not the same. I am so empty from not being with him. I feel like I am just coasting along through life.
Ox Drover…of course you are technically right….no one can make us feel anything unless we allow them to.
There is a crucial “window of opportunity”in the beginning stages of shock and alternating flashes of what’s really going on ….after all this is first and foremost about BEING CONNED…not about free will at all or even a choice….we are way beyond being able to claw back our choice or our control over the situation when we have given our trust already…Too late..money has been stolen, betrayal has taken place…. and for the sociopath it’s what he/she has worked hard to produce…
I will speak of my experience, as I suppose it varies from person to person. As I woke up to the destruction and the damage…. I was feeling totally crazy, rageful, out of control with upset then frozen in shock. I seemed to alternate between those two states for months.
I told myself I was a fool, I was a loser, no one would want me after this, I felt destroyed and I couldn’t manage myself…I needed so much help to get back. I did NOT cause that to happen to me…I was not in control….HE gaslighted me to this crazed state…I only know that because today I am at last calm and feeling relatively happy…1 year on.
Sociopaths are brilliant at “making you” feel things , they are constantly gaslighting, sending mixed messages, lying and counter lying..manipulating, disguising, lying by omission, using you under the guise of loving you, exploiting your love and natural feelings of altruism to get your money,free lodging….like a very expensive prostitute..they feel nothing whilst with you and at the same time can profess true love and really be convincing
So they really do cause alot of the madness that goes with facing this harrowing reality…later on…wayyy down the line our control over the situation comes back, and it’s a very precious moment…but impossible to appreciate in the initial is he a sociopath? or isn’t he? Jeez if you are asking yourself this question…think about it…he is something creepy and no good and your in trouble because what you thought was real is a hoax…try telling the people around you and you will find out how difficult it is to prove without looking like a bitter twisted Witch.
So TOWANDA to us!!! and just really wanting to nearly reach back to my early days of feeling so upset (I thought I would die), I’d like to reach back and put an arm around my shoulder and say ” I love you and this is not your fault…” and I say this to all who find themselves in the trauma of waking up to find your dream has been brutally murdered by someone you thought would cherish and protect you…
Paralysed…even the name you chose says something about the shock you are in…so slow, gentle…yet keep talking!
Dear Bulletproof,
You are 100% correct—we are conned, hood-winked, lied to, and tricked.
I think the most damaging part is that having been TRICKED, CONNED and hood-winked, we lose trust in OURSELVES to assess others, to keep ourselves safe. If we can’t distinguish between good people and bad people, how on earth are we to keep ourselves safe?
Learning to TRUST OURSELVES again is a difficult task, but one we must accomplish in order to be “okay” again.
Accepting the fact that we ALLOWED these manipulative toxic monsters to mislead us, to manipulate and use us is a painful process as well. However, I am NOT “blaming the victim” for what the abuser did…what they did to us is horrific, but after the first time they abused us, when we were totally unaware that they were abusive, we knew that they were abusive and we continued to “hope and trust” that they would change. Lots of psychological reasons for this from how we were brought up to be “responsible for another’s happiness,” to lack of boundaries for any reason.
However, we must learn from this, or are doomed to repeat this over and over. Unfortunately, I didn’t learn from the abuse the first or second or third times, but had to repeat the painful process many times before I started to get the drift of the situation. Now, I am learning. I won’t say learn-ed, because there is always more to learn, so I am learn-ing continually.
The process of learn-ing gets easier though as we advance through the process…each success builds on the previous one.
The support we get here from each other is enables us to march steadily in the direction of the light! You are right, we must cherish that PREVIOUS ME and gently teach her/him to grow and heal.
Hi Bulletproof
Thank you for the response. I feel completely paralyzed. I am so detached from verything but him. I hate it. I wish I could be angry, but I am not, at least not yet. I want him to call..but even if he was to call, I don’t even know what i would say, nothing good can come out of it anyway.
It is so painful to acknowledge the fact that I am so disposable. That one woman can come enter his life, and he is done with me. This woman is married or at least living with her ex so my ex was not staying with her, he was sleeping in his car when I would kick him out…I don’t know, I just got everything, I hate how I love him, I hate how I miss him, and I hate how this whole relationship is the only thing I can think about day in and day out. I just feel so unwell.
and wow, that list is exact thing that I have been experiencing. He has no income and refuses to work (he states he has a bad back) but disability has denied him stating that he is not eligible for their services. He would make me feel so guilty that I would give him money for his drugs, smokes, gas, and if i did not he would use fear and intimidation to lure me in, as he knows that I am very afraid of him when he is angry.
My stomach is in knots, and my heart is in pain. I just want to be able to move on but I am very much struggling.
paralyzed82 it’s absolutely normal for your stomach to be in knots and your heart to be in pain…it means you are a NORMAL human being and you are responding to cruelty very accurately.
you are in the struggle part so stay with it, no point in wishing anything else. You think of him all the time and still very actively “need” him in your system to cope….as cold turkey is a horrible place to be. The anger will come when you are ready but for now it seems you are just struggling with the truth, the reality the situation… and that is fine.
You are brilliant, you are alive…. and on top of this more than you think !! when you are in the struggle part, you need to learn how to calm yourself, comfort yourself and protect yourself…it’s up to you….let us know what you are doing to mind yourself as well as describing the pain. If he calls you, if you talk to him…just note all the time how you feel…and keep going….the struggle part is a genuine struggle and what part of you wins out in the end is very much up to you…but use us any way you can to help you through…keep talking!
thank you so much, Bulletproof…
I have spent the majority of my day reading the articles on this site, it is so helpful to feel not alone..but at the same time I still feel so empty. I am constantly wonderign what he is doing, who he is with, is he missing me, etc…
I just can’t stop thinking about everything that has happend and how each time the relationship was about to end I woudl beg for him to stay, I woudl cry, hyperventilate, and just beg him not to leave. Sometimes he would leave, and return hours later…but this time he has all of his camping stuff, his boat and car. The only reason why he has these things is because I paid for his repairs, I let him use my address for a welfare check and I am jealous that I am not with him.
His last words to me 11 days ago werre that he would call me the next day as he really wanted to bring me fishing and camping as thse are activies that I enjoy. I have not heard a heard thing. All I can think of is is that he is with her. He prefers to be with the other woman. I feel sick and it just pains my heart.
I constantly thing that that this was maybe just me? Perhaps she is the one for him and he and her will live happily ever after. I am just completely shattered with jealousy. I want to be here, I want to be the one that he desires, but I am not.
However, at the same time if he were to come back to me I know that i can’t take him back. The lies, the cheating, the using and abusing, not to mention the abondenment are so immobilizing. I don’t know, I am just so confused with my life, with my own self and my own mind. I feel like I will never heal again.