If You Feel 'Ruined' By A Manipulative Partner, These Six Realities May Give You Some Comfort
When you've been through the worst, you can still find ways to meet the future with wisdom.
annastills | Canva Romantic relationships with manipulators always turn out badly. You end up with a broken heart, and that's just for starters. When you’re involved with sociopathic tendencies (technically, someone with antisocial, narcissistic, or psychopathic personality traits), you may also end up with your hopes, sense of self, and perhaps even your understanding of the world shattered. When that happens, how do you recover?
Not long ago, a woman posted the following comment about sociopaths on one of my YouTube videos: “They target those with more empathy. As someone who used to be very empathic, I feel like he ruined me. I don’t feel like a normal person, idk how to live anymore. My brain doesn’t know what to do, ever.”
I understand how this viewer feels, and perhaps you do too. Fortunately, as "ruined" as you may feel, you are not.
If you feel 'ruined' by a manipulative partner, these 6 realities may give you some comfort:
1. Manipulative people often target your empathy
Involvements with sociopaths are particularly devastating for empaths.
WebMD explains that although it is not an official psychological term, an “empath” is generally understood to be someone who is extremely attuned to the feelings of others. If you’re an empath, you’re sensitive. You’re a good listener and have strong intuition.
This makes you a wonderful friend and partner, but empaths may also face some challenges. You may find it difficult to set boundaries. Intimacy may feel overwhelming. You may spend so much time helping others with their problems that you experience compassion fatigue.
For sociopaths, empaths are big, juicy targets. Martha Stout, Ph.D, author of The Sociopath Next Door, writes that the strategy sociopaths use the most to manipulate people is the pity play, an appeal to your sympathy. So, when charming sociopaths target highly sympathetic empaths, the empaths don’t stand a chance.
2. Betrayal was inevitable, and it wasn't your fault
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Romantic relationships with sociopaths typically lead to betrayal. It’s just a matter of how soon the betrayal comes and how bad it is. Why is this?
First of all, sociopaths cannot authentically love. Real love means caring about the well-being of the other person. Real love includes the ability to be concerned about someone else’s needs and put them before yourself when necessary. Sociopaths can’t do it.
They may proclaim their love, and they may appear to be kind and giving in the beginning. But it’s all an act to hook you, reel you in, and convince you to give them what they want.
In truth, sociopaths feel perfectly entitled to use you to achieve their objectives. So, they convince you to pay their bills, give them a place to live, sleep with them, take care of their kids, solve their problems, whatever they want at the moment.
You do your best to comply. Then you find out that the sociopath has been lying, cheating, stealing, or whatever. Your so-called romantic partner has one or more side pieces who are also providing money and services. In fact, the other poor chump has heard all the same promises and lies that you’ve heard.
3. Your eyes have been opened, and that's a good thing
You are shocked. You probably believe in the Golden Rule: treat others the way you want to be treated. That’s how you live your life. It’s an integral part of your identity. It’s how you expect others to live, especially when they are constantly proclaiming their love for you.
But now you’ve learned what your partner has really been up to. This person wasn’t just rude or mean. Your entire involvement was built on lies. The biggest being that they cared about you.
You didn’t know it was possible for a human being to be so callous. Not only are you betrayed, but your assumptions about how the world works and how people treat each other have been smashed.
This is why you feel ruined. The Germans have a concept called Weltanschauung, which means your world view, philosophy, and view of life. The sociopath’s behavior violates your lifelong models of what it means to be human and how people should behave.
This really pulls the rug out from under you. Suddenly, nothing makes any sense, your Weltanschauung has been shattered, and you don’t know how to move forward.
4. Feeling numb is normal; you're not broken
Upon discovering the betrayal, you’ll probably feel numb for a while. This means your body is protecting you. You’ve endured a shock so great that you cannot yet handle your thoughts and emotions about the experience. So, your mind goes blank and emotions go flat. I guess this is what the YouTube commenter meant when she said her brain didn’t know what to do.
Slowly, however, the shock wears off. You can help it along by grounding yourself. Pay attention to your physical surroundings and sensations. What do you see around you? What can you hear, smell, taste, or touch? In time, you'll return to your body and mind. Then you can take the most important step in your recovery, acceptance.
5. You can accept reality without endorsing behavior
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Acceptance does not mean the sociopath’s behavior is acceptable. Not at all. It does mean that you accept reality, whatever happened, did, in fact, happen.
The sociopath intentionally did what he or she did, and you were damaged. The sociopath does not care that you were damaged. The sociopath probably thinks it’s your fault that you were damaged. After all, you were the one who believed the lies.
Acceptance means coming to terms with what the sociopath did to you. It also means wrapping your head around the fact that the entire way you looked at life, your weltanschauung, was flawed.
Acceptance can seem daunting, but it is possible, and crucial. In order to move forward, you must first see clearly where you are.
6. Other victims of sociopaths have recovered, and so can you
You may need to address critical and practical issues, like finding a new job or a new place to live. But real recovery, overcoming the feeling of being ruined, is emotional recovery.
Betrayal, anger, grief, disappointment, pain, devastation, shame — feelings like these cause turmoil within us. Instead of burying the difficult emotions, it’s best to let them rise to the surface, safely, so they can be released. That’s where the healing is.
It will be a bumpy ride for a while, but healing is possible. You are stronger than you know. When you choose recovery, eventually you realize your thoughts of "he ruined me" are not true. Yes, you’ve been dinged, and you are not the same person you were before the sociopath. But with acceptance and letting go of the troubling emotions, you grow.
You integrate the experience while developing an awareness of both the light and dark sides of life. Then you can meet the future with maturity and wisdom.
Donna Andersen is the creator of Lovefraud and host of the True Lovefraud stories podcast. She is the author of eight books and two scientific papers about sociopaths. Donna's practice helps survivors escape and recover from betrayal.
