What was the biggest thing I changed about myself after being in a relationship with a psychopath?
The greatest change was not my personality but the way I approached trust. For most of my life, I tended to take people at their word. If someone sounded sincere, I believed them. If they spoke passionately about love, loyalty, and commitment, I assumed their actions would eventually reflect their promises.
When I meet new people, I place far less importance on what they tell me and far more on what they consistently do. I pay attention to how they behave, how they treat others, whether their actions match their words, and whether they show integrity when there is nothing to gain from it. Over time, I discovered that character reveals itself through behaviour far more clearly than through conversation.
I also stopped worrying so much about what other people think of me. For years, I wanted to be accepted, understood, and appreciated, often placing too much value on the opinions of others. The experience forced me to recognise how exhausting that can become and how easily a person can lose sight of themselves while trying to gain approval from someone else.
The Beginning
When I met this new man, everything happened very quickly.
He left his previous girlfriend to be with me, and within a matter of weeks he claimed to be deeply in love. He spoke about a future together, about destiny, and eventually about marriage. The pace of it all should have caused me to pause. Yet I was caught up in the excitement of what I trusted was an extraordinary connection.
He wanted to spend every possible moment together and seemed fascinated by every detail of my life. He asked countless personal questions, which I interpreted as genuine interest and affection. What I failed to recognise was how easily information I shared in trust was later used against me.
Around the same time, he expressed his feelings in ways that felt deeply personal and romantic. He spoke about how much I had changed his life, how strongly he felt about me, and how special our connection was. He repeatedly told me that nobody understood him the way I did. That nobody could make him feel what I made him feel. And that our relationship was unlike anything he had ever experienced before.
I found it touching. It felt sincere, thoughtful, and genuine, and I saw it as further confirmation that his feelings were real.
The attention made me feel valued, understood, and important. It created a powerful emotional bond in a remarkably short space of time. It felt like the ultimate happiness I wanted so completely by another person. What I did not recognise was how easily constant praise, admiration, and idealisation can create a powerful emotional attachment that makes it difficult to step back and see things clearly. Researchers often refer to this behaviour as “love bombing.”
The powerful emotional attachment that developed during those early weeks is something I explore in greater depth in Falling In Love With A Psychopath.
The relationship seemed to accelerate almost from the moment it began. Within a matter of weeks, he was not only talking about love but about building an entire future together. He spoke about marriage as though it were the most natural thing in the world, even though I was still married at the time. He wanted us to live together, spoke of long-term plans, and described our connection as something rare and extraordinary. Everything appeared to be moving towards a permanent commitment before we had given the relationship time to establish a solid foundation.
The imbalance gradually extended beyond emotions. I often found myself giving more of my time, energy, support, and resources than I received in return. Whether emotionally, practically, or financially, it became increasingly natural for me to carry responsibilities that should never have belonged to me alone. I kept finding reasons to justify it because I cared about him and wanted the relationship to succeed.
What stands out most is not any single promise but the sheer intensity of it all. The declarations of love, the certainty about our future, the language of destiny, and the sense that something exceptional had happened between us created an emotional momentum that made it difficult to stop and ask whether the relationship was progressing naturally.
The excitement became stronger than my hesitation, and the promises became louder than the quiet doubts I occasionally felt.
He called me his soulmate and told me I was his destiny, as though God Himself had created us for each other. Those words reached something vulnerable in me because they sounded sacred, intimate, and impossible to dismiss. I wanted to believe them. And because I wanted to believe them, I overruled the warning signs that were already standing right in front of me.
None of it was true. And that realisation became one of the reasons I no longer compromise myself to gain acceptance, affection, or love from another person.
Ignoring My Own Instincts
One of the hardest things for me to accept was that something never felt entirely right.
My boyfriend shared dramatic stories about his troubled past and the hardships he had endured. Some of those stories arrived in a lengthy document that seemed intended to explain and justify much of his behaviour. I listened carefully, sympathised with him, and wanted to believe that his experiences explained the difficulties he carried with him.
What I failed to notice was how often those stories cast him as the victim while everyone else became the villain.
He also spoke harshly about people in my life, particularly my husband. According to him, my husband was a stalker, a fraud, a thief, a liar, a pimp, and even a psychopath who had used me and sold my body to other men. The accusations were extreme, yet they were delivered with such conviction that part of me felt compelled to listen.
What troubled me was that I did not recognise the man he was describing. Although my marriage had many difficulties, I knew my husband was not the monster my boyfriend portrayed him to be. Something inside me kept questioning the stories I was being told, yet I continued pushing those doubts aside because I wanted the relationship to be genuine and the promises to be real.
The accusations did not stop with my husband. Former partners, family members, friends, colleagues, and eventually even people I cared about seemed to become the subject of criticism, blame, or disturbing allegations. Everyone appeared to have wronged him in some way. There always seemed to be another story, another betrayal, another person who had treated him unfairly.
At times I found myself asking a question I did not want to ask:
Who was the psychopath he kept describing?
My husband or my new boyfriend?
The more accusations I heard, the more uneasy I became. To the deepest part of my soul, I knew something was not right. There were simply too many red flags, yet I continued overriding my instincts because I wanted to believe him.
Another thought began surfacing from time to time. If so many of the people around him were supposedly dishonest, manipulative, abusive, or psychologically disturbed, was it possible that he was describing himself rather than them? I did not have an answer, but the question refused to disappear.
Something inside me kept raising quiet questions, yet I continued explaining away the unease because the alternative was admitting that the relationship might not be what I hoped it was.
What Changed
The relationship changed many things about me.
I became far more cautious about placing my trust in someone too quickly. What once felt flattering now causes me to slow down and pay attention. Constant attention, endless praise, and declarations of love can feel wonderful, especially when they arrive unexpectedly. But I learned that genuine trust takes time to develop and cannot be rushed by words alone.
Perhaps the most significant change was recognising how often I ignored my own discomfort in order to keep a relationship alive. I spent far too much time trying to prove myself. Trying to be understanding, supportive, and accommodating, while paying far less attention to my own needs. The boundaries I have now emerged gradually from that experience. They were not created out of bitterness, anger, or resentment, but from recognising how often I had dismissed my own feelings in order to preserve someone else’s happiness. Eventually, I understood that constantly sacrificing my own well-being was not kindness.
It was simply another way of abandoning myself.
The relationship also forced me to examine how much I was giving compared with what I was receiving. Whether emotionally, financially, or practically, I often found myself carrying responsibilities that should never have belonged to me alone. I kept telling myself the imbalance was temporary and that things would improve, yet the balance I was waiting for never seemed to arrive.
Living on My Own Terms
Perhaps the greatest gift hidden within that painful experience was freedom. I spent so much time trying to understand behaviour that often left me confused and trying to repair situations that I had not created. In doing so, I gradually lost sight of my own needs while focusing on someone else’s moods, demands, and expectations.
I no longer feel responsible for rescuing people from the consequences of their own choices. Nor do I believe that love requires endless sacrifice in order to survive. There is a difference between supporting another person and carrying them, and I learned that lesson the hard way.
Real love does not leave me questioning my worth, doubting my judgement, or constantly wondering where I stand. I need stability, honesty, mutual respect, and the freedom to remain myself without fear of criticism, punishment, or manipulation.
The warning signs existed from the beginning. Yet I chose to explain many of them away because I wanted the relationship to succeed. What changed was not my personality but my willingness to ignore my own instincts. Trusting myself has become one of the most valuable things I gained from the experience.
Although I would never wish to repeat that chapter of my life, it forced me to confront parts of myself that needed attention and understanding. In doing so, I gained a deeper appreciation of both my strengths and my vulnerabilities. And that understanding ultimately became far more valuable than the relationship itself.
The most important lesson I carried forward was surprisingly simple:
Words can be beautiful, persuasive, and comforting,
— M. L. Stark ✍️
but it is a person’s actions that eventually reveal
who they truly are
This lesson eventually led me to explore the difference between trusting someone and truly understanding them. You can read more about that in The Difference Between Trust and Understanding.
And while I would never wish to repeat the experience, it ultimately taught me one of the most valuable lessons of my life:
Ttrust actions, not words
— M. L. Stark ✍️
Everything else follows from there
Now that your eyes are open, make the sun jealous with your burning passion to start the day. Make the sun jealous or stay in bed.
— A message I once wrote to him