How do you stop loving someone who doesn't love you back?

How does someone who has fallen in love with a sociopath find the strength to walk away?

• been seeing this guy, not in what youd call a regular relationship, for two years or so. He had rented a room from me and we began having relations.  We had an agreement in the beginning.  He didnt want any committment., and I didnt want to sleep with someone who was sleeping with other people.  We both seemed to be good with the others request and so it went on.  All the while he would always remind me not to have expectations and you wouldnt have let downs.  Only problem with that was he, however, always had quite a few expectations of me.  by the way prior to moving into my house I had known him for a year or two.  my situation at that time was I was in about the 13th year of an abusive relationship.  About the time I decided to finally wash my hands he became sick with cancer,  well even though not living together I was still playing the part of mother hen.  Things were gonna get real tough so I moved him (the boyfriend of 13 years) into my house, took care of him 24 hours a day until the day he died ,  which was about a year in its entirety.  Two months after that I was in a head on collision which landed me in the hospital for three months, and in a wheelchair, which lasted for three and a half years.  My whole life was about to change.  Id always took care of everybody, now Ive lost someone who Id really loved , who treated me terrible , and now Ive lost my legs.  I still had a home and a little bit of money .  i had always been very independant , and being crippled now, didnt stop me.   Anyway,  so this guy had a pretty good idea that I was most likely at the most vurnerable place in my life, and what a perfect, perfect victim.  knowing how loyal i was, he went to work , cept I was so not myself at that time I didnt have a clue what was happening.  He was so charming , and so nice, and so helpful, and acted so concerned with how i was healing.  The sex was great, it just kept getting better all the time.  I was very lonely though as we didnt share the things most people do in a relationship.  For instance I was never able to touch him unless it was in bed, and that was only when he chose .  He didnt live in the house he lived in a studio in the back.  so hed only come in to shower, for me to cook for him, watch t.v., or of course,to get in my bed.   He never would invite me to his room though, which I thought was odd, and also hurt my feelings.  All the distance was really weird, but I guess I was o.k. with it cause he was home every night, and so I was pretty confident that I was the only one he was sleeping with.   After about two years or so he suddenly started acting different and he also started not coming home.  this was really odd , since he had his normal roution after work ,every day and night.  I forgot to mention, he was also an iv/methamphetamine user, which i would never even consider having sex with him had I known before.  I guess I turn the other cheek to the fact seeing he was extrememly clean about his body and had better personal hygene than anyone id ever known. Well after about a month or two of him staying gone most of the time I ended up discovering there was another woman, twenty years younger I might add.  I confronted him and fixed it in a way where she would have to find out.  When I realixed what he was doing I was crushed.  I hadnt really thought about it much but when this happened i realized I was in love with him.  I had to kick him out.  He had no intention of telling either one of us.I  I was absolutely devastated .  I had grown so used to him being here, and now i was all alone.,  I cried every day for two months.  I didnt see or hear from him. It was just like Id died.  I didnt know where he was . she now had complete control.  Then one day after I had finally decided Id better pull my ass together and get my ass out of bed and start moving them legs or I was gonna end up back in the wheelchair,  he shows up.  I didnt know what to say , my whole body, mind and spirit just froze.  he acted so happy to see me and couldnt keep his hands off me.  He charmed me right into the bedroom where he proceeded to tell me how much he missed me and how good it felt to be holding me again and how it killed him that he had to move from here,  said she had tricked him and made him feel obligated to provide a place for her, he also said he didnt want anything more to do with her and he wanted to move back home.  I melted, I fell for it hook line and sinker.  He stayed for two days and dissapeared again with no explanation and no warning.  Again I was devastated.  Right back to bed I went.  Didnt hear from him again for a while and each time he showed back up with the Im done with her story, I fell for it.  Now each time hed disappear I lose it and now I got to where I decided I would go to his hpouse to confront his wether she knew he had been here or not, I didnt care. He had been telling her one story and me another... Now hes got the two of us pitting against one another.   he fixes it as though hes done no wrong.  I kept telling him how much he was hurting me by coming over at all.  He knew how I felt about him and if he didnt feel tghe same he didnt belong coming here at all.  Being the all about self, selfish thing that he is, none of what I said mattered.  Being the sociopathe that he is he decided to naturally keep doing what he wants anyway.  So now everytiome theyd fight hed use me to hurt her.  whenever he needs to get high, knowing she has nothing ,hes decided to delegate me to give him money so he can get high.  thats all that matters.   if i dont comply, theres hell to pay.  Well just recently this new secret comes out.  my panties would disapear. he wasnt taking them for trophies, hes taking them to wear them while he masturbates.  now whenever we have sex im supposed to go along with his program of him turning on porno going through my panties to chose his pair so he can masturbate before i service him, be aroused by it say nothing, and like it.  wow.its getting real crazy, I love him and I know I need to remove him from my life.  I just dont know how to exist without him.  hes become the air that I breathe since hes so me,me, me, and has consumed my whole being. I seemed to have lost my identity because of him and he doesnt care . what do i do?

• Answer:

  You have to love yourself more than you love him. Then you can walk away. You know he is bad for you. You must end it and go completely NO CONTACT. I want to answer this in more detail, I am crunched for time now, but will add more later.