If your new romantic interest exhibits all or most of the following behaviors, be careful. He or she might be a sociopath.
1. Charisma and charm. They’re smooth talkers, always have an answer, never miss a beat. They seem to be very exciting.
2. Enormous ego. They act like the smartest, richest or most successful people around. They may actually come out and tell you that.
3. Overly attentive. They call, text and e-mail constantly. They want to be with you every moment. They resent time you spend with your family and friends.
4. Jekyll and Hyde personality. One minute they love you; the next minute they hate you. Their personality changes like flipping a switch.
5. Blame others. Nothing is ever their fault. They always have an excuse. Someone else causes their problems.
6. Lies and gaps in the story. You ask questions, and the answers are vague. They tell stupid lies. They tell outrageous lies. They lie when they’d make out better telling the truth.
7. Intense eye contact. Call it the predatory stare. If you get a chill down your spine when they look at you, pay attention.
8. Move fast. They quickly proclaim that you’re their true love and soul mate. They want to move in together or get married quickly.
9. Pity play. They appeal to your sympathy. They want you to feel sorry for their abusive childhood, psychotic ex, incurable disease or financial setbacks.
10. Sexual magnetism. If you feel intense attraction, if your physical relationship is unbelievable, it may be their excess testosterone.
For more on this topic, see Donna Andersen’s book, Red Flags of Love Fraud—10 signs you’re dating a sociopath.
Dear Delta1, glad to see you still around, thanks for the kind words. Yea, I’m still kicking along, learn something new just about every day, one of these days I’ll get smart and quit repeating the same lessons. LOL
How have you been? (((hugs)))
ps good quote!
Good and bad. professionally and musically life is great. unfortunately i was in another unhealthy relationship. Worse than the last one if anything. This is why I posted about my attraction to this type. Understanding myself is becoming more the priority than understanding ‘them’ lol.
You take care you adventurous gal!
Delta 1
Delta, that is the thing about healing, first we learn about THEM, that’s the first part, then the second part is learning about OURSELVES. Why we were vulnerable and how….what is it about us that lets us fall for it?
I fall for the love bomb most of the time…not just in romantic relationships but in friendship or business….so I am having to relearn that until I GET IT! LOL
Sorry you had to repeat “psychopath 101.” (((hugs)))
Delta_1, thanks for that…although smart is something I’m not feeling lately. I know he is out of my life and I am strong enough to say that I won’t let him back in, but suggestions on how to not feel guilty for wasting so much time and energy? I know you learn from every life experience and makes you who you are but HOW are the last FOUR years of negativity going to teach me ANYTHING!! What do you say to yourself to forgive and trust yourself? How do I justify the last 4 years? I’m 32, physically the stress has caused me to gain weight and feel totally unappealing..I feel like I don’t even know or love me. I feel defeated…. The frustration of “Why couldn’t he change?” “Why couldn’t he understand” is deafening. I have been a high school teacher and a high level athletic coach for 10 years and I couldn’t see though this? I know I’m beating myself up but how could I not? Where do I get that 4 years back? Thanks
serenity12:
You know what it’s going to teach you? It’s going to teach you to never do it again. It will teach you to look for all those red flags. It will teach you to take it slow instead of jumping into something like that with another man. It will teach you a lot! Those years were NOT wasted because they were a lesson. You need to heal, but you must never forget. If we forget, we are prone to make the same mistake again.
You will be OK, but you must maintain No Contact. I learned from this site it’s the only way. The only way. As long as there is contact, you will keep getting pulled back into it. Push/Pull, Push/Pull. It’s better to just go No Contact and keep it that way. HUGS.
Serenity12, feeling “guilty” about the time lost is a waste of precious energy. Being ANGRY about it, now that’s another thing. Having typed that, I had to accept the fact that I cannot go back in time and alter my choices, decisions, or stop the exspath from doing the things that he did to me. Understanding this truth means that the time is gone, forever, and there is no way to get it back. Sad? Yep, it is. But, it’s not the end of the world that I can’t change things with what I know, now.
It’s a “regret” that tugs at our minds and it’s a challenge to shake that regret off. I regretted ever having trusted the exspath, at all, but I did trust him and it’s now about how I’m going to spend every moment recovering instead of regretting the mistakes and errors in judgements.
Finally, it’s become “all about me” and managing my issues rather than “all about what he did.” Yeah, he did some very, very bad things while he asserted that he was trustworthy, respectable, and that he cared about me. Well, he wasn’t any of those things and he never cared about me except when there was money to be had.
Just because we lost time doesn’t mean that the time lost was fruitless. I’ve learned more about myself in the past year than I ever imagined possible. I thought that I had known everything about myself that I needed to know, and I learned the truth that I had no idea who I was, or how I got to this point. So, had the marriage not been revealed to be a sham, I would still be living in a fog of illusion.
No, I don’t like where I am, right now. But, I won’t be like this, forever. And, I am grateful that I have this chance to sort it out, finally.
Brightest healing blessings
Hey Serenity
Well – the 4 years won’t be wasted cos when you recover – and you will recover, even if it takes some time – you will be a lot more knowledgeable about yourself and also about how to protect yourself from pathological persons much better.
I think getting really, really angry is a good first step – cos anger burns away guilt and kind of ‘fires you up’ to take action about your life. Then use your anger to start walking, taking some exercise – you will start to feel stronger and stronger.
It may not have felt safe to get angry around him, and it may take a little work to dig into those feelings if you’ve got used to trying to keep things calm, but they’re likely in there somewhere!
Also is can feel scary to allow yourself to get angry. When I went into my ‘angry stage’ – I actually got scared that I might be a psychopath too. I wanted to stick hot needles into my exes eyes and then bury him alive etc etc! But believe me I’m really over that now too- and I sort of laugh at myself about my overactive imagination – think “hum that would make a good horror movie etc”. Or as I’m a singer/songwriter I channel the dark energy into a song which transforms it into something else beautiful instead.
Also try to think as much as you can about the things that you want in life – from small – like buying your favourite brand of coffee – to bigger ambitions. All of that is now possible, now that you are in the process of freeing yourself emotionally and mentally from your life being ‘all about him all the time’. All the life force and energy that he has/was taking – he can’t take anymore. All that life force energy is now yours again – and it will heal you.
The constant nonsense and hot/cold from from them is designed (consciously or unconsciously) to destabilise you so that you focus all your attention on them all the time. That way you don’t have time or energy to take a step back and see clearly. They don’t let you pause for breath. You have to keep your attention on them if you want to survive emotionally as you just can’t predict what mood they’re gonna be in next. You are constantly adjusting to their emotional temperature and trying to match their mood etc. This is exhausting and it’s no fault on you if your looking a little tired, peaky and even overweight as a result. (And the angry walking will probably help too lol)
So just naturally if you KEEP NO CONTACT you will start to notice after a few weeks that your ‘brain is clearing’, and you’re starting to look better too.
By the way – I personally am a prime No Contact offender – i.e. breaking No Contact. I used to get my anger out by posting my ex links to Charles Manson on You Tube (the ones that particularly reminded me of the sayings of my spathy ex) to ‘make a point’ to him and to myself I guess. Was this sensible? No it was not cos then I would think about him all the rest of the day! The reason for mentioning this to you, is to point out that going No Contact is usually really, really hard at first. And sometimes people slip up for all sorts of reasons. So keep at it – eventually it works it’s magic…….
xxxx Delta
Thanks Delta and Truthspeak:
I’m having trouble with self control and getting motivated to get up and get out there. I invited some great friends over last night and we had some wine and what did I do? Text him a text that said “How r u feeling” He wrote back a very sweet message saying he was in bed watching a movie with his 3 yr old son(by the way can you please direct me to a place on here regarding if children are affected? And is it hereditary?) I miss his little boy so much and it hurts and hard not to have contact to know what the little one is up to. Like I said he is a great loving selfless father. That’s why I’m confused on the definition of a sociopath. His behaviors toward his child that he sees 4 days a week seem to be normal and even healthy. What am I missing here?
This morning he sent a text asking how I was. I couldn’t help responding saying that I was ok and trying to recover. I know I shouldn’t have but I CARE about him and I can’t help feeling sorry for him and empathy. Everyone on here seems to just HATE their abuser, but I am having empathy for him today….is this normal? He had such a rough childhood that was out of his control. He escaped here to Canada from Elsalvador when he was 8 yrs old and has seen people killed in front of him, a rough up bringing with terrible role models….so I can’t help feeling sorry for him and that its not his fault. I don’t want to be angry with him…it seems like everyone is so angry. I’m not for some reason. I’m so sad for him. Again, I’m thinking about him and his life. Im trying to balance if he’s a sociopath, or he just doesn’t care about ME or love ME. I’m all over the map and can’t get out of bed today(It’s also minus 30 degrees here today lol)
xoxo
And Delta I am SOOO tempted to send him this blog link and have him read m feelings…I’m not going to but again I feel that he may “get it” but of course he won’t.
Serenity,
they lie all the time. He was in bed with a woman and texting you at the same time because that makes sex with her even better.
It was a tell.
He is a spath, he doesn’t love you. He hates you. That’s why he plays these games with you. In his mind you deserve to be conned because you let him.
My spath said that. quote, “When people get conned they deserve it because they let it happen.” wtf?
You are prey and he never loved you, he only wants to see you suffer.
Edit: and if you tell him how much he hurt you, he’ll just revel in it. He feeds on your emotions. Don’t give him any.