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.
Skylar, I appreciate the reality check. I’m in denial and in shock perhaps. I can’t wait until I get to the point that I can say to people on here that “I understand I WAS there” Until that time I feel so grateful for the support. I’m so vulnerable and raw. Thanks:)
serenity12:
The only thing I can say to you is the only way you will see it is if you allow him to do it to you over and over again. IF you allow that, one day you will finally see. Until then, I don’t really know what to say. If I remember your original post correctly, he did a lot of awful things to you. Don’t let him. But if you do let him, in time you will see. One day a light bulb will come on and you will finally be done with him.
Serenity,
I think it’s very important to implement NO CONTACT with this man right now. It’s the no contact that allows you in time, every day more to get a better perspective about him.
Staying in contact with him is what perpetuates the confusion. Sociopaths can pretend very well to be normal caring people in some capacity or another: to you, to others, to their children, etc… And as long as you are in contact with him, you will weigh this seeming caring behaiour to someone against the way he abused you (and what you described sounds like abuse to me). The fact is that a NORMAL, HEALTHY man would never have treated you or his ex in this way. You just can’t totally see that yet, because you’re still on contact with him and he therefore has the opportunity in a VERY EASY way to appear normal (via text).
As for his past of El Savaldor. The ex-spath of mine is a Nicaraguan. Both El Salvador and Nicaragua have been ravished under civil war for a long time, which ended about 20 years ago. Civil war does severe psychological damage upon a society, that’s true. But it’s not the sole part of the story. My ex had been in prison for being a thief (he says) and he was once a crack addict (something he says he conquered). He painted a picture of his parents divorcing and him being the black sheep of the family. It was his pity story to get me to empathize with him while the whole village and his father rejected him.
However, the longer I was with him, and the more I actually got to know his father, as well as visited Nicaragua plenty, some things started to bug me about his version:
a) his father worried and cared for him, but he also knew his son’s manipulative tactics and protected himself against that as much as he could (including financially) without cutting him off totally. In time I realized that the bad relationship with his father was completely his own doing.
b) he wasn’t actually helpless and poor: his father was middle class, who owned houses and land in the most popular beach tourist place in the whole country. His father would have paid college for him. But HE decided at 18 after HS that from then on the sole thing that he’d be doing was surfing and partying.
c) he was smart and skillful. If he truly wanted to he had all it needed to make a straight life for himself. Instead he lived day by day on scamming touritst, family, friends, me, and through dealing drugs. And he was a dumb dealer imo, because he dealed for his own use of coke and marihuana. Meanwhile there were PLENTY of Nicaraguans one could call ‘players’, with the same civil war past, who actually DID something with their life. They had a day-job and/or starting a business of their own.
At some point I realized that the Nicaraguans who had to grow up even in worse circumstances than him weren’t involved in drug dealing, weren’t scamming tourists for petty money and drinks, were working or trying to study.
His BAD past was a lie, and what was bad in his life was his own doing. So, I don’t think this El Savadorian past, nor his gang past is an excuse for him. His gang past is HUGE RED FLAG, instead.
Why don’t you book a plane to El Salvador and visit the country by yourself? Yes, you will see it’s a struggle down there, but you’ll also see that plenty of people there are making a positive go for it without abusing other people over it. It might help you realize that circumstances are no excuse at all for what he did.
Serenity,
I know you’re emotions are raw right now. You are still in cognitive dissonance. That’s going to go on for a long time. The only way to speed up the process is to go NC. HE is keeping you in cog/dis by showing the “nice” mask.
Are you reading books on psychopathy and narcissism? If not, I highly recommend that you either buy or borrow as many books as you can. The more you feed your mind with information, the more his DISinformation will be unveiled as lies.
There is a book about cognitive dissonance that I HIGHLY RECOMMEND. It’s titled, Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts.
It has some great insights into the way our minds works, so that you will be able to notice and catch yourself when you are falling into some of the common traps of delusional thinking.
Wow I am really starting to see things a lot clearer. Thanks so much you guys for helping me the last couple of days. Gave me some great ideas to think about and great education. Skylar, I am going to give that book a go. And Darwinsmom, now that I think about it I do start to see some red flags about the stories of his past…this is incredible thanks!!
Hello to LoveFraud friends, I have not been on in months, thought it was all behind me. Even cancelled the extra service fee for blocking numbers on my phone. Last night I got a phone call and a text from spath asking me to dinner, like nothing ever happened. It’s been what, 8 or 9 months since I went NC with him, and he still comes sniffing around. Blocking is re-enabled and I’m feeling ok about it, will be checking my online accounts again more closely since when I initally went NC, there were cyberstalking issues. I wonder if he will ever leave me alone?
Hope everyone is doing ok, Happy Holidays. 🙂
serenity,
I knew my ex was a spath the day he discarded me and I talked with at least one ex and how he had treated her. I got a call from another ex of his (I already was friends with, and someone whom we even visited as a coule) who finally opened her own booklet about him. I stopped making excuses for the blatant signs, but it took me weeks and months to actually figure out the whole story and act about him. I would be driving somewhere (to work or my parents) and suddenly have a memory flash about something he said or did one time (that seemed totally innocent or benign or silly to me at the time) and because of reading so much here I suddenly understood what that strange behaviour actually implied (bad stuff). These were things I had forgotten about. Or they would come to me in a dream (well nightmare).
No contact is paramount to get the full picture and to start healing. This is true as well for a break-up with a healthy, normal man (at least a temporary no contact). If you’re someone who invests highly in relationships, prefer to please partners, family and friends, as well as eagerly take responsibility as well as blame for when things go wrong (‘being fair’) then you will need no contact after the ending of any type of relationship to get a more objective perspective. Otherwise you’re still too attached, pained, hurting,
While going NC with a fresh ex may be temporarily when he’s normal, it’s even more important when it’s someone who’s abusive, and preferably permanent.
You will be addicted to this person for several reasons: hormonally (oxytocine) and because of trauma. Relationshits with spaths are extremely traumatic in ways you can’t even see right now. Things happened that you shoved under the memory carpet, because they ere either too disturbing, didn’t make sense or too painful at the time.
When you get involved with a sociopath the shit starts piling fast… it’s a mountain of trauma: pain, rubbish, fear, lies, and shit. As long as you are in contact and involved with a spath, more shit gets thrown on top of it, that you barely even have time to recover from the latest on the pile, let alone what’s deeply burried underneath it.
When you go no contact a spath can’t throw new trauma on top of the pile anymore. Instead it sets you free to declutter the pile piece by piece. Starting with the top – the latest, the break up – and then all the way down, slowly, to the bottom.
Yes, many here are angry or abhor the ex-spaths in their life. I got there rather fast, but it still took me about a week to actually be angry after being discarded. I’m not angry with the ex anymore, for a long time now. I actually don’t have any feelings for him anymore: it’s all frozen, arctic. But I do think very ill of him. He’s a despiccable human being imo, and a very dangerous one at that (and it took a long time for me to realize, about a year, to accept that I would risk my life if I ever visit Nicaragua again, whether he’s there or not).
I’m glad to hear that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Right now I feel foolish and embarrassed. The problem with unraveling the situation pile by pile is that you have to re-live all the pain. I don’t want to find out ANYTHING else!! I don’t want to find out about anymore women he screwed and any other lies. Didn’t you find that difficult talking to his father and traveling there etc? Or should I face it all? All I know is that I just want him out of my life and I KNOW (like KARMA CHAMELEON said above) that he WILL text as soon as he gets lonely or needs to fill his ego….but I’m guessing that another trait of these spaths is that they have ZERO respect for you and a normal man you broke up with wouldn’t reach out especially if you haven’t contacted them…normal people would get the hint and respect your space…right? I blocked him today. Luckily my phone company doesn’t charge me so I don’t have to worry about it. Thanks!! Off to dinner with some very positive NORMAL people…It was hard to get up today hope tomorrow is better.
Good night:)
Hi Serenity,
I have been reading some of your posts and I can feel how raw your pain is right now, but I can assure you, it WILL get so much better. You can’t fight all the pain and confusion, you just have to work through it.
This blog is a fabulous place to find support, I don’t know how I would have stayed sane without it. Going NC is the only way to heal. Yes, you are right, normal people would not continue to contact you after all their lying and cheating and behave like nothing happened. They are not normal. And another good thing about blocking his number is that you can’t send outgoing texts to that number, so that helps prevent the wine-induced contact. Hope you enjoy your evening out.
Hi Karma,
Good move, re-blocking the spath.
Some people might have been tempted to answer, either by saying yes or a resounding NO!
But you did the best possible thing: you ignored him.
TOWANDA! FOR YOU!