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.
Louise,
first I have to say that spaths ALWAYS come back. They are like boomerangs. It may take a year or 10 years, but they always do a quick check for a RESPONSE. If you let them in, they will just bite you again and run off, like a rabid dog. Actually they’ll do it worse the next time around. I left my spath so many times and each time I took him back he was more evil, more self-assured that he could and WOULD control me.
Your guilt over sleeping with a married man is misplaced. He wasn’t a married man, he was a married spath and that is not the same thing. Much of the information we get from the environment and from other people, is subconscious. We pick up on subtle cues about things. When we are with a spath, we are not picking up on reality but on a facade. So we respond to the facade. He did everything he could to lead you to believe that he was unhappy and ending his marriage. You trusted that what he presented was the truth.
Only you know what was in your heart when you made your decisions. I hope that you don’t feel guilt for the things that HE was responsible for. Your only sin was not having better boundaries, IMO.
I learn so much from not only the articles, but the comments. I was not physically abused by my spath ex husband. But the emotional and mental abuse was brutal. Mine is all about looking good and being above everyone else. The more If I read, the stronger I feel. But the thought of ever running into him frightens me. His numbers and email addresses are blocked, but there’s always a way. If I hear his voice I will disconnect the call.
I would like to meet someone to date. At this point, I am having some self image issues. Within the month of signing our divorce, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I proceeded to have 4 very extensive surgeries in a short period of time. Not knowing many people here in town (I moved here to marry him), I asked him for help. Of course, in true spath fashion, he turned his back on me, yet in his sick and twisted mind, he feels like a hero. Their reasoning skills are questionable to say the least. I suffered great physical pain, one week in ICU, 2 weeks total inpatient. Due to complications from one of the surgeries, my reconstruction is not complete. I am tall and thin, and the difference in my breasts are obvious. I don’t get my final reconstruction surgery until August. I am not comfortable in my body yet and am very self conscience to start dating. Not to mention, the man I do meet will have a lot to prove to me. I have huge trust issues. The thing is, I know he will eventually contact me. I’ve known him since I was 14. I’m not ashamed to say I am now 56, he is 59. He is not great looking. Most people ask what I saw in him. Sex is not his thing. Control is his thing. I’ve read some articles here about the spath and their attitude towards animals. Mine loved animals and would never hurt one because it would make him less than perfect. He cuddled the dog more than me. Sociopaths don’t listen. They can’t. My opinion and feelings never mattered. I’m glad it’s over. I know I am getting stronger and healing physically and mentally. I know I will be fine. And so will all of you. Best wishes for a positive New Year to everyone.
The thing is that if he will cheat on her, he will cheat on you. If he says she is a witch, he will say you are witch…a DISHONEST PERSON is not going to all of a sudden be honest (well, sometimes it happens when someone truly finds Jezus, but NOT OFTEN enough to worry about it happening to your guy. LOL)
The stats are that about 66% of all married men cheat at least once, but I don’t know the stats for serial cheaters…probably 20% or more I would think…but 67% of men say that it is ALWAYS wrong to cheat…so somewhere there is a problem. LOL
I can pretty well say that if my husband had cheated I would have kicked him out for ONE time doing it. But earlier in my young married days (different guy) I MIGHT have tried to “work it out.”
My son C cheated on his wife once, got caught and they did not break up (he was her meal ticket) and when he caught her cheating he said “honey we will go to counseling and work it out” but her idea of “working it out” was to buy guns for her and her ex convict pedophile lover and set up a scenario where they would kill C and try to make it look like self defense…well they didn’t get it right so they both went to jail and her husband didn’t get killed. She lost everything but one cat and her son’s ashes and that was because my son C had more compassion on her than I did. I wouldn’t have let her have either of those things at THAT time (I probably would NOW, but at the time I was SOOOO ANGRY at her I would not have given her anything, not a drop of water if she was dying of thirst. I was ANGRY!)
Rochelle, we posted over each other. Congratulations on overcoming all you have done.
The feelings we have as “mature women” about our bodies which are not what they were 20-30 years ago is normal and natural. I felt so old, fat, ugly, wrinkles etc after my husband died and when the P started love bombing me, I fell for it like a rock. Now I am more content with my own body, my own looks, my own SELF at 66. Sure there are women who have less wrinkles at my age, are slimmer and more fit, but I am ME and I like ME…and if I find some man who likes ME then fine, if not, that’s fine too. Our bodies are just fine like they are!
denbroncos007:
I was afraid of rejection for the longest time…almost deathly afraid. But then I started realizing this was my life, not his, and if I needed closure, I was going to try to get it. So I pulled out all the stops and didn’t care. I figured at least this way he would always know how I felt about him. But I will never do it again. It was way too painful and just as you said what you are afraid of…that if you reached out and he didn’t respond, you would sink into a deeper depression…that is what was happening to me. I was only driving myself crazy.
No, he did not promise me the moon and stars or say he was leaving his wife…he had already left. He had already been separated for an entire year. In my opionion, I think that’s a pretty long time. Most of the time it seems people separate for a few weeks or at most a few months and then they get back together. I guess the fact that he was separated for so long and had his own apartment made me think he was on the way to divorce. The one thing he did tell me that led me to believe that things were moving in that direction was that they were going to sell the house they had in England and that would pay for a house for her to live in here. HA! Little did I know he meant that he would also live in it…that it would be their new family home. That’s exactly what he did. Five months after telling me that, they bought an $800,000 house and that is where they have been for over two years now. He’s very good at what he does…so subtle that you don’t even know what he is saying. I am a very intune person…I normally pick up on people’s cues; I am very intuitive, but he really duped me. Me and many, many others.
I think it’s nice that you stayed friends with that guy. It makes a person feel not so bad about what happened. I don’t see anything wrong with people being civil.
rochelle:
I am so sorry to hear all that you went through. Heartbreaking. It sounds like you are strong.
I identified with something you said. Sex was not his thing…control is his thing. That is my spath. It took me a long time to realize it was not really about sex at all. He made it look like it was about sex, but I know better. Interesting.
Oxy:
Trust me, I know the stats on cheating. I was actually a very informed woman, I was not naive really at all and yet I still fell for his crap. A serial cheater is way different though than someone who just slips up once.
Actually, from just the few pages I read in the book skylar talked about, “The Descent of Woman,” it talks about how people were never meant to be monogamous. Whew…that’s a whole other topic…wow!!!!!! 🙂 Can’t wait to read that book.
skylar:
I know what you mean about them coming back. That is what mine did to me and you are so absolutely right…the second time was way worse! He won’t ever come back again though. I just feel it; I know it. That’s a good thing. It doesn’t feel good, but it is good.
He did do everything to make me believe he was unhappy and that he was heading towards a divorce. He said so many “little” things…so many subtle clues…that subconsciously I was picking up on these subtle things that made me believe he was getting divorced. Little things like, “She wonders why I don’t want to be there.” OMG! You are so right about picking up on the facade, but not reality. That is the best thing I have read in awhile.
What was in my heart? In my heart, I felt like I met the guy of my dreams who was going to be free to love me; to be with me; to do things with me. I prayed to God about it, but apparently I was not hearing God’s voice; I was hearing satan. God would never lead me to do something that was not pleasing to Him. I was just so taken up in the mess that I didn’t see the forest for the trees. Yes!…I did not have boundaries. Well, I did have some remember…I never gave him any of my emotions because I WAS warned so I really held back the way I truly felt. He did NOT know I was in love with him. He did not find this out until six months later. So yeah, I didn’t have the best boundaries obviously! But I did have SOME.
Thank you so much for that post, skylar!!!!!!!!!! Big HUGS to you!!
Louise, that’s another thing about the psychopaths is that they slip in easily….and get us to cross boundaries and moral compasses that we do have and do just a “little” wrong, then a “little more” and so on until we are doing things we never would have considered doing…Satan/psychopaths appeal to our “lust” (desires) and our vanity and use it to hook us into their webs of deceit…yes, anyone can cheat once or steal once or lie once, but when it becomes a HABIT, a way of life….there is no turning back and that is where the psychopath is different from “ordinary” people, EVIL purposes and practices are ways of life for them…without REMORSE or learning from their “mistakes.”
Everyone here has done things they knew were wrong, but we learn from our poor choices, and resolve to not do them again, not so the psychopath.
Louise and Oxy,
I think that is the primary tool of the spath: “make this exception just for me – because this is an exceptional situation due to the fact that I’m an exceptional person.”
And we DO get a sense that this person is different. That’s how they portray themselves, as unique and special. So of course, we don’t want to be like all the other idiots who can’t see how special he is. We want to be “special” too. We know we are special because we recognize other special people and special opportunities and special situations. so much special Bull Sh*t. It’s called narcissism.
When you consider Sandusky and how he got the narcisistic heads of Penn State to make “an exception” and allow him a free pass on raping children, you get the idea of how it works. They ARE very good at what they do. That’s why we have to be better at having boundaries.