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.
Attention: chel26, Stargazer, skylar, DUPED NO MORE!, aussiegirl, MarielouRez, mags and all other Spath survivors!
After dealing with my SPATH today, I vow to put forth my utmost effort to ABSTAIN from further contact with him. Thanks to your support and experiences I do not feel so alone in my quest to regain my peace and sanity.
I have forgiven him countless times for the horrible things he says to me, the lies he continues to tell, and for the broken promises he never seems to keep.
Yesterday he told me he needed a flame retardent jacket for his NEW offshore job and needed to have it yesterday. Basically, the conversation went something like this “Hey, I have $45 and the jacket is $125, do you think you could help me out at all?” WEll.. hard habits are hard to break and I couldn’t see turning down a necessity to keep him warm while he was WORKING offshore..afterall, when he returned he was going to pay me back for that, the boots I purchased, the bag, the past debt, etc… So, I gave him the $. Later, he calls frustrated “My mom is such a b****, she won’t give me the $45”..He says “Oh, no you’ve helped me enough, I’m not asking you to help me..but, I just don’t know how I’m going to get the $”. So, this morning I go to the ATM before I go to work. He picks up the cash and off he goes on his destination..remember, our phones have FAMILY MAP so I can see where he travels and vice versa. So, he calls when he gets closer..it goes to voicemail “HEY, I just wanted to say tysm for helping me..my phone is about to die, but I’m on my way back”. WEll, the phone can’t be tracked if it is turned OFF. And, so I text him “I don’t believe the phone is dead, you have a charger in the car”. 15 mins. later I get a call, “It was dead but I stopped at my friends house to borrow some ‘insulated coveralls’. I replied “yesterday you spoke to him and he wasn’t home.” He was working offshore. “Oh, but he just came in this morning”. (Ahhh thank goodness for facebook), b’c this friend posted just minutes before that..”Its too cold to be working outside!” He went on and on insisting the guy was home, but he wasnt. But, his wife was. And, my SPATH had always said “I would never go to my buddys’ house when just his wife is home, as I would hope you would never have dudes over when I’m not home’. I confirmed the story with his wife (on my facebook) and she said..Yes, HE came over today and no (HUSBAND) wasn’t home and he told me not to tell you. I said, why does he have to lie..afterall he’s just borrowing coveralls? She said, I hate to tell you this but he didn’t borrow any coveralls. He came over to get some left over pills that belonged to my son who has ADD and she said she was going to throw them away but, since he has ADD also she thought she would help him out by giving them to him for the price of the copay ($20). He said he didn’t have it but, really owed her $72 b/c that was the price on the streets… (now, why did he know that..)
So, the confrontation with the liar began:
Spath: I swear he was home and I just ran in and borrowed coveralls.
Libragirl: You didn’t mention this was part of your destination this morning and then your phone just ‘dies’ conveniently.
Spath:I’m not fighting with you about this on the phone, we’ll talk when you get off
Libragirl:Bring me my receipt now. And, Im not going to wait all day to talk about this when you get here we will talk.
He never showed. And, turned his phone off so I couldnt talk to him. I showed up at his house on a mission. Guess what I got?? I said, why’d you lie?? Because you’re so friggin jealous, that’s why..if I would have told you I was going over there you would have thought I had something going on with her”. BS! I said, you will not make this about me. YOu were not honest and truthful and were choosing to lie and protect yourself from whatever confrontation you feared. (keep in mind he doesn’t know I know he went there for pills)I got yelled at. He told me NOT to yell at him..while he kept yelling, threatening to choke me, put me in the hospital, called me a ‘fat bi***’ said F this F that. Jumped out of the car at a redlight because he said HE wanted to hurt me. And, refused to talk to me as I followed him a block back to his house while he just kept saying “F” you “f” u.. He now has blocked me from facebook, has his phone still turned off, and that is that.
Libragirl72 –
“And, refused to talk to me as I followed him a block back to his house while he just kept saying “F” you “f” u.. He now has blocked me from facebook, has his phone still turned off, and that is that. ”
Be very careful now – he is about to label you as a crazy demented stalker (if he has not already laid the groundwork for this, which he probably HAS, it will now begin in earnest).
Your mutual friends, work colleagues and family members are about to be told that you followed him to the point where he has had to block you on Facebook, switch off his mobile ‘phone and jump out of a car because he was so afraid of you because you are a nutjob. He may even take out a restraining order against you.
You need to act quickly NOW and get in first if at all possible; don’t go thinking that to do so will “rock the boat” or “stir things up worse”; if he is a spath, then things are ALREADY worse than you can see or hear right now.
Go to the police and apply for a restraining order; tell them that he has threatened to choke and hospitalise you and that he has fraudulently obtained money from you. Then call all of your friends and family and tell them what you have had to do.
You must act quickly because believe you me, this is exactly what he plans to do to you. Sadly, even though in many ways it seems unfair, it’s the person who gets in first that gets the best hearing. You are going to need as much REAL and well-informed (by YOU as opposed to falsely informed by HIM) support as you can muster from now on.
Even mud that doesn’t belong on you has a habit of sticking.
Go now. xxx
Oh wow, Aussiegirl!! Now, I’m kinda scared..he’s had this behavior and these rage attacks as his ‘constant’ way of handling any confrontation. I know you are right, he is downright vindictive. Mean spirited is putting it lightly. Today, the wife of his friend..already, told me LOTS of information that was really informing. First off, she did say he went in and casually said ‘I’m being tracked now, she’s crazy’..luckily I’ve only met this girl once but, she seems to see me for who I actually am…someone normal, trying to share a healthy relationship with this guy! She says she replied to him” I wonder why..people dont track people unless they can’t be trusted”. She also told me..conflicting information about his job. He told her he had already been offshore “2hitches” (hasn’t worked since I can’t remember), told her a different name of the Boss in charge than what he gave me. She quickly said, “He lies, I think he is a pathological liar. I don’t even believe he has a job”. My jaw dropped and at that moment I knew she knew more about him than I ever did. She told me about a time he claimed to have spoken to a girl for a long time on the phone. And, when he hung up she called the number back and it was some company voicemail..(Not a girl at all) She also said, she thinks he has an addiction. He told her he has a gambling addiction. Which is alot of personal information if you’re just picking up coveralls, but anyway I was glad she opened up and she said she wished she had talked to me long ago..and,maybe that would have saved me some heartache.
The anger that you speak of is why I was always cautious about disconnecting his cell phone. He will always get mad at me and it seems like the only thing he cared about what losing his phone service. It’s just this entire thing is backwards! He’s mad at me, and he lied. This is what happened last weekend when he was at the casino and said he wasn’t. Well, facebook is taken care of and I’m glad he did it. Now, I have to deal with the phone..He’s on probation from DWI earlier this year, I think he will try to stay out of trouble and hopefully just go away peacefully.
Libra –
Sweetheart, I don’t mean to frighten you but you DO need to pay attention to advice given by those of us who have seen the WHOLE script play out. They ALL do this and they ALL read from the same set of instructions.
And now, as you have just revealed, you have PROOF that this has already been happening behind your back – it’s part of the “devalue and discard” routine that they use once there mostly done with you. Making you the crazy stalker, the nutjob, the whacko.
Of course, you are still “supply” while you keep his phone connected or pay for anything else on his behalf. I understand your caution about repercussions but these monsters will “repercuss” regardless!!!
I walked away from at least $100,000 that was about to be awarded to me in an order AGAINST Superspath last month, at a trial that resulted from an application that HE BROUGHT AGAINST ME, trying to squeeze money out of me and telling everyone that I had “stolen his compensation money” for an alleged workplace accident that he had had. None of that was true but in order to save my home from being taken by him (if I didn’t present my side of the case, then the court would only have had his lies to go on) I had to spend the past 2 years in and out of court refuting his lies. In the end, at the trial, it became obvious that he was a liar and the tide turned against him. The judge had already indicated a minimum amount that I would be leaving the courtroom with and had the trial proceeded, then more and more of his liars would have been exposed and the dollar value for me just would have kept climbing.
That kind of money would have completely changed my life for the better, yet I chose to walk with nothing more rather than spend another second “feeding” him with drama. And even though I should have known better, I mistakenly reasoned that this would be less likely to enrage him than if I had stayed the distance and got the money from him. Wrong. By the time I got home from court, one of my pets had been killed; her body was still limp and warm when I found her.
Other wise people here have a saying that “NO good deed goes unpunished”.
While you maintain that phone you maintain a level of contact which feeds him and you maintain a level of stress for yourself that will stop you from cutting the ties properly and healing your broken self.
Bottom line – they are going to stalk, harrass, misrepresent and accuse us regardless of how nice we are to them; they despise our kindness and usually the nicer we are to them, the worse they will treat us because for them it’s a game and the game is to see how much abuse we will take before we fold; what it will take to “finish us off”. Most of them would like to see us dead or demented from their efforts.
Don’t play his game; cut the phone off. Please. xx
Oh – and Libra –
No, he WON’T “try to stay out of trouble and hopefully just go away peacefully” just because he’s on probation; he will just change tactics, shift sideways and play a new game.
His “trouble” might go undetected by you for a time but you can be sure he’s either out there making more or he’s in more of it; or both.
A spath is a spath and a spath does what spaths do. Period.
Libra, mine was smearcampaigning even in the lovebombing period. People asked me about damaged car and I explained it truhfully (my mom rode alongside parked truck… a couple of days later she was diagnozed with glaucoma). Behind my back he told them I had been lying, that I had done it myself… AND he knew very well how it really happened… My mom confessed to it while he was there. Originally I didn’t understand why he would lie about that at all. Now I know it was to set me up towards the future, to make me out to be a liar and unreliable.
Originally he invited me to read all his chats on fb, etc, even though I wasn’t even curious. About a year onwards, he had made his tagged pictures invisible for me, as well as any comments by women on his wall I wasn’t friends with either. Just this alone started to worry me. He came up with several excuses, that he wasn’t computer savy, etc… but when I offered to change it for him, he started to make a fuss over his privacy and how controlling I was. At some point I noticed an exchange with a woman which seemed more intimate than appropriate… it had been glaring in my face for a long time, but I never had worried about it, until I knew he had altered his prvacy settings. I contacted her, because he refused to explain… and then of course he called me “controlling”. Still not sure what happened between them, because she denied any intimate involvement, other than traveling and being friends. But I had evidence towards the end with another girl, where he had couple pics with her and him lovebombing her on fb, while I couldn’t see it as long as she was not a friend of mine. A friend of hers had befriended me though… she realized the truth and wanted to keep the door open. Eventually when I started to realize the ugly truth, I asked her friend whether she would mind talking to me. She befriended me and gave her story (he robbed and snowed her too), and that’s how I was able to see the full extent of his actions on his profile.
He tried to blame me for everything behind my back too…
Spaths are spaths, and they go by the same step by step scenario.
Libragirl,
Let’s see, this guy is taking your money, devaluing you behind your back, calling his mother a bitch for not giving him money (I’m assuming he’s full grown and not a teenager), lying about whereabouts, doing drugs, gambling, abusing you verbally, and threatening physical violence. I don’t know if I read that there has already been physical violence? Healthy people who CARE about others do not do those kinds of things. I hope you get out and get out safely.
Aussiegirl,
I’m sorry you walked away from money only to find something even more precious gone.
That is a lesson for all of us. WE KNOW that the spaths are bullies. They pick on people who won’t or can’t fight back.
They want victims. They want sacrifices. It’s their MO.
When we capitulate for peace, we invite them in. It’s unfortunate but it’s true, because they are cowards.
At the same time, you can’t give them drama because that turns them on. It has to be a very carefully planned defense/offense that stops them but offers them no drama, no emotion, no satisfaction.
I know it’s hard to understand this because it’s soooo abnormal, but those are the freakazoids were are dealing with.
You guys are right! Now, I like look the ‘crazy’ one when all I was trying to do was talk to him. He lied about where he was going and the reason he went there and then blameshifted and accused me of being too jealous that he ‘couldn’t tell me the truth’. It’s so frustrating when you know exactly what you want isn’t asking for more than what you give them ‘mutual respect’ and no lies!
When he got in the car he had already sent me in a spiral..speaking over me as I wanted to know ‘why’ and defending myself against the ‘you’re too jealous’ comment. He immediately goes into personally attacking me. And, then I get upset, start crying and raise my voice.Then he mocks me crying! He actually sits there with all of his physical threats of violence pointing out ‘he will not be yelled at’. Give me a break?? My yelling does not supercede his “I hate you”, “I want to choke you”, “I want to punch you in the jaw”, and the worst one yet..”I want to decapitate you”. And, yes there has been actual physical violence by him in the past.
When we lived together, I went without electricity for an entire week because the money we were supposed to pay the bill with he ‘borrowed’ from me and never returned it. So, the lights went off. I stayed there, got an icechest, candles, and decided I would deal with it until we could pay to get the lights back on.I still went to work everyday, took cold baths, etc. He of course handled it much differently. “I’m not going to stay here in this ‘filthy’ apartment with no lights”. Of course, he created an ugly environment and went home to his mother’s that night. He did offer for me to stay there also, but he had kept us at such a distance I didn’t feel comfortable popping up now with his mom that he only allowed me to meet once. So, I stayed home. He came back home after a couple of days of staying with his mom and having a/c, t.v, etc. and said he was wrong for treating me that way. Looking back, I see my ‘yelling’ because I’m so frustrated at his stupidity, selfishness, and ignoring my feelings as a small price to pay for his outrageous behavior.
For my birthday, he bought me an Ipad.(Or, so I thought HE bought it) He told me he had gotten some money from his lawyer (that I dont think exists) to buy me that gift. WEll, a couple of days before my birthday he also withdrew a few hundred dollars from our joint account. So, technically I bought my own gift. (He didn’t have a job at the time). That wasn’t so bad I thought. At least he thought about me. Well, when the lights went off he told me we needed to pawn it to get them back on. I huffed about it and didn’t agree, but he pawned it ….and, I never saw the $100 he said he got for it. And, it wasn’t enough to get the lights on.
And, yes I believe he has been setting up the path to make me look crazy, controlling, etc. for awhile now. A couple of months back after we got evicted, I got a phone call from his mother because my number was once his phone number and she was looking for him. Concerned she said. I told her I hadn’t seen him and left the conversation short. Afterall, he had threatened me in the past when I told him I kept his mothers phone number in my contact list so I would know she were calling…and, I would know not to answer. That information got him mad. And, he quickly said “If I find out you are talking to her, this is over”. I didn’t comprehend his anger at the time. The night she called looking for him, she called me back at least 10x’s. I didn’t answer. Later, she sent me a text ‘he tells me you’re an awful person’. I wante to just die!! Awful?? After all that I had sacrificed? I simply replied, “I think you know that I am not.”
Libragirl: Sounds just like the same kinds of crap “I” had been through. You need to realize that you ARE better than this and just put an end to it. You can do much better, Dearheart….
What a horrid, ugly, foul person you have been with.
You need to NC his butt and move on.
I am sorry this happened to you.
I am sorry and I don’t mean for this to sound ‘male bashing’, but it’s merely an experience of mine: I have not had a male in my life that wasn’t selfish and jealous and stifling. I have given up dreaming about any kind of relationship anymore in my life with a male because I have given up faith that men can really relate. Seriously. I am not gay but I have no desire to be anything but myself and who “I” am anymore.
GET OUT WHILE YOU CAN and don’t be afraid to leave it behind. He sounds like a monster, just like mine was.
Be safe and stop participating.
Once you stop participating, it all just goes away, after time…
HOPEFULLY. And, I say that because MINE has been stalking my life for the past ten years. The earlier you end it the better. And don’t go back. Ignore what those people say about you. IGNORE THEM. You believe in yourself and your worth and value; you hear me, Libragirl? You have given up enough of yourself.
I will send wishes and prayers your way.
ABOVE ALL: STAY SAFE.
Dupey