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.
EB sorry you are having your fortress infiltrated by the bad man! I hope and think that your kids are pretty safe from him with what they know about how he operates.
As for the town, it is like most small towns, everyone knows what everyone else is doing, and he has been shown to be nothing but a low life drug dealer….not even a big shot drug dealer which might actually get some “respect” from some of the “richie riches!” LOL but he is a LOW LIFE street dealer so just another petty criminal to them….and I think your kids know that as well.
Yep, I think he is looking for a “respectable wife and home base” from which to cheat and carry on his operations.
Just like my ex friend who sent me the Christmas card with the “enough time has passed, so why don’t we become friends again and forget about the past problems?” DUH???? TIME passing has NOTHING TO DO WITH “being friends again.” TIME does not un-do anything that happened, not if we are SMART which we ARE NOW SMART! Maybe too soon old, and too late smart, but we ARE SMART now so we will not fall for the TIME cleans up all messes, because it does NOT.
Yea, I think he is trying to get someone in your town to pity him because his “wife” won’t take him back when all he wants to do is WORK on being a good daddy and husband. Pooooor him. LOL
Pass me the bucket……these sad sad sad stories just make me all nauseous….
No, it has NOTHING to do with ‘affection’ or ‘love’.
It has everything to do with being an unsuspecting target again.
There is something they want from us other than us and our affections…they could care less about what we think or what we feel….all they are concerned about is what THEY want and what THEY feel.
When they are out of our lives and try to come back into them, it is because they are up to something all over again. WE want to think and believe that vile word salad we hear spewing from those lips we can’t trust anymore.
Forgiveness? hahahahahaha
They will use that – their ‘big change’ to suck you in for the last time because after the last five years of this ‘roadshow’, I suppose I have earned something very sinister, indeed….
Here I am suppose to be taking Travis’ course in forgiveness and I find myself ranting and raving – trying to fend off the love bombs and gas lights…pleaseeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I feel like a super hero of some kind, deflecting the incoming drones…wish me luck?
aussiegirl: here, dear, you can borrow my bucket…
let me wipe your mouth and hold back your hair for you….
I may need you to do that for me, some day…
{Soon}…
Happy Thursday everyone.
DESPITE THEM.
Like people say: “Because of so and so, I have learned to…” No; that is way too much credit…they deserve no credit…
We have conquered IN SPITE OF THEM not because of them.
That is the truth of the matter.
And we will always be stronger than them. Always.
Dupey
Hey Super Dupey Hero!!!
Hello friend. Sorry to hear you’re P and Q is being interrupted. I like that comment Dupes…….”We have conquered in spite of them not because of them”
Happy Thursday to you love.
SW
((strongawoman)) thanks for the cheers!
Yah, P&Q getting trashed. Oh well….
It’s different this time.
Another huge wave is coming to crash over me but I have my lifejacket on. hahahahaha
Dupey Doo Doo Doo Doo!
Smiles back at ya over there….
🙂
Hi all,
Here’s my update, I finally have some downtime. The good news is my Spath really does have a job and is currently offshore as we speak!! Yay! His sister brought him to the heliport and he has called me from work the past 2 nights in a row. Now, that I have the space to think I feel more confused about him and I. Our relationship feels more normal than it has in awhile because I miss him and we aren’t together to fight, stress over money, etc. But, that doesn’t mean I have forgotten about all of his lies, and contempuous treatment towards me. I haven’t.
This weekend I plan to go to the library and read read read! (about sociopaths) Afterall, knowledge is power!!
To be continued..
Dear Libragirl,
That is what CONTACT does for US–it lets them reel us in on a line, and we put behind the LIES, THE BETRAYALS.
I remember a line someone used once and it made me laugh but it also made me realize that NO matter how “nice’ someone is between lies, they are still a liar…etc. the quote was “He is such a NICE GUY when he is not robbing banks.”
Ted Bundy was a really good friend when he was not murdering women….the BTK killer was a great neighbor when he wasn’t killing women….and so on. The thing is that if we want an HONEST, CARING, LOVING PERSON they have to be that way ALL THE TIME not only between episodes of saying nasty things, not working, lying, cheating, getting money out of us and so on.
YOU are the one who has to make up your mind. YOu can go with what you KNOW—he is a liar and a cheat, not responsible (being responsible and having a job for a week is not proving responsibility) or you can go with the FANTASY that you are allowing him to create with the nightly phone calls. YOUR choice.
Thank you Ox Drover and you are 100% correct. After I forgave him (I think I’ve forgiven him) for the last lie he told which was when he made a CHOICE to deceive me and say he was going to his buddy’s house and that his buddy was home (but, he wasn’t home he was offshore and only his wife was home) and that he was going to pick up coveralls (but, he didn’t pick up any coveralls, he picked up Adderall pills) and that he was going buy a jacket (never got a receipt or saw the jacket)…
I’m not sure of many things in my relationship, but I am sure of one thing. I FORGIVE EASILY AND CAN’T SEEM TO STAY ANGRY FOR VERY LONG. 🙁 I wish I could. I think that prevents me from actually breaking this off for good. It’s like I have some sort of amnesia. Something just snaps inside of me, I answer that call, I listen to the poor excuses and less than adequate apologies, and I’m reeled right back in!
While I post this, I am remembering an awful interaction my Spath and I had when we lived together. We were arguing(who knows why) he was threatening to move out as he often did (I think just to scare me) so, every piece of clothing he took out of the closet to pack; I hung right back up. He got really pizzed and angry, called me names and took his cellphone out and hit the record button! He recorded me and was saying as he videotaped all of his belongings strung all over the place “look how crazy she is”…”see what I have to live with”..and, he kept videotaping me. And, at that moment I knew I was with a mean spirited individual with no compassion or empathy for my feelings.
Libragirl,
This is how your life gets whittled away. You keep forgiving and forgiving. Then they screw up again. Eventually, there is something that happens that is the last straw. At that point – for a lot of members here – it comes after they’ve given the spath 20 years of their lives.
For me it didn’t take very long to figure out what he was. When I was confused, I went away on my own for a 4-day camping trip. During this time, I considered that his lies didn’t add up. I knew what I needed to do but I knew it would kill me to do it. But when I returned, there were 15 or so messages from him on my voicemail. He managed to lovebomb me and reel me in again. Then it all came crashing down when he pulled more of his crap – I will spare you the details but you can read them on every post here – the stories are all very similar. Every time you let him reel back in, you are wasting precious days, months, years of your life. Before you know it, you will be 51 like me with a loss of hope for a relationship. I read your story. There is no way you will ever be able to have a healthy relationship with this man.
I’ve wasted so much of my life on toxic men. The spath was just the icing on the cake. It wouldn’t be in vain if I could save just one person from going down the road I went down. Please learn from my – and everyone’s – mistakes. Just say no. If you don’t, believe me, there will come a time when he will do something so horrible that you won’t have a choice. And it will be 1000 times more painful then.
Libra,
“Forgiving” doesn’t mean that you have to FORGET or continue to have a relationship with the person. People like him do not “change” and you yourself have seen how he lies and then does it again and again. Do you want to be around a person who is a drug addict and a liar etc. and who isn’t responsible about working or spending money reasonably?
Come on, your life has been chaos and as long as YOU ALLOW this kind of person in to your life, it will continue to be chaos. YOU are the only one who can fix the situation you find yourself in with this man. What kind of life do YOU want? what kind of life do you deserve? YOU have to make the choice.