My 100% responsibility.
I had a glass of wine last night with a girlfriend who is leaving for a three month holiday at the beginning of February. Where she’s going is not important — except when put in the context of who is at the place she’s going to. A man. A man she once loved who could not, would not commit. A man who hid behind silence. Who never told her where he was, what he was doing or who he was with.
She spent the first year after leaving him healing her broken heart. And then she started dating. A few months ago she decided to phone the man far away. “We were such good friends. Friends stay in touch and I just wanted to see how he was,” she told me.
With that phone call, the game was on. Three months ago she decided to go visit him. “Great!” he said. Now, plans laid, trip organized, her packing almost complete, he has stopped calling and stopped taking her calls.
“Why does he do that?” she asked.
“Because he can,” I replied.
I also had lunch with a friend yesterday who, after 15+ years of marriage, told his wife on Sunday night that he is leaving. “I didn’t tell her I know about her lies, the cheating, the affairs,” he said. “I just told her the love is gone. It’s time for me to leave.” She shed two tears, he said, and that was that. And then he told me when he got home last night, she did everything in her power to seduce him. “I love you,” she said. “I promise to give you everything you want. Don’t leave me.”
“Why does she do that?” he asked.
“Because she can,” I replied. “Because it’s what she does.”
When I was with the psychopath, he did what he did because he could, because it is what he does.
While I was with him, I focused my energy on coping with what he did, coping with his lies disguised as truths, coping with my confusion, my fear, my anxiety and avoided, at all costs, coping with the truth — what he was doing wasn’t what was making the biggest difference in my life. I was. By not focusing on my ‘doing, I was choosing to live with his abuse, his lies, his deceit, his manipulations.
What I wasn’t doing was making the difference between living with abuse — or not. I wasn’t looking at me as the root of my own sickness. I was looking at him continually — looking for my answers in what he was doing, saying, being — and not checking myself out against what I was doing, saying, being by remaining in his duplicitous embrace. I continually denied what I knew to be true — he was lying. I continually told myself, ‘it can’t be true that he is lying’ and instead reminded myself, ‘It must be true. He loves me. He wouldn’t lie to me.”
The lie in that statement was — I positioned the pain of my existence in the context of his loving me.
The truth is, from hello to good-bye, I love you to I hate you. You’re beautiful to you’re ugly — everything was predicated on the lie of what he was doing, saying and being. In my denial of the truth, I bought into his lies and gave up on me.
I never asked myself the tough questions, What do I feel about what he’s doing? How does it affect me? What can I do to change my situation? What if I give myself permission to leave without hearing his voice telling me I can’t? What if I quit calling his abuse love? What if I quit taking responsibility for his bad behaviour and instead, take responsibility for my own?
If by chance, I did happen to ask myself one of those tough questions, I always completed my answer with — I can’t leave him… and then I recited the litany of reasons he’d told me why I could never leave. In the process, I became very, very emotionally sick. In my ill-health, I never gave myself the cure I needed to rid myself of the disease causing my illness — I never left him because I kept my focus on trying to figure out him — not trying to figure out a way to heal myself.
For me, focusing on his behaviours, trying to figure out why he was doing what he was doing, continually looking for meaning in everything he said, and keeping the light fixed on him, kept me stuck in confusion. It kept me from shining the light on my own behaviour. My constant angst around his bad behaviour protected me from having to face my bad decision-making, poor judgement in character — and ultimately, face myself, with tender loving care.
I feel for both my friends yesterday. Theirs is not an easy road. Both will have to decide to either do what is best and caring of them — or not. Both will have to give themselves medicine — or not. Both will have to turn up for themselves and let the other person go — or not.
Turning up for me has been a constant journey into self-love. It has been a continuous quest for finding my truth within me — and letting go of looking for my answers out there. Whatever answers I find in someone else will always be best for them. Just as whatever answers someone else finds within me, will always be first and foremost best for me.
In healthy self-care, the person I keep healthiest must be myself. I cannot properly care for my daughters without first taking care of me. If I always jump to their aid, continually do for them and not do for myself, I will drain myself of energy, of passion, of commitment. For in my desire to do for them always, I let go of my responsibility to do for me so that I am strong enough, courageous enough, healthy enough to do for them what is loving, supportive and caring.
Once upon a time, I gave up on me and gave into a man who told me he had all my answers. He was my shortcut to happiness. Lost on that road to hell, I found myself again beneath the debris of his tumultuous passing through my life.
In healing, I have awakened to the truth within me — I am 100% responsible for my journey. I am 100% responsible for living in the light of love, for turning up for me and living this one wild and precious life as if it is the only life I’ve got — it is. It is my responsibility to live it up.
The question is: Where do you let go of responsibility for your one wild and precious life looking for someone else to turn the light on?
I’m so mixed up about what’s my fault and what’s his. I was a 18 year old little girl when I met him. I had only kissed 2 other boys. He told me after 3 weeks that someday he was going to ask me to marry him. I didn’t believe him because my father always told me that all I was was just a notch in some body’s belt, that’s all you are, remember that. But he kept telling me how he had stopped looking for someone to share his life with and he couldn’t believe he found me because he just thought there weren’t girls out there like me anymore. Girls who had my values and believed marriage was forever. I thought he loved me. He told me he would never leave his kids the way his father had. He told me what his mother went through when his step father cheated and left her. He told me how his younger half brother fell apart and turned to drugs because of it. He always showed contempt for people who lied, conned and cheated. He was one of them.
I feel so alone. It hurts so much to know it was all lies. I try to have hope. I have my son. He’s kind and caring. I keep going for him and I always will. I know I have so much to do to fix myself. I need to be independent and able to support myself before even thinking about dating. But who will want me? My husband lost almost all interest in me after I gave birth. He told me I was big down there- his exact words. I gained a lot of weight after that. Sometimes I have hope that I”ll be happy and when I am I’ll find someone and have a healthy relationship. Then there are days, like today, when I have no hope.
I feel empty and lost and confused. I have issues that caused me to believe him when my gut said not to and then to go into denial. I’m working on that.
Knowing what I know now, if I got into the same kind of relationship or kept contact with my x it would be my responsibility. But, is it my responsibility that he saw an opportunity and took it through lies, manipulation and intimidation? Is it my responsibility he emotionally raped me? If I could have seen it and stopped it I would have. Now my son has to live with this because I couldn’t see it.
I think the word “fault” is really tripping people up here. Let’s let go of “fault.” I will speak from my own experience in relation to what I think ML is saying.
Early on, there was something that happened with the Bad Man whom I will call JW. He sent me an email attacking me for something I said over email. It was something that was meant to be loving and I could not understand at all how he got upset from what I said. Somehow, this was talked through and I dismissed the outburst but it was alarming. Over the next few weeks, there were more misunderstandings and upsets and each one I explained away somehow… or I talked it out, or I even kow towed to his riduculous accusations… but there came a point where I KNEW something was not right… not right at all. And I knew I was under attack in a way I had never been or seen in my life. And not too long after that, some things or moments were just “over the top” as he used to say (about me!) and I still bent and twisted and contorted to try and meet his ridiculous accusations and demands. Somewhere between those early misunderstandings and those outrageous accusations and torturous emails, I became responsible for allowing all of it to continue on and on and on. That is what I am responsible for. Even though I didn’t know what it was (Sociopath), I knew I was being abused emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually and I could feel my soul being pierced and I stayed and stayed and stayed.
I am not responsible for knowing in advance (I am not houdini!) that my loving words, gestures, and intentions would be twisted and contorted. I am not responsble for his actions but I am responsible for showing up for him and not showing up for me. I “showed up” for his torture after I clearly recognized that I was being abused which was by the way, a long time before I finally got on an airplane and left. While we all know how hard it is to leave these people… (they are very good at making it hard) we also admit to ourselves that we knew much sooner that we should leave than when we did. Why did we do that? Because we were not taking responsibility for our own well being.. and we were hoping that we could fix our Sociopath or that they would fix themselves so they would give us that “supply” (now we sound like Narcissists, don’t we?) of affection and attention and fake “love” that makes us feel okay about ourselves and that we think will fill up the empty hole we have when what we needed to do was take care of our own well being. We did not take care of ourselves! I DID NOT TAKE CARE OF MYSELF!!! I did not take care of myself and therefore, I allowed JW to inflict such a deep wound in me when it could have been just a prick that would have healed over quickly.
This of course is my experience. It sounds like some here experienced a Sociopath that was smiling the whole time as they screwed their victim over behind theer back and drained the life out of them. Whose fault is that? I don’t know but at some point, the signs are there and we have to show up for ourselves. I can admit that after the third date there was a behavior that was alarming and caused me to think “I don’t know this man… he is just some internet stranger” and with that, I went and checked the locks on the door in the middle of the night.. after the 3rd date!!! And I still ended up dating this man. How embarassing! I will never do this again.
When it comes to loving myself, I have been a slow learner. I admit that. And I am taking responsibility for that now and I am working on it and I have a lot of work to do.
Aloha — WOW!
When my youngest daughter (at the time aged 18) went through Choices — a personal development program run by Thelma Box in Texas — she said — I always knew people loved me. I never knew how important it was to love myself.
Wow — to get that at 18 is pretty powerful.
I always knew it was important to love myself. I just couldn’t figure out how to do it without a man filling my hungry heart with ‘love’. Like you, I took what he gave me and clung to it, not because it felt good, but rather, because it felt like it completed me. At some point in that twisted relationship, I turned his abuse into my truth — this is what I deserve.
Somewhere within me was a lie that was planted long ago — I am unloveable. In attaching to the sociopath, I eventually got to a place in my darkside that said, THe lie is true. I am unworthy.
The fall then became easy. I capitulated to the lie in order to become invisible to myself.
Tryintorecover — You are not at fault for what he did. You are not responsible for the lies he told you, for the pain he caused.
In freedom from him, you are responsible for your healing. For loving yourself for all your worth. For being the most awesome, amazing, incredible woman you are.
What he did to you was wrong. You are not responsible for the emotional rape. It was abuse. Abuse hurts. It strips us of dignity. It destroys trust. It demeans love. Abuse kills our spirit.
You have been abused. Treat yourself with tender loving care. Tell yourself the truth every single day — I am a magnificent human being. I am love. I am worthy…
Kathryn, The first job I had after getting out of the sociopath’s debacle was for a doctor who I realized fairly quickly into the game had a lot of sociopathic/narcissistic tendencies. I told myself — I need the job. I need the money. I have to stay. I lasted nine months and finally walked out.
We do learn Kathryn. In acknowledging I recognized the personality traits of the man I worked for, I kept myself from being harmed emotionally. It still took its toll, however, on my spirit. My daughters finally said to me one day — mum, you’ve got to get out of there. That guy is sick.
When I left, I realized that in staying, I was trying to prove to myself that I could ‘handle’ someone with such disorderly conduct. I was capable of managing the situation.
Truth is — I had nothing to prove. Nothing I had to manage with him — everything to manage with myself.
Since that encounter I have had a couple of run ins with people of disordered personality traits. Rather than stay in their line of fire, I remove myself. If I must be in contact, I put up my shield and let their words bounce back to the owner.
I believe we become more cognizant of our own boundaries, our own limitations — strengths and weaknesses — after encounters of this kind.
I can’t change anyone else — I can change how I respond. I can change what I do.
Patricia — you wrote — If you seek love in what you enjoy in life, you’ll find everything you need to be happy as you wish.
Very powerful! Thank you for sharing your beautiful words. No need to apologize for what you call ‘faulty English’. Your words resonate beautifully.
ML
Wow, M.L., what a great posting and thread you started.
In recovering from my sociopath, I’ve found myself talking with a lot of people who are recovering from similarly abusive experiences. In doing that, and in reading this blog, I’ve come to think that we go through phases of healing.
You’re a long way down the road. As I am now. It is a choice for me to claim responsibility for my life. Somewhere in my healing process, I got very clear that my real problem, through the whole thing, was with me. I wasn’t taking care of myself, didn’t value my own life and the life equity I’d built up sufficiently to protect it, didn’t love myself enough to shrug off his denigrating comments or to walk away from his faithlessness, lying and obvious exploitation of me.
For a long time, I felt like I’d been run over by the Mack Truck of Destiny. I felt like road kill. I didn’t understand how he could behave that way or what had brought him into my life. And I struggled with what it meant about me. Was I just meant to be a victim? Did I lack some basic common sense that would have protected me? Was I a magnet for monsters because of some inherent trait that I just couldn’t name or imagine.
I read stunned’s post, and I can’t disagree that the weak and the ill can be targets for predators. As an incest survivor, I know that first hand. There are also extreme circumstances, such as the torture that is in the news so much now, that breaks down people’s ability to hold onto their identities and values. Our ancestors held elaborate rituals to ask the gods for rain, and today we pray for the health and safety of our children with a sentiment that is not much different. Not everything in is our control, and the world is not necessarily friendly.
But ultimately, we do have a choice about the meaning we assign to events in our lives. And the healing process is, to a great degree, about that. It is natural to go through feelings of helplessness, bitterness, outrage, hating ourselves because we didn’t manage our lives better, but ultimately, if we are going to take back our lives, we begin to look objectively at our part in it. Not in terms of “fault” as much as how and why we participated in this. What we were looking for, why it was more important than taking care of ourselves in other ways, and whether our personal “rules of the universe” may be due for a re-thinking.
I hate how my sociopath behaved toward me, but I will be forever grateful he came into my life. I would not be the woman I am today if I hadn’t been forced by that experience to look closely at my own behavior and the beliefs behind it. Strange as it might sound, he made me realize that part of me was as locked-down and barely functioning, as the part of him that felt and trusted those feelings.
At some point in my healing, I started talking about my need to develop some healthy narcissism. Later, I began to joke about it as resurrecting my “inner sociopath.” Even later, I began to think about the idea that “I have a right to be loved.” When I shared this idea with people, some of them said, “Well, you can’t make everyone love you.” No, I said, but I can run my life with that as a value, and not deal with people who don’t treat me with respect, compassion and appreciation for who I am.
Somewhere down the road, I got to the very simple and obvious idea that it is my life, my responsibility to run it, and what I live with is what I create. Which sounds like a pretty heavy burden for someone who is living with a lot of pain, but that burden was lightened by the idea that if I loved myself, I could be as kind and compassionate with myself as I had been with the people I cared for — my children, my lovers, my friends, my clients. And around that time, I started to be different. Choosing moment by moment what I want to feel, choosing the direction of where I placed my attention, and starting to really limit the time and energy I invested in what I didn’t want in my life.
In living through my own recovery and participating the the recovery of others, I never saw anyone who went through this overnight. It takes some time, and I think that time is related to the extent of the damage. If you’ve been in a relationship with a sociopath for a long time, it’s like you’ve been eating poison. It takes a while to get it out of your system. If it didn’t go on for a long time, it may have just been that you were lucky, but it could also be that you were more self-referenced, more capable of protecting and defending yourself.
I once asked my sociopath, when he sneered my feelings and told me I was weak and boring, why he didn’t just find someone like himself. He told me that people like him didn’t like him. And in the interruptions in our relationship, I watched him go through relationships very quickly, as the women just threw him off. Nicely, politely, but it was one “no thank you” after another. He had to do a lot of cruising to find traction with one, and when he did they all had background of abuse, and most of them were, like me, incest survivors.
I can’t speak for anyone else on this blog, but I know that for myself, I was looking for a savior. I wouldn’t have put it that way. I would have said that I was looking for the “perfect guy” who would complete my life. But I wanted help to run my very complicated life, I wanted understanding that I was overcommitted and support for my exhaustion and frustration, and I wanted unwavering emotional shelter from someone I could trust implicitly and who would never leave.
What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with it was that I wasn’t making my own life healthy, balanced and complete. What was really wrong with it was that I was making “need” part of the equation of my relationships, right from the very beginning. Today, I take responsibility for seeking resources in my life, for paying or trading for what I can’t do myself, for finding community for emotional sharing and support, and for being prepared to deal with loss. I don’t “need” anyone, and as a result, my relationships are richer, warmer, less confusing and more rewarding.
Another result is that I hate his behavior toward me, but I don’t hate him. Our relationship was a collision of two very needy people, and if you think about it, there isn’t anyone needier than a sociopath. They suck off other people’s emotions, their bank accounts, their ability to trust, because they are inadequate. They are cruel because they fear other people’s power. My sociopath was handsome, brilliant, funny, talented and well-educated. But he was an emotional child, and it’s possible that he always will be. I feel sorry for him, and for anyone who imagines he can participate in any mature relationship.
But another piece of this healing is that I’ve come to understand that feeling sorry for someone isn’t a call to get involved. I run a coaching practice alongside my PR work, and it’s easy to see the difference between people who are prepared to work and those who are looking for the cheapest, fastest way to get where they’re going. I’m nobody’s cheap ride these days. I value my time and energy. If someone can’t pay for it, we trade. It doesn’t mean I don’t care about people who have been proven to be worth caring about, and help them in every way I can. But I don’t waste myself on people who will leave me feeling ripped off. It’s not good for me, and I don’t believe it’s good for them either. And as a result of that, I’m developing a fan club that goes both ways — people who are openly grateful for my influence on their lives, and ones I am also deeply grateful for the opportunity to be involved with them.
My greatest regret about my relationship with my sociopath is that I didn’t give him appropriate feedback. By my behavior in not protecting myself and collaborating in his exploitation of me, I allowed him to think that he could make his living that way, as he did for most of five years. He had come to me from another relationship with a woman who supported him before she broke down. He went on from me to another relationship of the same sort. It’s become his career.
If I cared about him, as I thought I did, it would have been more caring to give him appropriate repercussions for his behavior. His heartless, pain-creating treatment of me didn’t warrant my generous, caring treatment of him. And in giving him this “wrong signal,” I may as well have been running a school for sociopaths. It has been a sobering insight, one that has changed the way I deal with the people who are not “optional” in my life — my family, my son, the people I work with. I’ve learned to say “this doesn’t work for me” as part of my moment-by-moment negotiations of relationship. And if I have relationships where I don’t feel safe in saying that, I either get rid of them, if I can, or I go to work on teaching those people to be able to say it too.
A lot of my new behaviors reflect what I learned from my sociopath’s behavior. He had rotten impulse control, couldn’t feel love, had no empathy and no remorse, and was fixated on power issues and winning, but he was an excellent teacher in terms of being focussed on objectives and protective of his own interests. When we were involved, I used to watch him and wonder “how does his do that?” Because his life was about him, when my life was about everyone but me.
This is what I heard in M.L.’s posting and in a lot of the responses to it. Recovery from dealing with a sociopath isn’t just getting over the pain. It’s a journey, a sometimes painful but always powerful and rewarding journey into more competence and joy in our own lives.
I agree. When I was with my N – he used to constantly tell me to caretake myself. I used to say to him, that he should be more like me and I should be more like him – as he was so good at being self contained and sticking to his own views. Now I do use some of that ‘assertiveness’ to stick to my views and not be pushed around by people. I used to find that people pushed me around alot, because I would say I didnt like something, but I wouldnt act on it. Same as in my relationships, I have learnt that it is no good taking the softer whinning approach, I have to act, then people believe actions more than words.
Khatalyst, Your words are powerful and music to my heart and soul! Like you, I was looking for a savior — or at least someone who would fill my hungry heart so that I could love myself. I had it all backwards!
What an amazingly powerful message Khatalyst — thank you.
Beverly, giving ourselves medicine first means we are able to take care of others. It’s like on airline flights — when they give the safety discussion about oxygen masks and how it’s imperative you put the mask on your face first before assisting someone else. If I am not healthy, emotionally, physically, spiritually, I am not able to take care of others without depleting my own resources — and that is a self-defeating game.
Thank you for sharing!
ML
Lovefraud folks, Thank you so much for the work you are doing.
I would like to know if anyone out there has run into something similar to my situation. I have felt for some time that my man is a socio – but then recently also discovered that he is bi/gay in orientation. Here is a post to a site for straight wives of gay men. It feels to me like a double whammy, with me in the center of the “perfect storm”
I bought and am readingthe book “Straight Wives..” I recently had confirmation of my husbands orientation and yes was “shattered” Our marriage had been off track for a very long time, but he still played the role of doting husband and “perfect” father. He was just always under “stress” pre-occupied with “business” etc etc. I knew he sucked all the air out of the room but did not understand why. Yes there were red flags, most of them about ten years ago, unless of course I carefully analyzed his sexual preferences with me, which naturally I am now doing in hindsight.
About a year ago I finally split with him for different reasons. Our marriage felt dead and empty and he had been causing continual accute anxiety over our financial matters and our overall security. He had betrayed me on a number of very large issues I had spent years trying to fix. Whenever I dragged him to marriage counselling he stayed just long enough to convince the therapist that I had the problems, not him. He even managed to steal my favourite therapist, during a very trying time.
The patterns described in your book were also my reality. Sex became sporadic, mechanical and without intimacy. I withdrew, drank with a vengeance in the evenings, gained weight and felt extremely isolated. (He had, using deceptive reasons, moved me form my support network of friends and family).
Two years ago I noticed a lump under his left ear which grew rapidly. (His cell phone ear, which he used at least 5 hrs a day) I kept insisting he go to a doctor. The Dr. said it was nothing. To make a long story short, he resisted for over a year and finally at my insistance got a second opinion. The lump was removed and turned out to be cancer. I likely saved his life. But the surgery left his face disfigured. Temporarily his left side drooped considerably and was expressionless. After I split with him for yet another round of lies and broken promises, my daughter said “Well look at his face” I said “What do you mean?” She said, “He has two faces”.
I cannot tell you the feelings that washed over me then. I started researching and concluded that he scores VERY high on the Sociopath/Psychopath checklist. There is no remedy for such a condition. His behaviour matched many of the symtoms to a T.
In any event he eventually reeled me back in, with a lot of effort on his part, although I did manage to live away from him for the better part of a year. But, outside of an initial 5 wk no contact, we were talking about reunion, he visited about 5 days a month, and we talked on the phone most nights. My sons were very upset with me for breaking up the family, altho intellectually they respected my postion, they only knew the tip of the iceberg and felt I was way overreatcting. Friends offered support, but most seemed to think I had a terrific mate and was being a spoiled cry baby. Eventually, with him showing his sweetest of sweet sides, with extra effort on his part in the bedroom, flowers etc. I convinced myself that I had overreacted and played home shrink in error. He moved back in around late September.
My question is this. Now that I know he is also gay, is sociopathic tendancy in married gay men not common as well? When I read the stories of the women in your book, many of the men sound like sociopaths as well. Have you studied this phenomonem? Is it possible that gay men who choose to live the lie of married life are likely also socio’s?
After my recent discovery (thank-you internet) he has denied anything but curiosity, and wants his status quo. He has however displayed a chilling lack of remorse or empathy for the pain he has caused me, and would obviously prefer to keep me as his “prop”.
Without him around I feel healthier, stronger, drink way way less, laugh,(humor and joy were missing from our relationship) and am full of hope and ambition for the future,uncertain and scary as it may be.
My point is should this crossover, be explored. Are the red flags of both conditions worth studying? Certainly understanding the quirks of the socio and reading about other womens horror stories with them makes it easier for me to resist my bi/gay husband. Is this a question that deserves some exploration?
My first emotion after the initial shock and anger about his sexuality was compassion for HIM. How he had denied his true blah blah…. It has been by also focusing on his sociopathy that helps me stay strong. By reminding myself that he does NOT FEEL like we do. That what I mistook for stoicism was actually callousness. That what looked like balls of steel, was actually a laser like self containment and focus on “the game”. That the wierd tension and stress he made me feel was REAL.
I now understand that he will always be gay, AND always lack conscience, remorse and empathy. I understand that he is unable to truly love, and that to him life is a joyless, hollow game of power and dominance.
What he did for us was create a hologram of a perfect life for others to admire. Inside it was a “Hollowgramm” An empty shell of alternate flattery and attention, followed by contempt, emotional abandonment and destruction of whatever our latest “dream” had been. Start over..grind on, pretend averything is fine,put on a good front, don’t tell.
He did father two wonderful sons, with whom I have an excellent relationship. He was a devoted father, if mostly on the mechanics and not hugely communicative. They are in their early twenties.
I found the gay stuff on Dec 19th and managed to get our whole family thru a traditional Christmas without anyone knowing.(Except him and he had Noooo problem acting as if Nothing was wrong).
I was a wreck inside, barely hanging on etc. I wanted to spare my kids, and he had sworn me to secrecy, or else. Then one night shortly after the New Year I stayed up late after he had gone to bed and got pretty tipsy and played some beautiful loud music and imagined my freedom, and danced by myself, appreciating myself in the mirror of our darkened windows with the backdrop of the moon behind our coachlit barn and my winter garden. I felt like a whole woman, alive and wonderful, as I had during our previous split.
In the morning I overheard one of my sons complaining to the other that I was lousy to get drunk and wake up Dad with my loud music. ( I had blacked out that he got up and gave me grief).
Despite all my best intentions of waiting till I had processed all my stuff, and waiting to tell them in the presence of a family therapist I just lost it. Shaking and fighting back tears I said, “I am tired of keeping all his secrets for him” and showed them my findings.
They were both shocked, altho one admitted having some suspicions himself ( at least about adultery). They immediately empathized and gave me the relief I so much needed. Since that moment I have been healing dramatically. They are coping and we will work together thru whatever baggage they may also have unbeknownst to me.
I have become pro-active in getting the help I need. I understand that I need to protect myself first. He will definitely take care of his needs.
On closing, I believe that while not necessarily “outing” your gay partner, it is too much of a burden to carry alone, and your children will never understand your actions or your emotional state if you protect his secret.
I encourage the web-site http://www.lovefraud.com for those who want to also explore the “socio” aspect of his personality and recommend the book “The Sociopath Next Door” by Martha Stout,ph.d.
Thanks for letting me share and I look forward to your or your readers comments.
Eyeswideshut,
On the third extended date I had with the SP, I turned to him one night, after we’d been together, and said, “Have you been with men?” Something in the way he’d made love made me think he had. He stared at the window and said in a monotone, “I have never made love to a man.” It was the same monotone he used to deny that he was living with a woman when I asked him that a year later. He was.
I don’t have hard proof, but I know the guy had had sex with men. I think people who are sexually compulsive will get off with anyone: men, women, you name it. Wasn’t Pee Wee Herman, gay as a day in May, watching straight porn when he was arrested for masturbating in a public theater in Florida? It was just what was available.
I’d be really curious to know if there’s a higher incidence of bisexuality among sociopaths. What do other people think?
to eyeswideshut,
I have heard from another victim of my Sociopath that he was starting to get more “experimental” when she knew him. She knew him after me. He was expressing an interest in having sex with a man but of course, with a woman present because he was “not gay.” We both also saw an ad that he posted looking for sex with a transexual. Then he placed an ad where he wanted a traditional type of woman. My take is that they need sex so bad that they want to try everything for fear that they might miss something if they don’t. At least I think this is why guy was up to. Also, in retrospect, I think he did have “relations” with other women during our break-up cycles that he didn’t admit to.
I think the theme here might be secrets rather than bi-sexuality but who knows. I think anyone that they can get anything from is fair game.
By the way, I can really relate to your late night dancing and feeling free. I had moments like that too. I think they are so suffocating and stress inducing that it takes a moment of freedom, even if it’s just twirling around in the night to a favorite song… to show us how trapped we feel (or felt).
Aloha… E.R.
I cant be sure about the N in my life, as he stated very very firmly that he hated gay men and then he would tell me that gay men were hitting on him. There were several other incidents, that made me wonder. It was very difficult to figure out what was real in his world, or what he was making up to try and screw up my mind. I do know that had he stated he was bi, I would never have gone with him in a million years. I am just very very very glad I am now many months away from him and all his crap!