A woman who married and had children with two different sociopathic men wrote us this week. Her story and questions are timely since they allow me to mention another upcoming book, the conference Donna and I attended last weekend and to discuss vindictiveness.
It seems most women who have children with sociopaths end up with the sociopaths walking out on their children as well as the women, leaving the survivors to mop up and struggle to understand what happened on their own. From what I understand of sociopaths, the prevalent attitude they seem to behave as if they “don’t care” about anything except doing what benefits them”¦ (she told her story of marriage, children, custody battles and vindictive sociopaths)”¦ So, is vindictiveness a trait typically found in sociopaths or are these guys merely trying to maintain or regain their power and it just happens to look like vindictiveness on the surface? These guys have definitely expressed some serious rage, especially after losing as spectacularly as they did when they tried to take custody and prevent me from moving. Is anger an emotion sociopaths feel when they don’t get their own way? Do they ever “get over” it?
Many women tend to repeatedly pick sociopaths as partners
There are many women who have relationships with more than one sociopathic man. Sometimes children result from one or all of the relationships, since sociopaths like to father a lot of children. (My son’s father has 7 children I know about.) The resultant children carry the sociopath’s genes and are exposed to the sociopath’s fathering behavior.
Sociopathic/psychopathic men are at least 4 times more common than sociopathic women. The interpersonal love-relationship patterns are the means by which sociopaths replicate themselves and perpetuate sociopathy within our society. It is very important, then, to understand women who love sociopathic men. Is there anything different about them? Are they drawn to sociopaths because of prior abuse? Is it simply that sociopaths con them and they are especially gullible? These are tough questions for those of us who have had relationships with sociopathic men, but we have to ask them. The stakes are too high for everyone for us to avoid asking and answering these questions. Sandra L. Brown, M.A., and I recently conducted a survey/study that has addressed these questions and more. Stay tuned because a book with our initial findings is nearly complete. The results are enlightening and freeing.
Batterers often win custody of children
Last weekend Donna and I attended a conference, the Battered Women’s Custody Conference. This conference is held every year and so plan on attending next year if you missed it. The conference addresses one end of the spectrum of sociopaths—sociopathic men who are physically violent. It is incredible the courts often give children over to these sociopaths! Batterers are a little different from the sociopaths most of us know. These sociopaths have been referred to as secondary psychopaths, as opposed to the primary psychopaths we are most familiar with.
Primary verses secondary psychopathy
Secondary psychopaths are more insecure (than are primary psychopaths) about the status and power they so desire. Whereas primary psychopaths are grandiose and feel confident in their supremacy, secondary psychopaths are always on the lookout for threats to their status. They are also prepared to meet status threats with physical violence. Secondary psychopaths have more problems with impulse control than primary psychopaths. They also tend to be more emotional, displaying more anger. I think the average perpetrator of domestic violence fits the profile of a secondary psychopath very well.
There are other minor differences between secondary and primary psychopaths, but the similarities between them are more noteworthy than the differences. Both primary and secondary psychopaths are unable to love, have poor impulse control and impaired moral reasoning. Genetics play a substantial role in the development of both, and it is not true that one is environmental and the other genetic, as is commonly believed.
Sociopathic fathers
The parenting behavior of sociopaths has not been thoroughly studied. In my opinion the reason for this is the belief held by many researchers and clinicians that sociopaths abandon their young. This belief is related to another belief—that sociopaths are incapable of attachment. These two fallacies have stood in the way of efforts to eliminate this disorder and the suffering of victims. First of all, to those who hold on to the second misconception, If sociopaths are incapable of attachment, why do they engage in stalking? Scientists measure attachment as the tendency to seek proximity to a specific special other. Is not stalking the ultimate manifestation of attachment behavior? Sociopaths often verbally report they love others. Let’s take this to be a reflection of a longing for specific people, then we can start to understand sociopaths.
The feeling of longing
The feeling of longing sociopaths have is related to the fact that certain people in their lives have previously been a source of pleasure. We tend to get attached to things and people that have brought us pleasure in the past. There are three social pleasures: affection, dominance and sex, and possibly a separate fourth, parenting. Although sociopaths may experience a modicum of affection, the primary pleasure they derive from relationships is associated with power as opposed to love. When a sociopath says, “I love you,” he means he greatly enjoys the pleasure of possessing you and having power over you. SO how dare you question his love!
Children are also possessions sociopaths enjoy having dominion over. Part of the enjoyment of parenting they have is the prospect of turning, particularly sons, into miniature versions of themselves. For this reason, any money that the court orders your sociopath to give his children is not worth the trade off. If your sociopath will give up his possessions for a price, pay him off and be done with him. If the sociopath succeeds at his goal of turning his sons into miniature versions of himself, you will live your entire life surrounded by sociopaths, you will never escape and have peace/love.
Vindictiveness
Sociopaths are by nature extremely vindictive! Vindictiveness comes from the power/dominance system in our brains. Scientific studies show that sociopathic people derive great pleasure from revenge. Revenge is a very primitive emotion that evolved to ensure enforcement of social reciprocity. It evolved before the capacity for love. We know this because of studies of chimpanzees. Chimpanzees are very vindictive and vengeful when a comrade fails to reciprocate, and their capacity for love has not evolved much. It is only the threat of revenge that induces chimpanzees to cooperate with each other, because they do not have love bonds that motivate cooperation. When a chimpanzee shares his food, he does not likely get a warm fuzzy feeling inside, instead he knows that others will later do the same for him. If others fail to reciprocate, revenge is always taken.
Thankfully most humans receive a double reward when they cooperate with each other and a double punishment when they fail to cooperate. The double reward is the inherent pleasure in knowing we did a good for someone else, and the thought that good might someday be reciprocated. The double punishment is the guilt over harming someone and the fear that the harm will be reciprocated. Please hear me, sociopaths are like chimpanzees. They do not feel good when they do good for someone, they thus expect immediate reciprocity. They do not feel bad when they hurt someone, but they are smart enough to know revenge might follow. This is why prison is an occupational hazard for them. They also do not comprehend the guilt other people feel. This is why it is important to them to mete out huge punishments toward everyone who has offended them.
When you have to deal with sociopaths, be ever mindful that these individuals are devoid of pleasure from goodness and devoid of guilt over evil. Although they take advantage of other’s emotions, they have it in their minds that the rest of the human race is like them. They therefore feel it is necessary to get revenge in order to reduce the likelihood of future attacks on their status, power and possessions.
It’s weird this, as the behaviour looks familiar, but I often think of my sociopath as *not* vindictive because he simply didn’t care enough about anything.
He got pleasure from people (me for example) of course, but that didn’t lead to attachment or ‘longing’ because people were interchangeable to him. I think he feels annoyed initially because one of his sources of supply has gone, but that’s about it. NEXT!
In fact it was a red herring early on – his lack of annoyance at the women he’d wronged (who had a very obvious campaign going against him in the office we all worked in) made me think he was actually morally *better* in some way – ie he didn’t want to have a go at them equally noisily. In actual fact he just *didn’t care* – I think probably the worst thing any of them could have done was to ignore him.
(Similarly, I saw his seeming to value everyone equally as a quality – egalitarianism – early on, whereas in fact everyone was equally disposable to him).
Do they really have a lot of children? I can’t imagine my ex having any…having said that I’ve wondered if his ‘godchild’ (at least) was actually his…
God, that’s terrifying. I have three children by my two sociopathic ex’s – an eldest boy by the first ex (who has been abused by his father regularly at visitation for the last eight years and I’m now seeing this child mirroring the same abuse towards me and his younger siblings) and by my second ex, a boy and a girl (the latter who has been sexually molested by her father).
It leaves me with such a sick feeling. My life is a trainwreck. My children are very much at risk. I’m forty years old, back in school in the hopes the retraining I’m getting will get me a decent paying job (I was fostering before I lost the house to my ex – now I have no home of my own and that source of financial support is gone).
In the meantime, I have to take the child support to survive but that obviously puts my kids at risk. I’m accumulating a massive debt with student loans as well as lawyer’s fees. I’ll have to accumulate more lawyer’s fees (another $20,000) for court permission to move again in the near future to obtain employment in my new field. All told, I will have accumulated close to $60,000 in debt by the end of 2009, some of which I may be able to pay off with the property settlement I’m currently fighting for, but I’ll be starting anew mid-life with less than nothing.
It’s very hard for me to look into the future and feel hopeful. I either take a massive hit financially or my children suffer. They’re worth the hit and I’d do it in a second, but I might not be able to realistically support them and that’s the problem (how can a single woman with three children possibly afford rent, food, daycare, etc. without an enormous salary – which I won’t have, regardless – and with massive debt?!).
That was the one sure thing from that relationship I could count on. Any perceived injustice to him resulted in vindictiveness ALWAYS leading to some outlandish retaliation. Absolutely nothing was sacred to him short of physical violence, including stalking. Much of what he did was covert except for his threats, his attempts at public humiliation of myself and my business, and the enlistment of friends and acquaintences in his schemes. I thwarted his efforts and paid little mind to what I considered idle threats, believing he needed serious counseling and thinking I was demonstrating the futility of bad behavior and providing instead a good Christian example.
I had no clue what I was dealing with until after I’d finally realized I was in the eye of a storm, got out, and started investigating. Only then did I experience both fear and gratitude. Now it ALL fits, even the troubled young son I saw even though his adult daughter was a delight. This whole phenomena with these people is just heart wrenching at every juncture in their destruction.
I swing back and forth trying to figure out if the Bad Man was a sociopath or not. This article swings me toward Sociopath for sure. I did notice something vacant about him. And I made up my own term, “inappropriate response” before I even found this site. My definition for inapporpriate response is any response that strikes you immediately as not what you would expect.
A friend of mine had a similiar experience as mine and she noted the way her ex responded when her Grandmother died. He barely acknowledged her sadness and brushed it aside quickly like… “that’s sad. Now, back to me and my endless needs.”
I keep wondering if my ex is a sociopath because he is not all that seductive these days. I can follow what he is doing because he regularly posts on Craigslist. His posts get flagged and numerous people regularly post warnings against him. His ads are stranger and stranger now and it’s like he doens’t want to miss out on anything… he just wants sex sex sex from any source. He puts himself out there as having high standards but contradicts himself in his own ads. He’s GROSS.
Anyway.. things to do today… more things to get my own life back on track without this jackass. Sorry Donna for swearing… allow me this one crack at him!
1. The point you make about attachment is particularly intriguing. I guess the way to think bout it is that there are different ways of attaching – when people say sociopaths are unable to attach they probably mean unable-to-securely-attach. Perhaps the sociopath attaches in one of the forms of insecure attachment: clinging, avoidant, disorganised. (My bet would be on the latter – consequently the other doesn’t know whether they’re coming or going.)
2. “These individuals are devoid of pleasure from goodness and devoid of guilt over evil.” Right on! I wonder whether it goes even further than this, something like: These individuals capable of pleasure from evil and despise goodness.
I LOVED this article and found it incredibly insightful. My sociopathic (former boyfriend) has sued his former best friend, business partner, sister, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he tries to sue me (for God know’s what). He abandoned his children (gave them up for adoption), also abandoned a child he raised for 14 years (although he ranted and raved about how much he loved him) and abandoned my 3 children after spending three years with us. I found it fascinating that their “affection” is POWER, not LOVE, as they have an incapacity for love. My boyfriend tried several times to get me to invest with him, hoping that his purchases for me wouldn’t have been 1/10 of what he hoped to con me out of. By having a grandoise show of flowers, jewelry, trips and etc., he hopesdthat later there will be reciprocity, i.e., his “victim” will reciprocate by returning, in 10 fold, his gifts. I have taken a very active and strong vocal stance in speaking up regarding his behaviors, “raping and pillaging” (figuratively, not literally) of friends, family, business partners, girlfriends, etc. So upon reading these articles, I have begun to have serious concerns if there will be a retaliatory, or vengeful action taken against met. (I.E., from article above, “This is why it is important to them to mete out huge punishments toward everyone who has offended them”. You can write me at peggywhoever@yahoo.com P.S. THIS SITE IS THE BEST!
I have 2 boys with the socio. I worry about their genetic content all the time. (I plan to get and read some of the books recommended on this site.) If the justice system does its job and gets a conviction for the charges against him, he will be in prison long enough for me to raise them safely. (Long enough he will probably die in prison.) One is young enough that he won’t even remember the dreadful supervised visitations. My older son will.
Other, non socio, members of his family tell me that my older boy may look just like his father but doesn’t act like him at the same age. They tell me that the socio was a dreadful child and my son is great to have around. I don’t know if it’s a straw that I am clinging to, but for right now I’m clinging to the thought that the socio will be removed from their lives before permanent damage is done. From what I have read so far, my 8yo seems to be ok- and he’s very empathetic. I haven’t seen any of the “to watch for” behaviours exhibited.
Once the socio realized that I was in no way shape or form interested in ANYTHING he had to say, he wrote me off. He had been sending me love letters in the baby’s diaper bag after visitation- but after I whispered something about prison and bubba in his ear at visitation one night, he stopped bothering me. At this point, we don’t speak at all. It’s not “no contact,” but it’s as close as I can get until he’s convicted.
Speaking of visitations, he totally ignores our 8yo and spends the entire time cuddling the baby. The baby is more useful for gaining the attention of young girls than the 8yo. That, and he seems to enjoy the 8yo begging for his attention. I feel bad for the 8yo, but by the same token, he is beginning to see through his father. It might make it easier when the monster gets sent to prison. At this point, I can’t tell if he shows up at visitations to keep the money flowing from his mother or because he likes owning a baby… I can also tell that he is VERY ANGRY with me (even though he doesn’t SAY anything to me) that he has to show up at a scheduled time at a place for visitation and not have the freedom to drag them around and show them off for personal gain.
I think the x may be a primary psychopath- he thinks he is ALL that and a big bag of chips!
Did I mention I can’t wait until he goes to prison?
DrSteve: The attachment concept is interesting to me as I could never make sense of several things in this area. First of all, he would talk about his other women, ex’s and such about how they had done him so wrong, continued to lie about him, tell “stories” about him to others…etc but yet I would find over and over again that he was maintaining a “friendship” with them. By phone, or a little favor here and there, or they’d stop by, or one he made her a bunch of smoked salmon for her grandmother… all lies that I happened to uncover. I asked him if they’d all done him so WRONG why on earth would he continue to nurture the friendships?? Again it was inappropriate actions for what most of us would do otherwise. Not see them anymore or talk anymore. I know now that he was probably sleeping with them as well, and one I know for sure he was.
Also – now that I have broken up with him, his words say he wants me, doesnt want to lose “us”, misses me etc… but he acts completely calm cool and collected and no where near bothered by the fact that things are this way. I see him at work occassionally.. yes big mistake on my part – he’s at my job… but something he says is so heartwrenching.. he shows no signs of it bothering him. Yet other things in his life when someone does him wrong, he schemes things against them and wont let it go.. and those things tend to be menial tiny little things would not be a big deal to most of us. Backwards response when emotionally reacting to issues in life.
Has anyone else noticed this? React when they shouldnt and no reaction when they should?
Absolutely findingmyselfagain. He always seemed so cool and calm when he had wreaked calamity all around us. And other little things of no consequence got him all worked up. He could muster up tears when he talked about his military service (his military service was fictitional too) but didn’t seem to be the LEAST bit bothered when he’d down something awful to me or someone else he supposedly LOVED….and all the while saying, “I love you I love you I love you…” Maybe they’re like pretzels- completely twisted.
glinda: my ex told me he wanted a divorce, and the next morning went to each of us — me and my two boys and said “i love you.” he was also singing and whistling. it was the strangest thing. i knew that there was definitely something wrong with him. i know now that he is incapable of love.
i always knew that there was something vacant/void about him, but i couldn’t put my finger on it. i just dismissed it as a cultural difference. but he really had no clue as to how to behave in a normal way. he didn’t really have emotions. i do remember him over-reacting whenever he felt ignored.
on vindication. i found most of what was written to apply to my ex. whenever he feels that i’ve won something through the court, he retaliates by doing something to me or his son.
he uses our youngest child to get attention from the public. he would like nothing more than to make our son into his identical twin monster. he really is a very scary person. i’m gong to try hard to leave the area. i truly believe he will mentally ruin our children.
I’m really surprised by the women who have attempted to co-parent with these monsters. I can’t see it ever working, and it certainly doesn’t benefit the child. Our children are very young, and he abandoned them for a while, so they really still don’t know him well. Now, of course, he can’t get enough of them. i would give up child support in a second, if i could free my children from him.