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.
Findingmyselfagain. Your comments are similar to my thoughts. The attachment is very skewed – either a kind of possessive attachment or ambivalance. Examples – at the start he told me to tell me last partner who I split up with 15 years ago that he was now on the scene. I told him that this was outrageous – I had no feelings whatsoever for my last partner, it was finished over 15 ears and I saw him occ for child visiting, he posed no threat at all. He was adament and he obviously had something in his mind. He would tell me how much he loved me and then he would disappear, cancel or hide behind his phone. In the early days, I asked him if he was available at ANY level.
My ‘ex’ narcisssist, was not overtly physically abusive and infact we never had a cross word between us, he kept his cool at all times. But he was secretly cunning and punishing and he obviously knew all the ways of punishing by a combination of using words to project or deflect (lie), and doing his activities out of my sight. When he started his nonsense early on, I asked him if he wanted a friendship, he said he had many phone numbers of women who wanted that. One wonders whether these are women who got wise early on or ones he kept on the back burner for use in the future.
At the end of the relationship, he engineered a scenario for me to ‘find’ these womens phone numbers (all married) and although the majority of them were ones he had preyed on at work, one he said he had kept in contact since befoe we had met and he never told me. I hate to think what the nature of that contact was and in my last angry letter to him, I told him that I bet I had hardly discovered the amount of deceit he had got up to.
You just dont know what goes on in their minds and as Dr. Steve says, because we dont operate like that – why should we know. for me part of the shock was realising that I had got involved in someone who was rather like a scheming, cunning, deceitful magician, who whilst I only had good intentions, care and concern for him – his intention for me (although pretending different) was the opposite. I guess I saw it off and I kept telling him he was giving me double messages, (He loves me, but ignores me!) but it never occured to me that he could be doing the opposite of what he was professing to be. He was feigning loyalty, integrity, even berated other people who were unfaithful. A true wolf in sheeps clothing.
When we had a break, he came back nicely (and a voice popped into my head saying – he really wants you back because he wants you to act as a referee for the new job he is applying for). The new job which gives him a type of authority and access to lots of new and appropriate prey. I knew he had engineered friendships with lots of new married women at work and I thought this was safe. I realised after, that getting involved with married women gives him advantages 1) he doesnt have emotional involvement and he can be as detached as he likes 2) they are unable to be open about the relationship 3) he knows that apart from the husband he is stealing them from, there are probably no other suitors of- so he protects himself in a myriad of ways – how devious. It is almost impossible to separate fact from fiction.
finding my self again. i totally agree my ex s path would react to little things and not to the big whammys, he was recently involved with a single mother with two children actually i dont think she wanted him but he was obsessed with her, i think she was just using him. anyway she told him she didnt have time for a relationship too busy with her kids. so he sulked for months over this then recently she has met someone else and goten pregnant to this other man, when my ex told me he never even got close to sleeping with her she wouldnt let him. he was furious at this rejection from her and the fact she was having another baby to this man. my ex was playing happy families with her kids he was all over them to impress her and make her think hed be a great dad. anyway he was actualy hurt by this woman and what she did . but she invited him to her daughters b day party and in stead of saying no thanks and really standing up for him self and being even a bit angry he went along and low and behold the other guy she is having a baby to was at the party too how humiliating it must of been but he didnt even get mad at her. then the next day he even went to the beach with her and the kids. when he told me this i was like arent you angry she said she didnt have time for a man to you and now shes pregnant to some other guy. and he just said well we only went to the beach with the kids. go figure . my only justification for this is that maybe he was still hoping to get her back. but with any other woman doing something like that he would punish her like crazy . i could see he was angry but he wasnt acting on it at all he was in fact still being nice to this girl . with me he is always still punishing me but in his sly ways. i even said to him once stop punishing me its over you know, and he said im not punishing you. yeh righ not much with every thing he does he still trys to get me some how as a pay back.
Gosh yes – I’ve just realised what Beverley has said about married woman – it’s an advantage that it has to be kept quiet!
Oh yeah and regarding their attitude towards cheating – I now fully believe any ‘jealousy’ was PURELY to score points. I don’t believe for a second he would have been really bothered, except from a power point of view. (And obviously they know we’re too honest anyway).
Jules – the woman your ex seemed ‘obsessed’ has given us the right strategy for dealing with a sociopath. She simply doesn’t care one way or the other and so his ‘game’ won’t function!
What I’d love to know – Secret Monster are you there? (Jules I agree that some of his stuff his hard to read but really, getting first-hand accounts of what he exactly feels or doesn’t has filled in so many pieces of the ‘missing jigsaw’ for me – which is so important for healing and not falling victim again) – is what their pleasure is like. When and where did they feel most happy? How long-lasting was the happiness? If they could plan the perfect future, no holds barred, what would they choose?
To Dr. Steve and other clinicians/researchers.
In my opinion the attachment literature is not very helpful. The words “insecure” and “avoidant” are neither precise nor scientific. These words do refer to anxiety and difficulty experiencing pleasure. Children who have a compulsion to seek proximity to an adult who hurts them experience anxiety when alone AND anxiety when in the presence of the abuser. Since attachment is a compulsion, they are drawn to the abuser even in the presence of ongoing pain/abuse.
The avoidant group includes schizoids who don’t really attach. From what I can tell from reading the literature, many sociopaths were “securely attached” as children. They do not experience anxiety and enjoy attention and so would not look abnormal.
Dear Liane Leedom MD, Whilst reading your narrative, I was experiencing it the other way round, in that, if a ‘target’ becomes abused by their partner, then they too will feel this same anxiety. Maybe this is one of the keys to why some of us as targets are ‘drawn’ to be with the same kinds of abusing people and I have had them in nearly all psychological formats. When one has had next to no love, emotional support in life, especially as children, one can fall prey to those who pretend that we are special and wanted – like the parents we never had and wished for. I guess one of the antidotes is to believe in and love ourselves and not look (subconsciously) for others to fill those needs.
Before now, I never saw myself as a commodity. People kept telling me to guard my assets. I suppose if someone sucks you dry in mind body and soul, they have got everything else as well – and they can get all their needs met without having to resort to illegal ventures or cost to themselves. My ex said that some of his physical pleasures would have cost him £250 if he paid for them and he gets to save money too, whilst his target caters for all his needs.
jules: it’s all part of a plot with the single mom. he will play the sympathetic, i can be a good dad; i’m still concerned for you good guy, etc. if the single mom falls for it, he will trash her the same as he has probably done with the rest of his relationships. he is attempting to manipulate her to win her. once he wins her, he will conquer her. it’s not as if he’s not angry or he’s someone different b/c he thinks she’s “different.” He will do anything to possess her, and then destroy her. so, he really isn’t treating her special. it’s all just another design. My ex also preyed on my vulnerabilities as a single mother. He just jumped in and played the great stepdad role. unfortunately my child got hurt when he left. i’m thankful that he still has a great relationship with his father.
On women who choose sociopaths as mates — i once spoke to my sociopath’s ex. she described him as “kind to her, but manipulative and controlling.” I find two of theese three characteristics mutually exclusive for the normal person to be — but not for the sociopath. I found it interesting that she would describe him in this way. But really her description isn’t surprising. She was abused as a child by her parents. when you have an abused background, your standards aren’t very high, and if someone appears to be genuinely nice to you, then you fall, and you fall hard.
i wasn’t physically abused by my parents, but there was a lack of emotional attention due to some abandonment. My Ex played on this. He talked about the importance of family, and sticking together. He told me that he would never leave a marriage, and that he didn’t wnat his child to suffer from a divorce, and have step parents, etc. he even criticized couples who had children, but didn’t have the typical “family” set up b/c marriage wasn’t involved. Everything that he said he stood for, was exactly a LIE.
But he did me a very, very big favor by leaving. Life was miserable when he was around. I was always so much on edge. He was so insecure. insecure about everything — especially my first husband. there was constant confusion and chaos, and NEVER any peace. Those three short years really took a toll on me.
I am so thankful to God that he left; though it was heartbreaking to realize that everything was a lie. It took a lot of soul searching on my part to figure out why I allowed myself to fall prey to this beast. It also took me a great deal of research and retrospect to understand that he is probably a narcicistic sociopath. And how to deal with him as the very sick person that he is since there are children involved. I’m determined to give them some peace and stability as they didn’t ask to be brought into this mess.
BTW, one of his exwives had a stroke while they were together. There is no doubt in my mind that he probably caused it with all of his toxic issues and the stress he probably placed on that poor woman.
Dr. Steve wrote: 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 think “despise” is a harsh word for it. I think maybe “disdain” for goodness, for goodness sake, fits better. It’s illogical to do something good if there is no return. If you expect a return, than can you really call it good? If I give a homeless person 5 bucks, is it a good deed? What about if I give a homeless person 5 bucks in front of someone who would like that I give a homeless person 5 bucks? Which is a good deed, and which isn’t? Why?
Some of the things I do a lot of you would call evil, I accept that, but these things do give me pleasure. Now, do they give me pleasure because they are evil, or do they just happen to be evil? I can look at myself like a crafty little devil and it’s a cute romanticized vision of myself, but I don’t really sit back with a menacing laugh and wonder what sort of evil I can let loose on the world today. It just so happens that the my enjoyment out of life occasionally costs others, theirs.
EnnLondon: Part of your question is like asking someone to describe the color green.
What is happiness? I know what happiness looks like. I can act happy. I can act sad. At the end of the day, I don’t really know. I get thrills and excitement through my intrigues. I get the feeling of victory and the excitement of achieving a goal when I get away with something, or accomplish and solve an intrigue. I feel powerful and smart. I even enjoy the defeat. I sometimes think that people that get so mired in their emotions are just weak. It’s as Dr. Leedom said, double reward, double punishment – I’m “happy” with just one I think.
I think back to when I was having the most fun, the most excitement, and it was just before I got married. A series of events unfolded that I won’t describe here that I still remember back and get that electric feeling through my skin, that hit of excitement at just how absolutely hysterical and perfect it was. No one even got hurt by the whole thing, I got away completely unscathed in an impossible situation.
A perfect future? An endless string of those moments would be just fine. I think I’d like to die in my early 60’s, in a tragic golfing accident. I would like to stage my death and video tape my funeral and see if people cried. And if they didn’t, I would do things to haunt them to make them feel guilty for it, that would be hysterical!
Just think, dear old Auntie Janice gets her Sunday morning newspaper and unfolds it to the gossip section and there I’ll write with red lipstick or something equally as tactile – YOU DIDN’T CRY! I KNOW YOU DIDN’T CRY or something like that. I’d have to come up with something better, but it would be great!
Maybe I’ll spike the punch with LSD or something and my funeral will turn into a big wild party. Didn’t I see that on TV?
I don’t know, it’s late. I need to go to bed.
One last comment – Single mothers are easy, yes. Too easy even. But I don’t like the kid thing, for some reason it really bothers me. My last big intrigue involved a woman with two kids. It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot due to some comments in the other thread/blog/thing. Why does it bother me? Why do I care? I can’t answer, it doesn’t make any sense, but when I saw her kids getting attached to me above and beyond just scoring me points – I took one for the team and got out of the relationship in a way that empowered and was positive for their mother. In one sense, I retained control by doing that, by engineering that, so that part makes sense, but why the early bail out? Too many complications?
Thing is, I actually liked those kids. Maybe that was the scary part. Shrewed and intelligent kids. Didn’t miss a beat, really. I’m sort of a long distance uncle to them now, which is just fine. I’m not going to cause them any harm and they get why (appearance) things ended and are ok with it.
Isn’t that weird?
SecretMonster
Secretmonster. Would you call yourself something along the lines of a prankster in oneupmanship, a master of mayhem?
The thought of other people’s response to your own ‘fantasy’ funeral must be the biggest buzz for you?
At the end of the day – its the power, the high you are getting from getting one over people – isnt it?
Its too bad people like Secret Monstor with common sense, wit, impact and wordy intelligence cannot utilize all those gifts to the good. I wonder what they would accomplish on this earth. If they dont feel guilt, see pleasure in successfully crafting up another scheme and getting away with it, and feel no sense of loss, remorse or basic contentment – I’m curious if any Sociopaths believe in God or forget that, how about just the Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I already know the answer but its beyond my imagination to go around leaving people in an empty heap and not have any sense of empathy for what they have put upon someone. He did say “It just so happens that my enjoyment out of life, occassionally costs others theirs.” Who would want to know that you cost someone something just for having known you or innocently interacting with you on whatever level.
Because they have the important qualities of empathy, moral reasoning and impulse control missing – in my mind they are like a rogue pack operating alongside but outside of mainstream people.
To buffer themselves ithat they are lacking in these qualities which the mainstream pack has, and they are different and that they do not belong, it is safer for them to belittle and manipulate the qualities of the mainstream pack and to claim a form of higher intelligence because of it? So in a sense instead of being the minority pack, they bolster themselves to be the stronger pack? Does any of this make sense?