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.
farwronged:
They only want kids because they are like possessions to them. They don’t care about them. It’s also an ego thing…look how many kids I can produce or look how many women I can get pregnant…I must be so virile…hahahaha! They are insane…brain damaged I think.
Sick….
that’s not the only reason they want kids.
They love the idea their baby mama’s wasting their lives away raising their offspring. It’s just more servitude for them. These freaks want to take your life, even if it’s one minute at a time. they can’t comprehend our love for children. So to them, it’s just another way to make us suffer.
Too bad for them, when we get loving kids that aren’t like them.
Yes indeed Sky. But what if you dont…(sad)…what if the kid is a terror and nightmare? Just a little emotional.
Off subject but i sure found it funny everytime i caught spath in a lie or called him on some bs i was stupid or crazy. It was almost like a dead giveaway. Most men would reassure,with them you get rage insults and called crazy. Im still crazy to my spath. Lol…he pranked texted me ptetending to be an ex/newbie and when i told him i knew it was him i was crazy! Lol lol lol
Sky they should all have their balls ripped off. They dont need children!!!!!!!
(((far)))
I’m so sorry you are in this situation.
It sucks so bad. I do have a God-complex 🙂 but I actually know that I’m not God or Christ or even a martyr. so I don’t know what to tell you. I only want you to know that I do love you. I had an abortion when I was 15 and can’t really come to terms with it. Was it right or wrong? would I have ruined my child or would my child have saved me from Uber-spath? would Uber spath have killed my 2 year old child just to be with me? there is no way to know the future.
But yeah, ripping their balls off would most certainly be appropriate.
Thanks, Ox. I appreciate the break down of the steps that work. I have always eaten well and exercised, and walked, and prayed.
And I’m beginning a second career, so up to my eyeballs in coursework.
But moving away has made me sort of lose my footing. It’s kind of a doubly unsettling experience: losing a ‘relationship’ and a residence, and a job. I quit my job and moved away, in part to get away from him.
I wasn’t prepared for the memories that flooded me when I came back home.
But the NC is a given. Honestly, now I don’t know what I would say to him, or allow him to say to me. He would begin with the “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry” thing he always does.
And that just makes me nauseous.
And EB? You’re right. He and I felt different things, which is so hard to accept. He SAID the same things as I did, so I believed we felt the same things. And even now that I know he was just mirroring me, the memory is hard to re-frame even knowing what he is.
It is so hard to erase a memory based on so many senses: the verbal part, the smells and contact pieces, the needs, the emotional pieces that are layered in there, too. If memories were just based on words, words could help to change them. But memories are deeply ingrained little buggers and tough to come to terms with. If not for them, this healing process would be a whole lot easier.
And Far Wronged? I feel for you being pregnant with his child, a reminder of how he tried to trap you. Children are possessions to them, or proof of their manhood. They are most certainly not human beings to be cherished and raised with love. The idea of my ex having any parenting responsibilities over the child his new victim is carrying is frightening to me. I don’t think it is his, but he is bragging to the world that it is…his first in 30 years of promiscuous sex with no condom. And the girl had a boyfriend, but hey, miracles happen, right?
Kids are for bragging rights for them, not for anything else. Well, maybe to enslave another victim.
I appreciate your support, everyone. I certainly need it. Just because I can recognize what is happening doesn’t make me skilled at managing it.
Wow, Ox, I HAVE been under deep water and high pressure for a long time. You’re right. That is exactly what has happened.
It was so hard to manage life with him. When he lived with us, my girls grew to despise him. They saw how he was playing me when I could not. I was blinded by my love of him and that I desperately wanted this relationship to work…I had invested so much. What I did not see is that he had not invested nearly as much.
And then he would disappear for days at a time, going back to the city (my home is in the country). I supported his need to reconnect with his culture and his friends. I was so stupid. He was doing drugs or sleeping with people, or both. And he would never answer the phone until he was ready to come home.
I look back and think that any one of the things he did was cause for kicking him to the curb. But I didn’t. Instead, I made excuses to myself or allowed myself to believe his. And the humiliation piled up. So then it was almost like I had to keep him around…all the investment of myself and accepting of the lies kept me stuck with him.
And I loved him.
It was very deep water, and I was drowning. It was high pressure, too. It was so hard to remain sensible in the face of such insanity.
And I don’t want new injuries, emotional or physical. To allow contact is to get attached. He is that seductive with that bass-baritone voice and enticing appearance. And he knows how to play me. He will come at me as if he can’t help himself and needs me. It is his need of me that gets to me. Or what he would have me think is his need of me.
I don’t want to have to go through this de tox from him yet again. It is just too painful.
Far Wrong was right on in saying about the rage…when I would call him on his lies, I would get the rage and the indignance. Like, “how COULD you say that of me?!”
And a few times, I got more than rage. I got strangled. Thrown around the room like a rag doll.
But EB? I suspect he does believe he loved a few of the women in his life: the woman who came before me, me and this little girl now. Yes, our idea of love is different but he stays in our lives for years in this sense of love he has…I guess because we allow it.
But the little girl he is with now beat him up! He had two black eyes and a nasty knot on his forehead awhile back, said it was from playing basketball. But she had the audacity to call me, in part to brag about having hurt him. I don’t even want to consider a relationship where that kind of stuff goes on. But I do believe he thinks he loves her.
I know of only one child so far with my ex. But he wanted marriage and a child with every ex I know off so far. Luckily some of the victims were still young and sensible enough to say, “I’m still studying, I’m not ready for a child yet.”
The other Belgian victim is closer to my age and actually has a child, but not by him. She got herself another Nicaraguan boyfriend after a month when he wasn’t in town though he knew she was visiting and left no word himself where he had been off too. By the time he returned, she was preggers by the new boyfriend. Unfortunately, her boyfriend isn’t the best catch either: infidelity, physically abusive when drunk… but he works and gives the money to her, and she puts his fun-money from it on his own bank account.
His ex-wife had no children with him. I have a copy of those divorce papers, and it mentions “no children”.
We tried, but I know since my 22 that I have only one working tube. So there’s only a 50% chance every month to start out with. Not to mention I’m over 35. And with the long distance relationship, we weren’t able to try for a continuous year either.
I hope he doesn’t get lucky with the victim of London.
He never said anything reproachful about our lack of succes, not until he revealed to me he had a son, conceived a couple of months before I met him and born a week before he came to Belgium. We were together for a year already when he told me, with the pity story he hadn’t known himself until he returned from Belgium, and it would not have been appropriate to tell me over skype or facebook, and how it was unfair they were preventing him to spend time alone with his son, that his mother was raising the boy in the town up north (a day’s travel), instead of raising him where he lived. Lucky for the mother of the child and the boy they keep him as far away as possible.
Once he had told me though, he mentioned it twice how it was possible I wasn’t pregnant yet, and that it must have to do something with me, cause there was living proof that he could father a child. And I said, “yeah”, it’s a very real possibility that I don’t get pregnant easily, because I’m over 35 and I have only one working tube anyhow, and we aren’t every month together. Now I recognize it was an attempt to hurt me, but it deflected on me because I’ve long accepted my low chance of becoming pregnant the natural way anyhow.
But actually there may be a problem. He often complained about one of his balls having some kind of weird lumps. He had me feel them plenty of times too (lol, I can laugh about it now). And I told him that he should go to a doctor about it, cause I’m not. For all I know, he has testicular cancer… and in this case, that idea makes me think “I hope so!” The sooner he leaves this planet, the better for his family and the whole train of possible victims.
They definitely only want kids because they are possessions to them or it makes them feel virile or to just feel good like look what I did…a total power trip for them. That is so sad.
trimama:
You say that he has been in love, but from everything I have read, that is not possible. I have always wondered about this subject. It confuses me.