I received this question from a woman who is divorcing a man she believes has the traits of a psychopath (according to the psychopathy checklist):
“What psychological tactics can you suggest in dealing with a psychopath? There must be some tools and strategies to stay a step ahead. I’ve read books on identifying liars and tried to educate myself on strengthening my position in recognizing The Predator. There has to be some guidelines somewhere on How to Ride That Horse. I have had hundreds of horses throughout my life and pride myself on being able to ride anyone that crosses my path. Although this horse has been the most difficult and I continue to be dragged, trampled and kicked, I continue to get back up, dust myself off and try again. I have learned much and he has been a great teacher…..but in the final stages of our divorce, he is throwing some wild curve balls and I’m desperately trying to stay in the saddle. I ride all my horses softly, gently…..Can you offer tools for the arsenal?”
Before answering this question I want to make some important comments. Many people have reasons for needing and desiring relationships with people who are very sociopathic/psychopathic (sociopaths). In my view, there are only two legitimate reasons for having interactions with someone you believe may be “a sociopath.” The first is that the person is your boss and you haven’t yet found another job, and the second is that there is a court order commanding you to. That the sociopath is charming, attractive, wealthy, your son, daughter, friend, lover, mother, father or some other relation, is not a good enough reason to risk yourself and others.
Whenever you interact with a sociopath, you not only risk yourself, you risk others. Sociopaths weave a web of deception that is supported by the many relationships they have. If people refuse to participate in the sociopath’s life he/she will be very limited in his/her ability to harm anyone. Sociopaths/psychopaths know how to surround themselves with people who give them legitimacy in the minds of others and who serve as “cover.” They will use anyone for this purpose, especially ministers, priests and rabbis, and of course, children.
If you desire to have a relationship with a known sociopath there is something wrong with you. That something can be ignorance of the disorder and its dangerousness. A sense of grandiose invincibility and a love of risk taking can also feed into this desire. If you are an adventurous risk-taker, take up blizzard mountain exploration or sky diving, but keep away from sociopaths. Many people write me with a tone of wonder, awe and admiration for sociopaths. Save your wonder, awe and admiration for the Grand Canyon, the pyramids of Egypt, or the true miracles of life, please. (Here I am referring also to the women who send love letters to known killers and serial killers.)
Those comments out of the way, how can you cope successfully with a sociopath/psychopath? First, remember that these people are Driven to Do Evil. Just like you wake up every day and feel your drives and desires, sociopaths/psychopaths wake up every morning and “It’s show time!” Whereas your goals are intimately related to the love and compassion you feel for others, a sociopath’s goals are intimately related to his/her desire to gain power over others. If you don’t understand this at the core of your being, you will not be able to deal with sociopaths. Second, imagine a moment what your life would be like if guilt, empathy and compassion did not enter into your decision making processes. Imagine that your decisions were based solely on your judgments regarding what would benefit you.
Now imagine both together, a Drive to Do Evil and no guilt, empathy or compassion. A sociopath is a sports car with an accelerator and no braking system. Now you can see why I say only an ignorant, crazy or suicidal person would voluntarily choose to ride this horse, or drive this car!
I have just armed you with the mental picture of the sociopath who you are compelled to deal with. To successfully cope, keep this picture in your mind at all times. Ignore any of the sociopath’s actual appearance or behavior. Keep all conversations brief and to the point. Set firm boundaries and never give an inch. Insist that you get everything due you, and that the sociopath abide by his/her end of any court orders, or job descriptions. Most importantly, STOP expecting that the sociopath will behave like anyone other than who he/she is. A sociopath is a person who is Driven to Do Evil and who lacks, guilt, empathy and compassion.
To make this point further, let us consider our friend’s analogy of the psychopath and our relations with him/her to the horse and horseback riding. Horses are domesticated animals. Domestication means they have been bred to have the capacity for submissive behavior and impulse control. These two (submissive behavior and impulse control) are supported by a very complicated biology that includes hormones and brain structure. The psychopath lacks both the brain structure and hormonal profile to behave submissively or even consistently cooperatively. The best horse analogy to the sociopath is the horse who dies in the process of being ridden because s/he lacks the substrate for domestication. This horse is not a challenge, s/he is a waste of time and energy.
So stick with the horses that have been beautifully trained to compete in the show ring, and who lovingly wait by the fence for you to appear. These horses enjoy cooperation and don’t mind having to submit occasionally. The untrainable horses are a complete waste of time. Surround yourself with people you know to be primarily motivated by love and compassion. To do otherwise, is a complete waste of time and energy.
OxDrover, I just wonder how you got it “so together?” You seem to have it all worked out in your head. You seem quite brilliant and so in tune with how the sociopathic mind works. I’m really hoping you can help me…I get so frustrated when someone says..”maybe you should just go to the “S step daughter, explain that you love her and get her, yourself, and the husband into counseling”. I literally want to laugh out loud. In my opinion people who say that have no idea what dealing with a real socipath is like. It is almost a joke, that is why they drive you crazy. They can outsmart most therapists that I’ve known! Not only do I NOT love her, but I have no desire to work things out with her !!! Quite the contrary…I just want to get away from her, not draw her closer to me..I keep searching for an answer on how to just “stand it”. I have to be around her because she is a family member and I love my husband of 30 years (her bio dad).The physical reaction I have to her is so hard to tolerate. I get shaky, nervous, palpitations, hand wringing, the whole 9 yards by just being in her presence. Do you think it has anything to do with the fact that I am a born again Christian and maybe I am having a true biological reaction to being in the presence of a demon? I don’t have this reaction to any other human being in my circle of family and friends. It happened the very first time I ever laid eyes on her, and it still happens all these years later everytime I have to be around her…have you run across this in your own experiences? I just try so hard to tolerate her and get through the day, but it is such a hard way to live your life. There are a few family members though that feel exactly the same way around her, so it’s not just that I’m a mean step mother or anything.I even see her own father act uncomfortable in her presence. He will not admit it though, but I can see it. She lives 3 miles down the road, and he NEVER goes to visit her or initiate spending any time with her. I’m new to the blog, any advice? Thanks…
Dear Creampuff, I wish I was some “guru” who “had it all together” LOL some days I feell like I do and if I get too cocky about it all, I fall on my face like everyone else does. I get it more intellectually than I do emotionally, but I am GROWING and that is all that anyhone can do. Two steps forward and one step back, keep on doing the best you can.
I’m not sure just how you had intuition into that step; daughter even as a baby but I think humans have intuition about things even when there is no “scientific” thing we can hang it on. Sometimes we “hear” this intuition and then we tell it to shut up! And it turns out later we were RIGHT and should have listened.
I know you are between arock and a hard place because you love your husband and he loves his daughter and does NOT see her for what she is.
That is a big problem with many families who have these psychopathic members. They will DUPE one member of the family to be their “protector” while they abuse other members of the family.
I suggest that if at all possible lyou and your husband get into couples counseling. It is obvious to me from what you have posted that yhou are VERY UNHAPPY and you love your husband but the relationship with this step daughter that you cannot apparently at this time AVOID is causing big problems.
If you love your husband and he loves you, I think there may bne some reasonable solutionh without you either being driven crazy, pushed to the brink, or him having to give up all relationships with his daughter.
A Christian husband is supposed to “love his wife as himself” and he should not put ANYONE “before” his wife in his affections not even a daughter. My cousin and her husband had this same problem with an adopted child, and they came to a satisfractory relationship where HE continued to be involved with their psychopathic daughter, but my cousin went NC with this daughter 100% and they saved their marriage.
I suggest that you start by reading a book called “The Gaslight Effect” By Robin Stern P:hD, you can order it off of Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble reasonably for a used copy and it is an easy to read and easy to understand book. It doesn’t talk about personality disorders per se, but it will give you some insight into the relationships between you and your husband and your step daughter and the “Triangle” that is going on.
I do know that I could not (now) tolerate my husband (if I had a husband) treating me the way your husband is apparently cross ways with you about your step daughter.
Even years ago I had a DIL that was a real b1atch and she and her husband (my step son) were coming to our house to and I could NOT stand this woman, so I chose to go to visit a friend of mine for the week that they were there at our house.
I figured it this way, it was my husband’s son, he loved him,, the son was married to a woman that I could not stand, but it was my husband’s house as much as mine and if he wanted to see his son, he had to also see the DIL but I didn’t want to put up with it, so we compromised and it worked out fine. I didn’t apologize to her or my step son that I was gone when they came to visit, but I have no doubt that they got the MESSAGE. That was YEARS ago, and they are still married, and I see her occasionally and I dearly love my step son, but she has been quite pleasant to me since then the times I have seen her.
Since your step daughter is giving you SO much grief though and you have such an emotional turmoil in your life and it obviously is fairly often (my problem wasn’t too bad as we lived very distantly from them and didn’t see them every holiday etc) I think you DESERVE to be heard about this situation and that your husband should hear you, and make some concession to your STRONG feelings about this woman.
Even if he sees NO PROBLEM with her behavioir, I think as your husband that he should have some empathy and compassion for YOUR STRONG feelings and not insist that YOU make all the concessions for this woman. Therefore, I think counseling is in order. Plus the book I recommended.
Good luck with this, and whatever your decision on how to go about this, I think that prayer is called for and counseling as well, but that you do not have to bear the brunt of the “putting up with” allthis in order to do what is right by either your God or your husband. (((hugs)))))
See, I was right, you are a genious!! Thanks so much….I will get the book, but as for counseling, he’ll never go. See, he doesn’t see any problem other than the fact that I just refuse to go with the flow, he thinks I should just not pay any attention to her antics,but that’s because he loves her, and he can’t understand why others don’t. I know life is never going to be perfect, but I have just never felt this awful around any body. She is so smooth and so good at what she does, I can see why her Dad doubts what I say. And that’s when you really start to doubt your own sanity.Her daggers are thrown with the precision of a samuri warrior, they are so smooth and well thought out that her husband and her father never even feel them or see them coming. They are all delivered at the women in her life that she sees as competition for her men. Her mother in law…me, her baby sister. Her husband’s entire family call her “Satan”….but they kiss butt because of the little grandkids. Her poor husband acts like a little beaten down puppy. When she issues a command, he knows he better do her bidding..I just have to share this…. 2 years ago her mother and father in law went to the grandaughters preschool on her birthday as a surprise and took cupcakes and milk for the whole class…Well, when the sociopath found out, she went crazy…”how dare she go to their school without her permission”!!!!!!!! She sent her husband out to their house and gave him orders to literally give them hell !! They were forbidden to even come to the grandchild’s actual birthday party.. This cold war went on for 2 years !! Who in their right mind would have gotten so bitterly mad over that?? The only contact she would have with them was through the husband.After she forbid the mother in law (she didn’t get mad at the father in law) from coming to the party…when people kept asking….where is V—-? She told them all that the mother in law just didn’t show up !!!!! It was like the mother in law was a wet dishrag that she just wrung out….it took 2 years of begging, and crying to even let her see the kids again, then it was totally on her terms. So now they are very reluctant to ever cross her…once the husband was finally going to divorce her, and the next thing we know….they are walking in to the parents in law’s favorite restaurant (where she KNEW they would be on that night)..and just walk up and announce that they are back together and she is pregnant !! She only did that to blow the mother in law away..!! Once she had a jewelry party at her house and when everyone asked her where I was ….she said…”well, I guess she just isn’t coming to my party”…..she NEVER invited me…a cousin of her husband’s found out directly that she was in a hotel room with another man while husband was out of town, and confronted him with direct evidence..(phone pix) and he took up for the sociopath !!! Ran the cousin out of his house..How can you even pity someone who is such a fool??? She job hops every 3 months or so ….always gets fired or mad at some woman…never the men…..when she was in the hospital having her 2nd child,she played us all like a violin…the husband was in Iraq….she spent the whole day refusing to let us in the room with her..forbidding the nurses from telling us anything….we stayed there ALL day not knowing what was going on in the room…she kept “toying” with the Dr. and the staff..after the baby was born…she wouldn’t even let the nurse tell us what time the baby came….when she finally let us in the room……she acted sweet as sugar….like nothing was wrong ?????? Then about midnight we had all been there all day……and we were leaving….and she grabs her Daddy’s arm and starts crying and pleading….”don’t leave me Daddy” I don’t want to be alone…..and of course he starts petting on her.her tears were so incredibly fake…the whole day was surreal….I left him there and found a ride home……she is so good at what she does…..those are just a few examples of what she does……there are too many to cover……Thanks everyone …….I’ve held all this in for 30 years……and since I found this blog, my hands just won’t stop typing!!! God Bless us all that have to endure the things…..
Dear Creampuff,
My computer just had the “blue screen of death” and I lost a big long post to you, but thanks for dubbing me a “genius” but believe me I am NO, just starting to get my chit together all in “one sock”
You do NOT deserve to be treated this way by this woman, and you DO deserve to have your feelings VALIDATED by your husband, but you cannot make either one of them do what they should. You can only change your own way of thinking about how much of this crap you will continue to tolerate.
The fact that your husband does not see her the way you see her is probably not something you can do anything about but YOU can validate yourself. My egg donor does not validate my own knowledge and feelings about my psychopathic son either, but that does not mean I am wrong, and it doesn’t mean I can prove to her I am RIGHT either.
It only means that I have a choice what I DO about the situation.
If your husband refuses to go to counseling with you, GO ANYWAY for yourself. Learn to set some boundaries for both her and for him and for what you will tolerate. It is your life, your house and YOUR choice. YOU have rights and choices too, and only you can decide what they are and what you will enforce in the way of boundaries. Believe me also, if you think she is behaving badly NOW, wait until you set a boundary for her and quit tippy toeing around her, you ain’t seen nothing yet. YOU are the only one though that can decide what you are willing to sacrifice for peace in your life. EACH OF US must make that decision for ourselves.
I do think that the book I recommended will help you in making those decisions it is straight forward and easy to understand. Keep on reading here as well.! There is some great support here. (((Hugs)))) and God bless. You are on your way to being your own “genius” along with the rest of us here, it is called HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS AND BOUNDARIES and we all fall down sometimes but we keep getting back up and trudging onward!!!
Creampuff,
I am married (but separated) to a sociopath, knowing from personal experience how DIFFICULT it is to be involved with one of these people. Your step-daughter sounds worse than my husband, but who knows. They certainly know how to inflict pain, that’s for sure. My heart goes out to you and all the other family members who have to deal with her. It seems that your step-daughter’s inlaws realize that there is something “not right” about her, that’s she’s vicious.
WOW WOW WOW!!! Creampuff! talk about lightbulbs going off one after the other! You could be talking about either or both of my spath daughters when you describe your spath step daughter!There are SO MANY parallels with your stories of the horrible stunts she has played on you and your hubby and the Mum in law.My younger spth D,has not allowed me to see any of her 3 kids,{now 14, 11, and nearly 2 yrs,} since they were born. Ive never set eyes on them. Years ago, when the first boy was born, I managed to find the rich, jewish Mum in laws name and address and phone no. I asked her if she was willing to let me come to her home, so that I could get a sneak peek at my new Grandson {now 14.]She said, sadly shed love to but she knew that if she did, and my daughter found out, that would be the END of her being allowed to see him too.!How is it that these biatches have the power to control, bully and boss around everyone?[not me, now, Im out of her sick games!}
And when my older spath D had her first baby girl, I had to PLEAD with her, via her husband, to be allowed to visit her in hospital to see the baby. When I got there, she GLARED at me like an evil demon! Again, I had to BEG to be allowed to hold the 2 day old baby! What had I done wrong? Nothing! At that time I knew NOTHING about gaslighting.Like you again, I have felt scared, shaky, and uneasy with spath older D since she hit puberty and morphed into a monster.
{Shes nearly 46 years old now.}The way she glared at me would have curdled milk! what is WRONG with these sick humans, if we can call them human?Thank god, since i set up my boundary,[to which she hasnt responded in almosta year,} I havent spoken to her. Its not easy, I had hopes of seeing my GKids via my SIL, but Ive seen them exactly once in one year. Im discovering hes not reliable and cant be trusted either.If I weakened and rang her on her mobile, I know shed crow, and shed have WON AGAIN, and I WONT do it.
Its all a sick game of POWER and CONTROL with them. But they are not as clever as they think they are.Her husband got out 4 years a go, and has FT custody of the 3 kids, and they are much better off with him.Reading your posts is so validating for me, now I know I wasnt crazy, this is what they do, and how they are!! If I were you Id have as little to do with the sick biatch as possible!!. Love, and all the best, Gem.XX
Oh my, gemini girl……I too am getting some relief just by venting.
Sometimes I think the only reason they have kids is to use them as pawns in their games. Like you , all these years ago, I didn’t know what the terminology for these people was, I just thought they were crazy, but they are NOT crazy…..just evil. Just as I thought, on Easter SHE came over acting all syrupy sweet when the previous weekend she was at my house when I was not home trying to plant little evil seeds against me to her Dad, my husband. He told me about it, but of course never wants me to confront her, because then she will put him through hell for telling me….so I always feel like my hands are tied…..it’s like when she leaves I feel like I need a bath…..!! I used to pray so hard for her sweet little husband to be able to gather the strength to leave her, but I realized Sunday he never will…he is her little slave and he is so resigned to it, I saw for myself that even praying for him will never work….she’s had him trapped for too long. It’s like Stockholm Syndrome……he is used to her now…it is his life…I even hate the fact that I know her so well now….it almost makes you feel like you are one of them….you have to think like they do and I hate that….sometimes I would just love to confront her and tell her everything I know on her, and that I will tell her Daddy, but I know she would pull something that I will never see coming and then I would just end up looking like an idiot !! She reminds me of a wild animal…..when she is driving the MIL crazy, I try to do something to divert her attention away from the MIL onto myself….it usually works……she literally almost killed the MIL without ever picking up a weapon !! If you all have read Martha Stout’s book….my step daughter is a clone of Doreen in that book !! Her whole persona is just smoke and mirrors….I also believe that the female ones have high testosterone. They are fearless, hard looking (not a soft pretty) and ALWAYS the Alpha Girls…….they are going to be the center of attention, the front of the line, and they will stomp you in the ground to get there……..I am so glad I’m not crazy, that you all “get it”………Thanks everyone !
CreamPuff & GeminiGirl:
I would like to join the two of you, and make this discussion on female psychopaths a tri-fecta.
My brother’s wife has done all of the things you have mentioned, and has also tried to split my Mom and me off from my brother.
Heck, she’s even tried to create jealousy and rivalry between my own mother and myself!!!!!
So far, she has not been able to get the job done, though (thank you Jesus).
She may have underestimated the tight family bond that exists in my family.
As imperfect as it is, it’s still a pretty tight bond.
My theory is that psychopaths are unable to form deep emotional bonds with others…. so, the whole concept is probably foreign to them.
Since I found LoveFraud last year, my Mom and I have calmed down a lot in dealing with both her and my brother…..now that we know what we are dealing with.
We choose our battles much more carefully now. The little gaslighting attemps….we just dismiss.
The only time we rebel is when it comes to my niece.
From what I’ve seen, psychopaths actually become very cowardly when they see you might actually rise up and challenge them. They don’t want that. That’s why they put so much energy into destabilizing us, and keeping us in a constant state of confusion.
I think the sister-in-law knows my mother and I are onto her, because she can no longer gaslight us.
Neither my Mom nor I would dare confront her in our knowledge of what she is doing and our ability to articulate it, because she would hurt my niece….worse than she already is.
EVERYTHING gets taken out on my niece. My brother is married to a perverse abuser.
If you are going to confront an abuser, make sure all children are removed from the environment FIRST (and the child should NOT be given back to the abuser afterwards)!!!
The courts don’t understand that sometimes the parent is the abuser, and the VIOLENCE IS EMOTIONAL, NOT ALWAYS PHYSICAL (although, there’s plenty of physical neglect/abuse, too).
What is being killed is the child’s SOUL.
My brother does not see this, because he is still fluctuating from Stage 1 to Stage 3 gaslighting.
He has moments of clarity.
But, she is always able to pull him back into the FOG.
I agree with CreamPuff in that I also believe female psychopaths carry a higher level of testosterone than empath females. There’s a nasty aggression that lies just below the surface….just like a man.
And, the female psychopaths can really work the “damsel in distress” pity play, and men will fall for it everytime.
Female psychopaths can also get a lot of mileage out of the “crocodile tears” with their male victims, as well.
It doesn’t stop with the men, though. My sister-in-law just manipulated the female teachers at her daughter’s school to set up a special reading program for her daughter, under the mask of “concerned attentive Mother.
I feel just as sorry for men who are manipulated by female psychopaths as I do for women who are manipulated by the men.
It’s all insidious & ugly.
Dr. Leedom said:
“If you desire to have a relationship with a known sociopath there is something wrong with you. That something can be ignorance of the disorder and its dangerousness. A sense of grandiose invincibility . . . ”
I’m not sure into what feed I should post this comment, but since it relates to a portion of the article above, I think I’ll post it here.
I just made it to one year of no contact one week ago. It’s been a good year, and I don’t miss the S/P. But it is Spring time, and I am feeling very frisky, and he would probably take me up on it were I to engage him, but I know that would be like sleeping with a viper. I know the danger, and I self-talk well, but the possibility of engaging with the S/P occurs to me when I have little belief in the actuality of other possibilities. Holding on, is hard; so is waiting. I don’t want to just distract myself from these feelings. I want connection and physical engagement . . . .
I’ve made it past the throbbing-daily hurt that the S/P engendered. I’ve made it past putting the pieces together. I’ve even made it past the rage. I just don’t care to have someone like that in my life.
But trying to hold on until I can find someone with whom to share physical intimacy is challenging, and not something I would readily admit to experiencing to many people. Spring time is killing me. For me, good energy that lacks an outlet leads to frustration and depression. I feel myself starting to get depressed because I have no outlet for physical connection . . . and so then I consider the S/P.
Any thoughts, comments?
I forgot to add that the danger for me as it relates to Dr. Leedom’s article is perhaps a sense of invincibility, although not grandiose. I sometimes tell myself, when thinking of engaging the S/P, that yes most likely, he’ll do something to hurt me, but I can survive it. Feeling like I can survive the risk, could endanger me, I think.