One of our readers wrote the following, nearly everyone of us has expressed the same sentiments:
One phone conversation with him could go from loving words in the very begining to total ugliness toward the end and he would often get really mean and hang up on me. It was like he was Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde all rolled into one. You never knew what he was going to be like…
It is part of human nature to develop strong bonds of affection in connection with an intimate sexual relationship. These bonds involve activity in the parts of the brain that are outside of our conscious awareness. These bonds are also not easily subject to conscious control.
Since understanding is helpful, I want to review some of what is known about the behavioral neurochemistry of love. Some of this information comes from studies of animals who “bond.”
1. Intimacy produces bonding. Sexual intimacy especially produces bonding. There are hormones released during sex that go right to the bonding parts of the brain and turn them on. Since sex with a sociopath is often more intense, so is the bonding.
2. After some bonding is already established, fear and anxiety increase the bonding. This is responsible for the Stockholm Syndrome, a syndrome where victims feel bonded to attackers. Sociopaths know how to suck you in with intimacy and sex, then intensify the bond by creating fear and anxiety.
3. Although we cannot consciously undo the bond, we can consciously decide not to act on our feelings.
4. Fortunately, humans are designed to be serial monogamists. That means will be bonded for the life of the other, not for life. With time these bonds fade if the other is gone. That is because in the past people frequently outlived their partners. I can say for sure that time does heal this wound, provided depression and symptoms of PTSD are addressed.
Hens, No. I don’t think you should feel sorry for him.
I know all about shaking with anger and the sinking feeling of here we go again. I’m sorry Hens. I think it’s like Loise says, it’s the cog-dis that really works us over.
I feel happier than I have in a long time Hens. I am not in a crazy making relationship and have learned to really love being on my own, and that is really something. You, too Hens. We’ve come a long way.
hens,
When it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck, and swims in the pond with other ducks….I figure it is a duck.
Cheating goes hand in hand with lying. And when someone lies to you when your GUT is screaming at you, no, no, that can’t be true…That can’t possibly be true.
You do start to feel “crazy”, because they tell you that you are crazy and imagining these things.
My ex had FINALLY admitted to cheating on me ONE time after many years of cheating when we were still married..
Right then I knew that everytime I “knew” (in my gut) he was cheating in the past in our marriage, he WAS cheating. I have no doubt in my mind. Even though he wouldn’t “fess up” to the other times.
The confession didn’t mean anything anyways, because even that was riddled with more lies.
I think that once we start to TRUST our own gut instinct instead of what someone else is telling us….We free ourselves from this BURDEN of believing lies & fairy tales. We need to believe in ourselves.
An animal ALWAYS trust their instinct. They never question it. If they sense danger they KNOW there is danger. That is survival.
If animals questioned their gut instincts (like humans do) they would all be extinct by now.
Gut instincts are such a basic part of our human make up…How come it takes us so long to learn to use it well? When an animal knows from day one to use theirs?
Witty,
I had to laugh at you talking about your x blaming you for the divorce (after his cheating) “where are the vows we made for better or worse?” LOL ROTFLMAO Yea, were ARE those VOWS? He sure didn’t honor them!
You are so right that whatever we learn can be applied to other things in our lives. I can see very much how the 12 steps can give you comfort in dealing with your son.
Kim,
Yea, I know about Hemingway’s cats. It is a genetic thing. And actually my step dad had 6 fingers on each hand when he was born, but the doctor cut them off. It is a dominant gene. Traced back to a cat from Mass I have read.
I love T. S. Ellliot
Oxy,
You know I have to laugh about it myself. It has been over 20 years ago that we were divorced. And it was a stupid thing for him to say!
His son (my oldest) doesn’t even really know his dad. And as I said recently my ex has just begun to try and have a relationship with him. My ex doesn’t even know his son as an “adult” and for me sitting back taking this all in, it is pretty interesting.
What I have noticed first and foremost is that my ex hasn’t matured or grown up at all. He is exactly as he was when I left him. Like his emotional growth isn’t there. Even though 20 some years has passed?
My son said to me: “Mom, I don’t know how you could have even stayed married to him for 16 years?”
Lol…that says it all….
Oxy,
It’s funny you should mention the extra fingers. Remember that book you recomended about the boy growing up in the south? I forget the name and I read two of them. He was a prankster. Remember the black man in the book, when he was at school? He worked in the kitchen and he did have an extra pinky!!
I wished I trusted my gut instict as soon as I started thinking “hmm somthing’s not right here” LOL
Witty, I really had to laugh, too! Marriave vows carry no more validity than a fart in a windstorm! The first exspath would frequently refer to the marital vow that I had made to “obey” him! Obey? Really? LMAO
Truthspeak,
It is amazing to me that someone can say something and be dead serious….When it is such a stupid thing to say?
How twisted is that?
The word “obey” should have been taken OUT of marriage vows 100 years ago!
Well, marriage vows are a human development. IMHO, just about all of the things that human beings have developed – from organized religions to genetically manufactured/modified organisms – were done so with the best of intentions. Once “bad people” discovered the intoxication of power and control, all good intentions evaporated and were replaced with mere opportunities for the power-lusts to pervert even a higher power into their own designs. My marriage vow consists of one syllable: NO. LOL
Oxy. Your step-dad had extra fingers? Interesting. Did you know that that is considered a sign of the shamin? A shamin is a visionary healer, sort of like a native american, “medicine man”…They are considered to have a direct link to the spirit world. It’s facsinating stuff. Google it if you are interested. I’ve heard you talk often, about what a good man your step-father was.
I think I read somewhere once about how rules/laws (with carrots/sticks for enforcement) are necessary only for a small percentage of people… the rest will follow general guidelines of good behavior without these obvious externally-imposed (controlling!) incentives.
And you are right that bad people subvert these rules for their own purposes… in a way, these guidelines are then turned on their head and used as a weapon against people who didn’t really need the rules in the first place to behave decently.
I include marriage vows in this. Most people are relatively decent. A small number are deviously deviant and, in a marriage of empathy-void spath to normal/non-spath spouse, the deviant one will derive great dastardly enjoyment from twisting vows to shift all blame to the decent one of the pair.