Sociopaths/psychopaths commit a disproportionate amount of both violent and non-violent crime in all Western countries. Today is July 4th or American Independence Day, so I am going to take this opportunity to ask that friends and family members of sociopaths stop enabling them.
According to Webster’s Online Dictionary the word enable means:
1 a: to provide with the means or opportunity
b: to make possible, practical, or easy
c: to cause to operate
In her book A Dance With the Devil, (which I highly recommend) Barbara Bentley gives many poignant examples of enabling as she describes how her psychopathic husband accomplished his antisocial goals.
The most shocking of many examples is found on page 271 where she describes how her former husband was paroled after serving only 22 months in jail for trying to murder her:
“”¦a former Two Star business associate who worked as a civilian contractor for the Navy, had vouched for John and gave him a place to stay, along with backing John’s plan to start a plant import business.”
On page 350 Barbara explains that this former business associate also introduced John to his next victim. John moved in on that victim quickly, moving in with her within two weeks of the introduction. He conned at least $65,000 from that woman and also beat her.
This story also goes to show that one “favor” done for a sociopath/psychopath turns into many and culminates in the victimization of innocent people.
The truth is that unless friends and family members completely dissociate from the sociopath they will be called upon to provide with the means or opportunity, to make possible, practical, or easy and to cause to operate.
Here are some other examples of enabling that have come to my attention over the years:
1. Lying for the sociopath in and out of court.
2. Not speaking up when the sociopath tells untrue stories or a bold faced lie to another person in front of the friend/family member.
3. Going with the sociopath to meetings with a parole officer so that the sociopath “looks good.”
4. Helping the sociopath gain custody or unsupervised visitation with children he/she had victimized leading to further victimization of the children.
5. Giving the sociopath money so that he/she seems well off as he/she courts victims.
6. Inviting the sociopath and victims to family gatherings so victims think sociopath is a contributing member of a loving family.
7. Telling victims half truths about the sociopath, eg. Discussing only his/her “good qualities.”
8. Providing the sociopath with transportation to a place where he/she then committed a crime.
9. Sending flowers to sociopath’s next victim on behalf of the sociopath, even when that family member knew the sociopath had a prior trail of at least 4 other victims and is a sex offender.
10. Spying on other people for the sociopath and reporting on their whereabouts and activities.
11. Calling people on behalf of the sociopath.
Many of the specific acts of enabling listed above were done by people who I believe just did not fully comprehend what the sociopath was up to. Tragically these acts of enabling that led to people being harmed were done by enablers who were trying to be kind or polite.
I offer the following guidelines for the friends and family members of sociopaths or suspected sociopaths.
If you know someone has been in jail more than once and/ or has been convicted of more than one felony get away from that person immediately and certainly NEVER help him or her. Criminal recidivism and versatility are two very important signs of psychopathy. Criminal versatility means participating in different kinds of crimes.
If a former spouse claims someone you know is a sociopath, do not dismiss the allegations. During the course of a divorce many nasty things are said but, the usual divorce does not contain that allegation. So instead of giving a potential sociopath the benefit of the doubt, take in all the facts and believe the former spouse until the allegation is proven false. Certainly, in such cases, do not help the alleged sociopath. Do not take such a big risk; a sin of omission is not as bad as a sin committed.
If a member of your family has had many relationships, partnerships or marriages where he or she has lied or has been otherwise unfaithful to the partnership, do not invite that individual to any family gatherings. Certainly do not introduce the probable sociopath to any potential partners, either romantic or business. Do not allow the potential sociopath to use your family gatherings or introductions as a venue for his/her operation.
Now you may be wondering why friends and family who are not sociopaths themselves do all the enabling I have described above. Motives vary, but people have a very hard time giving up on the sociopath and admitting his/her true nature. They are trying to be polite and also at times trying to pawn the sociopath off on someone else. As they do the pawning they don’t acknowledge to themselves that the sociopath is really a predator/parasite, they just consider him/her a nuisance.
Please comment on what I have written here by sharing your own examples of enabling by friends and family members. Try to keep comments focused on that topic so people reading this can see more examples. If you have been an enabler, confess it by telling your story in a way that does not identify you but that gets it off your chest. Then, vow today to do the right thing for your country (society) and never enable again.
Get your copy of A Dance with the Devil!
Enabling a sociopath is unpatriotic. Well I never look at it that way but it makes a lot of sense.
Short story:
Having taken my children and I to the taste of Chicago yesterday we wanted to wait to see the firework show (it was great!) and we saw it by the waterfront. But just before it stated a few people show up yelling out “Cold Beer” for sale. This in it self is against the law. But what really surprise me was how one lit a joint and just starting smoking and passing it around to his buddies it like it was nothing. These people were my age and not teenagers or a younger group.
I told my children not to stand too close to them (they parked themselves right next to us) because if a cop shows up they would just grab the whole group standing together and ask question later, Chicago style. Anyway, what surprise me the most is the non-caring attitude about other people in the crowd with children. Sure they were patriotic sharing in the joy of our nation but I saw also they only cared about themselves and didn’t care about others who were also sharing in this special day. They said on the news that over million people came to the taste that day. I wonder how many sociopaths were among them?
Have a happy and safe 4th!!!
I remember a few 4th of July’s with the X, funny they were kinda nice. We drove over to the lake and parked on the dam, sat in the back of the pick up in lawn chair’s and held hands and ewed and awed at the fireworks. We had the weener’s with us and Harley was a nervous wreck and the X held him and sang to him to comfort him. – theres a slow rain tonite, I can hear then going off but I cant go out and watch – and of course my minds is all about what’s he doin, whos hand is he holding and wish he was here to sing to Harley…just thinkin out loud – ignore me…….
Dr. Leedom,
Terrific article! Thanks so much for posting it!
And now to fess up: off and on, I’ve been an enabler in one form or another over most of my life. I had great role models for this growing up in an alcoholic family home. I was the scapegoat child in my family, the one whose job it was to “make it work.” Looking back that helped me gain a little crucial emotional distance, but I was raised to believe that all girls and women should be “nice and helpful,” which led me to have many conversations with my nieces over “the terrible curse of Niceness.” In the part of the South where I grew up, this was conflated with femininity, so women who weren’t kind and helpful weren’t fully women…Yech!
I learned a lot about how to please people and not nearly enough about healthy boundaries, or myself. I AM learning a lot about those things now, here at LoveFraud.
“You make it work,” was the underlying message of my marriage. Of course that doesn’t work, because it always takes two people being involved and working together to make a solid relationship. So I would make a fuss over anything “good” my X did, and literally make myself forget or not see the bad stuff. Recipe for disaster! And that’s what it was: an emotionally distant game of chase with me trying to “earn” his love.
I now realize what I didn’t understand at the time: as justabouthealed said, I didn’t have a clue what I was dealing with. And my therapist GAVE me a book called “Trapped in the Mirror” about living with a narcissist (though in that case, a parent, and not a spouse). Double Yech!
I worked in the Newborn Nursery ICU as an RN, and one of the neonatalogists gave us all the creeps — Now, I get it. Professionally, I was required to follow his orders and question when appropriate. When we questioned anything, he made our lives a living hell. At one point, he threatened me in front of other nurses, and I thought, “If he hits me, I’ll never have to work again.” It’s awful to have a thought like that, and not see how out of control the situation is, and that no excuse is good enough for staying there and taking the abuse. All the nursery nurses made the agreement that we’d never leave him alone with an infant patient. We reported him numerous times for various inappropriate behavoir, and the only result was that we were threatened, or our jobs were threatened.
To keep my job, I sometimes had to “smooth over” the disasters he created. At one point, he stood in the hall yelling and screaming obscenities at me — I was there as a visitor and not on duty, and yet I was called to administration at the beginning of my next shift. I was told to sign a release form or not bother reporting back to work. I was supporting myself and my husband. I signed.
My thesis adviser managed to wreck seven years of hard work on my part, basically on a whim. My crime apparently was that I challenged her on a narcissistic rage she directed at me. She blocked me at the end of the process so I was unable to finish my Master’s. I heard a few rumors about her but I discounted them…she was being so kind to me right? What kind of person listens to gossip? The same person who looses her teaching career before she even starts.
I have no excuse for not standing up for myself. At the time I felt overwhelmed, and I thought that was the way things worked. Do your best for your parent, spouse, patient, be the best student you can be — and if anything is left over, you might get a moment to be happy. I didn’t come close to understanding that ethically and morally, what I did was facilitate and support and enable these people.
I promised myself as I came to understanding that I wouldn’t be a party to it again. I think the rough part is that often, you can’t see what’s really happening, how clever they are at deception and revealing only small pieces of the puzzle of their devastation of anyone near them. When you get enough pieces together to understand, it can be quite a shock. Other people may not believe, or even wish to believe.
Because of the tangled web they are so expert in creating, No Contact is the only way I’ve found that works.
Happy and Safe 4th to Everyone!
No more enabling,
Betty
These Socio’s also need to be reported to the systems that enable them, whether it be the IRS, Unemployment, Property Appraiser, goverment or other agency that you know the Socio has taken advantage of. Set aside your feeling about this and just do it! Most governmental web sites have added a “Report Fraud” selection on their sites. Besides abusing me and basically trying to ruin my life, my Ex-Socio husband of 15 months needed to be confronted with his fraud and conning. Sometimes the system does work!
Betty raises an interesting point about the medical community. The physician as the gatekeeper of life and death is often accorded more respect and freedom than they deserve. Very often physicians blame their misbehavior on the stress of the job.
I tried to keep the life of one physician stress- free so he would not be “too upset” to deal with an emergency in the intensive care unit. I finally realized that every job has its stresses and responsibilities. A school bus driver is responsible for the safety of the students on his bus. A restaurant chef is faced with the responsibility of preventing food poisoning/contamination. The list could go on and on. Every single individual has job stress and a potential to cause harm if done improperly. No one has an excuse to blame their behaviors on the stress/situation at work.
The more I enabled this individual, the more stress I was under.
Thanks to reading this web site I am better educated and free to be me.
Free to be me
Henry:
That is a place that I have not gone to…..I have no idea if I have my wall up so high or what….I do not think about my S with another person.
I know it happens, but it just doesn’t bother me…..WHY?
I do hope that he hooks up with someone long term….for selfish reasons to keep him away….I dont think it would be soon enough for me.
I don’t let him creep into my head like this, I don’t reminisc about times with him, missing ‘those’ times…..because I just don’t have many good memories.
The were either ‘faked’ on my behalf or fantasized by me……28 years worth.
Even the birth of our kids was not special to him…..he couldnt’ take the time away from entertaining people to be with me a support…..
Birthdays, christmas, holidays he would say….Oh, it’s just another day…..so eventually, with him, I treated them as ‘just another day’.
If he did ‘show up’ physically, it was only because I harped on him and he didn’t want to hear it…..but he was really never ‘there’. His exchange for ‘showing up’ or taking me out somewhere was a sex exchange….’what are you going to do for ME”?
There were no hand holding moments watching the fireworks for me…..
So I KNOW there will be NO HAND HOLDING moments for anyone else…..he’s just not got it in him…..oh, yeah, he’ll do whatever if he negotiates a ‘trade’ and if the next girl is okay with that….more power to her…..she’s doing me a favor!
Thanks babe!
You just hold your Harley and snuggle up close, allow the love from him and give it back, we don’t need another person ‘making’ or ‘breaking’ our holidays…..or any other day for that matter!
XXOO
Erin – I have my walls up very high and very thick. They were up before he came along and somehow he was able to get through. Guess it was that illusin thing that was tugging at my heart last nite. I know when he held my hand and said he loved me twenty times a day it was a form of manipulation. It never felt like love, more like control. But I was hanging on to hope I was wrong and the problem was with me. But the truth was always there just under the surface and I didnt want to look that deep I guess. In many ways I was loving his attention even knowing it was feigned. There are memories and moments that were real, for me anyway. I am sorry you were with someone like this for so many years. Maybe it is a blessing that it doesnt bother you. I was only involved three year, I am sure twenty eight years of hell would change my perspective. Thanks for reaching out to me – see our walls are only up to protect us from evil, not genuine caring peeps like the one’s here on LoveFraud…ps. Harley survived another 4th, poor thing I would of given him a valium if I had had one…
Hi Everyone,
I haven’t posted for a long time but this topic is one I would like to comment on.
As we all know, being the target of a sociopath is a traumatic and life changing experience. It brings out the worst and the best in us, stretching all our emotions to the limit. Fortunately, with the help of wonderful sites like Love Fraud we can learn about this behaviour and come to understand why and how we were targets. I can now accept how my situation happened and have learned to live with the fact that I, like thousands of others, was merely a means to an end.
If only this could be the end of the trauma but sadly we have to reap further blows from enablers who wittingly or unwittingly prolong the agony for us by allowing the behaviour to continue. For me, the enabling was one of the worst things to deal with and it is hard to describe the level of anger and frustration at having to watch someone who has almost destroyed your life walk away ‘scott free’ and with the help of others.
Many enablers, I believe, are truly unaware of the damage they are doing. They simply cannot comprehend the subleties of a sociopathic mind. Others, for many different reasons have a need to enable ie. they are family, they are scared etc etc. One thing I am sure of is that they, like us, are manipulated by the sociopaths abilty to strike at our emotions. Factually and logically a sociopath would never get away with what they do but they disarm us all with their assault on our deepest feelings.
There are many people in my case that I could point to as enablers. The OW as his employer and scamming partner enabled him to target me. A friend I confided in became the best friend of the OW, despite knowing the part she played and infuratingly wrote me a letter saying ” there are always two sides to everything” The OW’s husband would not outrightly confront her or him and others have unwittingly enabled their behaviour by simply being too scared to say how they feel, even though they do believe what I say. The overall feeling I had was that most people were just too scared of any kind of confrontation.
In order to protect myself from the neverending frustrations I realised that I had to stop contact with enablers as well as the S. Constantly discussing the subject was too damaging. I asked my close friends not to tell me anything they knew and I do have some degree of piece these days.
I do however, when I feel that it is necessary, warn others about him. Unfortunately it has not stopped him functioning but I do think it has saved a few from his clutches. I will not keep silent about what he has done to me as I too would become an enabler.
I wish you all justice and peace of mind.
Swallow
henry:
Oh yes those walls……
I have a friend that I get to ‘test’ my boundries on, we can live vicariously through each other…..she is dating a guy that I see red flags…..her and I are the Best of friends….she came along when I got sick and has been there rock solid for 3 years….she was the one who pointed out the Narcissism in the beginning with my ex, which led me to sociopath…..she was my catapult……
ANyways, she had a sex addict ex, so we have walked our divorce pathes together….now she is dating a guy, and I’m watching him like a hawk….her and I have a pact, we will be intuative for/with each other…..so he is so far, not doing so well passing my tests…..this week he has gone downhill…..I told her….”i’m about ready to break up with him for you’…..we laugh….we are a team….poor guy, has no clue he has her and EB along for the ride…..
But, she had walls so high and thick, I was shocked when she started dating….she was very casual….walks, coffee, bike rides etc…..it started getting a bit more on the serious side, then he stood her up for 4th of July……OKAY…..not a chance…..he has a controlling side that I see and I just point this out to her, more passive aggressive…..we don’t know him well enough YET…..but these are all things to file close to your ‘get out’ side of the brain.
Control, pinching her fat, nocall/noshow/ jelouse about her pending trip, and other things…..
I see her ‘dance around’ but I don’t let her….I’m in her face, as she is mine…..I told her a few weeks ago I saw intimacy issues with her……after a bit, she agreed and spoke with her therapist about them…..
It is so theraputic and beautiful to have such a wonderful, honest and loyal friend…..She has walked my journey with me 1000%, she is my rock for sure!!!
When I was with the S, I pushed people away…..becasue I couldn’t let anyone too close to the S…..Now I know why….So I kept it safe and kept people away at arms length….I have known this woman for 13 years, but didn’t get to be friends until 3 years ago……..
I am open to dating, but I know when it’s time for me to meet someone I will…..until then I have more growing to do…..and I am surely enjoying the growing up period!!!
I am amazed that I havent lost all faith….but I have not…..I do know there is someone out there that can satisfy my needs and ‘requirments’. Unfortunately for them, it won’t be an easy pass to get in…..I don’t offer trust and allow you to break it for me to act….you have to earn it now….
I have cleaned house of people I don’t trust or even question….not worth taking a chance….it’s so freeing to have my close friends that protect me and look out for us.
Take care Henry……love will be there again we the ‘we’ work is done!
XXOO
I take a little different approach. High, thick walls……Of course, I have them, but I NEVER let them show. In fact, putting up the walls is usually the LAST thing I do with people I meet.
Instead, I prefer giving people “lots of rope” in the beginning. Not so much that you become totally vulnerable, but just enough to see what they are going to do with the rope.
Will they hang themselves with it, or not? The S/P/N will hang themselves everytime.
I still think our eyes and ears are our best tools when we first meet someone, especially if you know what to look (and listen) for.
I don’t worry about not having my walls up, because if I hear or see anything that even HINTS of being “S”ish, my walls can go up in a New York second.