Although it has been many years and there is a new relationship, a friend of mine still wishes every day that the sociopath that preyed on her will “drop dead.” Wishing and hoping that some horrible end will come for the sociopath takes up time and energy in my friend’s life; as she searches for evidence that something bad has indeed happened to the sociopath and then is disappointed.
Recently, I discussed the topic of forgiving psychopaths with a psychopathy researcher who is not a clinician. He said he received a letter from someone complaining that friends were pressuring the victim to forgive. It was the psychopathy researcher’s opinion that people should NOT be told they have to forgive a psychopath.
Upon reflecting on this opinion, I believe that this psychopathy researcher may have a special insight that informs his view —that psychopaths should not necessarily be forgiven. Perhaps this insight is: in spite of their brain disorder, psychopaths still have a choice about what they do.
My son is now 7, he and I rough and tumble play every day. It is impossible to wrestle and not have some kind of slight hurt come to one or the both of us. From the time he was very young, perhaps as young as 3, my son has appreciated the idea that mommy didn’t “do it on purpose”. If he pokes me in the eye or lands rough on my stomach he’ll say “Sorry, I didn’t do it on purpose.”
This example illustrates our inborn social contract that says we do not hurt each other on purpose. If hurts happen in the course of life, they are usually unintended side effects of other behaviors and so should be forgiven. Cheating on a spouse could even be forgiven as an unintentional hurt if the person succumbed to temptation in a moment of weakness, realized the wrong committed, then repented. Even murder is not punished as much if it is an accident.
The problem with sociopaths is that their behavior is no accident. They hurt people on purpose, carefully planning, then executing their plans. After 7 years of reading research articles and talking to victims, I believe choice is part of a complete explanation of sociopathy and victimization. If you watch any of the TV shows about sociopaths you too will see that the theme of their choices permeates the media.
Friday night, Gangland on the History Channel told the story of Billy Wadd, a member of the Devil’s Disciples motorcycle gang who gained notoriety when he broke the biker’s code of silence and testified against his nephew who murdered a family during a home invasion. Wadd said he decided to aid the prosecution of his nephew, John Wolfenbarger, instead of “taking care of things the usual way” because “You just don’t kill kids.” It is clear he believed these murders were performed with an intention that not even another sociopath could accept, so even sociopaths believe in their own capacities for choice.
Now let’s reconsider whether victims should be told they have to forgive. It seems there is a natural human instinct that says forgiveness is reserved for accidents, unintended consequences, and perhaps intentional slights that are out of character. How then can you ever forgive a psychopath?
Psychopaths have been compared to predators. I think this analogy is seriously flawed. A predator such as a lion or wolf has to kill in order to survive. Psychopaths don’t hurt for survival. They hurt because they want to, because they like hurting. Their enjoyment of hurting increases the likelihood they will choose to hurt if given the opportunity. They also seek out opportunities to hurt -not for survival but for pleasure.
Since sociopaths, with intention, repeatedly violate our inborn social contract, perhaps they should never be forgiven.
Instead of forgiving, I hope, my friend, you will think about all this and thoroughly digest the reality of the sociopath you shared life with. The reality is terrible— you shared life with a truly evil person, someone who regularly, with malice and forethought, chooses to harm others. Don’t stop hoping to see the day the scourge of this evil person’s existence will be wiped from the Earth, but do not waste any more of your time on him.
Kindheart: Thanks. And you are right, i am pretty successful in the rest of my life and of course, that is probably a huge part of his attraction to me. I am so shaky because his family is now blaming me because they say I “ruined’ his relationship with his son because his son told me that he was cheating on me. He did it because he said he was so tired of seeing his father hurt me. The spath’s sister said that I was a sick person and that his family hates me for ruining his son’s relationship with his father. That’s comical when I think about it since his dad left his mother many times and cheated on her too. His ex said today i did her the biggest favor because he left her because he fell “in Love” with me. He had told me that they were getting a divorce which wasn’t true but by the time I knew that I was already in love with him.The spath even bragged to his son that this new woman he is with said he didn’t have to work if didn’t want to (I wonder?) cause she would take care of him. I am waiting for the furious call from him now to tell me to never talk to his family again. He doesn’t have to worry. And you are so right, I did bring myself down to his level. I hung around with this low life’s friends, people that I would never even have talked to at any other time. I had people tell me all the time that they couldn’t understand why I was with him. My family hated him. I kept telling myself that they didn’t know the sweet man he showed me. But if I was really honest with myself, he was never there for me. Even when my father died, whom he professed to like so much, he did’t even call me to console me. Hell, his own family told me I should get rid of him because he will never change. Now they tell me that I should never have talked to his son, who is a grown man by the way and capable of making his own decisions. I feel guilty that his son was put in that position.
What I am trying to deal with now is the huge void that is left in my life because all his drama filled up so much of it that I didn’t have time when I was not at work to think about anything else. I would hurry home to await his calls when he isn’t here and when he was living here, I hurried home to babysit him because he had no friends or hobbies. I lived for his calls- I would wake him in the morning, call him to say goodnight. Now there is silence. I have tried all weekend to stay busy but there is no one to talk to because I have hidden my relationship with him. I couldn’t explain to my friends anymore why he was always leaving.
There have been moments when I am scared, moments when I feel intense relief that all the pain will be over and moments where I long to hear his voice and it will be just a bad dream. I hate that glimmer of hope deep in my heart, that it isn’t true that he slept with this new woman. And then I crash and realize that he can just turn a page so easily, it won’t mean a thing to him that he hurt me so much. I will be the woman who was crazy, I will have “hurt him so much” and then he will marry this woman and use all the money that she has. I feel so sick because I am still in heavy withdrawal and I feel so incredibly alone. If I couldn’t come here, I think I would be a having a nervous breakdown.
I keep thinking about what is and isn’t being said here…are you aware of something called “The Gaslight Effect?” There is a great book with such a title…there are as many strategies and game moves and manipulations in the n/s/p’s arsenal as there are stars in the sky…how crazymaking it is to know that the person who is sadistically undermining you and bullying and manipulating you is also usurping your own belief in your own grip on reality….talk about a double bind…I know this is the second book I have mentioned…but it helps to get as many of the puzzle pieces as you can…know thine enemy…I also went on facebook to see a recent pic of my ex-best friend/ex-sister in law….she has DEAD eyes and it gives me the creeps to see the same look in her eyes I saw in pics of her with my brother…like the look of a self-satisfied spider happy to have yet another clueless fly in her web…this person has gone far in life by being a master flatterer and cold calculating manipulator…it turns one’s blood cold to see such a lifeless and evil and empty stare in one who once turned your life upside down…I tried to warn my brother and after she emptied his energy, love and pockets…she moved on and is with someone new…sad for my brother he still has her on a pedestal…I hate him as well for his stupidity and the stockholm syndrome that allows him not to see how destructive she was and how by proxy he joined her in perpetrating on his own sister…I never saw this side of him…his pride won’t allow him to admit he was played for a fool as I was. He would rather blame me for being hurt by their codependent attack on my very being…masters at gaslighting they were and are…one of many dead bodies to be sure that n/s/p’s leave behind by not only targeting others, but gaslighting some into joining in on the fun and the false sense of self and superiority that accompanies their own special brand of pleasure!
Ouch! They say that the truth shall set you free…and I agree with that…but it hurts like hell!
Jell, last year at this time i was just out of a two month trauma program 3 hours away from home (Ontario) just to keep myself from contacting him and the contact was broken while iwas home on a weekend pass, yea he called to offer to shovel my driveway wouldn’t take no for an answe r and now looking back i see how his other g/ f couldn’t possibly make it into town so i was convenient and he didn’t want to lose his source. My point is i was fighting the compulsion for one year of drinking and then it got worse in sobriety for the last 6 years, as i was told in Homewood(treatment facility) by a brilliant doc that in his experience (recovering alkie with years of sobriety) that secondary addictions become stronger. And exactly like you now that im not working when the detective started to show up with his sob stories i lived for his company, someone to eat with, cruise in car with, just someone to fill the void but i was playing with fire and i knew there was the possiblity he would go back to sn/n wife and sure enough , i could see he was more traumatized than i and at least i get it . How on earth could i possibly compete with a disordered wife of 23 years who has taken over him completely. He knew i was the total opposite of her but he still went back and even with all my knowledge and beleive me this site has been my salvation as well, i still sit here and think why would he want to settle for the little crumbs she gives him but that’s where he is. As for you ex’s family, well they have a saying in AA that applies to the ism’s and socio’s have all the isms , saying goes ” the whole family is sick as well” so don’t take their comments to personally if you can. I had two phone calls from the s’s crack addicted daughter this weekend and im to the point where i don’t even want to bother with her and that’s an improvement. I spent years trying to help her, feeling sorry as i knew what her dad had done to her but i’ve come to conclusion finally , i didn’t do it to her , he did so he can deal with it. My empathy for absolutely everyone is going to be more selective from now on and it’s so high time. And glinderella reading your post reminded me of the s and that snide little smirk he’d get on his face with someone elses misfortune, should have smacked it right off his pasty white face . I was also diagnosed with Stockholme and disassociation and i never knew how prevelent it was , i thought it would only apply to say bank robberies etc. If there is one peice of advice i wish i would have take n it’s the old “you can’t not know what you know” and that means staying in the truth and that has been so hard for me and everyone else here. After the contact when in traum prog i went back and was pulling nurses aside,just beside myself thinking this whole program wasn’t working saying “why can’t i see him the way i should and know he is” bingo Stockholm . Then the nexk morning i said to head doctore ” im in conscious denial” and he said NO YOU AREN’T. Went right over my head . What a convenient excuse on my part eh. Now i see the truth i wasn’t in denial , i wanted to be there. Hope this helps . love kindheart
Jell, i’ve been in that paind so many times thinking i was one step from the mental ward here in the town i live. And yes it happened over and over with many bottom barrel women, as my one gf said i would go and see one in his garage and not beleive it like going to the scene of the accident over and over. They don’t care how they hurt anyone or not enough to change anyway and now im finally knock on wood getting it. The only thing these vermons deserve is complete and utter ignoring. It’s the only thing that gets to them and i’ve read it for so many years but just couldn’t seem to do it and mean it. Im finally at the point where i was always hoping to get, getting to the indifference, i don’t hate anyone and don’t intend to . They say the opposite of love is indifference so i take that over hate, as hate they love as well. It’s so important for me to be kind, polite , nice all the things they KNOW matter to us not them so they know we are sooooooooooooooooooooovulnerable . I know the loser will eventually call and i never thought i’d say it but i hope the moron doesn’t. I talked to 3 of his ex’s , two of which he married, all wouldn not even attend his funeral if he died to day so that tells something. Nothing redeeming at all for them in their relationships with him. One said i don’t hate him, i just don’t care. Lucky her eh. In his mind he makes up stories as to how wonderful he was to them, maybe just a little hard on them. yea right. Their introspection is bullshit, and they leave a path of destruction and will continue. kh
I never thought about the Stockholm syndrome to be honest but it kind of makes sense. He had complete control of my emotions and at this point, still has some. Every time I got to the point that I was breaking away and living fine without him, he would call and bring me back in. I am have to remain strong but I barely made it through today as I found out that I will have to pay one last bill of his to the tune of $140 and I am so cash strapped that I am really scared of where I will find the money. I realize that I became addicted to all his drama and that I have to remember the 12 steps. I am on step 1–admit that my life is out of control. I have surrender to a power higher than myself to get through this or I will drown if i don’t. There are evil people in this world who aren’t necessarily in prison or shot you with bullets, they kill you in another way that is subtle and just as dangerous.
yes Jell, i used to go to meetings not so much to fight the alcohol but to fight the urge to contact the s and i’d leave a meeting and be compelled to go righ t to his house. I was so as they say powerless, more so over him then the alcohol. Even tonight i sit and think the loser hasn’t even tried to contact me and then again i think , be dam grateful, but it’s the ego thing. Stupid thinking, or as they say stinking thinking. Truth is he never did care so why would he now. Dam it’s so frustrating eh. And yes i beleive they kill you little by little, i used to get downright scared shittl### over what i would be doing to myself physically and as one member of AA told me ” it’ was all self inflicted. We are powerless over them only when we have contact just like with the substance. It does get easier with the no contact but i kept going back like you and would sabatage any progress, it would be like an awakening and i’d have moments of exhiliration and then like you’d he’d contact me and i’d be back to scrapping the bottom again. Not worth it. kh
kindheart,
The funny thing is about meetings, I was going faithfully to Al Anon because I thought that that was the big part of the Spath”s problem. I got so much out of it because these people knew all about chaos and shame. But honestly, I knew there was a part of me that was the addict–I would always answer his calls or run to him when he wanted to see me. There is still a part of me that wants to know if he changed his phone number. There is a greater part of me that realizes that he is poison and I need to get it out of my system. Today was a step forward because I realized that every time he has done this, it just shows more and more people who he really is. When i get upset about him being with another woman, I try to focus on the facts–that he really can be a chameleon in his feelings, that his tears are manipulations, that he uses people to get what he wants, that he is weak and the reason he has no male friends, other than drinking buddies, is because they know he is a jerk, that any woman who is with him for any length of time will be hurt either physically or emotionally. He will spread his gift to the other woman, use her money and then find someone else as soon as she presses him to work, pay for something or even just to make a commitment to her. He is a shadow walker– he will burn in the light of truth. my truth is that I can free myself from the constant anxiety of whether he would leave me broke, whether he was cheating, whether he loved me like he said. Our last conversation, one of the last things he said to me was “I love you” so heartfelt and then he went over to his new woman’s house. I really think that he meant it in some really weird way because he has to convince himself that he has real feelings. That doesn’t mean that these little moments of light going on have made it easier to wake up and know that I can’t talk to him again–that is really causing very real emotional pain because I don’t have anyone really calling me to fill that void. I get really emotional when I wake up in the morning and I have to talk myself out of it all day. I try to stay very busy so that I fill the void. One day at a time. I did take away gems from the meetings and will go back because where else can you get support. There are not any “I lived with a Sociopath” support groups. There are co-dependants groups but even there they don’t touch on this type of codependancy. The person with an Spath is unbelievably codependant, probably dealing with the spath’s addictions whatever they may be, your own addiction to the person and all the incredible chaos of dealing with the police or danger of police contact when they get out of control..
I had years on and years off with this man. He pursued me ardently in the first year I met him, wanted to move in with me even though I was in a bitter bitter divorce, which i though was a little disturbing but he convinced it was because he wanted to be there for me. He left me when I moved two states away to be with him after six months only to move back in with his second wife. I left that home behind, all the money that I spent renovating it and moved back to my home state. I literally had just walked into my parent’s house when the phone rang and it was him. I remember my mother practically fighting me to not give me the phone but I answered. and promised to call him. then the pressure began to move in together again. Of course I had to get the house. Things were fantastic, then you would see a subtle change, the anger at little things, the secret phone calls. Then he would take off and go live with the second wife. Repeat this pattern multiple times. He has alway come back to me. part of me thinks that is because he does love me as much as he says but the “get real’ part says I am his go to girl nothing more. That really hurts to realize that is wasn’t love, I was just a landing pad until he formulated his next plan. Somedays the pain is so intense because I realize that I had the fantasy I would get love and all I have gotten is horrible emotional abuse. I know that he will end up in jail or worse. I know that he will at some point he will try to contact me again, if only to ask about a divorce paper but I pray that I will not even notice that he called because I will be in such a good place, it will be just like having an annoying telemarketing call and i can just delete him from my life.
Jell, in your post you have the answers and i think we all do it’s just as you said a fight against the compulsion to have the nice pretend guy we had inthe beginning, Pretend being the operative word. I was pretty down today just thinking of all the years i wasted on my s , the detective only 4 months but i often wonder wht could have been with someone else but i was sick emotionally myself and can’t change what has happened , it’ s such a vicious cycle we get into with these sorts and at times i felt like this site, even meetings were keeping the obsession alive but that wasn’t the truth, the site helped to reinforce what i already knew, just as your above post screams, you know it girl it’s just staying in the truth that is so hard for us. I read about the malignant opptomism that we have and i beleive it’s true, we want to beleive so badly that good prevails but we learn the very hard way that some people will never be good for us. I found that the s actually brought out the worst in me and i don’t need anyone who has the ability to do that to me as i want to be a good person. I’ve been thinking alot about the detective and his situation be cause it’s so similar to ours and the emotional abuse has been for over 2 decades and still with all he has told me and all that i’ve witnessed , there is still a small part of me that thinks he could be disordered as well prob, not but we almost look or appear that way if we stay with these types. He helped me to see myself in him , i had to see it with my own eyes even though i had been on this site for years i had to physically see his pain and see how disturbed he was to see how i had been affected as well and it wasn’t a pretty picture. Like you going back i remember feeling like a steam engine , i would want so badly to stay away from him but would not be able to stop myself from making contact almost just for the sake of not knowing what respose i’d get, the rejection or not rejection was so tempting. To give them all this power is where we make our mistake but then i don’t thinki we intentionally do this, it’s they unconsciously know how to take it from us. I remember the s in the very early stages saying i have a power, he didn’t really want to divulge as he said i’d prob laugh so i proded and he said “i have a power, i always have” and you know i stopped laughing when it came to be true. But i always held the key to the power but i just couldn’t seem to be able to let it go. Letting go of anything has always been a huge struggle for me, like a dog with a bone i think we are fighters at heart and that keeps us tangled in their web, our strengths get used against us. love kindheart
Forgiving the Psycho that comes into your life to screw you
thats a hard one.I believe that for our own healing process
we have to acknowledge the psycho experience, thank your lucky stars that you are here sharing, and let go of the memory, and the psycho.
Forgive yourself these psychos are sick people that come into your life to mess it up, they lie and cheat and steal from you, and they only care about themselves, once you get bit by one of these , you’ve got to stand up, and get them out of your life.
I think it’s very hard to forgive a person that comes into your life, and turns it upside down without any guilt or remorse, just
for the hell of it.
But once you figure them out, and confront them, and get them out of your life, and you run, time will ease the pain
and the most important thing is to let go.
I prayed and asked God to make me willing to forgive this
psycho, just so that I could feel better with me, and I can say that each passing day it gets better, at least I am free
psycho free
kindheart, you hit so many points for me. You are right when you say that after years of being with an spath that you become a very damaged person. I became so entwined that I was unable to see reality when I looked at him. I would lie to friends and family to cover up for him. I wouldn’t admit that he wasn’t working, that he had an arrest record, that he doesn’t have a drivers license. I became someone I didn’t know, someone I didn’t really like. And like you, I have a hard time letting go of people in my life- never before to this extent though. The temptation is there to see if his phone number still works but then I think really, what will that accomplish–so he can yell at me that I ruined his life, that I am a horrible person who he never wants to talk to again. I would have have to be crazy to put myself through that right? By the thought remains and that is why I know I am going to constantly have to remain viligant to remain NC. You know my spath used to tell me that I was such a strong person but on the other hand he loved it when I was hysterical over his cheating. He would laugh that I was so upset. I am sure he loves that he “got over on me” and was cheating and telling me at the same time that he loved me and was planning our move in together again. I think that he loves having two women who he sees as vying for him. It makes him feel like a man because he really isn’t one. I will never forget my deceased father telling me that he wasn’t a man. Daddy knew best and Dad was a real man.