Is this what it’s like to date a sociopath?

[xylophone]

Person I was seeing told me to read about Charles Sobhraj (there’s also the show on Netflix w him now) bc he was exactly the same except for killing people. What does that mean?

he’d told me he’s a sociopath and doesn’t form attachments, and doesn’t feel anything emotional period except for his son, but then there have been times he’s cut me off from sex bc says he feels guilty (as still married and never plans on divorce, it’s against his religion etc). Other times he’ll say ye doesn’twant sex bc he doesn’t want any type of closeness to another person but asking me for oral still ok. He’s very different in writing, might tell me in text he just wants to spend time w me then show up 30 min later and act cold and emotionless in person. Has never been the least bit Affectionate in person and willremove my hand if I am. Yet used to text he had strong feelings for me.

[Freeofnarc]

At least he’s honest about it I guess. My ex used God as a crutch when he was bored with me even though I never told him no in the bedroom and he was into some kinky stuff. Get away from that person. He doesn’t even pretend to feel emotion. I would not want to be with someone like that. All he does is use you and makes excuses. He texts you faking emotions because you can’t see his face. Actions speak a hell of a lot louder than words, especially with these guys.

[polestar]

Hi Xylophone –
When someone tells you they are a horrible person, and the qualities that they are describing are not something that you want in a relationship, then believe them and tell them that it is not what you want. Period. Don’t waste your precious time on a dead end – when you could have something beautiful with someone else. Aside from that, I advise you to make a rule never to get involved with a married man. From what I have read and heard, they always have some line about why they can’t get a divorce – but that is their problem, not anyone else’s. What has to happen no matter what they say, is that you will be forced into a triangle. And that brings on the issue of ” triangulation ” which is abuse and will definitely strangle any love out of the relationship at some point ( provided there was any there in the first place, as in love bombing ). It is inevitable. So, on all counts, the guy you have described is bad news from the get go. Be a person that you can be proud of when you consult your inner self. The more you treat yourself with self love by only allowing healthy, loving people in your environment, the happier you will be and the more you will feel good about yourself. People like the one you described will only destroy you no matter how joyous and together you may be going in, so that in time you would not even recognize your own self, so miserable and depleted you would become. I read somewhere, and I believe this to be true – your biggest struggle is to fight for yourself by believing that you are worth it. And you are.
Blessings

[amber318]

You’re right. I think you’re dating a sociopath.
Now I wonder if the sociopaths or psychopaths with personality deficits on narcissistic spectrum are just empty souls and shells of the same scripts and fake facades. I think action speaks louder than words, your ex (my ex,too) can claim as much love for you, but at the end of the day, you can feel it if he really means what he’s saying. Human beings strive for seeking consistency in information, myself included. It’s difficult to bypass blowing me off last-minute because my ex told me he was tired/too much gas and driving too far to see me (30 minutes of commute) when he texted me and face-timed me to say a million times of “I love you”. Do you find yourself at the crossroads where you either choose to believe him “I’m married, I cannot divorce for whatever reason” or lose confidence in yourself to make better judgment and discount your gut feeling
? That was me before. Millions of lies he told, I ended up choosing to lose myself, in order to believe him.

To me, normal functioning human beings are all capable and seek attachment and emotional bonding. How do you feel next to a zombie-like emotionless man, showing up late and removing your hand if you were showing affections towards him? I’m sorry that happened to you. I agree with Polestar. You should treat yourself with more self-love and more trust in yourself, then let healthy and caring people in your circle.

[Donna Andersen]

xylophone – Good advice from other Lovefraud readers. When someone tells you they are a sociopath, believe them. More importantly, get away from them. There is no point to the involvement and you may end up getting hurt and damaged – emotionally, physically, financially, sexually, spiritually.

Protect yourself and get away.

[xylophone]

How hopeless can I be that he told me he’s a sociopath, and actually did leave his wife and young child “for no reason” to move very far away years ago, and hadn’t gotten divorced and totally hides me, and yet I still swear he’s all that could make me happy?

[Freeofnarc]

Not hopeless my dear….you were hopeful. When my friend first told me my ex was a sociopath, I thought no way. It took me months to realize she was right. We are addicted to them. That’s why we feel the pull but we must resist. They will never change and we deserve better!

[xylophone]

Thank you- gosh I can’t imagine how hard that was for you- it was hard enough to believe when mine told me repeatedly from his own mouth that he was a sociopath and felt nothing for anyone … when your ex didn’t actually admit to anything of the sort how could you get yourself to take your friend’s assessment to heart and separate yourself from him?

[Freeofnarc]

We were on and off for a year and a half. I had to see with my own eyes that he cheated to believe it. Cheating to me is unforgivable. Once a cheater always a cheater. I looked up sociopaths after that and he actually is a psychopath. Even though I know he’s bad for me, I still feel that pull. He contacted me twice recently. I want nothing to do with him. But I took him back so many times that I’m sure he still thinks he can hook me again. I’ll most likely have to involve the authorities because I don’t see him leaving me alone.

[xylophone]

You sound so strong for being able to resist multiple attempts to reestablish contact. Once he told me he was interested in this other woman and would pursue her till he “got her” but then “not to worry, I’ll leave her too.” So I distanced myself but he reeled me back in. All he did was make some small talk then ask if I wanted to get f*cked. Seriously. I said “well you did all of this and then we barely spoke for a long time.” He said well that’s just like me, disappear then reappear. And what did I do? Go out w him again, no further discussion, certainly nothing resembling an apology. In fact he just told me that I was the one seeing other men first.. which I did bc he had shown 0 signs of commitment, was hiding me in public and still married, telling me we were only friends and it was still casual. But yet I was still the one who was wrong for having seen other guys even in public.

[Freeofnarc]

I got back with him so many times. But now enough is enough. He went too far. I realize he was probably cheating the whole time and I’m really lucky I didn’t catch something from him. They never admit they did anything wrong and always try to turn it around to our fault. We know they are bad for us but we still want them. It’s not an easy journey and I haven’t even really started to process all of the emotions yet. Some days I’m strong. Some days I don’t want to get out of bed. All while he’s out trying to lure new victims and he really doesn’t care about anyone but himself. But we are human. I’m not sure what they are but humans have emotions….they do not have them. So we suffer and it sucks but at least we know we are decent human beings.

[polestar]

Hi Amber and Xylophone – I think that the reason that we still want them back even after they have been so obviously abusive is for a few reasons – the first is that there is an addiction involved, and we have known about this and read about it too, but to actually break a compelling addiction is very difficult. That is what is so good about this forum – it is like having a recovery group to turn to just like AA or the others. The other reasons that it is so difficult to go and stay No Contact is that we are being overwhelmed with many things to contend with all at the same time. They are the shock of finding out the person is a sociopath ( even if they say they are ), it is a shock because it it such a new concept and something we were never brought up to understand in the least. It is just so alien, and we are struggling to learn about it all, and part of us still does not believe the concept is real and part of us is trying to convince ourselves that it is. So we have this inner battle going on. Then on top of that, we are so angry about what they did and the way they treated us and how they lied so we are dealing with a lot of rage. Lastly ( though I’m sure there are many more elements going on ), underneath it all is a huge loss – a heart breaking hurt – because we trusted them and we genuinely loved them and still do because we completely believed the love bomb stage. And this mourning of a huge loss is deep down under everything else and it is so different than other people’s losses. For example, if someone you loved died, and there was a funeral, and everyone was supporting you through your loss and acknowledged the great hurt, you’d feel a sense of consolation from that. But with going No Contact with a sociopath, everyone encourages you and tells you how great you are doing and what a rat they are and how much better your life will be without them ( which is true ), but the legitimate grief also needs to be seen and our heart wound needs to be known and a light brought to it from under all the other issues. So I do acknowledge how much you loved them and still do and that is the precious part of you.
Blessings

[polestar]

Ps I mean Angel because you are one and Amber is included too !

[xylophone]

Polestar- I cannot thank you enough for your post! So true, and I love how you acknowledge that our grief is real and valid even if everyone else scoffs, “who could ever miss or want a person like that?”. I spoke with my sociopath’s wife and her reaction was “ok cool, he’s playing with you too, don’t worry about me but worry about yourself bc you’ve been used.” That reaction should have been chilling – what great man was I ever thinking he was?!! – but even through that I missed him. Because I thought I saw better in him but as you know, that’s love and we felt it even when they would never ever return it.

[amber318]

Hi Xylophone,

It’s been almost a month since I started “No Contact” with the sociopath, shitface (as my best friend called him), con artist and ex boyfriend of almost 9 months. I broke up with him at least 3 times, he managed to reel me back into his sick game, crazy-making, manipulation and web of lies. Like you, I got back with him a few times. He only showed me his true colors – that he could never change, never have the capacity to love or form attachment. His ex wife left him when his kid was an infant – can you imagine that? He framed her as a cunt, always blaming someone for something. If he (your boyfriend)told you he’s a sociopath, believe him.

He’s been hiding you like a secret, disappeared and left his wife and kid to another state. Doest that sound like a responsible and honorable person of good character? He sounds exactly like my ex boyfriend. No sense of responsibility and commitment to anything. Sociopaths can never have a sense of reality, impaired functioning individual who cannot form attachment, any human bonding and zero regard of someone’s pain/suffering with lack of responsibility and commitment.

I’ve been blocking him for a month now, he’s not worth my breath. I deserve way too much better than a con artist with a fake facade. You are worth it and deserve so much better than your sociopathic boyfriend, please believe it.

I’m not perfect by all means but I guess I was attracted to narcissists and sociopath because of my weak self-confidence and minimizing sense of self. Before I met my ex, I had an ex husband (he’s a little bit mental with narcissistic traits) I was married to of 8 years. He would say exactly the same things and behaved the same with grandiosity/selfishness and avoidant attachment – basically emotionless and showed me zero affections after we got married. They both minimized my sense of self, after having heard the demeaning and toxic things along the lines of ” You are crazy, you make things up…you make my life miserable blah blah blah”. ” you made me do it, you made me…whatever”, “I’m the best you’ve ever had, you deserve nothing, no one would ever want you like I do”…guess what, I ended up being brainwashed, and believed both of them. I realized it was because I never had much self-esteem or confidence, let alone trusting my instinctive awareness of any sort. I had a very authoritative and controlling mom, so growing up, I never believed I was ever enough to her standards. If I didn’t do something she expected, she would threaten to disown me out of rage. I guess I was used to people being mean to me – that was before.

Until I finally decided to end the relationship with the sociopathic ex boyfriend, I started to read more about sociopaths, having the external support from this site and Polestar has been giving me a lot of encouragement especially; my therapist also helps me shape my sense of self and boost my confidence. I’m slowly healing with more self-love and enjoying life on my own. I’m content with my life right now, much more peaceful without toxic men (him and my ex husband).

My sociopathic ex recommended three of his favorite movies: “american psycho”, “american psycho 2” and “joker”. All these movies are themed around sociopathic psychopaths. It’s like having the sociopaths mask-off and finally get inside their sick head. It’s very refreshing and eye-opening to really understand the distorted mindset of sociopaths. I hope one day you can find your peace and realize your sociopathic boyfriend is not all that, and you really deserve much better and you will! You just need to believe it and focus on self-love and take care of yourself. Once you’re emotionally strong enough, no one would be able to use your weakness to exploit you for selfish gains.

Best wishes to you and Angel!

[xylophone]

Amber318, thank you for sharing a really inspiring and insightful story. You sound like such a strong woman, and I can’t believe your ex recommended that you view Joker because mine literally dresses up like him and films videos behind closed doors, where he’s sometimes doing dark things. So interesting that both of our exes recommended popular media to help us understand them- is it about being unapologetic for being a sociopath, wanting to feel absolved of responsibility for all the hurt they cause, or wanting us to truly understand and “connect” with them since it’s isolating when they realize no one does?

[amber318]

Hi Xylophone,

I just want you to know, what and how you’re feeling is exactly what I felt like: months of suffering from conflicting information: either trusting myself or believing his lies and the fact that he could not ever feel any emotions let alone feeling loved, somehow after he met me, he suddenly felt love. He was walking around faking with everyone including his ex wife, current wife and his entire family. I believe I was the unicorn, the exception. I know you still really love your boyfriend, despite that he’s dressed up like the “Joker”, you still really love him and you truly trust him and want to heal his pain. You’re a great woman and very caring. It’s not a question of why your boyfriend chooses to stay married and continuously chooses to hurt you and see you in the state of frustration and confusion with a lot of hurt. Sociopaths don’t care.

What dark things does your boyfriend do? I hope he’s not an addict to substance abuse or alcoholic. Has he hurt you or abuse you in anyway? I’m very sorry you’re going through it. Sociopaths have zero regard for any social norms, laws and because of their inflated ego and entitlement of being above the law (they think they’re above and beyond any human beings), he will never follow the rules and laws that govern the society they are in. Your boyfriend is making such confessional state to absolve of any responsibility and literally having the “get out jail free card” and have you play by his rules in the relationship with him. He continuously stays married, and tell you how much he loves you and then gives you accounts of why he hasn’t divorced…if you accept the terms, this will be your presence and future of the relationship. Your boyfriend also tells you he cannot form attachment and playing the victim to get our sympathy, thus keeping the trauma bond going. He’s so hurt by the whole world, and wants you to rescue him and somehow bring him the happiness. At the same time, he’s hurting you badly. He will continuously mistreat you if you enable him. That’s what sociopaths do, they keep pushing your boundaries and see what else you can put up with. If you let them, their toxic behaviors and deception will have no bounds. You deserve so much better! I hope you’re doing well this evening.

[amber318]

Hi Polestar,

Thank you for the encouragement to all the readers of this forum. I really appreciate your kindness and caring. I think I would like to add “american psycho” and “joker” to my own healing list. Have you found any good movies worth to add to the “healing movies”?
Whenever I was thinking about messaging him about how sick he was, I would come visit Lovefraud. Watching those movies also helped me get in the minds of sociopaths to get into perspective.

Other than those suspense movies, I watched some comedy movies like “grownups” over the weekend. I’m slowly healing thanks to you and Donna’s LoveFraud website. I’m truly grateful to all of you.

[xylophone]

The Serpent on Netflix!! You will recognize the cold emotionless stare immediately!!

[nosp]

Something I heard in a class that applies to boys & men, healthy or disordered is at the START of an interaction/situation-ship/relationship with a girl or woman they will tell you things that are confessional in nature like ‘I’m not looking for anything serious’ or yes even ‘I’m a bad guy’ (or in your case ‘I don’t feel emotions & I don’t form attachments like other people because I’m a sociopath’) BECAUSE they are offering you terms for your future interactions.

IF you proceed with the interaction/situation-ship/relationship having heard their TERMS & CONDITIONS they believe their conscience (however stunted it might be) is clear, the blame shouldn’t attach to them (they ‘disclosed’ their ‘truth’) but to you instead BECAUSE you ‘accepted’ the disclosed terms & they believe you define things exactly the same way they do (idiosyncratically or unique to them, sure) & understand EXACTLY what they said & meant (which if you didn’t question them thoroughly, practically to the point of playing their therapist or mother, well, that’s ‘on you’).

If you proceed, you’re bound. You’ve accepted their rules & to their way of thinking you have surrendered any right to complain or modify the rules.

It’s a truly shitty game they’re playing, anyone who does this (it’s not just the extremely disordered, it’s more mildly afflicted people), but you don’t have to accept those rules & play along.

You can walk away (or run away in the case of a disclosure that’s anything from ‘I’m a bad guy’ to ‘I’m a sociopath’).

Now ‘Is he really a sociopath?’ isn’t the question you should be answering but rather ‘Do I want to keep interacting (in any way) with any person who makes these kinds of disclosures to me?’

I can’t answer for you, but *I believe you deserve better*. The way you get a better relationship is to go no contact with him & seek what you need, want & deserve from someone who won’t play these head games with you & will be happy to meet your needs & wants.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by nosp.

[xylophone]

Wow, that’s brilliant. Meanwhile when mine told me, right after the first time we’d been intimate, that he was briefly thrown out by his wife for inviting an ex to move to his new faraway city w him after he ditched his family “for no reason while they cried,” I thought it was so amazing that he was comfortable enough w me to make those disclosures. No, he was sh!t-testing me. Then when I reacted like I just wanted to help him, he realized that was a character he could play w me to get the results (sex, attention, validation) he wanted, so he kept playing the victim- “I’m just too badly broken to love again,” “I just have too much guilt and can’t leave my family even though I destroyed it all,” “I’m toxic to everyone,” etc

[polestar]

Hi nosp and Xylophone : nosp -what you said was absolutely brilliant ! Right on exactly. I think the issue is complicity. If someone cheats and lies behind your back, you didn’t know and though when you do find out, it is heartbreaking, you still have a degree of integrity. But if you act against your self after having been told the truth then the sociopath has created much greater psychological harm. But – this is for Zylophone – even when we know, they have so many heart manipulations and create so much confusion, and then act so charming, their ” terms and conditions ” as nosp so aptly called it, is easy to loose sight of. And they count on that in order to do so much more harm. Anyway, be sure never to blame yourself no matter what they do or say because just having any contact with them creates such a sick havoc and the only way to recover is to do exactly what you are doing -going No Contact. It’s so hard, I know, but we are all here supporting you.
Blessings

[xylophone]

Thank you so much for the support!! Very well-said!! He actually referenced that often- “I told you what I was,” “I’ve been telling you for years I don’t want any commitment or relationship w anyone,” but immediately follows it up with “I want to see you tomorrow” or even that I’m special to him. Comments that are distractors and breadcrumbs, but when you cut thru them all, you realize- you still are fundamentally at the same place where this guy hasn’t said he loved or wants any commitment at all to you, and (as I eventually discovered) has stayed married because it suits him!!

[polestar]

Hi Xylophone – I’m responding to your post about how you felt so much love for him, and how you felt he would never ever return it. You expressed exactly what so many of us have experienced. I had a post topic called ” healing movies ” describing different movies that helped me. One that depicted exactly this issue is called ” Almost Famous “. Sometimes it is healing to see something enacted that shows what we feel. Anyway, in this movie, there is such a touching scene when Kate Hudson ( the actress playing the part ), says so poinently ” why doesn’t he love me ?”. Of course you have to watch the whole drama to really feel what she said, but to me, it was just it. Anyway, I completely get what you said.
Blessings

[Author]

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