Donna Anderson’s important latest post reminds me that one topic which will never be worn out is that of the psychopath’s lies and their impact on others.
This week I want to very briefly introduce yet another take on this inexhaustible topic. Everyone lies, but there’s something else at stake in the case of the psychopath’s lies.
To illustrate: you might say about any regular (non-psychopathic) person, “Things would be better if s/he was to lie less often. Her/his soul or psyche would be healthier as would her relationships.” That’s true. Now try this on for size and notice how wrong it seems: “Things would be better if the psychopath was to lie less often. His soul or psyche would be healthier as would his relationships.”
Weirdly, this is patently not the case. The psychopath will be just as sick/evil no matter how many or how few lies he tells. It’s not a quantitative but a qualitative matter.
It is commonly said that a defining characteristic of psychopaths is that they are pathological liars. This is right if you mean that they are profoundly dishonest and not to be trusted. It does not mean, though, that psychopaths lie a lot. They do lie a lot and those lies cause havoc. But as I hope my illustration above shows, lying less will not make them better people.
So, how does this work? The thing about psychopaths is that even their truths are lies! Or rather, whether or not they happen to be telling the truth or a lie at any particular moment is not what makes them psychopathic. What makes them psychopathic is that they use and destroy people; truth or lies are for them just so many weapons for pursuing their prey.
M.L. Gallagher said a lot when she wrote this:
He is the lie….
From hello to good-bye. I love you to I hate you. You’re beautiful to you’re ugly.
It was all a lie….When friends or my family ask, but what about this, or what about that, I tell them. It was all a lie. There was no truth in him.
If I spend my time trying to figure out fact from fiction, all I am doing is trying to prove I wasn’t so stupid. See, this was true. That’s why I fell in love with him.
Truth is. I fell in love with him because I believed his lie.
When I discovered the truth, I was so enmeshed in his lie, I couldn’t find the truth in me. And so I sank.
Okay, so I JUST found out that my love of 25 years (on and off) is a total sociopath. However, against type (from what i’ve read), he is very respected in the community as a teacher and dean of a high school, has many long-term friends, and does love people. He just doesn’t love me. He is married (two kids), has another kid with a fling from 10 years ago, and after living with me for six years (except on weekends), has just confessed to not only cheating for the last year, but getting her pregnant. So, he’s leaving me and his wife (they had an ‘understanding’) to be with his ”really hot, stylish girl who is my true spiritmate(this a slap in my face — that was MY title). He withdrew all affection and sex from me three months ago. Said he was going through a hard time. And now, without apology, discussion or explanation, he is gone. Not a reflection on how good I was to him, not an ‘I’m sorry I hurt you’ … nothing. He just told me the truth (finally), said he was a dog and a piece of shit, and said, ”well, i guess i just have to start my new life now with my beautiful new girl and our baby” as though he were telling me he just got a new dog!
I’m devastated and grieving … how could I have been so stupid? I feel used, played, dissed, abused and abandoned. I was faithful and loyal to him in every way for 16 years.
What the hell??!?!?!?!?!!?
Hi LostinGrief,
Many of these men appear to be upstanding citizens with positions of power or clout.
He sounds like he loves himself more than he loves people. If you follow your own line, “He does love people” then you will have to stomach that he just doesn’t love you. OUCH! After all you gave!!! I propose he doesn’t really love anyone. Do you know any other loving person who has multiple women, by special arrangement, baby’s here and there and then a goodbye like the one he gave you? I really don’t think there is a normal loving guy out there that would expect several women to put up with sharing his affections like that.
I am sorry he dismissed you the way he did. That’s a sure sign that there was something about him that you missed. Don’t worry Lostingrief. You are in good company here.
Don’t beat yourself up over this. And don’t be surprised if he knocks on your door in a few months and starts to jerk at your heart strings. Make a decision now not to let him back in the door no matter what he says. He might say he’s sorry or he might come back and tell you all that you meant to him. If he does that, check in with yourself and see if there is something for him to gain from doing that. Simply letting him back in the door is a win for him.
We always talk about No Contact here at LoveFraud. If you haven’t read that, I suggest you read the section called: LEAVING A SOCIOPATH.
I know he “left” you but it’s best to be prepared for his attempt to return which I guarantee will result in more pain and confusion for you than anything else.
Good luck… and hang in there.
Aloha
NewWorld:
“how about this?? how many of your exs called you honey or sweetie or another nickname?? is it because they had so many women, they were afraid they might call one by anothers name???”
How true…My N called ALL of us “Kiddo”. He liked to call me “Baby Girl” too.
During our last round, when we weren’t exclusive, he would often be on the phone as I walked up his stairs – every time he would say, “Bye Kiddo” and hang up as I came through the door – still swearing he was dating but not having sex with anyone else.
So, I started ringing his doorbell when I showed up – even though the door was unlocked. Of course, he would be on the phone with Lisa (his most recent acquisition), and would tell her I was the pizza guy or the neighbor when she asked who was at the door.
I couldn’t help myself it was too funny! I guess he didn’t realize I could hear him as I came up the stairs.
When she called me up to yell at me on Jan 3rd, about how horribly I had treated him, I left a message at her house, “By the way, when you’re on the phone with him and his doorbell rings – it ain’t the pizza guy, it ain’t the neighbor, Kiddo, it’s me. So, don’t think you are the only one or that he’s your guy. There are at least six of us.”
I was pissed. How dare this woman who I’ve never even met call me up and start yelling at me to never call his house or number again. I felt obliged to tell her that he had wanted me to spend Christmas with him because all the rest of the girls, including her, were busy.
I was calling what I thought was an empty house. I figured it was safe to leave a message as he was out of town. NOT! She was sitting there and called me back to yell. Then he calls me from Vegas asking why I had called her.
“I didn’t, and I was polite and said I’d call back later and hung up. She called me and started yelling – not me.”
He apologized saying, “That’s not what I was told, but okay, I’m sorry for bugging you.” He knows I wouldn’t lie about who called who.
I sent him an email – called him a psychopath, a coward, and a bunch of other things, and he told me to never contact him again. I haven’t heard a word from either of them since.
Here’s to you, Kiddo!
pb:
My S’ trademark was “Hey, there”. I could never admit to myself when we were together how depersonalized that made me feel.
Matt: Looking back, I can see there was one time I really came out on top with my P….though it was entirely unintentional. Right at the end of this conversation on the phone where he thought (correctly, ugh) that he had wrapped me around his finger, I accidentally called him the wrong name (probably because he was acting atypically sweet, so my subconscious probably thought it MUST be this other person who IS sweet…LOL)…I immediately realized my mistake and said: “I’m so sorry, I was just feeling so loving the wrong name came out because..well, I just mean…”. And I basically stuttered a bit. I forget exactly what he said in response but I could tell I had just ruined the effect he was going after and had thrown him off his game.
And going back to the original post, it is so true. They ARE the lie. That is why you can never “win” with a P…they just change reality to better suit their mood. He just wasn’t quite glib enough to handle my unexpected response that was such an insult to his sense of entitlement and grandiosity and his manipulative skills.
LOL about calling him the wrong name! And then telling him that for a minute he reminded you of someone really sweet……..ha ha ha couldn’t have planned it better than that.
I really think to win over a P, it takes a village. If my P were to end up in prison, it will be because of the army, three of my friends, and a few other contacts who all banded together to bring him down. And the likelihood is that will get off with a slap on the wrist anyway.
You are right about it takes a village. There is a relative who is a P, in my opinion, and he was treating me like a total ass….it was totally unbelievable what he was demanding of me. I refused, and it took 4 other family members, including his normally docile wife, confronting him to make him back off. Even with all that, he reframed it all later to make it look like he had done nothing wrong, but basically we all just ignored him at that point.
Hope yours get his. I helped do a sting on a woman for fraud and severe, horrible animal abuse. She basically got her wrist slapped. Then we orchestrated the EXACT SAME STING a year later, and she arrogantly fell for it again. Then she served prison time for several felony counts. Now she is out and has totally conned her probation officer and is back at it behind his back! So even when they do get punished, you still don’t always have the satisfaction you want.
Any power hierarchy (like the army) I think has the potential to be abusive.
Thanks, part of my anxiety I think is that I feel so helpless to fight the dysfunctional system or to expose him. So I am just trying to focus on the apartment I’m coveting and hope his memories will just go away. He was gone I thought for good. But he just keeps coming back like a piece of toilet paper on the bottom of my shoe.
oh wow. i just got off the phone with a friend who was running down some of the insanity he just finished going through with his emotionally unstable GF. he has a very good grasp on the whole thing and never lost his clarity…she was not sociopathic but much of the behavior (especially the pathological lying) is similar… and the fact that she kept coming back, trying to get him to take her back, each time acting OK for a day or two before behavioring in an even sicker manner than the last. and he would believe her, take her back, get burned again and say never again. i know the heartbreak of that. i’m floored at much of a trigger it was to listen. i am 4 years out today-and still have never come to terms with any of it. especially my reactions to the abuse. by the time my psychopathic x-H had kicked up the mind-bending and abuse to monsterous levels (i was physically sick and he had succeceded in getting me to come home to work things out) he had twisted everything so completely backwards that i still doubt my sanity today. it was me being thrown out into the street on whims, after he had drained all the money from my bank accounts and i had no where to go (after i had supported us both financially for most of the relationship)…it was me begging him to let me come home, as though i were the one messed up. i was the one, being dictated to, how i should act to prove i was ‘sane’, it was me, told over and over how mentally ill i was, as i whirled around the chaos he had made of my life, trying to adapt, not understanding what was happening or why and wondering when i had lost my mind, what had happened to my life. any tips on dealing with the triggers that bring up the whole questioning of your own sanity? thanks, stunned
Dear stunned,
I don’t think we can ever really grasp what sociopaths are about. It is too sinister for our minds to grasp. All the lying and gaslighting is designed to make you doubt your sanity. This is not about you being crazy. You are the victim of a sociopath. What you’re going through sounds like a normal reaction to an abnormal situation. It probably will take a while to find your own inner voice again–the voice that lets you know who you are. You have been through a lot of trauma. Be good to yourself and keep blogging here. You are not crazy, and no one here will think you’re crazy. Lots of people here have been through the same stuff.