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.
Eden and Oxy,
Really interesting idea. Often when I post here, I’m just posting stream of thought and all the concepts aren’t completely integrated. So your comments reminded me of something else:
When I was still friends with my P-sis and her trojan horse spath husband, I would visit them. Even then my whole family agreed that being in the spath husband’s presence was onerous. I told my parents, “I feel like I need to take a shower after visiting them”. Their house is clean, it isn’t that. It’s the feeling of being slimed. My parents agreed.
My BF had an N mother. BF’s step-brother had never met her until the last year of her life. After that first encounter, in which she railed and raged, BF and step-bro left. As they were seated at a bar, the step-bro was discussing the encounter. He shuddered and said, “get it OFF me!”
Our nervous system does “get” it. It isn’t always fear, sometimes it’s disgust. We should listen. Why don’t we? Why do we over-ride disgust?
In January 2007 I met who I thought was the man of my dreams. He was charming, attentive, spoiled me rotten and made me feel like I was the best thing that ever happened to him and the sex was great and often. He used to tell me that he “fell in love with me the first time he saw me”. Over the next 6 months he became friends with my father and we spent weekends together. He would come to Maryland or I would go to NC. We were engaged in 6 months and married 11 months later. Before we got married, I asked him in my garage one day how many times he has been married, there was 2 that I knew of, but just asked. He told me 5. I almost died. He then convinced me that they all cheated on him and were horrible to him. I believed him and went on with the wedding. The trouble started on our wedding night, he didn’t want sex. I was insulted but just thought it was a long day. I purchased a house in NC where he stayed during the building of the house. The mortgage went in my name because he was self employed and owned the land we were putting it on. After that, he wanted to upgrade his Harley. I told him I could not afford the house, car and motorcycle. He told me that he talked to the Lord and He would provide and that he would make all the payments. I agreed. Over the next 3 years my life was miserable. He never helped pay one bill in the house, he never made a motorcycle payment. I was robbing Peter to pay Paul. If I asked him for any help at all it would turn into a 3 week fight where it ended up that I was crazy. In the 3 ½ years we have been married, we have had sex about 20 times (before marriage, that was a week). We would go out and he would be hugging every woman in the place, but would never even speak to me. We had many arguments which resulted in him making false police calls to keep me in line. He would twist everything I ever said. In public, he was Mr. Wonderful and at the home, he was Mr Nasty. He belittled everything I did. He even tried to have me arrested because I wanted to go see my mother at Christmas. He lied to police and told them I assaulted him. They did not believe him, but it was still another false call to the police. The only time he was nice is when I planned on leaving. He finally moved out Feb 1, 2011 because he is working for Racing Electronics on the NASCAR circuit and I am out of money.
Over the last few months, I have done some research. His previous wives have all gone thru the same thing I did, he goes thru their money and when its his turn to contribute, he leaves, calls them crazy and is verbally abusive. He has left all of them in debt and never has helped any of them. He has an ex girlfriend that luckily didn’t marry him, but she bought him a truck he never made payments on, she repossessed it and kept it. She was smart.
He also has a son he never supported and I found out he has a daughter that he signed away his rights to because he didn’t want to pay child support. She lives in the same town and he has never even wanted to see her. He said she’s not his but HE refused a paternity test (and she looks just like him and his son).
Also none of his wives ever cheated on him, it was the opposite. So now I am $120,000 in debt and he is traveling around the US looking for victim #7. If I try to talk to him about anything he is abusive and tries to make it my fault. He will never help with the debt he incurred and the house is being foreclosed. Well I know its not my fault. He is a clear sociopath and I just hope other women don’t fall for his con.
Eden,
I think you’re doing SO WELL! I like your plan of action too.
I’ll send good thoughts your way!
Your positive attitude and open sharing encourages me.
I’m really glad you’re here 🙂
Have a great day Eden!
LL
Hi everyone… I need help… I hope telling my story will help me feel better…. I met a guy that I worked with, and I have NEVER dated anyone from work. I have been in a few relationships that werent the best and I should have walked away from but never did. This guy was charming and sweet. Everyone around the college (where we work) would talk so highly about him. He did not want to talk about the past and that was ok with me. We started sleeping together in April and dating in June, the sex was amazing, the best I have ever had. he suprised me on a family VACA and took me away to the bahamas as well as mini roadtrips. In august he claims to have gotten into a fight, arrested and released all in one night. I believed him and believed he had to complete community service evry sunday. I never met hisp arents, he told me that only girl has met them ( high school GF) he is 31 and lives with them. I accepted the fact he may not be ready. We talked baout marriage and kids and he told me he loved me and Iwas the person for him. i became suspicous of teh service and the fact he never kept his phone on ring and never used it in front of me. We live anout an hr and half away from each other. It turns out all that i suspected was true. he was cheatign in me with his ex and lying about the srrvice. He went as far when I caught him to blaim his dad for sleeping with her as well as tryign to tell me he was molested by his dad. He told me he never loved me, didntm ean what he said and should have broke up with me a long time ago. I just dont get it. A wk before i caught him he was telling me in a card how he cant wait for a future with me, blah blah blah. Now he doesnt look at me, talk to me, shows no remorse. I dont know if this is a sociopath, but i feel he is. How do you lie for a yr about your feelings? How do I get over this…
Thank you, LL, I truly appreciate your words of encouragement, and I am so glad that I am able to encourage you, as well!
Off I go, now… I will let you know if I run into P.
E
njgalinnc, i just read your story and am appalled with what your S has put you through… though hearing the way he has maneuvered through your life is nothing new, as many here on LF can probably attest. I can relate to being called “crazy” whenever you’re onto something… onto their bullshit or onto uncovering what’s under the mask. They really don’t care about ANYONE, not even their own children ( his daughter, as you have explained ). Not human. Welcome to LF, i wish you best on your healing journey. There are a lot of great, important articles here, as well as a very supportive community where i hope you will feel safe. Glad to have you here.
Hi everyone:
Im a bit shaken today for a couple reasons…however, I NEED to gain an understandign of something…
Ive gone over this in my head lots and cant seem to come up with any resolution and REALLY feel bad today.
After movign in together, my ex and I had a noticable decrease in sex. He was always the initiator, and had ‘asked’ me in about December to start coming on to him. Much happened from Dec on in which I was VERY preoccupied…my grandma died and he an dhis son moved in. I remember the NIGHT of my grandmas wake him wanting to have sex with me. I was OFFENDED that he would ask…I needed comfort and sex was NOT on my mind. I said no… (this was early January).
We had sex a couple times after that as we were pretty much fighting…all the time. It seemed as though stress had taken a toll…
I made a conscious decision to change my OWN behavior in late January because I clearly could see how MY behavior was impacting the relationship. Early Feb I was on my game! Except now he wasnt…all that he had been ‘asking’ me to do before he was now REJECTING my attempts. My feelings had gotten CRUSHED…to the place where I then began ALMOST begging him for attention and affection…and my irritation with his son increased as I saw how LOVEY, KIND, CARING he was to him…and I was almost BEGGING for the same things just to get the response “Youre not gonna get the response you want until you start acting better.”
This went on, and on, and on, and on…NEVER in my life have I felt I needed to BEG someone for attention or affection…
When he left me, he said these words…and I will NEVER forget them…
“I love you…Im not in love with you and I just reslized that on my way home from work tonight”…”Im not attracted to, interested in or feeling you”… “I dont even know if I like you”
OMG! So here I wonder…had he REASLLY become unattracted to me after dating for 4.5 years…or just trying to hurt me badly…
…or am I in denial?
Babe,
I do understand the begging for attention/affection. But that’s part of the game. The approach/avoidance stuff, but more avoidance than approach, I think. That is a VERY painful place to be. And a crazy making one as it’s MEANT to be by them. It’s a way to control you.
What you perceive as his “Lovey, kind, caring” was nothing more than manipulation towards his son. Son is trophy boy and your ex is cultivating him like a prim rose to be JUST LIKE HIM. That’s all that is. I understand that it’s SO HARD to see another perspective other that what you see and how you felt because you DO feel.
Somehow, some way, you’re going to have to try really super hard to get your mind wrapped around the reality that what he said and what he did doesn’t mean A THING. He doesn’t “love” he doesn’t “care”, he isn’t “kind”. That projects onto him normalities in feeling that DO NOT exist.
He wasn’t attracted to you and he wasn’t unattracted to you. When he says something nice, it’s not true, when he says something mean, it’s not true.
You did hit on an important point and one to keep in mind “Or just trying to hurt me badly…..”
Yep. You’re getting it. That is exactly what they do. And they feel not one thing in doing it either. It’s meant to hurt you and undermine you. Again, the stuff he says that you’ve posted here are so similar to the things my spath said, it’s uncanny.
It was never about you Babe, it was always and will ALWAYS BE, about HIM.
LL
nagalinnc,
Welcome to Love fraud—I’m sorry that you had to go through this horrible situation in order to “qualify” for membership in our “club.”
I hope you will stick around and read and learn more about how to heal and recover from this horrible man. You are NOT alone in your recovery. You will find people here who GET IT. God bless.