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.
Ox Drover:
Yep, that is definitely my spath…has that wife and kids just to look good. He’s a businessman…has a very good executive job at the huge company I worked for. So he has to keep up that image. It’s all about failure…a divorce to him would mean him being a failure and he’s NEVER going to let that happen. He will always come out on top. UGGHH. I still have a lot of anger. I have come a long way, but still have a long way to go. And I think he is very bored with the wife and kids, but he needs to keep up the image so he drinks I think to deal with that. I know what you are saying when you talk of the fantasy…believe me, I did want this man so much, but I know it was just a fantasy. I wonder all the time what it is like to be his wife…what does she really go through??? I don’t know…I still kick myself because I tell myself that it must be somewhat good with him and then tell myself to just STOP! Because I have no idea what her life is like…she could be miserable and probably is. But the “outside” looks good, you know what I mean? I have been trying to focus on the real things in my life, the good things. And I’ve also had to figure out what those even are. There are a few friends that I don’t care to really talk to anymore because I lost all the warm, fuzzy feelings I had for them because they made me feel so bad about this relationship. They were only judging me and to me, that is not a friend. And I am good to myself…I exercise all the time, eat well, pamper myself, etc. Ox Drover…another thing you said popped out at me. This was more than just a normal break up. More than just a relationship that came to a proper end or ran its course. I was BETRAYED and not only by him, but by the girl in my office who was also seeing him who was swearing to be my FRIEND. So not only was I taken by one person, but by two. It has been Hell to heal from this, but my friends just think I am crazy. Oh, well. There is nothing I can do, but move on and I am doing that.
Kim Frederick:
Yes! You are so right…he is definitely getting something from the marriage or he wouldn’t be there. Even if it comes down to not wanting to give up everything financially…there is something there. It’s funny you say that because I told him that exact same thing when I wrote him a letter in January. Get this…he had told me that he is not the “marrying kind.” Ha, then how have you been married for 18 years?? So when I wrote the letter in January, I told him that whether he wanted to believe it or not, the marriage was fulfilling some type of need for him or he wouldn’t be there. Oh, dear, we are all so smart! 🙂 Oh my…you are so right about Trauma Bonding! I Googled it and that is definitely his wife. She will never leave him and he KNOWS it! He has her brainwashed…it’s crazy.
darwinsmom:
Wow, this lovebombing stuff is soooo right on. I can’t believe it!! And you will not believe this…when you talked about the intimate voice…he’s British! So you can’t even begin to imagine this all on top of this most incredible accent you have ever heard! He is EXTREMELY charming…charms everyone in his path. Sh&t…no wonder I am/was hooked!!! I became so addicted to him it wasn’t even funny. Thank you so much for the suggestions of how to substitute this by thinking of a past love, etc. It is helpful…thanks a million. You all on here are becoming very valuable to me because you GET it and all experienced it.
KatyDid:
Yes, I agree with you. I do realize I keep trying to ascribe rational meaning to all of this when there is none. You are right…this was a really screwed up person who screwed up my life in return. He even admitted that to me…he said, “I really fu%&ed up your life.” That’s interesting about how your husband could fool some of the people all of the time, etc. In the end, I think I became the last one…he has realized he cannot fool me so he really doesn’t want to mess with me. I am too much work…haha! Yep, I understand that whole back burner syndrome and wanting to keep me on the line for future use. I never really took him back. We have never really gotten back together as I said in my earlier posts because we have never had sex again. To me, getting back together and re-establishing a relationship only happens if you are intimate again and that hasn’t happened with us. I hate to admit it, but since I am an honest person, I will say that I was the one who seemed willing to go there again; after all, I absolutely, totally loved him and wanted him. So I really did want to, but he just kept holding me off…push/pull, push/pull. Would contact me and say he wanted to be with me and then just never set up a concrete time; would ignore future contacts, etc. And this is when HE was the one to initiate contact. I still couldn’t figure that out, but I guess it is the back burner syndrome.
All:
Please keep the advice and words of wisdom coming…thank you…xx
My ex had a cracked voice… deep and hoarse like you couldn’t believe. But I’m glad I havent heard it anymore for 3.5 weeks now
Mine had a speech impediment, couldn’t say Birmingham. Pronounced it bineman, lol lol lol. He also hated the fact he was aging, balding and had no social/life skills outside smoking weed and the pub. He’s so sad, hahaha.
x
Mine had two voices, the sweet one and the normal one. The sweet was false of course.
Mine also knew he was becoming old but he’s flexible and if he doesn’t hunt younger he hunts older and if there are no women he does hunt men. Nothing worries him! He’s happy, he says.
Eva he sounds vile, makes me feel sick. xx
Yeah, missmelly, he is a vile psychopath, a full-blown one.
Eva:
Sounds like the one I know. Married almost 20 years, very successful at work; has also had the same job about 20 years, yet he is lazy and unreliable…how does that happen? I suspect because people enable him as you say…his wife, his bosses, etc. UGGHHHH!
eb92044
I wonder exactly the same. And yes i think they function at the expenses of others. Others sacrify themselves for him.
Why some people do this, i don’t know it.
I understand he charmed his wife because he has been a very handsome man, still is an attractive man of 50. But he’s poisonous and i know his wife tried to abandon him, however, she hasn’t done it yet.
In his work i know, because he told me, some people don’t like him hahaha logically, but his boss doesn’t fire him and he arrives late, invents flu, headaches and don’t go to work some days.
Eva:
Yeah, this guy will be 44 in a few weeks (no super young chicken), but is very yummy. Very fit and small stature. Light hair, blue eyes. His wife also kicked him out a few years ago after she found out about one of his many affairs, but he she took him back after a year of being away and as far as I know, he is still there. She will always take him back. They have two children and I am sure it is extremely hard not to have him there. Sigh. As far as work, this guy does not miss work. He is rarely sick and does not miss days, but he is unreliable in other ways at work. He is a boss though; has many, many people under him, but he also has a boss to answer to so who knows.
eb92044
Mine married with almost 30 after being travelled like a hippy all around Europe, and then he decided in cold mind that it was time to study design, get a job and to marry a nice, ignorant woman. So he chose his wife, who is 2 years younger, who was raised in a city next to the one he was raised. They’re both German, from the south very close the Swiss border. So he went to work in Basel, 50km from their German city. He put her pregnant three consecutive times. The last one she aborted because she wanted. She tried to abandon him when their two children were very little, but he managed to take her back.
He had a company he didn’t want to speak about too much. After 5 years he went out…My guess is that he commited fraud. Since the company he took a job as graphic designer in a little company that it’s in a big building in which there are other companies related with construction and architecture.
He must be there now 10 years. And he’s not fired so far…
When i meet him he told me they were going to have a divorce because she was having an affair with a French man. He in fact seemed he was living alone in Basel but they didn’t divorce and he was always delaying it putting several excuses. I think that maybe he had already had that apartment since long ago. Maybe they both made that agreement: to keep married and some relationship for the sake of appearances while they lived almost separated lives.
What i know is that he used his marriage as an alibi in order to be not caught by another woman.