Lovefraud recently received the following letter from a reader:
My ex has almost all the characteristics I have read on your site. He lies habitually, is financially irresponsible, and lets the burden fall on friends and family, and he started to burden me from the beginning financially on a small scale. I had hints in the beginning that he was a jerk when he disrespected my father (I wasn’t sure at the time if it was on purpose, or inadvertent), but at the same time it was confusing because he seemed so pleasant, helpful and charming. He also cooked for me every night and helped me with my kids, but as far as work goes, he was lazy and lied about working at times. He borrowed small amounts of money from me, which I stopped lending him right away; I was not stupid about him in that respect. At the end he lived with me for 4 months, and never contributed much financially, that’s one reason I ended it finally. And the lying got to be too much; I don’t know what I was thinking. I do not know of any infidelity, but I suppose it’s possible.
His family actually admitted to me that he lies all the time, that’s just him. He finally admitted it to me in a round about way that he does lie, but he said that his family finds it “endearing” of all things!!
He also got psycho when I broke it off, just like in your article — he even admitted himself to the hospital complaining of heart problems. He was there 2 days and was then sent home as being fine, and they sent him home with Xanex. While he was there he called me for pity, saying he was there because I broke up with him.
But what throws me off a little is that he appears to be, if anything, abnormally attached to his daughter. It seems overbearing at times. Later in our relationship I saw sometimes total disregard for her in other less obvious ways, which I found off. The other thing that throws me off is he was very physically affectionate with me, and very clingy, almost codependent that way. And he does have friends from childhood who live out of state (who I have met) but he’s lived in Florida for about 10 years and has no real friends here. He is very close with his family.
Could he still be a sociopath???
Psychopathy syndrome
Psychopathy, also called sociopathy, is a syndrome. A syndrome is defined as “a group of symptoms that together are characteristic of a specific disorder, disease or the like.”
The key symptoms of psychopathy, according to Dr. Robert Hare, are the following:
- Glib and superficial
- Egocentric and grandiose
- Lack of remorse or guilt
- Lack of empathy
- Deceitful and manipulative
- Shallow emotions
- Impulsive
- Poor behavior controls
- Need for excitement
- Lack of responsibility
- Early behavior problems
- Adult antisocial behavior
However, not all psychopaths have all the symptoms. Plus, psychopaths can have the symptoms to varying degrees. For example, some—perhaps the one described in the letter—may not have a pronounced need for excitement. They may be content to find some chump to support them and then sit on their butts. But if the person had all the other traits—well, he or she may very well have the personality disorder.
Holding on to hope
I’ve heard from several Lovefraud readers who seem to be holding on to the hope that a person is not a psychopath because he or she doesn’t exhibit one of the behaviors. One woman said that although her boyfriend exhibited all the other traits, he never tried to get money from her, so maybe he wasn’t really a psychopath. Another wrote that her boyfriend would kiss her with what seemed like such depth of emotion—how could he be lacking in empathy?
One of the markers of a budding psychopath is that as a child, he or she is cruel to animals. My ex-husband, James Montgomery, seemed to love animals. He owned several dogs and took mine for a walk every morning. He brought home four exotic pets—a hedgehog, two sugar gliders, and a chinchilla. Once the chinchilla got loose and caught his foot in a humidifier, which sent him into shock. My husband performed chinchilla CPR, and the animal recovered. Did any of this make him less of a psychopath? Absolutely not. He was quite happy to take a quarter million dollars from me, cheat on me throughout our short marriage, have a child with another woman and then commit bigamy to marry her.
Don’t quibble about one missing trait
So, here is how I replied to the letter above:
There are degrees to which someone can be a sociopath—some are worse than others. It is also possible to have several personality disorders or conditions at the same time. This is called “co-morbidity.” Your ex definitely sounds like he has sociopathic traits, but he could also have other problems.
The attention paid to his daughter could be for show. Sociopaths often act like they care—when it is all a charade. The fact that he also disregarded her is telling.
Sociopaths are highly sexual. It may be difficult to tell whether there was actual affection involved.
Whatever his problems are, it is good that you are away from him.
If someone has come into your life who has most of the symptoms of a psychopath, don’t quibble about the one or two that may not be very pronounced. When most of the traits are present, run, don’t walk, for the nearest exit.
Hi,
Well if this is the case then I am afflicted with the same issues myself wouldn’t you say?
I try really hard to live a normal life, but I just can’t for some reason.
I have lied and manipulated people.
I have lived with my ex as a roommate and at first really contributed but as my situation deteriorated, I have become financially insecure.
I do think I feel love, but at times I am not sure if it is just that the other person makes me feel good or that they are useful to me in some way.
I don’t have many friends and the ones that I do have I am jealous of most of the time or always finding some fault with them.
I did start fires as a kid though I was never ever cruel to animals. I do cry when I see animals in trouble or being mistreated.
I certainly have impulse control issues.
I have guilt to a certain extent when I do something wrong unless I can justify it some way – ie the other person deserved it or I didn’t know what I was doing at the time.
How does one get away from oneself in this instance?
I feel empty and hopeless if I am not in control of a situation or the center of attention.
I don’t like to be in crowds of people and tend to stay away from parties.
I get depressed quite often.
Am I doomed to live like this forever?
Holehearted,
You are not a sociopath. A sociopath does not feel the distress and pain that you are feeling.
You are feeling the aftermath of your time with the sociopath.
Now it’s time to leave him behind and take care of yourself.
Everyone is discussing the inner triangle. DBT is a treatment that I would suggest you look into hoehearted. DBThelps people strengthen their impulse control. If you have impulse control, you can begin to make good choices and develop greater ability to love.
holehearted
You don’t sound like a bad person to me. You have introspection and you seem to feel bad about the things that you’ve done; those two things alone show that you are human. I think the mind is perhaps more complex than it is given credit for, and just because you have at times behaved badly, it does not mean that your soul is rotten.
Everyone messes up at times in life and behaves badly. If there is something you’ve done that’s bad, can I suggest you try to make ammends for it? Say sorry, show who ever you’ve hurt that you care, pay back money, take responsibility for things that you’ve done wrong and seek help so that you can prevent similar hurtful situations arising again. You might find that doing that restores your self respect and once you feel better about who you are and respect yourself more, you’ll probably find you respect others more too.
Am I wrong in wanting to expose my psycho? He infected
me with HPV-16, I am pre-cancerous and have to have a
biopsy every three months til who knows when. His previous wife did get cervical cancer from him. Of course he told me he didn’t know he had it but in reality, he’s had it for more than 30 years.
Is there a legal way to stop him from infecting anyone else? Is there a website where I can warn other women?
He has stopped all communication with me and I’m so
ANGRY. He thinks I’m the sicko because I’ve been acting so irrationally since I met him 2 years ago. Why should he move on to someone else and commit the same crimes?
I can’t help it; I want to cause him pain.
Shoot! I forgot to add that he collects $45,000.00 a year in disability payments because he got a diagnosis
of bi-polar when he was in the army 30 years ago. He is so much more than bi-polar, in fact, he isn’t even on meds for that. He’s addicted to benzos, and got me addicted to them shortly after I met him. He told me it would help me sleep. I went through hell getting off of that nasty drug. I had no idea of the dangers. Now I realize that he used the benzos to make me dependent and weak. Is this not a crime?
smellycat;
I don’t know of any websites that expose people who carry around STD’s. You might want to try datingpsychos.com. I listed my pscho there back in July, but really, how many women look for those sites. I won’t because frankly, right now I can’t stand the thought of even having a light conversation with a man, let alone a DATE!
These people, the psychos, they seem to know by instinct, what they can do to us that is just under the arm of the law. For instance, 2 years ago, I had a 380 handgun. I bought a new gun, so my husband told me he was going to an auction that was selling handguns, and would I like for him to take mine to sell. I said sure. That evening he came home and said, your gun sold for $75.00, and handed me the money. That was the last of that, I thought, until yesterday. I went to my lawyers office to go over the inventory and appraisement my husbands lawyer sent over. He listed under “sporting goods and misc. that I had in my possession that 380 handgun! I told my lawyer that he sold that 2 years ago. She told me I better go to the police, so I did. You know what they told me?? That is a civil matter, you will have to discuss that in court! I said, well he has 2 dead ex wives I guess I’ll be #3. So I go to the auctioneers and talk to him (the auctioneer is a customer of mine) and he said, I’ll check my records, but I would remember if he brought a gun to sell. He called me later and said, no he didn’t bring a gun to sell.
So he had been setting me up 2 years ago and guess what! Not a damn thing I can do about it, but sit, wait and see.
It so sucks to have this much anger and stress, when our ex’s are going on and not feeling a thing!
Smellycat,
I know you want to get even with him. I felt the same way for a while.. you know beat him at his own game.
It doesn’t work, it always backfires for a few reasons…
1. when you try to intentionally hurt someone, the law of the universe brings it right back on you.
2. when you try to get back at a sociopath (and even when you don’t) they will turn it around on you and make you look even worse.
3. It causes distress for you to constantly plan things to do.
4. It reinforces the next victim’s belief that you are the bad one.
5. It’s just not worth it… concentrate your energy on doing positive things for yourself instead of bad things to him.
I am slowly returning to normal.. whatever that is.
Good luck
Beastflow,
Thank you for your kind words. It really drives me nuts to think I might be the bad guy.
Though I know I could have handled things better and treated him better even though he was doing rotten things, I am not ALL bad.
Also, most of my anger was because of his lies and because of his stealing and all the things he did in the 3 years I was with him.
Plus I don’t know if me being the perfect girlfriend would have changed anything or just would have given him more freedom to do whatever he wanted to me and others.
Thank you
Hi,
So my ex is engaged to his new victim. What a farce.
I want to throw up and scream.
T