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.
Smellycat and holehearted,
Isn’t it awful how getting even only makes you look like the crazy one? I totally got that! ARGH! I did call the police on my ex once and he made it look like I was a hysterical psycho and by the time the police man left, they were “Bros.”
Definately let go of revenge. Just adhere firmly to the NO CONTACT rule and get on with your life. I believe that one day, their stories and manipulations will catch up with them.
Take care of you now.
holehearted
Sounds like you’re being too hard on yourself. I feel it’s often important to try and judge where your doing wrong ends, and where their wrong doing begins. It sounds to me as though you’re taking on board the wrongs of someone else as though they are yours. If your ex is a psychopath, then it seems very likely that you’re being manipulated into feeling bad things about yourself and being actively encouraged to behave badly in order for him to then justify all manner of his own appalling behaviour. Make ammends for your own wrong doings, but go easy on yourself, don’t make ammends for his wrong doings. I don’t know your situation but it just seems you’re being very harsh and unforgiving of yourself.
I heard the best advice concerning women dating men recently. However, I believe it applies to any situation. The advice was ‘Don’t believe a word he says only what he actually does.’ This works for just about everything if not everything.
My daughter is ‘engaged’ to a sociopath and has no clue. He’s really not planning on marring her, but he may only if it suits his needs. This would be the 4th marriage. The time between #2 and #3 was about 14 days between divorce and marriage. He is also financially unreliable, blames all his ills on everyone else, talks about his big plans but in the end produces nothing of value. He also has no remorse — because he only knows how to copy other people’s emotions.
Forget this guy and study up on what you should be looking for. These people turn up in all walks of life. I’ve watched people in the business arena try to take legal action against such people 1) because they believe it is the right way to proceed and 2) because they want the person to feel their pain. It is a total waste of time. Sociopaths never feel their pain or anyone elses. They only learn how to do it better the next time.
The thing about the pets is interesting.
But I am worried about losing my own humanity in relationship to this issue which has recently come up in my life. My Ex-spath recently lost her dog. When the lunatic broke up with me and left for another guy on the sly, one of the things that also hurt was losing access to her pet Maltese which I loved too. She seem to be completely oblivious to my sadness in that aspect.
In every other way she was the TEXT BOOK female sociopath except she never took money from me. The dog was the only part of her humanity I think she had. Although I know for a fact she used it to make her look kind to others, and I know for a fact she uses the dog to swindle a lonley old lady out of her home and life savings by calling her the dog’s “other mom”. She got free rent for many months off her at least.
Anyways, I recently found out the dog died and I know she was looking at my website as her ISP came up in the statcounter. I am concerend that she might contact me as I want nothing to to with the cold blooded lunatic.
It would be pity play from her of course – but I did love the dog too. I want to ignore her, I really want to tell her to “f**k of and die” herself for what she put me through this time last year.
But there is also a part of me who wants to offer my sympathy for the dog passing. But at the same time I do not what to reopen any kind of communication conduit with the psychopath. What to do if she contacts me to tell me the dog passed away? If I ignore or tell it to get lost she was tell other people we know I am a heartless lowlife. It’s a no win situation for me.
When will this nightmare ever end so I can no longer think about or be concerned with this lowlife and what it di to me…
Frank Lee,
There is a process to the healing and reintegration of your self that takes time and process. Be strong, be active in the process and it does work.
One thing that makes a huge difference is working on gaining control of the thinking you do that allows her to haunt you so that you can focus on what is real and true and right in front of you.
Go ahead and be a heartless lowlife to her. The key to making the nightmare over is NO CONTACT. Cut your losses and walk.
There isn’t any way to redeem the situation. None more might wish it were so than I, but you can’t argue with the equation what is:is.
There is much support in this community for the nightmare experience and you will as so many have, I believe, find that there ARE people who understand your side of the story.
Even if a lot of other ones don’t get it for a time to come.
Be at peace. Quiet your mind. Do your homework on what you are dealing with.
Remember your pet for the loving and dignified creature it was. Your dog knew Opening a door for communication is just an invitation to more of what you are trying to recover from.
We know how hard it is when you want to tell them off or tell them anything. But it doesn’t work. Talk here. Speak often.
WE’ll be right here.
Thanks Slivermoon. You are right. The god loved me and I the dog. That’s enough.
Thanks so much.
Sorry I ment “dog” and not “god”
FLS-
There are those who might argue that the words are indeed interchangeable.
Its all good.
Breathe. Focus. Be.
🙂
In all the reading I’ve done on LF, this is my first time coming across this article and it pretty much screamed at me. I was constantly confused by my ex-spath’s behavior. My head was spinning on a regular basis.
At times, he would get up (he normally slept all day) and clean and cook like a crazed man. He would do something nice for a neighbor. At the same time, he gave almost nothing in terms of money to keep the household going, he was constantly verbally abusive and didn’t want to interact with people other than those he knew that were “like minded”, in that they too were into the drug scene. Later, I discovered that he was cleaning and cooking because he was high.
I came to realize he did nothing at all unless it was self-serving. There was always something in it for him. I had to step away emotionally and look at it as logically as I could. The pieces were falling into place.
My ex, who has diabetes, was famous for landing in the hospital and it reached the point where I refused to go visit him at all. I already knew that while he might be sick, being in the hospital put him in a place where he expected pity and I reached the point where I no longer was able to or WANTED to give it. There was simply nothing there.
Much like others, I too questioned if I was a sociopath as well and came to understand that turning off my emotions was a symptom of self-preservation. I’ve also come to understand that I was a control freak, seeking to maintain control of something, anything, and I did it through money. THAT was an illusion as well because, of course, he did exactly what he wanted, when he wanted.
My ex does not have all of the traits listed. He has the majority of them though. It was through LF that I was able to finally read about the traits and understand just what I was dealing with. He was, and remains so, a master manipulator. As I write this, he is in court AGAIN for theft. I found that out from someone who knew how to look up the court records. This to me is proof positive that they don’t change.
For me, part of the healing process has been asking myself about my own behaviors and being very honest with myself. I know today that I am not one, but I do think looking at our own behaviors is part of the healing process.
Frank Lee, I agree with Silvermoon and I do understand your story. I’ve been there. Time is such an important factor, especially if we fill it with healing thoughts and behaviors.
As I stated, I have been through the process of looking at my own behaviors and questioning them. It’s not fun sometimes, but it works! Go easy on yourself.
silvermoon, I like the word “reintergration”! We’re putting ourselves together again, in a new and better way.