Is sociopathy a perversion? If yes, a perversion of what? And if it is a perversion, does this compel us to revisit the sociopaths’ culpability for his transgressions? After all, perversions imply antisocial, irrepressible impulses. If an impulse is irrepressible, or unsuppressible, how culpable is its expresser?
I think a good case can be made that sociopathy is a perversion—a perversion of personality characterized by the unsuppressible tendency to exploit others.
It’s not so much a question of the sociopath’s sanity: most sociopaths, by criminal standards, are sane. Then again, so are most kleptomaniacs.
When I refer to the sociopath’s unsuppressible tendency to exploit, I mean unsuppressible in a characterological, more than compulsive, sense. The sociopath, that is, appears characterologically to be driven to perpetrate incursions against others’ space and security.
While I think that sociopaths, like most transgressors, can exercise, on a case by case basis, some selective choice in determining when next, and whom, to violate, I do not think that sociopaths, in the bigger picture, can control their exploitive tendencies any more than saints can control their beneficent tendencies.
I regard it as inevitable that the sociopath will violate others and, unless stopped, violate repeatedly.
In my view, many wrongly interpret the sociopath’s capacity for situational self-restraint as suggestive of what ought, therefore, to be the sociopath’s capacity to cease his exploitation more broadly.
But I stress—while it’s true that most sane individuals, including sociopaths, can exercise some suppressive control over the expression, timing and direction of their antisocial tendencies in the short-term, it does not follow that they can maintain their self-regulation in the long-term.
The sociopath’s peculiar and profound self-centeredness, along with his inability to genuinely care about the harm he inflicts on others, explain why his exploitive tendencies, in the long-term at least, will demand expression.
Yet one often hear variations on the theme, “You know, when he’s not being cruel, deceptive and self-centered, he’s really a good guy.”
Or, “When she’s not scamming seniors out of their life savings, she’s got really good instincts.”
Carrying this logic a step further, it’s like saying, “You know, when he’s not raping women, he can be a quite tender, trusting lover.”
I commonly work with clients who see the refractory period separating the antisocial displays of their partners as tantalizing evidence of the latters’ “real personality;” of their “true potential” as partners/parents/friends; of how they’d be “all the time if they could just work through their demons.”
This is “enabling” thinking, steeped in denial and fantasy. It reflects the desperation to want to believe in the underlying goodness of the antisocial mate. One insists that with just a little more time, a little more forgiveness, a little more patience, one’s partner will recognize, finally, what he or she has been jeopardizing, and will finally properly value his or her mate, family and blessings.
Sometimes religious/spiritual individuals, for whom faith and forgiveness are integral to their identity, are especially prone to this self-delusive thinking. Their endurance of countless lies, deceptions and betrayals feels less about self-compromise than the fulfillment of their higher values.
They may harbor the hope, and faith, that their travails, if endured uncomplainingly and for long enough, will result finally in vindication—for instance, this will be the time he really sees the light!
I call this “reform-aholoc” thinking—that is, believing with a kind of blind faith in the antisocial partner’s capacity for reformation.
(This article is copyrighted (c) 2009 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
Dear Newlife,
“So in his mind – what is he expecting?”
When you no longer care about that answer — you will be in a place of strength and be able to really follow your convictions. He no longer gets the privilege of expecting anything from you. He lost his place in your life. He gets nothing but the shared custody of your kids.
“What is he to me now ??? ”
Only you can answer that in your own words. And once you do… it will open the path and lead you to where you want to be withOUT him.
You can only control whats in front of you. From your reactions to your explanations to your children — with regard to who you are and how much you love them.
If he still evokes your pity….why is that? what is that about? Life doesnt mean you have to struggle with being who you truly are, including angry and betrayed and hurt — those are red flags to get out.
Why are you having so much verbal contact with him? Allowing him the floor to verbally abuse you? For now if your son has to be subjected to him on any level and there is no getting through to his father that his parenting choices are less than stellar — prepare your son with tools to get through the weekend… books, video games, writing in a journal, skateboard outside around the office building, word game books, puzzles… in other words… dont get caught up in the things you cant control — just the things you can!
Focus on yourself… stay focused on yourself… rarely any luck with going to immediate family – best thing to do is to cut off your x as much as possible. Limit your verbalization time to when and where meeting kids.
NO CONTACT. TREAT HIM AS THE FATHER OF YOUR KIDS. ANYTHING BEYOND THAT IS TIME ILL-SPENT. IF YOU ALLOW HIM FLOOR TIME TO SAY YOU ARE CRAZY, DILLUSIONAL, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH…YOU WILLL BEGIN TO BELIEVE HIM! HE WANTS TO BRING YOU DOWN — THATS ALL HE CAN DO AT THIS POINT. DONT LET HIM! SHOW HIM YOU ARE ABOVE HIS BS!
FIGURE OUT WHY HE STILL EVOKES YOUR PITY…. GO THERE WITHIN AND SHARE IT WITH A FRIEND OR HERE AT LF… AND YOU WILL BE ABLE TO TACKLE THAT SET BACK ALL BY YOURSELF..AND SOON HE WILL NO LONGER BE ABLE TO EVOKE YOUR PITY!
You need all your energy to focus on yourself and your boys. Do not let him have any control over you. Take his words with a grain of salt. He is a bottomless pit of need — dont let him bring you down with him!!!
newlife08
“Does anyone struggle with this? I am not used to showing him my anger in such base terms – yet I feel more betrayed than ever and what he is capable of scares me – not in a physically violent way – but in how he is so indifferent to his effect on all of us- behaviorally and financially.”
I also had a problem with that as well. But I knew showing my “hurt” and anger that would only “feed the fire” with them. So I started to act assertive not aggressive. This allows my own personal power to stay intact but also allow me to defense myself but do “assertively”. Any anger or aggressions on our part ends up making us look like the “crazy” one and/or the bad guy. I also know that that if ever I had to confront her I will act emotionless. This stops any and all supply on my part.
“Has anyone had any success going to the immediate family and telling them what they really are ??? Does it do any good???”
For me the answer is NO. In fact because my only sister too has some issues it made my situation only worst.
“What is he to me now ???”
This question can be answer only but you. But you will need to give it time. We still have feeling (some do anyway) for them but remember this feeling can and will betray us if we aren’t careful to monitor and watch them closely.
Good luck!
Thanks for taking the time. He left this time last year so Ithink I am too vulnerable to feelings today. I sahould be cooking and cleaning for company – life is so different now. It is hard .
Hard to live a different way after 22 years.God Bless you for sharing.
and how great to sign on this morning to find support and knowledge learned the hard way.
I
Dear Newlife,
His expectation that your son should not “complain” (disrespect him?) by saying he doesn’t want to sit all day at a work site is TOTALLY UNREASONABLE. He isn’t wanting respect from his son, he is wanting ABSOLUTE UNREASONABLE OBEDIENCE WITHOUT QUESTION. He is wanting your son to endure something that is UN reasonable for a ten year old to “enjoy” for NO reason other than he says “do it”—
Well, obviously, you know that you can’t reason with this man. And BTW, trying to talk to his relatives to get them to influence him is a LOST CAUSE.
I am not sure what you situation is, do you by court order HAVE TO LET YOUR SON go on these “visits?” What does your son think about them and your X? I would suggest that you talk to your son and acknowledge and validate his FEELINGS about these “visits” so that he knows that YOU know how he feels. I would acknowlede also that his father “doesn’t like it” when he shares his feelings with him about the “visits” and maybe suggest that your son take along some games or books, or something to entertain himself while he is there so that if he MUST go on these visits at least he won’t be totally bored.
I do think you need to somehow teach your son that while sharing feelings is a good thing, that with some people it is a lost cause and that it is better to be choosy about who we share our feelings with. As you, I am sure know, this is a definite truth, and we (victims) shared our feelings with those that were not safe to share them with. Learning WHO is safe and who is not is a valuable lesson for your son to learn. I relaize at this point in his life he WANTS to share his feelings with his father, because no matter what kind of monster his father is, he IS his father, so I think you must be careful and thoughtful about how you get this “lesson” across to your son. My words are not the most tactful, so you will probably want to find a more “tactful” way to talk to your son than I have given an example here of. LOL But I do think your son’s feelings need to be validated by YOU if not by his father, and we know how his father will “validate” them, don’t we?!!!
As for your “dealing with” and listening to your X, I would cut that to a BARE MINIMUM, and if he starts to berate you, turn and walk away. NC (not listening to them) is the worst punishment we can mete out to them. Whether he shows it or not, he will NOT like it if you don’tn respond to his verbal tirades. He may actually increase them for a while when you stop responding, but STAY STRONG and eventually they will decrease again because he won’t be getting any “reward” from them. I KNOW this is difficult, BELIEVE ME I KNOW first hand how tempting it is to respond back…to “let’em have it” right back, but it doesn’t work, that is actually a REWARD to them to fight with us. REFUSING TO FIGHT WITH THEM or even listen to their outbursts is frustrating to them. VERY frustrating to them, so again, STAY STRONG!!! ((((hugs))))
Dear Newlife — Happy Easter to you. You are right, its very hard to live a different way after 22 years. But once you get there, you will be in a better place for it.
My time with my xtox was way less years, but the vulnerability will always be there for me — no matter how many lessons learned. I loved this person erroneously. Ive had to grow emotionally, learn to be more rational about getting involved with a bad man once his mask fell.
I have set backs too, but I now know he was a bad man for me in my life. And I had to learn and grow from the experience. I had to focus on myself, rely on myself and trust myself and love myself. He sure as heck never had any intention or capability to join me in that regard. He was is and always will be about himself. And for those who stand up to him or counter him — he will choose to badmouth, make feel bad and try to verbally take down.
One day at a time Newlife…cook and clean for yourself today or for company today…life is different and life is hard…but life can be better and easier and sociopath free — my greatest lesson learned is that it is a choice. It all comes down to choice. Please dont let him bring you down today, but if you find he is, bring yourself back up.
How to do that? Do something spontaneous…. just for you!!!
Hang in there…. the next 22 years are going to be even better because of your choices to have and create a newlife for yourself after he left and lost a beautiful woman inside and out!!!!!
steve becker: thank you so much for this article. after 8 months of NC, i’m still struggling with just the issue you raised … “You know, when he’s not being cruel, deceptive and self-centered, he’s really a good guy.”
it has bothered me so much that others were/are treated well by him … that so many people who know him think he’s a giving, generous, gorgeous, godly being. it constantly left me with the feeling that there was something terribly wrong with ME; why was i the one who was scammed and tricked and used and left; what was i doing wrong?
after 25 years of giving him the best of me, i was the one he ultimately undid. the ”refractory period” was particularly deadly for me. it made me repeatedly believe that he WAS everything i believed him to be, that he led me to believe he was, and what everyone else saw him as.
i understand VERY well that desperation to want to believe that just a little more time, a little more forgiveness, a little more patience, a little more love would have allowed him to be his ”true self.” and i must admit, my father also made me feel this way: if i just ironed on more shirt, cleaned the house just a little bit better, acted just a bit more feminine, he would REALLY love me. what’s truly horrible about this is the abject frustration that it creates in you. the inability to make it work the way you think/know/believe it should.
this article was incredibly helpful. now, now, now i understand. and knowing that it is highly unlikely that the bastard is letting anyway escape his trickery, makes me feel less targeted, and allows me to take it all far less personally.
thank you SO much.
The fact that the behavior is intermittent (both the good and the bad) and almost apparently “random” leads us to believe that it will change for the better, so we develop this MALIGINANT HOPE that eats away at our instincts for self preservation and we work harder to produce our “rewards” of that fleeting “happiness” when our hope is stroked.
In animal training studies from long ago til now, that intermittent behavior is what HOOKS the trained animal, that HOPE. Even with Fat and Hairy I use that intermittent reward/abuse situation to hookk them. Sometimes when they come to me when I call they get their favorite treats, a slice of stale bread (reward) and sometimes they get worked or ridden (“abuse” from their point of view) Sometimes they get both “reward and abuse” but they are EVER HOPEFUL that they will get the reward and NOT the “abuse.” Hairy is a bit more leery of the “abuse” that Fat is, but in the end, he is always “sucked into” wanting the bread more than he dreads the chance of the abuse, especially when he sees Fat eating a slice of bread and getting petted.
The asses “endure” the abuse patiently and don’t fight it, but they never like it or fully accept it. They would avoid it if they could (Hairy proves that one) but even the very bright asses can be hooked on to the intermittent REWARDS, and I can see how I was HOOKED by the very intermittentness of the rewards of my HOPE BEING FULFILLED.
Great article once again. I too, still wish to believe that if I was a litttle more demanding or played the game BACK at my S, or failed to confront him or …something…that perhaps I could eventually show him the ‘err of his ways’.
As if I could change him! I feel like abused woman who keeps coming back for more (even though we have NC).
This is because everyone else sees him as this amazing Acupuncturist, amazing father, amazing friend, pillar of the Community etc. I keep thinking: “Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I just exaggerated all that stuff for my own vindication. Maybe it’s easier for me to label him than to just accept that he rejected me”
Then I recall the details, the facts, the words he used, the lies he told…and I remember “Oh yeah. He really IS a sociopath”
lostingrief:
“it has bothered me so much that others were/are treated well by him ” that so many people who know him think he’s a giving, generous, gorgeous, godly being. it constantly left me with the feeling that there was something terribly wrong with ME; why was i the one who was scammed and tricked and used and left; what was i doing wrong?”
I’m closing in on 6 months NC and I’m grappling with exactly the same thing. I can remember feeling jealous of a DOG that he was showering with attention and thinking “why can’t he show me attention like that? What the hell am I doing wrong?”
Of course, the unceasing criticism and verbal and mental abuse, always tempered with that one little crumb of hope that kept me hanging on worked like the perfect brain-washing. That coupled with the fact that I felt like I was a one-man Cassandra realizing that something was wrong with him, but realizing that nobody would believe me.
Then I remember what sabine says “Oh yeah. He really IS a sociopath.”
What I keep hoping will happen is that the creature that is so embedded in my mind will finally start to go away. Because I’m sick to death of the space he’s still taking up in my life. It’s bad enough he sucked me dry while we were together. How the hell he can continue to do so now that we are apart just floors me.
Matt and LILG,
It does DOES get better, and it does TAKE TIME, it is like there are some things you cannot rush no matter what you do, and GRIEF and letting go of it is one of those things.
You can’t get a baby in one month by getting 9 women pregnant, it takes 9 months to get a baby no matter what you do! Same with grief, only there is no “time” that is decreed, it takes different times with different griefs, and depends on how much you “lost”—the more you lost, the longer it takes to process it. Since my “big losses” started July 04, with the loss of my husband in the plane crash, then my step father in Jan 05 (he had been ill for 18 months) etc. and one loss right after another had to be dealt with before I had started processing the one before it, then the P- now X BF 8 months after my husband died, etc. I was in a BIG tail spin and at my LOWEST EBB when myP- son and the Trojan HOrse P started their con game, so it has taken me years to go through just the worst of it all. I look at them now as hurdles that I’ve had to over come, and sometimes they were way too wide to jump over in one try, so I’ve had to go back and “start over” on the grief multiple times, but am getting FINALLY to where I can at least SEE what is going on. It isn’t “over” by any means, but I AM on the road to healing and I intend to stay there and keep on “improving” myself and “healing” the wounds from the previous “lives” and “assaults”—-NC is the biggest and best “band aid” there is, and though it may not immediately “stop the bleeding” by gettint them completely out of our heads, it does make it easier for the “bleeding” to stop.
First we get “physical nc” then eventually we get “emotional NC” where we no longer WANT to see them. Hang on guys, it will come and it WILL get easier. I know it seems like FOREVER but it really isn’t forever. I have finally reached a point that I don’t WANT to see them any more, I don’t MISS seeing them, I don’t CRAVE to see them, even to tell them off or tell them to take a flying leap over a cliff or off a bridge, but I just don’t care about them any more. It happens! It will happen, so hang on!!!!! ((((hugs))))))