The following unfolded after she witnessed the first “slip of the mask.” She questioned what had just happened, since at the time, she did not understand. However, she quickly learned that she was not allowed to have thoughts or ask questions. Doing so constituted “interrogation” or the “the third degree.” He became angrier and angrier, blaming her for the mood shifts she observed.
Confused, she noted that they had not seen or spoken to each other in days and asked what she did to cause such upset. The exchange was out of control, and like nothing she had ever seen before. Things were wrong and she wanted out. She pulled her luggage from the apartment’s outside storage closet, with the intent to backtrack the 1500 miles she had just moved to be with him. What came next is uncommon, unless, of course, we are dealing with disorder.
The cold reality in disguise
The angry words took a pitiful turn. In a sad tone, he advised, “You should leave now. If you don’t, I will ruin your life.” Although now years in the past, she remembers the words as if they were spoken yesterday.
Why don’t we heed their warnings? Although psychopaths or individuals with a number of psychopathic features utter few truths, when they do, we often fail to hear what is really being said. They frequently tell us of their intentions, but in ways we just don’t understand.
He went on to tell her that her life with him would be miserable. He cried as he told her that things would never be as she wanted, and as long as they were involved, she would have nothing. He told her that there was no predicting just how bad it could get. He then professed his love for her, and told her that he didn’t want to hurt her in the ways he suspected he might. He told her to go and never think of him again. She should find a “nice guy.”
Confused, she suggested they work on making their lives together great. She asked how he could know that things would not ever be good. No explanation. He simply responded by saying that he was sorry for dragging her into “such a mess.” Then, as abruptly as the “crying” began, it stopped. Looking into her eyes, he coldly told her “this” was not something he could control, but rather, something that would just “happen.” Now, seeming happier, he smirked, and said, “…but I would like it if you’d stay.”
Of course he would like it. And of course she stayed. She ignored the instincts responsible for her churning gut, which were telling her to run and never look back.
What she heard
Although she had trouble rectifying the conflicts between the words and actions, she heard a “wounded” person speaking. She heard the words of a person who didn’t believe in himself or the potential of the universe. She heard the words of someone kind and gentle, who had been beaten by life. In spite of several years of work, he was making very little money and having trouble breaking into his industry.
He had a “depressed” ex wife, who ran up thousands of dollars of credit card debt in his name and became pregnant in an effort to either trap him or “save” the relationship. He couldn’t be sure which.
She heard that he was sad and did not feel worthy of real love or the good that real love could bring. He could not seem to find it anyway. She heard guilt for involving her, the love he knew was real, since he worried about his future lack of success possibly bringing her down with him.
She heard wrong.
What she thought
She thought that with a little hard work and a lot of love, everything would be fine. But she did not realize that the conversation she thought was happening, was not happening at all. Had she known then what she knows now, she would have understood things – heard the words and thought the thoughts – very differently.
What he meant
In the exchange described above, he was telling her about himself. He was letting her know that he was not the kind or gentle person she initially thought. His actions and behaviors were not influenced by the stresses of emotional burden, as his words suggested. Nothing he did indicated true sadness either. He was strangely content.
He did not seem bothered by the fact that he could not provide. In fact, he seemed un-phased. So much so, that rectifying the finances became her burden. When she questioned this, he alternated between asserting that it was all just too much for him to handle and that he was used to “having nothing,” so it didn’t bother him. However, she noticed he made sure his wants and needs were met, even if those around him suffered. She began to suspect that the credit concerns were not created by an ex or anyone other than himself. The future would eventually become history and prove her correct.
He also knew what his previous relationships had been like. Although the specifics varied from person to person, with the individual actions and personalities playing roles in how things ultimately unfolded, none were successful. Some lost more and were treated worse than others, which may be why he was unable to predict how bad it could get.
He mentioned love and caring
When they speak of love, it is often nothing more than a means to manipulate. However, there may be some they actually do care about. But they do so very differently from the rest of us and it is always self serving and potentially dangerous. What they feel is superficial and may whimsically change.
While they tend not to be terribly insightful, they do have some level of awareness of what is occurring. While they generally don’t see themselves as wrong, if and when they do, they simply don’t care. They may have fleeting notions that the results of their actions may harm others. Yet, they carry on unconcerned.
So, his warning may have been sincere, but he did not want to lose his plaything badly enough to really save her. He enticed her to stay.
Why do they really tell?
If he did not truly want her to go, why did he divulge the truth? These pitiful tender moments may simply be part of the process, further drawing us closer or more committed. They may also be fishing expeditions to test our reactions and the measure the potential “supply” they can extract from us. It is also quite possible that they are just plain fun. Are they teasing us? I suspect it may be a rush for them to know that they are, more or less, detailing our demise, while we remain completely clueless, and feeling sorry for them in the process.
That’s powerful.
Familiar?
I don’t think this story is uncommon. While we cannot blame ourselves for our inexperience in the past, we can learn to listen differently in the future. This extends to all types of disordered interactions as well. Who, in their right mind, would have taken the exchange detailed above to mean anything more than it appeared? Few. Those with personality disorders rely on this, regardless of who we are to them.
Who would suspect anyone of discussing demise and love or friendship concurrently? It happens. When it does, it is a recipe for confusion and disaster. So, let’s practice listening. We cannot change them, but we can change ourselves. With that, we can overcome.
Linda – my story exactly – how I got hooked by the spath husband. Finances became my responsibility and all the while he was immune to any reality that did not make him the center of all attention. My marriage even led to my being deprived of necessities while he went out and bought new motorcycles, etc. But we all know how that goes.
Thank you for writing about this and for helping me and all of us see that we could not have known the reality behind the mask until the mask slipped so many times that we finally ran out of excuses for the “real” thing underneath.
I really appreciate the lucid way many here write about disordered people. I makes learning actually accessible to me in ways that I cannot seem to find elsewhere. Thank you !!
Oh man Linda! This is just a perfect description of how these types use the ‘truth’ to play their cat and mouse games with us.
Using the ‘truth’ in strategic places serves so many purposes for them: making them look vulnerable, honest, willing to self-examine.
When I look back on my last entanglement I can recall several times when he told me exactly what I was in for. And, like you, I didn’t take his words at face value, and instead evaluated them according to my own psychology and values.
The person I knew used this later to remind me that he NEVER was dishonest or misleading, that I knew exactly what I was getting into, and therefore it was more or less my fault that I was left with lots of pain and confusion.
He prided himself on his ‘honesty’, and willingness to always ‘speak the truth’. And, in fact, he has a kind of spiritual cult following where he tells all kinds of painful truths to people, and they take it. Because out of the other side of his mouth he offers them the ‘secrets’ to fixing their personal flaws.
Well, it is quite a game.
Thank-you for this laser sharp article.
Slim
Linda – Thank you so much for this magnificent article. I’m sure many Lovefraud readers have experienced what you describe. No, we are not the crazy ones. There is a problem, and it is them.
Linda,
Thank you for this article!It is a reminder of how “abnormal” these conversations are;just how confusing they can be to someone who is uneducated about sociopaths and their mind games!These mind games are superb examples of what causes cognitive dissonance!
Ironically, I see my former self in this article – not as a sociopath, but as someone so wounded I really wasn’t capable of loving another person. I’d sometimes warn the men I got close to. It made them all the more determined to “help” me. In doing so, I often dragged them down. There are a few who carried a torch for me long after I broke up with them. Looking back, though I was never a sociopath, I was not fit to date. Many of the men I was involved with when I was younger were much healthier than I was. I had no idea how wounded I was or how unconscious I was. I didn’t realize that I wanted someone to save me but I also pushed away anyone’s attempt to do this anyway. I was diagnosed on two occasions as a borderline personality. And it fit.
I also remember a man that I fell very hard for in 1998, with whom I lived for 3 years. We had a rocky on-again off-again relationship that ended with his cheating on me and discarding me in sociopathic fashion. Looking back, I recall him telling me at the beginning that he was very sociopathic in some ways. I didn’t understand what that meant. And together with my lack of understanding of myself, I had completely set myself up for a discard.
The bottom line, and what I gather from this article, is that when someone tells you who/what they are, believe them.
Linda:
I LOVE the way you have written this article. Is is detached…yet it draws one in as you walk us through the cunning and baffling words and behaviors of a sociopath as well as walking us through our misguided “hearing” and “seeing” because our own belief systems.
Even when they tell us directly and show us directly, one can still only hear and see what one believes one wants to see and hear.
I have had so many illusions of people. Some illusions mean I am seeing something more or less than is being shown. But, some illusions being shown to me, can be dangerous if I disregard them.
This extremely well written article is another reminder I needed.
You all are welcome! Glad it was interesting and helpful.
I ve written about my s/path ex gf before and she also gave me a couple truths early on.Unfortunately I ignored them or interpreted them to mean I could get her to be what I wanted her to be—normal.
She told me she was diagnosed bi polar.I said fine.
After months of trying to have her feel about me as I did her(love)….she said there was a wall that she could not break through.She wanted to love me but could not do it.I could tell something was missing but thought with time—I could melt her lack of reciprocity.She warned me but then said maybe I could keep trying and she could break through to love me.
It never happened.She TOLD me she loved me—but I never FELT it.
Stayed with her helping her in many ways.Never understood her until I left her a year ago yesterday and started hearing about sociopathy.Did research and found out a lot.She has 18 of the .20 qualities on the Hare list.The girl is a mess— believe me.For 3 years we were together and it was chaos.Lies,fake illnesses,crisis after fake crisis.Cheating was normal.I had to investigate everything she said.Finally I gave up.Her last scam was too much.As I said goodbye she accused me of cheating,stalking but then finally said I should have figured out all her lies a lot earlier but was too stupid.Amazing.She still calls me when she gets picked up by the cops to bail her out—but I never answer the phone….I m not THAT stupid…lol.
learned: Thank you for sharing your story. This is a great place to read and make sure you know what you are dealing with in the future. I have been helped a lot by reading about Donna Anderson’s Red Flags so I can avoid those toxic people in the future. Your experience of being called the things a sociopath is doing herself is not uncommon. When they are about to lose someone they have come to rely on, they will try everything from sweet talk to blackmail. Hope you will keep reading and sharing. There is a lot of help and encouragement here.
Unbelievable sheer hell with my ex. Definately educate yourself. Mine was very covert and my story is long…he has done it all and now i have ptsd. I know i have to go on. Man does he ever fool people…im the nut case now to all of them.
Mally he is not fooling people, he is a spath and doing what comes naturally to him. People choose to accept his words without trying to see if they are true. Many spaths are so glib and silver tongued, that people in the real world see no reason to doubt them.
Majority of people, at least to some extent, judge others and their actions, by their own set of values. A reason spaths are so successful is that real people would never dream that a person could or would fabricate the stories they do.
One thing we can never control is who the spaths talk to, contact, and what they say. Nor can we control the reaction of the third parties.
In my case that was the most devastating thing the latespath did and the reaction of the third party was something that no one, no one at all, could have ever anticipated.
He told me that he knew he would hurt me but he didn’t want it. He said he didn’t want a relationship, then proceeded to behave as though we were engaged in a normal relationship. Every time I tried to leave, to emotionally disengage, he sucked me back in with pity ploys. The contradictory behaviors and statements kept me confused and off balance for so long. There was no way to even have a reasonable discussion to try to figure out just *what* was going on because he spoke in a kind of code that only he could understand.
Now I take off at the first signs of contradictions. I don’t stick around to try to figure a man out. Normal people just aren’t that complicated.
Onmyown – your description rings so true with my experience. The man I believe to be a Psychopath, that I had a ‘relationship’ with, behaved in a very similar way.
He said that he discarded people ‘like toilet paper’. Such an odd and shocking remark early on in our ‘friendship’! – I decided for myself that it was some sort of weird joke. No.
The contradictions in their behaviours and professions of love, of friendship or love for their children or family are so extreme and so loud and so alien… the ‘word salad’…that you can hardly hear or comprehend them.
It creates a ‘fog’ and a ‘fuzz’ in your mind – my remedy: to attempt to project something more comforting to me over the top.
Love your last remark.x
The one I was with told me early on , ” I can be an a–hole”. He also compared himself to a jerk on occasion. I guess I should have asked him what his definition of an a–hole and jerk was. Again, I used my value system thinking everyone can occasionally be an a–hole or jerk sometimes. I had no idea. I do now. I don’t think he would have told me he was a liar, manipulator, user, con man though. I think the very successful ones figure out not to be overly “attentive”. They know they might scare targets away. I also have to wonder how many of them read sites like this to get pointers. I think the one I was with does. He actually smirked about “the bonding thing being just like glue”.