Editor’s note: The following was written by the Lovefraud reader “Rochelle.”
As part of the problem with my particular sociopath, the way they interpret behaviors is not like the rest of us. I have a list of examples:
What you do or say and what the sociopath hears
Expressing an opinion or feeling = ranting and anger issues.
Getting angry when he belittles and talks down to me = raging and anger issues.
Doing things for my husband and stepdaughter = I must have an ulterior motive.
Saying I like something in a shop window or magazine = me trying to manipulate him into buying me something.
Crying because I am hurting = drama queen.
Me asking him not to bring up a topic while out with friends = me being controlling.
Taking my husband to the hospital after he filed for divorce behind my back and then taking care of him afterward = me trying to get a better settlement out of him.
Changing my mind on something = hypocrisy.
His unfriending his sisters on Facebook = I can’t stand to hear that I am wrong and will give up my sisters to prove my point.
His being married 4 times = he made the wrong choices and did nothing wrong.
Having a female coworker as his best friend instead of his wife = this woman means more to me than you do.
Direct depositing my own money into my own account = stealing.
Going away for a family wedding and not staying at the hotel with the family because he SWORE I was there = paranoia. I was in another state the entire time.
Not doing things exactly the way he would = me being wrong.
Not liking being controlled by him his female coworker = me being wrong.
Me wanting sex once a week = me being a nymphomaniac.
Me buying a sandwich for lunch = me overspending.
Me loving my husband, washing his clothes, cleaning his house, cooking his meals, being supportive in all aspects of his life = I am beneath him and him not having the ability to show how appreciative he is.
Radar_On
Tea Light, sooo sorry that happened to you…..:(
dorothy2
Oh, TeaLight…..that is horrible. It made the pit of my stomach sink. Do you want to go out for a walk…….it’s just unreal but in this weird kind of way ……… I can’t find the words…… It makes me sad. I feel a different kind of sadness for you as I’m connecting to the horror and trauma. Then I do feel something strong, a sadness for them. I guess I feel the shame that they have. The hopelessness of how they are and the emptiness.
That time Spath x cried……it was no mask. He had mentally spun himself into the ground trying to justify his so obviously wrong point and he couldn’t let it go. At the same time his reasoning just got further and further off course until he just had to stop. He was defeated and he had done it to himself. And he did want comforted, and I comforted him. I saw his hopeless pain. Ive seen it many times.
Tears.
I know your situation is much different TeaLight. It must have just devastated you. I’m so sorry.
Tea Light
Thanks for your support both. No, mine didn’t feel shame. He just felt momentarily sorry for himself that I was unable to perform happy for him. He felt lonely in his emptiness maybe. But not shame. He’s a psychopath.They don’t feel shame. But they can feel maudlin self pity.
dorothy2
They are children that want to look and be treated like men but they are not. So, I guess this is all about getting power through having power over others because they don’t have the ability to generate it themselves. It’s bullying and they find someone weak in some way that they can have power over.
dorothy2
TeaLight……yes….maybe that’s what the tears are and the request for comforting…take this feeling away for me. Tell me I’m ok and loved and safe even when I’m wretched, so I DON’T have to change or face who I’ve allowed myself to become. Make me be ok no matter what I do or say, just like mother does.
So, I dropped all that stuff off at spaths mothers and he sent me two emails that my server intercepted because I have his email address blocked. One of them or both were probably a ” FU-K YOU”!!!! spew. THAT is why I’m so happy to have blocked him. As far as he knows I guess, I’m getting his mails and just not responding. It’s done.
Tea Light
I view his abuse of me and his two wives as him applying elastoplasts over a gaping festering wound. Meaning that his abusive acts are compulsions that give him a rush which makes him feel momentarily alive. Most of the time he feels dead and empty. Their inner lives are deserts. There is nothing there but fantasies of controlling and overcoming and harming others which generates a temporary buzz. When the buzz wears off it’s them and the void again.
blossom4th
Tea Light,
I am so sorry to hear how spath bullied you then felt pity for himself!It reminds me so much of a little boy who is trying to prove to himself that he’s all grown up by using daddy’s razor-then crying because he cut himself!By hurting others he’s hurting himself….especially as he runs out of victims;as people “wise up” to him and get tired of him.
blossom4th
Tea Light,
Your post above would explain “spath depression”!When they’re not experiencing that rush….
“his abusive acts are compulsions that give him a rush which makes him feel momentarily alive. Most of the time he feels dead and empty. Their inner lives are deserts. There is nothing there but fantasies of controlling and overcoming and harming others which generates a temporary buzz. When the buzz wears off it’s them and the void again.”
Tea Light
Yes dotty, he wanted me to be mummy. Enabling mummy. His ideal woman is adoring infantilising mummy who he can f**k in sadistic ways to punish her for his dependance on her adoration. And for his sexual response to her which infuriates him because he can’t control it. They aren’t difficult to figure out. They are pathetic.
Tea Light
I think they must be depressed most of the time blossom. Dorothy Rowe says depression is a defence against threats to your sense of self. They are so empty and shallow and unable to experience intimacy or joy or closeness to God so they must feel depressed most of the time. But I don’t think their depression is deserving of sympathy as it is as the suffering of a harmless person. I think it’s just a marker of how empty and inhuman they are.