Last week I did something that I really didn’t want to do. Thursday evening, I went out in the cold and rain to sit through a “customer appreciation” dinner at the dealership where we leased our car. My husband, Terry, wanted to go, but he couldn’t, because he just had knee surgery and was supposed to stay off his feet. So he put on his best smile and cajoled me into going. The event included a drawing for a big, flat-screen TV, and to win, all we had to do was show up. There wouldn’t be many people there, so our chances were good.
I knew I wouldn’t win the TV. I’m not the lucky one—he is. Plus, we don’t need a TV. The one we have is fine. But Terry, like most men, is a gadget guy. He really wanted to try to win the latest in TV technology. So to make him happy, I went to the dinner.
This is what we do when we’re in love—we try to please our beloved. We’re cooperative. We acquiesce to their requests. It is normal behavior in an intimate relationship—behavior that gets perverted when the other person in the relationship is a sociopath.
Giving in to requests
I remember the requests from the sociopath in my life, James Montgomery. They all came after he proclaimed his love to me:
• He needed money to cover expenses until his big business ventures, which would benefit us both, were funded. Could I help out?
• He wanted to take me to Australia to show me off to his family and do some business. Could I put the trip on my credit cards?
• He wanted to get married quickly. We were in love, we were adults, what were we waiting for?
• He really needed a new computer—it was important that he work with the latest technology. Did I believe in him? Would I buy it for him?
Although I had trepidation about many of the requests—especially as my savings diminished and my credit card balances grew—he cajoled. He proclaimed his love. He talked about our future together. I acquiesced. I gave in. I caved.
My behavior was normal for an intimate relationship. When two people are together, we cooperate with our beloved. We try to make him or her happy.
That’s the problem with sociopaths. They appear to be normal, but they are not. Consequently, we respond in normal ways, and get ourselves in trouble.
We weren’t stupid. We were deceived.
Sometimes sociopaths can keep up the façade of normalcy for a long time. In my case, my ex-husband never deviated from the “I love you, we’re in this together” script. That’s what kept me behaving as a normal wife would, accommodating his requests, even to my own financial detriment. It was only after I found outside evidence of his treachery that the whole charade fell apart.
Most people are normal
So now what? How do we keep ourselves from repeating the miserable experience of the sociopath?
First of all, we know they exist. We know there are people who look normal, just like us, but are missing the parts that make us truly human. They have no conscience, no empathy, no emotional connection to others, and no remorse.
Secondly, we must learn to trust our instincts. When someone generates an atypical feeling within us—nervousness in the gut, prickling on the back of the neck, doubt in our minds—we must pay attention. An abnormal reaction to another person may be our only clue that someone who appears to be normal is not.
The good news is that most people are normal. Most people are capable of love, human connection and supportiveness. Yes, we all have our flaws, but when we are with a normal person in a loving relationship, we can safely do as they ask.
So I went to the dinner at the car dealership. I didn’t win the TV. But by going, I made my husband happy, which made me happy. That’s what happens in a normal relationship.
skyler, yes, worded very well, I can’t get past the motivation part, I sometimes think I am just blocking it out, how could he hate me that much, oh, I wish I had this to do all over again, maybe I could be different.
I was triggered once yesterday and twice today.
my brother lied to me yesterday, he asked me very nicely to turn the base down on my speakers. In truth, he just came in to see my speakers, which I had just set up. But of course, he can’t just say that. He has to make an excuse because he can’t just be human.
My mother starts poking around my room. First, “is that table crooked? let me fix that for you.” just so she can look under it.
Then, later, “I’m looking for a small carpet, it is in here?” and she starts going through my closet. I had to tell her, “stop snooping”
That wouldn’t be so bad, but it triggered what they did to me 25 years ago. They KNEW my xP was a conman because they overheard him telling someone that he was only with me for my money. (everyone knew I would receive a large insurance settlement). But they never told me. They were happy to see me in a loveless relationship because they hated me. They were envious of anything good that happened to me. My father is a misogynist and I never let him treat me like crap. I would stand up to him when I was 15 and it infuritated him. When they saw me independant, happy and about to be set for life, they couldn’t stand it.
Here’s some more proof if you don’t believe me:
when I was 15 I had a boyfriend in highschool but couldn’t talk on the phone with him or date him because I wasn’t allowed. So he broke up with me. I ran away from home and when I came back 2 weeks later. my parents relented. I would come home with 28 year old men and they didn’t care. “ok, have a good time, come home whenever.” WTF? They blame me because I was incorrigible. HELLO? How about just treating me normal? How about some NORMAL consistent rules and boundaries?
For the last 25 years I thought we had reconciled. I thought that all of that teenage drama and bad parenting had been mistakes on both our parts. I thought that they really loved me. I do all their bookkeeping for their businesses, I counsel them on investments and taxes. I tell them what vitamins to buy and how to eat organic foods. Basically do every thing to make their lives easier. But they were keeping this secret all along.
I guess I’m lucky that they were in a position to overhear the conversation and finally told me about it 25 years later. I’m grateful to God for that, but WTF? why wait until the xP is getting ready to kill me? Because they saw that he was dangerous and that the whole family was in danger. He isn’t just a misogynist conman, like my father and his whole family. He’s a deluded sociopath. So they came clean. It was too late though. Ten years ago he sent a trojan-P to marry my P-sister. she is their favorite and the only one they care about. Oh well.
now I have my own home but I can’t afford to live there and I’m living with them and we’re the adams family again.
sorry to vent. I’m just triggered today. i actually resent my parents more than I do the xP.
there is something so unsettling about parents who don’t love their kids. no wait, I mean, HATE their own kids.
skylar, I don’t know how you are managing to live with them, I don’t think I could do it, not after being betrayed by the secret for 25 years, that is so cruel, so when it benefitted them they finally told you? So they just pretended for 25 years? It’s like what you just wrote a few posts ago… “what possible motivation could exist for such a long term lie”… isn’t there somewhere else you can go? You are an amazing person to be healing from the xP amongst this insanity.
Sky,
My parents and stepparents were much the same as yours. They are all worthless pieces of crap and had no business having kids. The hardest thing for me after all these years is to FINALLY get that they will NEVER EVER change and let go of the hope. I think all of my past attempts at trying to make selfish exes see the errors of their ways was my attempt at trying to heal my sick parents and get them to love me. It might have been easier extracting blood out of a turnip! It did not work with my parents but I was in denial of that. So I did this to the men I dated. I needed and demanded that they give me the kind of love my parents couldn’t. When I hear people on this site say things like…”why can’t sociopaths understand?” etc., I feel they have not yet faced the horrible truth that some people are just not capable of love. And there is nothing more horrible and unjust than a mother who doesn’t love her child. The pain of this cuts right to my core. I have probably spent my whole life trying to either escape this or find the love I never had.
SC and Star,
it’s not just “not love” it’s hate. and she hides it. She is sooooo nice to me. but an ulterior motive is always revealed. She is trying to get me to lower my defences so she can get some more drama. It’s so creepy.
I don’t know if you remember the dream I posted a few days ago about the world getting turned upside down in an Escher-type of landscape. That’s what it feels like. Up is Down and then vice versa.
Star, I’ve always done just the opposite of what you do with men. When I date, I don’t demand anything. My parents never loved me so why should a man? I tell them its ok NOT to love me. It’s like I just want to continue their abuse until I can finally be happy with it or accept it or something. It’s weird, it makes me feel like I’m a P because I’m not letting myself get emotionally attached.
If my xP could read these posts he would be soooo happy to know how bad I feel.
Sky,
You have no option but to live with these narcissists and their narcissistic envy? It is probably very difficult to keep your boundaries with them. You have to always be on your guard it would seem.
stargazer,
I think your post is right on. The P I was involved with treated me EXACTLY like my mom did. That was the hook. That’s what makes it feel so compelling….it is re-creating what we knew as love as a kid, and we think this time we have more power and can make it come out right.Or maybe it just feels like “real love”, because that is what love meant to us as kids. The real lesson is that love with people like that can never come out right. AS you said, the horrible truth is some people are just not capable of love.
One gift of the P in my life was that the experience with him at 15/16 was so horrible that my main criteria in picking a husband was to pick a man I knew I could trust. (and I can, about everything but alcohol, but I think even that now). I SO did not want a husband who would cheat on me for example. So that meant getting a man who was not a flirt….and that single criteria….looking for someone I could totally trust…. protected me from picking out a P or a S or a N when I got married. It meant that mattered more than looks, than achievement, than anything!
Skylar,
Is there anyway you can live with someone else until you can afford to get back to your own place? Or could you go back and rent out a room or something? It is probably taking a huge toll on you to be back in that situation.
skylar, I do the same thing, I haven’t demanded anything from the men I’ve been in relationshits with, but I think my parents loved me, even though my dad wasn’t around much and was very distant and kind of mean. I remember the dream you wrote about, it was wild! Maybe you’re right, it was a dream about your family life. My mind just can’t grasp parents that do not love their children.