Editor’s Note: This SPATH Tale was submitted by the Lovefraud reader whom we’ll call “Good Mom.”
The father of my son was a spath.
He is now deceased. He killed himself.
He was a drug and alcohol addict and he was very abusive. I was beaten regularly. I was a possession. He owned me and he owned everything that was mine.
He lied as easily as he breathed.
I went through a very difficult break up with him when my son was 3 years old. I did not know until after his death that he was a spath.
We have a son who is now 37 years old, and I do believe this is hereditary because he is also a spath and acts exactly the same as his father, maybe even worse.
I had never known anyone who behaves this way, no one in my family was ever like this. It is so unbelievable to me that anyone can behave this way. He has done such horrible things to me I wouldn’t even know where to begin; it goes way back.
I have not seen any information or stories from parents of spath’s. All the stories are about couples. I think parents of spath’s don’t like to speak up because maybe they are protecting their child, are in denial, or they are afraid of being blamed for the way their child turned out. I hear it all the time; parents get blamed.
I know it is NOT my fault my son is a spath.
I was a hard working single parent, was not abusive, if anything my son was on the spoiled side as I am a softie. I do not drink or use drugs. I worked a full time job and did extra jobs on the side so I could afford to meet the needs of my child and I made a lot of sacrifices back then.
Now that I look back on his childhood, I can see that he was clearly showing signs of being a spath from the time he was in about 5th grade, maybe younger. Maybe it was his father’s abusiveness that affected him, I don’t know.
I did not know about this mental illness at the time and I wish I had. Everything my son has done lied, stolen money and collector items, damaged property, etc. everything he has done he manages to turn it around and say it was ME THAT DID IT! It is always all my fault.
He tells all his friends and acquaintances that I was an abusive, drug-using, horrible mother when he was growing up and that I caused him to be an addict because I gave him alcohol and marijuana, which is absolutely not true. He will tell people this right in front of me right to my face so it makes it look like it is the truth. I have been called horrible names and threatened.
I have been nothing but good to him, helping him out and rescuing him over the years. Letting him come home when he is down and out, feeding him when he is hungry and he doesn’t appreciate any of it, yet I keep letting him come back and I keep helping him out.
He is nice only when he is in need of something, then when he gets it I am treated horribly again.
He acts like he owns me and my house, he takes over and takes control of my home. He has this sense of entitlement and thinks everything I own is his and he has the rights to it.
I try to lock him out of the house and out of my things and he picks the locks and gets in. He is my only child and I have no other family except for my elderly mother. It is so hard to know what to do when it is your child. The advice is to cut off all ties for good, but when it is your only child it is hard not to believe he will turn himself around, so he keeps getting more chances.
He is in rehab now, only because he wanted to avoid jail, not because he willingly wanted to go. He’ll be there for three more months. I have not been in touch with him since he went in three months ago because he is so angry at me right now.
I had to get a restraining order against him to get him out of my house and stop the abuse, so he has cut off all communication with me. I am thinking he has done me a favor. I need to stay strong when he gets out in case he is in “need’ again.
I need to never see him again or he will ruin my life all over again. I logically know this but I don’t know what will happen. The closer the time comes for his release, the more nervous I become.
I’ve heard from many people who have come to the very painful conclusion that their children inherited the sociopathic genes, and became disordered themselves. I think it is the most heartbreaking result of involvements with sociopaths.
Thank you for sharing your story Good Mom. I too believe that it is a hereditary trait.
I know that our adopted cousin’s biological parents were each described as sociopaths in the social study done when she was a baby. She was taken away at 10 months old and adopted into the family. I have serious concerns as we watch her children grow up.
I am certain that my ex husband’s father was a sociopath from the stories I have been told. He left the family when the ex was 4 yrs old. I think the ex’s maternal grandfather was a sociopath both having spent time with him and hearing the family stories. The ex husband absolutely is a sociopath.
My own maternal grandfather without question was a sociopath as he could check off more boxes that all of the above. My mother was a narcissist and my brother is just like her. Unfortunately, my oldest son is also a narcissist with somewhat of a Jekell/Mr.Hyde thing going. With him, we have good days and bad days. On bad days I have learned to not be in the same room with him until it passes. When he was growing up we practiced Parenting with Love and Logic and did not allow him to watch Sesame Street because I believe it has contributed to children’s shorter attention spans and need to be entertained to learn. I got him counseling to deal with concerns over explosive anger episodes. He’s a smart kid and quickly learned how to manipulate his therapists. If anything, he is not as bad as my mother was… so far. I did the best I could to nurture him away from narcissistic behaviors and yet here we are. I’ve done plenty of counseling to be able to cope and forgive myself.
DNA is the only real explanation I can come up with. There probably is some nature/nurture thing too, but for those who are already hardwired, there doesn’t seem to be any effective help.
I encourage you to keep up the no contact. I know how hard it is. My husband and I are moving out of the house we purchased together to get away from my son who will not leave. I hate that it has come to this, but we cannot live in the same house and enough is enough. I have no idea how well this solution is going to work. I can only pray for a more peaceful future for ourselves and you.
My daughter is NOT a sociopath. But she has done some very cruel behaviors. I totally blame my ex. For LOTS of reasons.
1) When you live with a sociopath, just trying to find a path to reason with them can be a nightmare. You resort to what works. Unfortunately, that’s usually sociopathic manipulation. When I left him, it took me a while to purge behaviors that I used to survive. And I was conscious and looking for those behaviors in myself that did not exist before I married him. My daughter has NO CLUE what a sociopath is. She won’t discuss it. And as long as she refuses to study the animal, she won’t realize how he affected her behavior. How being around him made certain behaviors seem NORMAL when in fact, they are very abusive.
Do ya think I blame her for not wanting to look at the abyss? It was horrid enough for me. But I also know, until she does, she will retain those awful unconscious behaviors that make every feeling person cringe and weep with hurt.
2) I also don’t blame her because it took a LONG time for me to uncover that he was more than narcissistic, he was sociopathic. It’s why narcissistic didn’t quite fit. It wasn’t cruel enough. It didn’t explain his glee in getting one over on people, didn’t explain his drive for vengeance, for putting people “in their place”, it didn’t explain his raging envy (even though he didn’t emotionally express it, it boiled out of him.) Only sociopathy explained the extra stuff on top of his vanity, his self absorption, his cruelty to those he deemed worth less than his notice, his drive to destroy longer than a win, destroy until they didn’t exist anymore.
I waffled, a lot! I blamed myself. I thought maybe it’s because I grew up unloved so I was not used to the normal ebb and flow of not being loved, or maybe I expected romance and was over-reacting. Or expected him to “meet my needs” and that’s why I seemed so needy (wanting to be treated a certain way.) So I’d take a break, get away on a job or work seminar and return renewed and inspired to be a better person, more forgiving, less expectant, work harder, be more and not ask for anything in return. But HEY! It only turned me into a miserable doormat, doing the giving and having the rug pulled from under me, my efforts sabotaged, my work and thoughts and ideas all claimed by him.
3) Then there’s the smearing. I knew things weren’t right but I didn’t see the sneaky manipulations, the cheating, the ravaging of our business accounts until it was like a sledge hammer. I realized then that he spent years smearing me. All those people who confused me with their anger towards me, made me feel defensive, as if I did something wrong just by existing… my ex was whispering poison in their ears. But… he had the ear of my dearest daughter for far longer. Unfettered access to poison the heart of a vulnerable child against her mom. SO she spouted the most awful accusations and vicious lies at me. Where did they come from? Him. My ex. They were HIS words coming from her lips. She thought she was defending him. Or being his ally. Or even standing up against me. But I wasn’t fighting her. He just implied that to her. He whispered it was them against mean ol mom. He was a victim and she was his defender. She had no idea how he tore through her reasoning and gained vengeance against me for the great anger he claimed to control…. he punished me for that day when he wanted me to set her aside and put all my devotion and attention on HIM. I was punished for loving her. In my ex’ world, that was deserving of my total destruction. Not just to dump me, or cheat on me or ridicule me and abuse me…. he erased my very existence, as if I were a knat that annoyed him for the moment it took to take all I had and squish me beyond recognition.
That’s why I don’t blame her. But it is also why until she stops her rage at me and talks to me and is honest with what he said and did with her, and learns how sociopaths hunt and destroy, she is lost to the whims of whatever theory her therapist ascribes to. Including… the only reason a kid has trouble is because of their mother. When. WE know. The Truth. That man or woman, if they are a sociopath, that sociopath renders EVERYTHING a lie.
She’s not a sociopath but I dare say, the pain of her rejection, her ridicule, her contempt, her smearing of me, her arrogance and entitlement attitudes, the loss of her, the realization that I brought that monster into her life so she was infected by him, there is much to create that agony in my heart.
I feel for ya Bets. I UnDerStand your feelings and heartache and fear. And I work for peace in my world along with the 900 lb gorilla sitting on my heart. Because there isn’t anything else to be done.
I so relate to other parents who are finally forced to accept the reality of their ex-sociopath’s goal…to alienate their “infected” children from their only truly loving parent. I will never forget my ex’s public outcry at our divorce court judgment, “I don’t give a shit about the children!” He only cared about punishing me…that became his life’s goal.
When my 5 children left home for college, they were the most admirable and promising young adults. However, over the past ensuing decades, I have been forced to accept their moral death to me.
I since learned, via an ex-daughter-in-law, that all my children came to see me as a “loser” while they saw their abusive father as a “winner” and this too, became their goal in life. After all, they silently witnessed as their father’s abuse, become a “dead-beat” dad, blamed all his financial failures on me or ex business partners, was the life of every party (“Dad’s in his best element when holding court”), led a life of complete debauchery (drinking, womanizing, financially cheating etc.)…all apparently sanctioned by our legal system. How did I not recognize this apparent power of the sociopath? Was it my love, compassion, ignorance, stupidity which blinded me for decades? I will never know but am much more content with my soul, now that this reality has finally (at age 77!) set in. My heart will always be heavy but my moral conscience is finally free!
Good Mom, you are not alone. Unfortunately I wish I had answer for you. I have been doing this dance for 22 years,with a daughter diagnosed ASPD and oppositional defiant. The diagnosis doesn’t matter because the behaviors are the same as what you described. I worked very hard to curb behaviors and some of the hard work paid off (at times), but the reality is, the behaviors are still there, maybe just more controlled because she is a mom now and the fear of losing a “possession”keeps her on guard. I have been “no contact” and I have been loving and supportive. It really doesn’t matter either way, because something always comes back to bite me. I have been locking things up for years, only to have things broken in to and stolen. I have been attacked twice during “no contact” and my doors were literally left unlocked during those times for a few minutes (while warming a vehicle to leave)and she got in and attacked me. Our relationship now is stable. I get my grand-daughter once a month, but there have been times that I was threatened with not seeing her. The worst thing that she could do to me is take my grand-daughter away, and she knows it. I have told her that if she tries that again, there will be hell to pay- and I mean it. I am done playing the personality-disordered game. I have lost and suffered a lot and I am done. I have set rules. If you cannot follow the rules. I am done. Of course it hurts to go “no contact”- I have several family members that I have “no contact” and two are brothers that I have loved dearly as children, but as adults, they are toxic and dangerous. You have to do what is right for you, and I am very sorry that you are going through this because I know this pain, suffering, and feeling alone.
Good Mom, I too can SO relate to your sad realization that a family member, in your case your only son, is a sociopath. As the sister of a sociopath I can tell you that it will only get worse if you don’t keep your distance. My sociopath sister has taken control of our elderly mother since our father’s death 5 yrs ago. She is working to isolate our mom from me and our brothers. I have been her main target – as you probably know, we all have our roles to play in the sociopath’s agenda. The way it works is my mom is her victim (she has the motherly attention and the money), I am targeted for removal since I see through my sister’s sociopathic manipulation and control tactics. My sister isn’t satisfied to get all our mom’s love and attention and 1/4 of her money. She wants ALL the attention and ALL of the money, and has manipulated her into giving her a substantial amount already, even before she is gone. My sister has our mom’s ear and total confidence, so whatever she feeds into my mom’s head is believed without question. She has total control of our mother’s finances, and also has one brother (who is not playing with a full deck) that is her loyal minion. I am falsely accused of stupid things routinely in order to discredit me and make my mom mistrust me when I visit, further isolating my mom from trustworthy, caring family members. My sister has always been a conning parasite and I feel my mother is partly to blame for always siding with my sister, even when her lies were exposed and made zero sense. All through my childhood and to this day, if I am accused of something by my sister, my mom will take her side without even hearing my side of the story. So my mom has enabled her to continue her lying and manipulation – obviously she has been very successful at it throughout her life. So I place some of the blame on my mom for never taking off those rose-colored glasses and seeing the truth about my sister. I realize I am up against a brick wall when it comes to getting my mom to see that she is under the control of a sociopath. She is affected by “cognitive dissonance”, which allows her to believe implausible falsehoods when the truth is staring her right in the face. In other words, she believes what she wants to believe, even when it makes absolutely no sense. I have let go of the hope of getting her to understand, and just have backed away from the whole scenario. I still have limited contact with my mom, a couple calls per month, and we keep the conversation superficial. I have accepted that a superficial relationship with my mom – kind of like interaction between acquaintances – is all I’m ever going to get. I have lowered my expectations to stop the pain. Kind of like the analogy of a bird repeatedly flying into a window, I have finally reconciled the fact that I will never get through. I am an outsider and since I live 600+ miles away from any family members, it makes it easier to deal with, but painful nonetheless.
I know this sounds very harsh and almost unfathomable to you now, but what you are eventually going to have to wrap your head around is that you cannot have a relationship with your son. As painful as it is, just imagine how bad it is going to be when you’re a feeble elderly woman at the mercy of your lying, manipulative, entitled and controlling son. That is the situation my mother finds herself in right now. If you have money, life insurance, assets, you are forever going to be his target. He wants to parasite off of you and will lie, steal, and do whatever it takes. He will drain you of everything you have, both materially and emotionally, until you die. And he may not be patient enough to wait for you to die a natural death. After your death he will be there like a vulture picking your bones, so to speak. I know how devastating that thought must be for you, since he is the only family you have, but at some point in life we all have to face the ugly reality in our lives, whatever that may be. Once you know you are dealing with a sociopath, your only option to save yourself is to cut ties and go no contact – for keeps. They don’t change, so don’t even waste your time hoping for that to happen. You have to rearrange your life around that fact. Take it from all of us that have been there / done that – we know better than anyone what you are up against. The hardest part of all this is facing the REALITY of the situation. Once you accomplish that, the rest is easier to navigate. You simply have to remove yourself from his sphere of influence.
You have the fact that he is “angry at you right now” and he is “in rehab for 3 months”. Consider those facts as your window of opportunity to put into action a way to protect yourself from him returning into your life. Move to a new distant location if you can. Change your name if you have to. Do whatever it takes to insure he can’t find you. The only reason he will want you is to parasite off of you. Once you open that door he is again in control of your life. Look out for yourself and let him figure out his life on his own. He doesn’t deserve the caring mother that you have been to him. Redirect that love and care to nurturing yourself. Be strong and best of luck to you. Come to this site when you need strength and comfort, as most people will never understand like we do.
Good Mom, A few minutes before I read your story, I took my 8 year old grandson to the school bus stop. My son, my grandson’s father, who lives with my grandson and I, refused to get up and get my grandson ready for school. So I had to do it. My son is a sociopath. He’s my younger son. My older son is also a sociopath, along with his wife. They have 3 children. They’re able to provide care and financial support for their kids so I was able to remove them from my life after years of suffering from their sociopathic abuse.
That’s not the case with my younger son. He’s 33 years old and has full custody of my grandson who I helped raise from age 7 months to 5 years. My grandson’s mother was not and is not mentally able to handle being a mother. She walked out on my son and grandson when my grandson was 7 months old.
My son can’t keep a job and/or is chronically underemployed, can’t support himself or his son, uses marijuana, drinks alcohol, etc. In August of 2012, he became homeless and had no one to watch his son if he was working. His fiance’s mother had kicked him and my grandson out of her house. I never found out the real reason why. But it fell on me to rescue them because no one else would. I’ve been living with him and my grandson since then and it’s been Hell. I’m disabled and live on a small fixed income. I was doing ok financially before I rescued my son and grandson. I’m now financially ruined while my son frivolously spends his money on DVD’s, toys for himself, things for his car, his cat … on anything but grandson and the bills. He wastes his food stamps on expensive food for himself forcing me to buy food for my grandson.
Before taking our current apartment (which I can’t afford on my own) my son promised to do many things such as clean the cat litter box daily, pay half the rent and utilities when he got a job, etc. All lies. He hasn’t done any that’s he’s promised and he has a job but hasn’t paid me a penny. He knows I can’t kick him out because my grandson would end up homeless. My ex, a sociopath, knows to avoid entanglement with my son and refuses to do anything to help him or my grandson even though he could easily do so. We have only a few other family members but haven’t had contact with them for many years because my ex alienated them all. I haven’t seen signs that my grandson is a sociopath but because both of my sons are, I won’t be surprised if he turns out to be one.
Good Mom, be thankful your son has no children that you raised and/or have became attached to. It makes no contact impossible. If your son ever has children, I hope you won’t become entangled with them as I have with my grandson. I hope someday you’ll be able to get your son out of your life because that’s the only way to protect yourself and find peace. It won’t be easy. Removing my older son, his wife and their kids, from my life was very difficult and painful. It took me 6 months to realize that not being in my life didn’t bother them, so why should it bother me. It was obvious that the “relationship” I had with them existed only in my head. I hope to get my younger son out of my life some day too. Until then I have to be strong and do what I can to protect myself and my grandson. Good Mom, be strong for YOU. By the time your son is released from rehab I hope you have a plan of action in place and will be able to follow through with that plan. Everyone deserves peace and a life free of abuse, you’re no exception. Take care and good luck.
Wow, this so sounds like a lot of my own story and my relationship with a psycho-challenged (my term) son. He would blame everyone including his younger brother. And like your son, he is mad at me right now because I took his new girl friend;’s side after he abused her good will, stole from her, lied to her and dumped her on her birthday after he found another love he could use like all the others he got involved with. Like your son, he started at an early age (he is 50 now) and it was only by chance after looking up sociopath and narcissist on google that I found this site. I am more at peace than I’ve ever been, very sad and heartbroken, but with knowledge, comes freedom. And am really glad that he cut me off because, I know now, that it isn’t my fault, it is a genetic illness he inherited from his abusive father and who knows from where else. I will you all the Best.