The connection between love and politics—that was the topic of commentary in yesterday’s paper written by Gregory Rodriguez, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times. The article, Love and politics in a cynical age, got me thinking about the consistency of behavior.
Rodriguez summarized how Americans have come to view the private lives and public lives of the people we elect to represent us. He wrote:
The truth is that we don’t generally associate politics or politicians with happy marriages and deep romance, let alone fidelity. The constant revelation of scandals and peccadilloes in the halls of power have trained us to expect the worst of those—particularly the men—we elect to shepherd and protect the interests of society. Somewhere along the line, Americans have even bought into the notion that a politician’s private life, in particular his love life, has little or nothing to do with his efforts on behalf of the public good.
In other words, people seem to think that just because an elected official cheats on his spouse, it doesn’t mean we can’t trust him with our tax dollars.
Not everyone holds this view. Ross Perot, who ran for president in 1992, famously said that at his company, EDS, lying, cheating, stealing and adultery were all grounds for dismissal. If he were elected, he said, the same standard would apply. Perot said:
“If a man’s own wife cannot trust him, how can the American people?”
This, I think, is a legitimate question.
Different behavior
People often ask me if a sociopath will be “different” with a particular person. For example, can a sociopathic man who hates and harasses his ex-wife love his children? Can a sociopathic woman who takes advantage of her family be true to her new boyfriend?
The short answer is no. Exploitative people exploit anyone who has something that they want.
The long answer is that exploitative people may seem to authentically care for particular individuals, but it’s probably just part of an overall scheme of manipulation. The sociopath is just softening up the target, preparing for the right time to strike.
Here is one of the most dangerous thoughts we can ever have: “Well, yes, he (or she) treated that person badly, but he’ll never do that to me!”
Remember: The best indication of future behavior is past behavior. If you know that a person has behaved in a deceitful or exploitative way towards someone else, sooner or later, the person will behave that way towards you.
Compartmentalize
So why do we compartmentalize? Why do people seem to believe that how our elected officials conduct their private lives has nothing to do with how they conduct their public lives? Why is it that when we hear of a powerful person who has a solid marriage, we are surprised?
Maybe we’re beaten down. Maybe we’re totally disillusioned. After all, stories of deceit, betrayal and treachery have been around as long as humans have told stories. Maybe we hear of so many scandals—from cheating spouses to tax dollars wasted—that we simply expect the worst of people.
Perhaps public life has simply gotten too easy in America. It’s not like the Revolutionary War, when men risked their lives and fortunes to stand up to the British. No, politics today is all talk and no consequences. That makes it an excellent career choice for sociopaths—all they have to do is be charming, charismatic and deceitful.
Sociopaths, after all, want power, control and sex. By getting elected, they have access to everything they want.
Liu Xiaobo
That’s why it’s so refreshing to hear about people, in this day and age, fighting the good fight from a foundation of love.
In the article that I quoted in the beginning of this post, the author, Gregory Rodriguez, also wrote about Liu Xiaobo. Liu is the Chinese dissident who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize. He, of course, was viewed as a subversive criminal by the Chinese government, and was not allowed to go to Norway and accept the prize. Rodriguez explained how his absence was handled in Oslo:
Actress Liv Ullmann read aloud the statement Liu released last December as he was awaiting trial for “inciting subversion of state power.” At the top, he sermonized against hatred (“enmity can poison a nation’s spirit”), but his ending was an exquisite love letter to his wife, Liu Xia.
“I am sentenced to a visible prison,” he wrote, “while you are waiting in an invisible one. Your love is sunlight that transcends prison walls and bars, stroking every inch of my skin, warming my every cell, letting me maintain my inner calm, magnanimous and bright, so that every minute in prison is full of meaning. But my love for you is full of guilt and regret, sometimes heavy enough to hobble my steps. I am a hard stone in the wilderness, putting up with the pummeling of raging storms, and too cold for anyone to dare touch. But my love is hard, sharp, and can penetrate any obstacles. Even if I am crushed into powder, I will embrace you with the ashes.”
Rodriguez viewed Liu’s words to his wife as a sign of passion and commitment, and the bad behavior in the private lives of elected officials as the opposite. The point, Rodriguez wrote, is that love begins at home.
How people conduct their private lives is absolutely relevant to whether or not they should be elected. People who cannot be trusted by their most intimate loved ones cannot be trusted by anyone. And people who feel genuine love and compassion for their families can extend their love and compassion for the greater good.
sky – i don’t buy that i am attracted to the face of drama.
i will buy that i am attracted to what is familiar. (but my life has not been all drama, by any means) i think the answer is abandonment. i am attracted to people who have abandoned themselves, and have been abandoned early in their lives…who, will ultimately abandon me.
the way to break this: stop abandoning myself.
and thank YOU for playing. please collect your participation gift at the bar.
Sky, I am NOT okay with her dating married men, but that ONE bad behavior even repeated does not make her a psychopath,, it makes her a serial victim, just like it would if she repeatedly dated alcoholics….look up the definition of psychopathic, it is a whole life pattern, and this woman doesn’t have an entire PATTERN of bad behavior. She is just self destructive in this one way, I think I read once or twice where it was called “seeking men who are unavailable”—either married men or men ( or I guess this could also be men who are always looking for unavailable women who are either married or won’t commit)—of course she is not a pedophile and I wouldn’t condone it if she was.
A person who is an alcoholic can be or not be a psychopath, simply being an addict doesn’t make a person a psychopath. A person who dates married people CAN be a psychopath, but there are other things that are involved as well in the diagnosis. Not every murderer is a psychopath.
I’m not arguing with you that what she is doing is a bad decision (this is the 2nd one I know about) and she is setting herself up to get POUNDED. Her first married BF I think was definitely a psychopath though he was quite successful in his profession (world wide) but he also treated his wife horribly and his children as well. My friend was flattered both as a woman and as a professional peer of this man. Then after 4 years she saw that he was lying to her—he did dump his wife though. This latest guy even told her he had had many (6 or 8) affairs in the past then said his wife had “returned the favor” (so of course it was all this terrible wife’s fault because she got even with him by having an affair after he had several and gave her VD) so my friend thinks, “Oh, he is telling me all these things he has done in the past so he must be being HONEST with me. ” From what she tells me he is a psychopath though successful, attractive, polished manners, etc. I told her he is “just a psychopath with good manners” but doesn’t mean he isn’t a psychopath.
My friend comes from another culture, one that pushes their children to succeed at professions and she had no childhood, it was STUDY!!!!!! Study!!!! BE THE BEST!!! Well, she was the best and she is the best and she is at the top of her field and respected all over the world, her culture is part of it, and I think the fact that the culture pushed her and her parents pushed her to not only succeed but excel at succeeding. She was also programmed to be a people pleaser and to continually worry about “what would the neighbors think?” More so than me even.
I think this current situation is going to wind down in the next month or so and be over. I hope so for sure, all I can do for her is to be there when it comes crashing down and hopefully this time she will get it.
Well, guys I’m about ready to put the old bod to bed. I’m still not finished with my office cleaning and filing, still got 2 bankers boxes of stuff to file, but at least everything is in the right box, floor’s open so I can shampoo it, but got to get to town tomorrow. I’ve been going over the American Heart Association low-salt cook book and the womenHeart’s All heart family cook book so got to get on B&N and order me some (the ones I have are borrowed) and get into this low salt cooking some more!
You guys have a good night! Keep it between the ditches!~! See you sometime tomorrow! ((((hugs(((((
Okay….
So…..
Do you think by thinking in NON long term values in re: to temp jobs, temp friends, temp family……we are cutting out the abandonment factor?
nope, it’s just an end run around it.
One,
not sure I get what “abandoning myself” means. I’d like to know, since it seems we have some parallel experiences.
Drama can be just being abandoned. my BF was very attractive to me when I first saw him about 25 years ago. He looked so ….sad…or emotionally sensitive. I tease him about this sometimes. Call him the original Emo kid.
Last year, I saw a woman calling her cat across the street. I felt drawn to go talk to her. I told her about my spath, she told me she was bipolar. Her mother was borderline. I could tell from across the street, that I could talk to her about my problems – a total stranger.
I think maybe we are trying to get a do-over. We want to experience the original trauma, but this time, we want a good ending.
EB, with that in mind, I think temp anything isn’t what we want. We are like the spath in that we experienced trauma, but unlike the spath, we didn’t become evil, we became the opposite. My exP, near the end said to me, “love should be unconditional”. It’s part of trying to re-live childhood traumas but getting the unconditional love at the end.
I know it’s hard for people here to want to think this way about spaths, and I don’t think sympathy is the answer. Responsibility is.
Sky,
I totally understand what you’re saying. No, I am NOT a serial dater in that way at all. I was in a marriage for over twenty years, with the SAME man who fathered all of my six children….
I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to respond to what you’ve outlined here because I just feel angry with a lot of indignation, given what my cheating, lying piece of shit SPath did to me and his two former wives………..
I think blaming the women that Spath feeds off of, married or not, isn’t there the blame should lie, Chica.
It takes away from the disordered souls they are. That they torture all in their path. Whether it’s whom they’re married to or not.
The woman involved with a Spath who is married, is no less than one whom is, Chica.
He lies the same way. He says the same bullshit stories.
He appeals to the same vulnerabilities that sucked his wife in too.
It doesn’t matter her position.
Should anyone be treated than less of a human being? Spath does that readily…
He lied to his wife, as readily as he lied to her and he fed on vulnerabilities to do it.
Maybe they weren’t the same……………condoning or not, actions is irrelevant…….
It’s so much deeper than that when dealing with a disordered person.
I understand what you’re saying. I really do.
But please don’t assume that because there is the OW that she’s a whore and not worth a lot of love…………because in many ways, she’s believing the same lies that you did.
lesson,
I don’t blame all OW’s for what the spaths do.
I also recognize that my spath was preying on my crazy husband stealer neighbor’s propensity for husband stealing!!
LOL!
It’s actually funny. Evil people prey on each other.
not all OW’s are bad, many are innocent victims, I get that. But my only issue is the SERIAL, over and over and over again husband stealer.
Oxy clarified that it was two husbands, so that isn’t a serial husband stealer, I didn’t know that at first.
In your case, you were duped as we all are by the pity ploy, “my wife doesn’t understand me…” blah!
The spaths are good at their cons. I know that.
I guess that is our lesson, we have to have strong boundaries and we can’t make exceptions. I know that I did – breaking the law and my moral boundaries because my exP begged me to have pity on him. blah!
Lesson learned, your name is perfect!
I also recognize that my spath was preying on my crazy husband stealer neighbor’s propensity for husband stealing!!
LOL!
You are RIGHT!!! You couldn’t be more right Sky!!!
Prey!!! And the most vulnerable, THE BETTER!!
One thing I’ve realized……..and I’ll share this on a personal level with you…
I’m thin, very attractive physically….even after six, I can honestly say that I’ve had people say to me, over and over “WOW, you don’t look like you’ve had any children let alone SIX”….
When I hear that garbage I wince. REALLY? But ex Spath loved it as did ex P that I was married to for 20 some odd years….but ya know what? Ultimately, it didn’t matter at all Sky…not what we looked like, not how great in bed, NONE of it….whatever S/P/N was “looking” for, NONE of us would fit the bill, married to these psychos or not, ya know?
It was all about THEM!!!! IT WAS ALL ABOUT THEM!
Sky……when I was married to ex P, he cheated left and right. I stayed faithful to him…………….until the end when ex Spath was feeding off our “friendship” of ten or more years at the time…he CONVINCED me that he loved me and that I deserved MORE than the shit ex P was putting me through…it was a lie…all of it was a lie……………….it’s no less a lie now than it was then…but I have to take responsibility for that……I BELIEVED THE LIE.and that’s where I screwed up big time. I BELIEVED The lie…and something inside of me wanted too………Karma is real…because as ex Spath lied, while P was trying to stalk and kill me out of that control…oh MY GOD ex Spath was good..
Ex P wanted to kill me. He almost ran over the child he said he loved the most of them all, our youngest daughter, in a fit of rage, after having beat the shit out of me, leaving me for dead….he was the VIOLENT equation of P/N/S…but ex Spath was FAR MORE dangerous…….
He didn’t have to lift a finger, Chica. All he had to do was let me know, in the most devious of ways, that I was a worthless piece of garbage worthy of guilt, shame………..all the shit he projected onto me…but I was willing. I took it. I TOOK that garbage and readily accepted it as my own….because I didn’t believe in myself….and he knew it. IN more ways than I can say, he knew it….and he drained the life blood out of me doing it…there is much guilt now because i let him…when I saw the truth of his motives and what he had done…….
IN short, it’s been devastating. I’d rather be hit, Chica. FOr real, than feel the incredible pain he has put upon myself, my children and my life…
I’d rather be hit by twenty years of ex P.
At least with ex P, he was SO VIOLENT that there was no way to ge the message.
I”m convinced that the Spaths with the MOST psychological penetration to our desires is FAR MORE dangeous than a man who beats the shit out of you.
I’d rather have a black eye, than this. Truly….
And for a lot of us OW’s, this is our deserving, right?
I’m not so sure of that anymore, Sky.
Maybe we did the wives a favor with his lack of ability to be forthcoming in what a prick he is.;
Because he willsurely repeat the pattern.
Thank GOD it’s not you anymore, Chica.
Just like your ex P begged you to have mercy on him, so is the same scumbag begging at the door of his mistress…probably at within the hour of begging at yours.
I find peace without his begging. I know what lying, sick piece of shit he is and what he was doing to me while married to P. And guess what? He examined all of that too.
A sick human being,feeding off the vulnerability of others.
His biggest MO.
Interesting discussions in this thread. Donna’s point The best indication of future behavior is past behavior is true to a point. It should really say The best indication of future behavior is past behavior, sometimes.
For example the post right above mine (pardon me for using your post skylar, I am not trying to imply anything by it, just the words as an example) talks about the person used to break the law and moral boundaries. So:
Past behavior = breaking the law and moral boundaries
Future behavior = same?
We have to be careful about applying any of these neat little pigeonholes to people because sometimes they apply and sometimes they do not. Looking for the easy, black and white answers when it comes to human interactions is a fool’s errand because every person and every situation that every person is in is unique unto itself. Some generalities may apply but that is the best it gets.
I think this thread has done a good job at showing how subjective some folks are when it comes to tossing around the term psychopath. Again it seems that for some almost any bad behavior = psychopath and that is so far from the reality that it dilutes the term and makes it almost meaningless.
LL you are right in that there are a lot of grey areas. There are a number of reasons why some people may act a certain way at a certain time at a certain place in their lives. And it can be very easy to label them psychopathic (which for most means untreatable/unable to change). There are millions of former drug/alcohol users that easily looked this way but once they stayed clean for years they did not.
But if we only use our personal experiences, biases and opinions we can easily fall into the trap of labeling any behavior we personally see as bad as psychopathic. We could easily see some victims and their bad behaviors at the time as psychopathic and that this will predict their future behavior, reinforced by the (unproven) notion that this also means they will never change.
So if we take the wording skylar used we could easily have pigeonholed her into having the law and moral breaking behavior = bad behavior = psychopathy = future behavior = will never change and Presto! we have Skylar wrapped up with a little bow on top all nicely packaged, easy to deal with mentally and on we can go.
And what makes it even harder is that there are some people who are “victims” but yet they are also abusers. The abused/abuser. There are cases of what could be termed professional victims yet they are really abusive under the guise of being a victim, which, they may well be as well. So that confuses things even more. Heck there is even one site about that states “This means the victims are sciopathic to some degree”.
I have a very close friend that is currently in a relationship in which she is “the other woman”. Do I think it is psychopathic of her (or him)? No. I think that human relationships are extremely complex. Is it hurtful to all involved? Yes. And that I would suggest is the criteria that most of us should try to use. If someone is being hurtful over and over in our lives than that person should go out of our lives if they are not willing to stop being hurtful. It doesn’t matter what a person says, it is what they do. I can tell someone I care about them deeply but if I turn around and slap them every night, if I degrade them every day, well that shows what is really happening.
My friend should get out of the relationship. I have explained it to her in numerous ways. But she stays in it for her reasons and needs even though they are self-destructive. Does this mean that she should be considered a potential future behavior threat for being seeng married men? No, no more than anyone else is. Yet there are people that would disagree and see her behavior as “psychopathic”. But that really says more about them than it does about her.
Of course to mix things up and make them even messier is the fact that many of what could be termed psychopaths do all these behaviors, such as serial adultery, and can leave huge scars behind. Personallly I feel that the psychological damage is often much worse than any physical damage done. But this can easily cause people to become very sensitive to this (and for good reason!) but it can also become oversensitive. Oversensitive meaning that they see anyone donig that behavior (i.e. adultery) as being the same as what was done to them. This makes sense in a mental safety way but does not always equal up to the truth.
As I said in a previous post I will repeat here with the same ruffled feather expectations (talking about others we have not experienced):
Dehumanizing another person is often one of the major things that abusive people and groups do. Dehumanizing others allows the abuses to occur and makes them acceptable, even justified. It sets up the us and them; the we are human they are sub-human. And yet how many times do we see people doing this same exact thing when talking about others; when talking about psychopathy? Doing so is no less wrong than when the abusers do it. It may be a behavior that was learned from them; it may be just hurt and anger speaking out; it may be a whole set of things. But it is still not a positive thing to hold onto over time.
I would add this -> doing behaviors over and over, like the one above, makes it easier to do it as time goes on. In fact it can become a habit. A habit to the point of where it is done without even realizing it is happening. If it reaches this point it can be extremely hard to change.
Oxy I hope you are smiling at home as I have posted again 🙂
Just want to check in and change the subject just a little. I have been reading your conversations and am amazed at what you all have been through. I believe my recent experience with ex BF spath may be the tip of the iceberg as I haven’t yet to determine what was actually going on with my ex H of 25 years.
Today is the 3rd day of NC with ex spath. We had broken up before so that is the reason I am so determined to do it right this time. Today I was really hurting. There was one particular trigger you may find interesting. The Movie “The Music Man” had been on. It was the remake with Matthew Broderick. I watched it and put it on pause as I did other things. Even though I enjoyed the movie, I watched it with different eyes this time. Professor Hill was a con man. We seem to be fastenated with them. Marion the Librarian said very firm No’s from the beginning of the movie. At the end, however, when he is found out and about to be tarred and feathered. she comes to his rescue without even being asked. He asked her if she knew all along. She did. I don’t remember him saying he loved her except maybe in a song or two, but she defended him and spun a tale about everyone being happier since he came to town and how they thought more positively. bla bla bla. The only thing he could come up with was that “This time he got his foot caught in the door.” The message that is given in that movie is that she was the one person who could reform the con man. Really???
That movie, with the knowledge that I could hear the drinking in my spath’s voice on the phone, confirmed to me that I finally needed to put a stop to it. They are the perps, we are the victims, but we defend them for some reason for a long time because we don’t want to know the truth. What is the truth? I am finding out again today, that it is up to me to run my life, not some knight in shining armor. I want a good man hopefully one day, but he has to be one who deserves me as I am starting to feel more and more like I do deserve better.
True-to-Self