Most of the people who will be bad for us are not sociopaths, and so we want our radar to be sharp, not specifically for sociopaths, but for wrong, bad people of every stripe.
True, sociopaths will be terrible people with whom to enter relationships; in the end, though, they will represent a small fraction of a much greater majority of very wrong people for us.
As I suggested in a prior post, there are two keys to protecting ourselves from Mr. or Mrs. WRONG: The first is developing intelligent radar; the second is acting wisely on that radar.
After all, good radar, no less than good CIA intelligence, is useless if it’s ignored or devalued.
Now, are there cases of sociopaths (and the lot of devious personalities) so slick as to be undetectable until after they’ve wreaked their havoc? Of course there are; to suggest otherwise would insult anyone unlucky enough to have crossed paths with such destructive individuals.
Nevertheless, in most cases, the wrong person—sociopath or not—will and does leave clues much sooner than most of us want to admit (until much later).
WRONG, by the way, for whom? The answer, of course, is, YOU!
It is tempting and, at some point, I suggest, unfruitful to get stuck on the suspected psychopathology of a partner (present, or ex). Because when you get right down to it, there are only two diagnoses that really matter: Is this person, for me, RIGHT, and GOOD? Or WRONG, and BAD?
Only we can make this assessment, and it’s our responsibility, of course, to make it as soundly as possible. By soundly I mean being as honest with ourselves as possible, and keeping our best long-term interests uppermost in mind.
What, then, is the first—and, for that matter, second—telltale sign that someone is wrong, and really bad, for you, sociopath or not? (And speaking honestly, should we really need more than a sign or two?)
The answer is, ANY EXPRESSED BEHAVIOR or ATTITUDE that leaves you feeling disarmed or disoriented by its inappropriateness, selfishness and/or insensitivity.
Take great heed of such an experience, because almost always, it is a sign that more are sure to follow. In other words, preparing to bail at this point is a wise consideration.
Specifically, what behaviors and attitudes am I referring to? For starters, how about the first, surprising flash of rage, contempt, arrogance, selfishness, coldness, presumptuousness, dishonesty, indifference, ungratefulness, even denseness; shocking acts of abuse, verbal or physical; and startling failures of empathy, or compassion.
It is really less the behavior or attitude, per se, that screams ALARMING”¦prepare to BAIL!, than the experience of it as, “Where did that come from?”
I stress: It is our job, first, to register these signs; and then immediately to register them as alarmingly ominous.
The question is, Will you be willing to see what you’ve seen? Will you be willing to acknowledge the sobering portent of the display? Or instead, for any of a hundred conveniences, will you find ways to pretend you didn’t see it, and/or minimize the ramifications of what you’ve seen?
It is perfectly fine to ask, What, in a new relationship, should I be watchful for? What are the signs that my new interest may be someone different than advertised? I hope I’ve addressed these questions.
Then again, such questions tend, I think, to promote a view of the world as waiting to unleash upon us ruinous new bogeymen and predators, instead of encouraging us to examine what can be harder, but perhaps more honest, useful, retrospective questions, like, What did I miss? Why did I miss it? And if I registered it, why did I choose to ignore or minimize it?
Insight into, and resolution of, these latter questions can confer the best insurance against future exploitation.
In most (certainly not all) cases, it may be less important to be wary of the next nightmare disguised as Mr. or Mrs. SENSITIVE, than more careful of our always lurking capacity for defenses like denial, rationalization and minimization to blind us to what we don’t want to see, and do.
(This article is copyrighted (c) 2008 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
Oh, and have I mentioned that NONE of these treatments seem to do anything for him. In fact, he seems to have gotten worse.
And, he uses psycho-babble to make his explanations of his behaviors seem even more convincing. And uses AA speak, such as “one day at a time” as a way to feel appropriate in erasing the pass. Every day was a new day, and what he did yesterday doesn’t matter. He would always say that to me “Be in the moment” “one day at a time” when I brought up him being unaccountable for several hours the night before.
I think AA and therapy are both great – no condemnation of them
HH & Stargazer: I believe these guys like to use those forums to play their games. They learn new systems, get new “secret vocabularies,” gain power, and learn more about how to manipulate others. I remember one night when the P in my life went off to do an AA “intervention.” He was so pumped up, his eyes glittery, his stride quick and deliberate, his smile firmly pasted on. I know another P who is always urging people to drop to their knees and pray; I know enough about him now to see it’s his power trip, not his relationship with God.
Rune – YES!!!!!
My N recently spent a considerable amount of time making arrangements for his nephew to go into a treatment facility for a cocaine addiction…N was so “concerned” and had given the young man a place to live for two months, bought him furniture for his new place, and then when it all fell apart, he got him into treatment.
It makes him “feel” like he’s a caring person, and serves to further convince his family (who for the last 25 years have only seen him about twice a year – except for a younger alcoholic brother who also lives here and has bought Ns’ entire story, they have no idea).
He’s the one who needs to deal with his alcohol addiction!
Funny…he always called his ex-wife “psycho”, to the point where his sister gave him a shirt, “It’s better to have loved and lost than to be with a PSYCHO for the rest of your life”…The day before I found the hotel/cell bills pertaining to one affair, he decided to give me the shirt.
“I think I’ve earned this” I said laughing – I had absolutely no idea how near to the truth I was.
The day he gave me the shirt, he loved me…The next day, when I showed him the bills, he tried to lie – that didn’t work. Then he tried to say he had a “valid reason” for being in the hotel, but wouldn’t specify, and in the end he just said “You don’t deserve the truth”…and he didn’t love me anymore. It was over.
pb: Your story is typical. Read past blogs and you will see the “handles” are different, the locations are different, our EXs are individual people … but our stories are ALL the SAME … different degrees … but ALL the SAME!
Peace. I pray that you have a great new year!
PB,
The XS/P that I was with was rescuing people all the time. He said his x wife was an alcoholic and called her crazy. He called his mom crazy and said they were both abusive women. By the end of our relationship he called me a FUC&^%G insane slut bitch and had himself convinced that I was abusing him in some way.
He told me that he saved me from my x husband, who was not an abusive man. He didn’t. He imagined himself doing it. All that as he lied to me about everything he ever told me. Two days after we picked out selections for our new home, and a month after he bought me an engagement ring, I found him in bed with a woman 18 yrs younger. It was all my fault of course. He rescued her also. She had no job, was on welfare with thre small kids, had cancer, and kept getting kicked out of apartments for not paying her bills…… so the theme is vulnerability, until someone (like me) was smart enough to call him on the lies and cheating. A few months ago I had a call from a woman with whom he had an afair while he was married to his X. Told her the same things, ditched her often, and was also rescuing her from her x husband. Shee too had been recently separated.
He recently gave a builder 150,000 dollars in advance to help my x neighbor finish building his home when the sale of his old house fell through. It was no skin off his back. He was just payiing his own money for his home earlier up front. He rescued that guy too. THey come acrross as heros and so compassionate because they do things that visibly make them look good. But inside it’s a whole different story. I told him at one point that I felt with him like he could breath life into me and at any given moment just snap my neck.
Oh, and now he is living in that house we were building with a guy who just got out of prison for almost beating a man to death. He is rescuing him too even though all nine of his brothers and sisters live in the area and no one wants to take care of him. From the minute the guy moved in, he couldn’t wait for him to leave. But it makes him look good and he can’t stand to be alone. He thinks that being surrounded by people (particuarly women) makes him look loved and respected, regardless of how trashy they are.
WIni is right, same shit different day with them.
Every day with a sociopath is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna find! One day they love you. The next day they are indifferent. The next day you don’t even exist at all. Then suddenly they love you again. Then they hate you and find you repulsive. Then they love you again. There is certainly never a dull moment.
This is what makes this personality type so different from others. Parental seekers, narcissists, and emotionally unavailable people are usually consistent in their abusive behaviors. At least with those types, you know what to expect.
I have been reading these blogs and have a question, please.
I was with my husband 22 years – 18 married. Two children s-10 and d-15. I will try to give the highlights and I ask where does he fall into these conversations of S’s and P’s and N’s.
He was engaged at 21 to a lovely girl after a 4 year relationship – but I think he cheated during those years. He broke it off when the marriage plans were coming together and he says she wanted to get married more than she wanted him.
He then shortly married one he had his eye on, had a daughter 2, left for 9 months, went back, had a son and left again when the son was 7 months old. Said his ex was crazy, lazy, did not cook, clean, wash etc. He married her because he got her pregnant. His family backed up everything he said and they seemed so loving I had no reservations.
I worked with him for a few years while all this was happening and he seemed nice enough and seemed to adore his daughter and she him.
We eventually got together and as soon as he moved into my apartment things seemed odd:
he was no longer as comfortable, complained about the lack of space, made improvements without even asking the landlord and acted as if he didn’t have to since they were improvements.
He worked extremely hard because we had child support to pay so we did not have a lot of time together. I took on a second job to fill in the time.
We bought a house together and he did a pretty good job rehabing it. Trouble started when he worked on the house and got less done than he planned and had me excited about. If I questioned him he would say I didn’t understand what it took to get things done and he was only one guy. So I tried to shut up and roll with it. But when I looked at the phone bills he was EXCESSIVELY on the phone every day. My dad even complained that when he came to help husband was always on the phone.
He had an afffair with the married woman next door when he was supposed to be watching our infant daughter during the day-that was 14 years ago. She also had an infant a few months younger. He confessed to me he was in love like never before with her and didn’t want to lose that feeling.
They promised to stop the affair and I did not tell her husband.
We eventually found out they never stopped and their marriage came to an end. Husband would never move me away and I had a son in 1998. He still would not move.
Things were never INTIMATE with us – like we were disconnected emotionally. He loved me one day and not the next- cycles could last days, weeks, never more than a few months. I think he always kept communications with this neighbor but there were no overt signs of anything any she got involved with a friend of her daughter – half her age. My husband watched all this going on and he even ramarked what a skank she turned into .
In 2003 he announced he was building a house around the corner for a new start. I wished it were further away but said nothing. The house was framed before he told me anything and I felt like he was finally seeing the light. It was full of windows-too many and when I remarked that I thought the bathroom windows were too large and we didn’t need 2 -he went into a rage and didn’t talk to me for weeks. He said I should be glad he was suprising me with a house . Frankly , I thought inside it was a little presumptuous since I made a decent living and was not getting a say in any of this. Anyway, he did not speak of the house for 7 months and I was afraid to bring it up.
In 2005, a woman called to revael his second affair which had been going on a few years already. Again, he promised to end it, go back to working on the new house, and he bought a house at the NJ shore for me and the kids. I must point out now that we are not wealthy – a lot of this is bought on credit line loans and we are heavy in debt. I learned in 2006 he did not end the affair and he left and stayed between the 2 other houses for 4 weeks in March 2006. He came home , swore to go to counseling – we did and I found out again in June he had not ended it -he never even told her he was home from end of March till June. He staed out from June 2006 to November 2006 and came home again. He loved me, the kids and wanted our family together. Yes, I loved this man and wanted my family together. So 2007 was the year I became the perfect wife although it almost killed me. He went back to working on the NEW house – now 4 years into it and my kids were more excited than ever. But we didn’t get to pick anything out except the paint colors inside, He chose everyting including the appliances and kitchen which I thought so odd but was afraid to go against him again. He bought the best of everything!!!
So , again I felt him start to disconnect with months into the sping of 2007 – I just could not understand it- WTH was happening? I overheard a conversation in January2008 that he would not be married if it wasn’t for the kids and he had never really broken all communication to the last affair although she was NUTS. Then I found a hotel room key card in his laundry. I think this was deliberate to provoke me to act . By April 2008 he was walking out the door as he pleased and I asked him to chose to get help for himself and the marriage or just go. He chose to go and my world shattered. Six weeks later we saw him in the streets with the woman next door and she has announced to me she has finally won after 14 years. He is living around the corner in the new house and has left me and the kids next to her with all of it in our face!!!!!
My son sees him but my daughter refuses anything more than atoken conversation now and then.
He is in debt to $1000,000.00
re-financed the house I am in under the premise we wouild move to the new one and has left me paying the loan
He is elf emplyed as a contractor and has lost a number of good accounts because he doesn’t show up
He barely WORKS anymore -says he is the boss and has worked more than most in his lifetime – he is fifty
Lies about everything – even where he is -where he is going
Never home on weekends -no family time-says he couldn’t stand being near me
Says I was a good business deal
He never really loved me
Says he loves me more than 22 years ago and doesn’t understand why he can’t stand being with me
Says he knows he goes through cycles and I am married to a crazy man – but if I could deal with his cycles we would have a good life
Couldn’t stand me but never stopped saying he loved me or wanting sex
Wanted sex on demand anytime during my sleep hours and saying no angered him
Sex was mechanical, not loving, he called me names and pulled my hair.
He told my best friend 14 years ago he was doing the one next door but I would never leave him because I loved him so much
After he left he told his friend he was never coming back
I had found a cell number belonging to the one next door before he left this year so I think he had her in place before he left
When I asked how he could go after another man’s wife he said what did he care? the guy wasn’t his friend
His best friend asked him last year if he really thought he wanted to leave again because I may not keep taking him back – he said he knew I would because I loved him
He is constantly late for everything -our wedding, holidays, graduations – work appointments
Tried to join the H A motorcycle club and spent ridiculous time persuing them
Bought himself 4 motorcycles while our couch has wholes in it
Bought the shore house but hardly joined me and kids
Rescues people off the streets and puts them to work
I see where he values a guy and then just about crosses him off his list when a new guy comes along
Can’t stand his mother – she is very self centered
Has an all about me attitude-can’t love him enough, give enough attention, rub his back enough….
Does nothing to help with household chores or kids activities – yet I work full time and to it ALL -cook, clean, shop, laundry, banking, EVERYTHING
Says he adores his kids but spent no time with them and blames me
I just found out in the past he has told others about his affairs and that he built the new house to get away from me but still be close to the kids. What would make him think I will stay here next to her on my own now???
Is back with his other 2 kids – 27 and 24- they come around for money and he gives it to them. Yet they did not come around for the holiday
I sent the kids with a few Christmas gifts for their dad from them – I got nothing and he had the nreve to comment how glad he was that I did the right thing
Is back with his family relationships -sister and mother
When he left in April he filed divorce papers and didn’t even have the conversation with me after 22 years?
He is building yet another business and gives me what he thinks is OK to live on
Wants custody of kids a week at a time – although he could walk out the door while they literally cried for him to stay home on a weekend
My daughter found text messages of him and his affair and how in love they are
He gave D a bag for dirty clothes in the summer that had a receipt in it from the girlfriend- my daughter was devastated by these events
The next visitation he joked whether she wanted a bag with otr without a receipt – she never went back for another visit.
She is 15 and says her dad is a psycho – and yes I have her in counseling. She has been exposed to too much and saw his ways 3 years ago when I was trying to keep our life together. She would tell me at 12 and 13 to let him go – he would never change.
I apologize for the length and I still have left out a lot.
But I read here behaviors that fit his life and mine- is a sociopath the same as a Narcissist .I read here about psychopaths too – where does mine fit in?
Please help me – my heart is so broken and I have tried so hard -I have a good job, I am not stupid- most people thing I am so strong and can handle anything.
But I loved this man, looked up to him, saw more recently some things were JUST NOT RiGHT – even outside of the other women his behaviors are odd. But he was never really verbally abusive, never physically and I now think his behaviors would come under passive -aggressive which I read about here. Very covert – his reputation means too much.
He has left me with debt…next to her….it is like I am dead
He cares nothing for me …..did he ever
Dear Newlife,
His “life story” as evil as it is might not score a “30” of the Psychopath’s Check list, so he might not be legally a psychopath, but his pattern of lies, deceit, lack of caring, lack of responsibility, etc show him to be a TOXIC, UNCARING person. So the “label” you tag on to him is immaterial really, and I would call him a psychopath. Your daughter is right.
HE WILL NEVER CHANGE.
You loved him. He IS INCAPABLE OF LOVING YOU.
He is a sex addict.
He will “cheat” on everyone, not just you.
He will lie to everyone, not just you.
I know it is painful to love someone and have them repeatedly betray you, cheat on you, lie to you. Stay here, read some more, learn about the P/S.ASPDs (the term doesn’t really matter) they are TOXIC and we have been betrayed, hurt, dehumanized, discarded, etc.
You can’t help him, but you MUST HELP YOURSELF, and your children. Having your daughter in counseling is good. Good for you. I hope you are also in counseling.
If you don’t think your or your daughter’s counselor “gets it” about the psychopath, print off some things here, or refer the counselor to Robert Hare’s book “without conscience” and I suggest strongly that you read it as well. There are other good books recommended here as well.
Educate yourself, become an “expert” on psychopaths (whatever the label) because knowledge=power. Take back your power over your life. We have all given them power over us (because we loved them and love is the “giving someone the power to break your heart and hoping they won’t do it.”) They stomped on that heart, because it has no value to them. They are incapable of love of others, of caring for others, or empathy with others. We are objects to them.
But you did not deserve this, you deserve to be treated with respect, love and compassion. You will be understood on this blog, and supported in your healing journey. ((((hugs)))) and my prayers are with you.
Newlife: I disagree with Ox-D, but only slightly. This man may well score in the Psychopath range. He also appears to have manic phases, and Liane Leedom, M.D., has pointed out that bi-polar disorder may also be a component along with Anti-social Personality Disorder (ASPD, the DSM-IV descriptor for sociopaths or psychopaths).
This is a great, supportive community here. You can have the new life you have named for yourself.