With all the uproar over Arnold Schwarzenegger and his “love child,” our friend Ann over at WomenExplode.com just wrote about her own experience of a cheating husband.
Read I can relate with Maria Shriver ”¦ at WomenExplode.com.
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How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists
Darwinsmom, your spath probably cried because he felt identified with Christ in the movie. He probably feels like a persecuted god figure. The spath I dated in 2008 (the reason I came here) put in his internet profile that his favorite book was The Bible. And in his signature was a bible phrase about not judging others lest you should be judged. But the funniest part was that his screen name was “crucified”. I really think that after they’ve angered so many people, they start to feel as though they are unfairly persecuted and misunderstood. The entire time I knew him, he never spoke of anything religious. I even asked him about his faith and he changed the subject. I asked him if it was a problem that I am not Christian. He didn’t seem to care. I think the whole bible thing was part of his mask. He only identified with the persecuted Christ. I wonder if this is common with all spaths.
Star-that is super creepy to me that his screen name is crucified. That tells me right there that something is wrong with him. My ex told me that he was brought up Episcopal but it was very obvious to me that he paid no mind to religion at this point in his life-if he did than he would know that it was wrong to have major affairs on his wife and believe that he could go back everytime.
I’m still also creeped out that he managed to brain wash me so that I could give up my morals and do what I did as my part in the relationship. It took a long time for me afterward to feel like my relationship with God was healed. I felt that God hated me for a long time for what I did.
Yeah, I find it more weird now, that he cried with that movie, than I did before. I thought it was cute when he wept to what I perceived sentimental reasons. For a while I thought he was talking more of Jezus, because it can be disconcerting to normal people to be uprooted and having to live a daily life in a complete foreign country where you don’t speak the language, you can’t live outside (certianly not in winter), and everything is so much more organized and different. I thought he had been abroad before, cause that’s what he claimed, but I recently found out he didn’t, except to Costa Rica. Anyway, culture shock can make people feel out of their comfort zone into a panic zone and a natural response to panic is to reach out for something familiar, something you have known all your life… So, at the time I thought he might have been reaching out for the religion he grew up with.
But now I don’t know. Your explanation seems reasonable. Though I feel like puking whenever his sister tells him “God will bless you. God is with you.” I’m quite sure that the god his sister believes in would not bless him or is with him if he exists. He is soulless, so to speak.
Mine used to comment that when he’d be dead he’d sit right with Jezus laughing… yeah, right!
I think the real reason he didn’t like the Full Monty was because the guys are jobless and the main character is quite irresponisble as well: stealing metal from closed factories for money, stealing grass of lawns for money, he’s divorced and his son doesn’t want to hang around with him. And he’s depicted in a kinda loser way. Maybe he just saw too much of himself in that character, and didn’t like how it comes across with us.
There was one other movie incident, once. He had rented some horror movie by Wes Craven. But the story wasn’t the out-there-unrealistic scary story, but about a heavy gangster who gets rescued by his gf and brother during a transport, and they end up kidnapping 2 teen girls who were smoking pot with his son in the hideout hotel room, not knowing what they were getting into. One of the girls gets raped (and it’s shown in a realistic emotionally traumatizing way) and then killed, the other is near to death but manages to escape barely. Meanwhile the gangsters end up at her parents’ home, looking for a bed with some bad-luck story about their car. The parents are fooled, and not until their barely dead daughter crawls back up at their porch do they find out who their guests really are. They end up killing the gansters brutally.
I used to like horror stories when I was early 20s, but once you’ve felt pain of loss and disappointment in life, have seen and have known people live in mysery and go through something traumatizing, I just couldn’t appreciate them anymore. And as you get older, you are also more decided on your beliefs and values. The Ring was the last horror movie I saw voluntarily, and I felt so manipulated on an emotional level by the movie I can’t stand horror anymore. I could see that the movie was well made, graphically, the story was more realistic than say Scream… but it was too realistic for me, and I didn’t need a movie like that to empathize with real victims (I was near puking at times). And yes, I wished they’d kill the horrific monster who raped the teen as I watched it. But I still felt extremely manipulated by the movie. I didn’t say a thing about it to P until it was over. I asked him not to rent a horror movie anymore for my enjoyment, cause I didn’t enjoy them, and didn’t enjoy the sensation of being emotionally manipulated towards violence and vengeful feelings by a movie. He tried to argue with me that it was a well made movie. And all I could say was, “I don’t like to feel manipulated.” And why couldn’t I tell myself of him?
I find it ironic that the people I’ve run across in my life who were having extramarital affairs (I’m talking about non-spathological people) were all devout Christians. I would think if you’re a Christian, the 10 Commandments are the most important rules to live by. That extra guilt added on of breaking the 10 Commandments must be very painful to deal with. I am not a Christian, but I don’t (knowingly) sleep with married men because I couldn’t bear to share a man with another woman. The spath lied to me about being married, so I don’t even count him.
I once had a married male massage therapist I liked and was attracted to. This is before I went to massage school. He was actually one of the people who encouraged me to pursue that career, which I eventually did. Anyway, he was married, and he and his wife owned the metaphysical store he worked out of. Often, she was working in the next room. He was very inappropriate with me as my massage therapist, always talking about sex. Once he tried to kiss me when I got off the table. This was back before massage therapy was regulated, and I didn’t realize how inappropriate this was. He and his wife were pagans and had an open relationship. I myself was in an unfulfilling relationship. It was the guy who threw my cat across the room, who was the impetus for me to take up stripping as a career so I could get away from him, and who later turned out to be a child molestor. I was stripping during the time I met the massage therapist, so I had an aura of sexuality around me, and men hit on me all the time. I thought about him a little more than I should have. At one point, I told him I was moving. I was moving out of the child molestor’s home (I didn’t know he was a child molestor at the time, but I knew he was narcissistic). The massage therapist told me he would help me move. He said he celebrates change in people’s lives and would be glad to help me. I was so excited to have help with moving, and excited that it was him! But when the day came for him to help, he had a family obligation of some sort and had to cancel. He never rescheduled. I was crushed beyond belief! This was my first taste of the disappointment of crushing on a married man. After that, I decided never again. No married men – ever.
Epilogue: That massage therapist, to my knowledge, still practices massage and still hits on women. I don’t know why no one has turned him in. I got help with moving from some young Mormon guys who came knocking on my door a week or so before the move. They helped me in the middle of summer when it was 100 degrees. They carried all my crap up 3 flights of stairs into my very first (ghetto) condo that I’d just bought. They did it wearing suits and ties! And they refused to take any money for it. The day they knocked on my door a week prior, I’d invited them in for tea. We discussed all kinds of topics. They were fascinated by my career (stripper) and asked all kinds of questions. They never tried to prostheletize me and they never judged me. For this reason, to this day, I have a soft spot for Mormon missionaries. I will never forget those two young men and what they did for me.
I left the narcissistic child molestor and lived in my very first condo with my 3 cats for 3-1/2 years. I spent a fortune remodeling it in bright and unique colors (lilac carpet, black and white kitchen, red furniture) with my stripping money. It was stunning. I quit the stripping but didn’t need much money to pay my $150/month mortgage. (I’d bought the place for $19,950)! I did many jobs after that, including selling frozen meat off the back of the truck while I was a vegetarian. Eventually, I went to massage school and started a new career, but this was not until after I moved out of the ghetto and in with my next bf, whom I also became financially dependent on. Anyway, after 3-1/2 years I decided I could no longer live in the ghetto and fight with the reverse racism and all the drugs and threats. I got involved with the president of the HOA who was a very confident alpha male with multiple jobs – all in the finance world. He eventually cheated on me while I was living in his house, three years later. The pain of it almost killed me. It took my entire savings (about $8000) to get away from him and start all over. I am now on year 11 since our break-up that I’ve been rebuilding my life. I have dated several men since then, not lasting more than 3-6 months. The sociopath was one of them, back in 2008. But the guy I lived with for 3 years was my most serious relationship. It ended in such heartache. When I found out he was cheating (it had not become physical at that point – it was a long distance phone relationship), I moved out and never spoke to him again.
darwinsmom:
That movie you were talking about is “Last House on the Left” and I have seen it.
My personal view on religion is this. I am Christian and have been my whole life. It’s just always been there and I believe with all my heart. I do have to say that a lot of Christians I know are very judgemental and cannot see other people’s points of view or respect their religions. I am not like that. X spath was an atheist and I was willing to love him forever; give him everything. And the friend I am meeting at 1:00 is also an atheist and so is her husband, but they are the some of the best people you will ever meet. So you can have an spath who is an atheist that doesn’t have a soul and you can have an atheist who has a wonderful heart and you can have a warm hearted Christian who will give anything to anyone and then you can have a Christian who is a backstabbing, lying creature.
My N mother is super religious and she has made my life a living hell for it. I have been near a lot of people like her and they make it their business to try to convert atheists to Christianity and I say just leave them alone. Some atheists are very fine people and my family believes that they are somehow bad because of it. I completely disagree.
Stargazer:
HA! I have run across the same thing as far as the Christian’s having the affairs. And then my friends I mentioned above who are atheists…I am pretty sure neither one of them would even dream of cheating on each other from what I have observed and heard from them. A very interesting topic indeed.
I think there are some Christians who are very good-hearted people, as well. But there seem to be some that don’t have an internal sense of right and wrong, except when the Bible tells them. These are the masses who cannot think for themselves, who blindly follow authority, and who “sin” all week long, then go to church to repent, because they believe that absolves them of responsibility, so they can do it again. These are people who go to church every Sunday and hug each other and confess, but treat their neighbors like shit during the week. When they do something the bible tells them not to do, they feel guilt because they are going against their religion. They are not thinking about the people they are hurting by their actions, only how God is judging them. It seems that their guilt is a way of punishing themselves so they can continue their hurtful behaviors. They see themselves as sinners and then they behave in a way that lives down to that label. They are sinners, therefore, they sin. But because they are “believers” all they have to do is repent, and they are absolved of their sins. Seems like a perfect cover for child molestors and sociopaths. If they believe, they are forgiven. They can keep sinning and they will always be forgiven. I don’t think this is the true spirit of Christianity, but the masses seem to have bastardized it to support their lifestyle of non-responsibility.
Not being a Christian myself, I believe only that there are actions and consequences for those actions. Those consequences are called karma in eastern phillosophies. If you do things that hurt people, and you are a caring (non-spath) person, then eventually you are going to feel the pain of your victims. If I have done something that hurt someone, just feeling the pain I have caused is punishment enough for me and a deterrent for not doing it again in the future. I don’t need to also feel guilt because I’ve somehow upset a divine being or broken a commandment. I believe there are reasons for the 10 commandments. It is not just that some divine being made them up. There are reasons it is harmful to kill and cheat and lie. The reasons are that people get hurt by those actions. Everything you do has a ripple effect that can create either good or bad karma (consequences). If you take out the middle man (God), we are all connected to each other, and if you hurt another person (or animal), you are also hurting yourself.
Star-my Christianity was the huge problem for me in what happened with me and my spath. I was so guilty because I was breaking commandments. When we broke up though and I was out of a job after resigning from the police academy, I asked my N mother to see if I could stay at her brother’s extra house 2 hours away so I could work. She told me that her brother was stressed out-(big time stock broker w/ tons of money) and she couldn’t involve him in my drama. She also told me that I brought all this on myself because I broke GOD’s law.
Stargazer:
You are great! You articulated the above so well. Your first paragraph is right on the money. Even though I am a Christian, I agree. I see this happen all the time. I always chalked it up to we are all sinners…everyone sins, no one is perfect. But there is another element working there and I think you said it very eloquently. Thank you.
I also believe in Karma and I think the Karma bus is moving a bit too slow right now. So coincidental what you said about the 10 commandments in your second paragraph. The OW in the triangulation with me told me that X spath said the exact same thing about the 10 commandments. He didn’t necessarily believe in them, but respected them and believed there are reasons for them. Interesting.