Last week, my husband, Terry Kelly, and I traded colds. I got sick first, and Terry made chicken soup and did what he could to make me feel comfortable.
Then, despite my best efforts to keep my germs to myself, Terry got sick.
By this time I was feeling better. So I went to the store and bought cold medicine, tissues and orange juice, because I’d used everything up. I made him chicken soup. I even made him a pot of chili.
As I did all this, I noticed a warm feeling within me.
It was the joy of taking care of someone I loved. I was concerned about his health and wellbeing. I was happy and energized to help him.
It was a feeling sociopaths never experience.
Three behavioral systems of love
When we talk about romantic love, what exactly do we mean? We may associate it with excitement, or a warm, squishy feeling about someone special.
But Drs. Philip R. Shaver and Mario Mikulincer, social psychology researchers, have explained romantic love in a way that’s helpful for people involved with sociopaths to understand.
Psychologists have come to believe that human beings have innate motivational systems, also called behavioral systems, which have evolved over millennia to help the species survive. Shaver and Mikulincer suggest that three of these systems are involved in the experience of romantic love: the attachment, sexual and caregiving behavioral systems.
Read:
Attachment, Caregiving, and Sex within Romantic Relationships: A Behavioral Systems Perspective, by Mario Mikulincer.
Real love
For non-disordered people, real love, therefore, has three components:
- Attachment attraction, the compulsion to be with the person we love
- Sex no explanation necessary
- Caregiving the desire to take care of the person we love
Sociopaths only experience two of these components. They definitely feel attraction, at least in the beginning of the relationship. And they definitely want sex. Usually lots and lots of sex.
But sociopaths do not experience caregiving. They really have no desire to take care of anybody not you, not their kids. They are only concerned about themselves. They do not think about what will benefit someone else.
Fake caregiving
In the beginning of your relationship, you may have seen what appeared to be caregiving. The sociopath was always doing things for you, or buying things for you.
This was not authentic caregiving. It was a seduction tool as the sociopath was reeling you in. He or she appeared to be concerned about you and your welfare, but it was an act. You may have noticed that once your were hooked, it stopped.
In fact, one of the big telltale signs of a sociopath is how this person behaves when you need help. Unless a sociopath has a specific agenda, a payoff for helping you, often he or she cannot be bothered.
I was restoring a chest of drawers and fell on it, badly hurting my knee on a nail that was sticking out. The blood spurted and I screamed. He, the sociopathic husband, was downstairs and heard my frantic screams for help while trying to free my leg from the nail. He sounded very calm, I told what had happened and asked for help, he DID NOT come up, he couldnt be bothered. I desintangled myself, cleaned the blood and took myself to the AE department on my own. I have ever forgot that and years after it was one reason why I asked for a divorce, amidst plenty of other ones, such as behaving improperly with his students, total coldness, lack of interest in my life, selfishness, lack of interest in our children and grandkids, occasional violence, obsession with things like different countries every two or three months, meaneness, complete disregard for my feelings, when for ex an author I loved died and he only said ‘ im not sad’ , and lack of support when I was sick.
This is very true. On my first date with my ex-husband, he drove an old blue VW. I loved it as it was vintage and so cute. However, he showed up for the second date in a brand new Camaro with all the bells and whistles. He also showed up with a trunk load of firewood for my fireplace. Impressive, huh? Well, things changed. Fast forward two years later, when I was mowing the yard and a 3 inch splinter was stuck in the joint of my kneecap, he became furious that I wouldn’t let him prick holes in my skin with a big needle. He took my kneecap and shook it hard saying “Go get your own d*** help, then”. One year after that, I was painting the bathroom walls up on a ladder and he knew it but barged into that room, knocking me off the ladder and onto the hard bathtub, resulting in a broken ankle with foot.. cast for 6 weeks.
Scary people, these folks are. Lose life and limbs not even to mention the loss in our hearts and heads. They do NOT care. Have backup for medical needs if you intend to stay with them. They will not be available during any of your tough days. You will not be “allowed” to be the center of attention even if ill or injured because it would subtract from their entitlement of attention.
Not to further gross anyone out, he often called me ‘mom’. Horror.
Second attempt at posting, may be posted in parts as computer is not cooperating!
I look back and I grieve at that girl that gave so much and received so little.
I’m a nurse, so caregiving is my second nature- his slippers by the front door, dryer-warmed towels by the shower, etc.
But it was strangely not a shock to me as I found myself driving myself to emergency rooms in strange new cities at midnight alone dehydrated from severe morning sickness in winter storm warnings. Multiple ER visits through pregnancies. Early contractions, severe dehydration. All alone. He had to work, after all!
The worst was at 34 weeks, possibly having had my water broken, having been dropped off at the ER for a FERN test and he disappears. Doesn’t answer texts, calls, or hospital pages. He couldn’t hear calls or texts or overhead pages, he says. He was distracted by the magazine he was reading in the waiting room. That’s his story, anyway. But what man goes and lamely sits in a waiting room to read magazines while his wife is possibly in early labor and he’s supposed to be her labor coach?
ER visits for migraines. I drove myself or he dropped me off. All alone, texting him what time I thought I’d be out of the scanner (you know, in case it’s a stroke) as if it’s a business consultation. Year after year, alone in hospitals and clinics and waiting rooms with chronic health problems. I put my own life and that of babies in jeopardy sadly because I had begun to think that was normal.
But then it came to the children….(cont)
(cont from above)
Dropping a 6 year old daughter off at school in below 0 degree (F) temps without noticing there were no cars or people in the area and driving off without seeing she got in safely. (School had been cancelled because of wind chills. A custodian found her wandering in the snow banks around the school about an hour later). Dropping kids off at Vacation Bible School at the curb of a mega church they’re not familiar with without taking them in to sign in, give contact info and meet their teachers.
Wow.
I mean, what to do you say?
That’s when the tide turned for me.
You don’t mess with the kids.
The irony is, when he had a vasectomy (at my insistence, because I found out he was having non-consensual sex with me after I had made him move out of the bedroom after finding disturbing torture porn on the home pc. that the kids used, while I was drugged out of my mind on Ambien, very ill, on multiple STRONG medications, and a pregnancy would have been disastrous to my or the baby’s health) HE said I wasn’t “appreciative” enough of the pain *I* forced him to go through and *I* take care of him well enough.
These stories are basically all the same. Sometimes I believed that he enjoyed when I was hurt or sick. You are so right about the fact that they need to remain the center of attention. It is so sad that they think nothing is wrong with them. I am sure my husbands new “supply” will eventually be treated the same. His true face will be unmasked sooner or later. I don’t feel sorry for her rather I am thankful that she took my place. I wish I would have filed for divorce much sooner but I never had the courage to do it. The final straw was when he abused his “cop powers” and claimed I was mentally ill. My attorney asked me “what are you waiting for “? “For him to fabricate more lies and file some made up criminal charges against you”? He was so right, I filed the same day . It is far from over but I did show him that I am in control now. I glad everyone here survived these nightmares. Deep in my heart I know that his ultimate goal was to have me dead. It would only benefit him as he would not have to fight me in court about money, he would have the house, my son and his little co worker mistress. I escaped just on time.
clarification:
I had asked him to move out of the bedroom because I was deeply disturbed by the content I had found on the home computer that our children used (ie torture porn) and it was not the first time I’d found that. MASSIVE troves of what I would term torture porn. I’m a pretty open woman, but to me, this stuff was sick.
The non-consensual sex (I believe in was non-consensual because I was BOMBED out of my MIND on AMBIEN at the time and had warned him previously that I was to be protected at night after taking it-ie setting the alarm, making sure I don’t get up and start cooking in the middle of the night, etc. Obviously it should have gone without saying that being inebriation would qualify as a factor rendering things unconsensual) occurred without my conscious memory and I only found out because he was joking about it one night.
Obviously, because of the marital situation, the other medications I was on, and my medical problems, a pregnancy would be disastrous.
Didn’t matter.
What he wants he gets.
And after all, a condom doesn’t feel as good.
right?
I still struggle with the crux of the matter:
Does he really suffer?
I mean, is there REALLY ever any justice?
But Donna’s article helps me understand what he is missing, and it’s one of the things that makes life worth living.
If I couldn’t experience the joy of caring for and nurturing people (and things) I would shrivel up.
Maybe that’s what psychopaths are.
Shriveled-up souls.
We were taking a trip to Singapore and I needed a shot for cholera. I got the cholera shot and it made me not only feel ill I had a big lump and swelling in my arm at the site of injection. He did what I thought was joking around, but he said we needed to disburse the poison and he started miniature slugging me in the arm at the side of the injection. I tried to be good-natured about it and laughed a little but as the slugging got progressively harder, I started to tell him stop, …knock it off. It wasn’t until I was very aggressively firm about it that he finally backed off. Had I have just joked around with it he would’ve kept pushing me. After all, even if I get a bruise there of course it would be blamed on the injection. At the time” I didn’t realize that but after having known him for 28 years it is very clear to me that he would never take responsibility or accountability for any behavior or actions.
When I was pregnant we were in childbirth preparation class. The instructor had all the couples get into positions where the man was supposed to help make the woman more comfortable by placing his hand on her lower back and massage. He gave me ” the look” that meant do I really have to do this? The quick answer is, yes of course in public to look good and in private you would never do something like that to make somebody feel better-Even the mother of your unborn child.
Eight years into the marriage I’m now pregnant with our third child. Out of the blue one day he’s home and he tells me that if I wasn’t pregnant he would hit me. Of course, I felt like he had hit me just buy the words he had used. I went in the bedroom and just lay down on the bed and tried to just regain myself. I was furious that he could’ve ever talk to me like that while I’m pregnant,about to give birth in less than a month and taking care of a two-year-old and a four-year-old. Talk about vulnerability!!!! But as I’ve come to learn, that is the work of a sociopath — you take advantage of the most vulnerable person you can find. And the vulnerable one will usually knuckle under because you’re not exactly in his position of strength. Plus he knew none of my family lived nearby, so my support system was limited to friends neighbors coworkers and his family. And we all know the sociopath has a way of shaming you to keep you quiet. Plus it’s embarrassing to tell other people because then you feel like an idiot as it is telling everyone the abuse you put up with.
Unless I’m mistaken, honestkindgiver, the two most vulnerable times in a woman’s life to violence are during pregnancy and when leaving a relationship.
The number one cause of death for pregnant women (again, if I recall correctly) is homicide.
Unfortunately, cruelty is not just reserved for romantic relationships. Even children can exhibit callous cruelty toward their parents.
I had a bout with cancer. Fortunately, it turned out to be minor, but at the time I received the news, before the testing cleared me of further harm, I had no idea what to expect. My son, who I’ve subsequently understood to have BPD and inclined toward “splitting” with loved ones, had pronounced me “persona non grata” in his life.
A few years prior, he’d made a comment to me that I took to heart. His at-the-time girlfriend had been crestfallen to hear that her mother had cancer surgery and didn’t tell her. She found out third hand. My son’s take on the matter was, “I don’t think her mother really loves her very much.”
Being mindful of my son’s sense of the “betrayal” his girlfriend had experienced, I decided to reach out and tell him what was happening. I didn’t want my son to have a moment’s doubt as to whether or not I truly loved him. He had cut off my phone and my email, so I went to call on him at his office which was just around the corner from where I lived.
The receptionist was very pleasant. I asked for my son and she inquired who I was. I told her I was his mother. She called him and said, “He’ll be right out.” For the first time in 2 years, I was about to see the son I adored.
He walked past me to an outer vestibule and motioned me to follow. When I passed throught the doorway he held for me, he said, “You need to leave.” I told him that I loved him and that I had just come to let him know I was about to undergo cancer treatments. He said, “Leave,” and walked away.
That’s the last time I saw my son. It’s been over 3 years.
My son is the result of rape by fraud. I’m convinced that his father is a psychopath, and our son has a combination of his torturous genes mixed with the pain of his father’s abandonment.
I’ve attempted to make sense of the sorrow I endured by writing my story and recently released it. It’s called Carnal Abuse by Deceit and it’s available on Amazon. I truly hope it will enable others to understand and recover from the deep emotional turmoil that accompanies falling prey to an emotional predator. I also hope to galvanzie a change in society’s concepts about rape by fraud, and bring about criminalization of the behavior.
Joyce
Oh, and there is more. 13 years into the marriage, I feel like I’m in a time warp. I have three young kids now, 4,6, and 8 years old. I work outside the home and I do EVERYTHING concerning the home. and I volunteered at school for the kids. I was basically getting 4-5 hours of sleep a night. Did he care? NO he did not. I came down with a terrible cold and cough. Um, NO chicken soup for me. No grocery shopping, no nothin’ . I went to the doctor and they said I had adult whooping cough. I could barely hold a conversation with anyone without uncontrollable coughing. To be honest, I don’t think he really even noticed I was sick – or he minimized it. IF asked today, he would not remember. The point is: I was very sick. It was then that I became a stay at home mom. Then he would ask, “What do you do all day?” After explaining a few times I quit trying. He’d say, “If I was home, I could whip this place into shape in an hour or 2” I got piles and piles on emotional and mental abuse. I was never enough. I knew in my heart that the kids could be happy (they were), homework done, house clean, cars washed and waxed, bills paid, yardwork done, an awesome meal on the table, as glass of wine at the door, a sexual marriage bed waiting………. and something would still be wrong!
What kept ME going… just as you say, the joy and warm feeling I experienced from my children and the roller coaster ride of it with a sp spouse. I couldn’t give him up. I tricked myself into thinking that the good times outweighed the bad – when in reality, I knew it was dismal. Then I told myself just be happy with yourself, the way you are and the focus on the children. So it was like living as a single mother in a legal marriage with a business partner (who was taking from the business via expense report reimbursements from business travel charged to our joint credit card).
The last mammogram I ever had during the marriage went like this. I told him I have a mammo today. He shrugged his shoulders in a flippant manner. That night I said, “Don’t you want to hear about my mammo result?” He said, “Oh did you have a mammogram today?” I literally thought he was mental. Just don’t even try anymore…. I knew I was with someone who just wasn’t capable of caring.
About 6 months before the marriage ended I literally had a true panic attack. Up until then I really had no idea what true anxiety or panic was. My heart rate was over 200 doing nothing and racing erratically at that and no matter what breathing or calmness I tried – I could not overcome it. I knew I had to get to the ER or I was in real trouble. He did notice and offered to take me. I told him NO, unless you want everyone in the ER to know about you and your abusive ways. I said, “I am going to tell on you. I’ve had enough.” He got out of that car so quickly. My daughter took me. They determined it was atrial fibrillation. My blood pressure was also higher than it had ever been. That episode put me into a just witness and “document” mode. I started a diary of all of his BS and it was 7-8 months later that I finally got the courage to file for divorce.
I am so glad I got out. Yes, I also figured out he had a mistress for the last 5 years of the marriage. I’m really glad he did, because it gave me the reason to quit feeling sorry for him (as he so often wanted me to do). Was I mad at the mistress? Yes… but now, I am grateful for her. She helped improve my life in a way that until I knew about her, I wasn’t mentally strong enough.
I wanted to divorce just based on the emotional and mental abuse, but I just couldn’t fathom the loss of my intact family. Now, I see the hurt and disappointment in the kids, but it is still better than staying in a fake relationship that wasn’t going to change.
Thank you Donna, Thank you lovefraud. This blog brought me more peace and understanding than any counselor, self help book Or friend….. and I have some very good friends 😀