Sociopaths will manipulate anyone. Let me repeat that. Sociopaths will manipulate absolutely anyone, including mom, dad, brothers, sisters—anyone. One way that this happens is the sociopath gets his or her family—knowingly or not—to participate in the victimization of the target.
Lovefraud received an e-mail from Rod in Nebraska. Rod’s daughter had been targeted by a sociopath. In his e-mail, he wrote the following:
One thing that I do believe should be approached about a sociopath is his ability not only to control his victim, but also his family. The sociopath works his family to the extent that he manipulates his immediate family into believing that none of his problems in life are his fault and consequently the blame falls on the one he wooed into a relationship. In this manner he deliberately cons his family into enabling him in his behavior. Oh, poor guy, the world is against him, he has a seizure disorder and has the gout. Thus concluding my opinion that he controls his universe and his family’s.
Family ties
There are parents who continually bail out their sociopathic children—even as grown adults. There are family members who continually acquiesce to the sociopath’s demands, maybe just to maintain the peace.
Sometimes the families are just as clueless as everyone else. They don’t understand the sociopath’s behavior, but they feel family members are obligated take care of each other. They believe the sociopath when he or she blames the victim for whatever is going wrong.
Other times, the family members are sociopathic themselves—the risk of developing this personality disorder is genetic. So they see absolutely nothing wrong with predatory behavior.
So to escape, the victim must often stand up to not only the sociopath—which is difficult enough—but the sociopath’s entire family as well.
I know in my case, when I met his family, his mother gave me a strange look as we were introduced. It bothered me because I couldn’t put my finger on it. Later when a female coworker found out we were dating, she gave me the exact same look. Now I realize what it was. It was a look of concern, and now I know why. Mom knew he would eventually cheat on me, and break my heart, and the (married) coworker had an affair with him, while both we’re married, so she knew he was a cheater, too. Neither woman warned me. A year & 1/2 later I was devastated. Upon meeting his father, my impression was that he seemed incredibly arrogant, and condesending. Hindsight really is 20/20. His parents also enable him by allowing him to live in his grandparents old house, free of charge. They help him out financially alot, yet he’s a critical care paramedic who should not be living paycheck to paycheck, especially since he doesn’t pay rent. Honestly I think he spends all his money on porn and phone sex, but if he was my son making that kind of money (not a ton around $30,000. a year) I’d be inquiring where all the $$ is. He lives 2 houses away from his parents, and they feed him every night. Oh yea, and his mom even pops the zits on his back for him, he’s 37-years-old!!!! I could go on, and on!! Part of me thinks mom knows he’s evil (because of that look) but then I wonder, because they enable, baby, and cater to him so much. All I can say I’m glad to be away from the whole lot of them. I just wish he hadn’t messed my life up so much, and women should definitely warn each other in obvious & verbal ways. That being said, If I ever get a look like that again from someone in a similar circumstance, I’ll take it to heart.
PS.. He has two sisters who didn’t warn me either. Even though, turns out he has a history of cheating, continually! on his ex wife & every girlfriend.
Strangely enough, the sociopath I was involved with still lives with his mother at age 46! his mother and I got along great she is 76 years old and I felt I could talk to her about anything, she was well aware that something was wrong with her son, she would often say “He thinks the whole world revolves around him” or “he always thinks he is right about everything” On one occasion she called me to ask me to look up a condition to see if this may be the reason he behaves the way he does, by the way she paid his car off for him after it was repossessed to the tune of $14,000, he is working at present but that is only a matter of time, he has gotten into numerous arguments and threatened people on the job he gives her next to nothing to live there, he is in and out of trouble and back in his younger days took the life of his own baby. Why was I with him you might ask? me an intelligent woman, well he told me after two weeks of dating that he did fourteen years and that it was an accident. It did freak me out at the time, I one day asked his mother about it and she to was in denial about it blaming the crib. The truth is and the word on the street was he beat and shook the one year old baby to death, because he was jealous of it.
His mother said they were not allowed to talk about it within the family in case it upset him!! and she was actually very relieved to discuss it with me as I felt it was something that had to be talked about, so one day I sat him down and told him we had to talk about it I had questions and we would never talk about it again. What I did notice as he relayed what happened, he told me it seemed like he punched the baby, was the lack of remorse he did not cry or really show much emotion! SERIOUS RED FLAG! basically he trivialized it, as that happened 20 years ago. In answer to the question anyone reading this will be thinking, “What the hell was I thinking” I really can not answer that, his family are a loving family and they were so happy he was with someone “Normal” I was convinced at the time that I could help him turn his life around WRONG!
I came to find out he almost beat his last girlfriend to death, she did cheat on him so in his mind that was justified, when everything finally came to a head with me after numerous physical assaults that I did not report, one family member made me see the light he asked me if I knew why the sociopath had been in prison? I said yes, he then asked me “Well what chance do you stand”? That hit home and I went and got a restraining order immediately.
His mother even told me well “do what you have to do”. I do not understand though why she still enables him, I almost sent her Dr. Hares check list and various articles about sociopaths but decided against it, as at the end of the day he is still her son and she loves him, so it would be futile. I did however write her a letter outlining some it, as the same family member that had asked me that profound question said he believed she was afraid of him so I wrote her and told her she should not be afraid in her own house and to maybe have a family intervention as the sociopath takes drugs, marijuana, and I was told he laces it with crack cocaine. He also drinks fairly heavily, so I don’t know if anything happened with that. The bottom line is, with the sociopath I was involved with his whole family are more than aware that something is very wrong with him, yet it seems noone has the balls to actually stand up to him and throw him out of his mother’s house.
My sociopathic ex still live with his mother, when he’s between girlfriend. He’s an only child, and I wonder a lot if his a mother is his victim or his accomplice. After we broke up, in December, my ex went back to live with his ex-girfriend (he hide it from me), but whenever I called at his mom place, she never told me that he wasnt living there, she was always making excuse for him. In fact, she was lying for him. I dont know what he told her, if he fooled her or something, but she had a lot of opportunity to tell me he was back with his ex and she never did !
Oh so true…..thought it was worth bringing back up!
You guys are so funny! And collectively describe my own experiences. The monster in my life was still living with mommy and daddy at age 28. Better yet, he was still a virgin! Had dated only one woman before me for a very short period of time and she dropped him like a hot potato, in fact, when she saw our wedding announcement on the local paper, I heard that she said “that poor girl, I feel sorry for her.” Ha! Too bad I never got to meet her, the stories she must have had. So, anyway, Mommy made his bed in the morning and left the porch light on so that when he came home late from the strip clubs, he wouldn’t stumble and brake his crown. His father drove him to and from college all of the 7 or 8 years that it took him to get a 4-year degree. Of course, all of this was unbeknownst to me until 7 years into the marriage as all I heard throughout that time was all the bragging about the women he had been with and yaddah yaddah yaddah.
In my case, I blame the parents for the social disorder that this individual is afflicted with. They had the most dysfunctional relationship I’ve seen in my life and fed off each other like a leach on a main artery. She played the victim part and manipulated him into doing everything from housework to the finances. He felt empowered by his wife dependence and impotence and let her play him like the fool he was. They were married 50-some years and he never found out that his wife was (get this!) 12 years older than him! When they met, she was in her forties and he in his late 20s. She lied to him and told him she was 2 years older. She took that little open secret which everybody but him knw about to hell with her when she died. The father also was a Spath of sorts and was the main cause of his son’s. The old fart was in his 70s and still kept pornography laying around so that people that came to the house could see what a viril macho he was.
Sick, sick, sick, I tell ya, sick!
will be okay:
You wrote: “women should definitely warn each other in obvious & verbal ways.”
In my opinion, this won’t work, and I’ll tell you why I think that.
When you FIRST meet an Spath, you are so enraptured by their awesome personality, their charm, their charisma, their intelligence, etc. If someone tells you something bad about them, you won’t believe it. Those that know him/her … know that! They know where you’re at in the relationship because they’ve been there. They know that you won’t believe them and will have to find out for yourself.
I could try to reach my daughter who is now under the spell of my Spath, but I know where she is in the relationship.. She’s in the “honeymoon” stage. In her eyes, he’s charming and intelligent. He’s the knight in shining armor.
If I say something to her about his sociopathic ways, she’ll deny it. He’ll convince her that Mom is crazy … and it will only serve to drive her further away from me.
I wish it were different, but it’s not.
Too Late:
I agree with you.
I would even go so far as to say that some people are enraptured to the point of addiction.
And, when the ADDICTION is in control, there’s nothing you can do.
An addict needs to hit “rock bottom” on their own, before they can begin to come out of it.
The scary thing is that nobody knows what the “rock bottom” will be, and it is different for everyone.
It can take many years to overcome an addiction.
Too Late,
I agree, at first people some people are enraptured by their charm, etc. But I do not think all people react that way. In fact, my daughter is married to a p/s and her brothers never were enraptured by him. They always said, “Why is she with HIM?” “What does she see in HIM?” They never came under the spell. My women friends in their forties were completely different. I saw some of my friends change and flirt like I never saw them do before. They were hypnotized by his charisma.
My daughter is still in the honeymoon stage with her spath husband. It could take time until she comes out of the fantasy she has created in her mind. It is not reality, but fantasy!
yes…it’s like in the scary movie when the audience screams at the victim NOT TO GO DOWNSTAIRS…what does she do? goes downstairs….
I was enraptured, his sister told me after that she thought even that maybe this time he had found someone he loved, even though she had the look of concern, as did his neighbours…all his friends looked at me as if ” what are you doing with him are you mad” but no one could tell me, I would have bitten their head off I was that in love (intoxicated more like, it wasn’t love)
anyone who hinted at him being a bit odd was in my mind ‘just jealous’ because they didn’t have him ha ha my God I was insane. I WANTED HIM AND NOTHING WAS GOING TO STAND IN MY WAY….oh boy the rock bottom was horrific…what it took for me to finally see this creep for what he really was!
He used his possibly innocent parents as props in his scam. They seemed normal enough, kind, protective of him, pampering and in awe of him (like me) He hated his sister, who really tried to tell me, via her looks and her snappy way of answering him, she was very intolerant of anything he said and kind of laughed him off. Later when I was on my knees begging for help she came clean about how she felt about him and it was pure contempt YET she was strangely bound to him…yikes I’m so glad i’m away from all of em!!!