As part of my day job—writing scripts for web-based training programs—I came across some information developed by the Institute for Global Ethics. Surveys conducted worldwide have consistently identified a group of values that people of all cultures and nationalities recognize as essential. These universal values are:
- Honesty
- Responsibility
- Respect
- Fairness
- Compassion
Sociopaths violate all of them.
Perhaps that’s why those of us who are ethical, who care about others, who want to live cooperatively among our neighbors, feel so shaken after a collision with a sociopath. These predators take the qualities that people all over the world consider essential to the social contract and stomp on them, run them through a meat grinder and then pulverize them.
But they don’t tell us what they’re going to do. (Or if they do, we think they can’t possibly be serious.) Instead, they mouth eloquent words about their loyalty, trustworthiness and caretaking. We believe the words. Eventually, however, we discover that the words are empty, and their behavior reveals their true attitude: To them, the universal values of humanity mean nothing.
Then we, trying to extricate ourselves from the sociopathic relationship, lose our footing. We suspect that no one really cares about honesty, responsibility, respect, fairness and compassion. We were the only chumps who took these qualities seriously.
The good news is that we were right in the first place—most people in the world do respect the universal values. As we heal from our traumatic experiences, we’ learn how to differentiate those who do from the sociopaths who don’t.
He preached morality to me. Yet I was the only one following the principles. I was so confused. I have lied before, been lied to but I don’t ever remember being sandbagged like this…. I was depressed and thought I had to have done something, there is got to be something I am missing on how to live this life. I am no longer in that state of mind. I was so angry I wanted to punish, get even, but I won’t let him turn me into a monster. I have to have faith in God that he will take care of him the way he sees fit. God’s justice is perfect and he doesn’t need my help.
I pray every day that my children never have to taste the bitterness of defeat of this kind. That they can continue building on their hopes and dreams. I sometimes feel that I have too much conscience if that’s possible. Like I really don’t have a choice because I know the pain that I’ve felt and don’t want to inflict that. I sense too, the need to answer to God and to take His words literally, and thought everyone else who proclaimed Him did the same. So I feel like I’m trapped with wanting to do what I want, but I have this sense of responsibility of not throwing away someone who just doesn’t get it, and maybe if I try a different approach, the light will finally dawn. I can’t grasp why they just can’t feel what everyone else does. How can one go all through their life and feel no remorse for hurting so many people? Am I just entirely too sensitive? I sometimes begin to wonder if I really do know who I am. And here I had the audacity to think that I was totally healed of all of this. As I said earlier, it’s like the dead come back to life and die again, and I have to start the grieving process all over. How does one get it to stop? Will I become a sociopath too, if I stay around them too long? Will I lose all sense of reasoning? My thoughts drive me insane!! How does one stop the thinking process? Not just one thought but lots. Not just ruminating on one certain aspect, but the whole scope.
apt/mgr, everything you wrote hits home with me. I said to this man whom I was married to for 13 years, “was this entire marriage a joke to you?” “No, of course not”, he said. But, there can be no other way. It truly was a joke to him – never meant a thing. He says, “of course I feel remorse”, without one tiny bit of feeling behind it.
To apologize to his children (which he did only because a therapist told him he needed to), he sat them down and pulled out a typed up sheet and read from it. He couldn’t remember what he had to apologize for?! And, after he was done, he just carried on as though everything was fine now with them.
He completely believes his own lies. I made note of all the terrible things he said to me when he left, and when I brought them up weeks later, he completely denied saying any of it. It made me feel crazy, and looking back he made me feel crazy the entire relationship.
The universal values of honesty, responsibility, respect, fairness and compassion do not mean anything to my ex-S. He certainly expects these and demands these values from others, but he is exempt. I told him a few weeks ago that it is a relief for me that all those years I thought there was something not quite right with him, that I was right.
He somehow had me believing things about myself and life that simply were not true. He is an executive, who is way overpaid and has manipulated his way up the ladder. He has said, “someone’s going to make this much money, it might as well be me”. His thinking is, he is entitled simply because he is, not because he does a good job or is a hard worker, but simply because it might as well be him instead of someone else.
Before I met him, he was an auditor traveling around the country. I questioned him as to how he could handle such a stressful, detail-oriented job since he doesn’t like to work that much. His response: “I used to just make up numbers if it got too late and I wanted to go home. I didn’t care.” Let’s hope the person doing our taxes is not a sociopath!
apt/mgr, you asked what’s the point? I think the point is that we learn as much as we can from this traumatic experience we’ve been through. I, too, have been naive and trusting all my life. I was crushed like a bug. I am no longer naive, I trust only when I really feel it is warranted and I realize that evil (disguised as good) really does exist in the world. You said your husband said “I don’t know where you came up with that stuff. You must have convinced yourself.” My ex has said almost the exact same thing. This is crazy-making talk. We realize what it is now. We know we are not the crazy ones. We are the ones that live by the “universal values”, and they are not. This fact has to make us feel at least a little comfort.
But, it is hard. The whole experience can be so debilitating. I do have moments now of pure joy come over me where I am so grateful I no longer have this man in my life. But, at the same time, I also have those intensely low moments of ‘my God, how could he have done this’.
Keep looking forward and moving on. It takes a long time for our brains to process the betrayal, and we have to be patient with ourselves. We have been abused, and at the end of the day we will come out stronger, wiser, and ultimately happier. I have to believe that.
One more thing, my ex-S also preached morality to me. He would tell me what a loser his brother was for cheating on his wife, how monogamy was so important to him, how his boss had been cheating on his poor wife for years, how people at work would make inappropriate sexual comments about women and it made him uncomfortable. It all sounded so believable, and it was all a complete lie. He had me convinced I was married to the “family man extraordinaire”, also, as eyeswideshut said. It was all a joke.
apt/mgr, I have tried over and over and over again to try to make him see the light, to try to get him to face reality, all to no avail. The only one we can control is ourselves. We have to take care of ourselves. He is so far out of touch with reality that he will most likely never see things as they are. In his case, he keeps this thick, protective steel wall around him – it protects him from abandonment, and all the other horrible things that happened to him as a child. I can no longer care. It is not my job to make him become a kind, caring human being. It’s in God’s hands now. My job is done.
My sociopath presented himself as being righteous as well. He was always talking about family values, but he would think nothing of using his family as an excuse for being with the other woman. I got to the point that I suspected that every time “he was having the grandchildren over” that was code for I have female company and don’t disturb me.
My sociopath expected honesty and respect from others, but lied constantly about his own activities. I think that they get to a point where they start believing their own lies. I think that the majority of the reasons that he gave me for borrowing money were either fabrications or outright lies. Sometimes I can’t believe how gullible I was.
almost_free
It keeps astounding me that so many hear the same words. Couldn’t they at least come up with something more original? My husband never cheated, but due to his blatant disregard for me and my feelings, I came “this” close to falling. I was so desperate for someone to validate my worth as a woman. That was the moment when my eyes were opened to what I should have had and didn’t.
When I met this man who wants us to be friends, I truly thought he was God’s answer for my husband to finally step up to the plate. I went home and told my family how this man I met, who was my insurance agent,and wanted to hug me when he left. I was so naive, but somehow knew he was coming on to me, but it was nice. I didn’t fall but told my husband. I wanted to hear him say, “you tell him to stay away from you”. I got no response. I took a picture home to show him, thinking finally he would have a spark of jealousy. He looked at this picture and said,” boy,he’s really a good looking man”. I almost puked. He wasn’t supposed to say that. By this time, I knew there had to be something radically wrong with him. We had been married 25 years at this point. My spirit was so close to being broken, that I felt all hope for living was gone.
But shortly after the picture, I developed a tumor in my back. I went through my own physical hell. My husband was so nice to me. I actually thanked God for it, if it would get him to see that I had worth. So for approximately 6 months, I felt like a wife. He was very solicitous at this time and was nice to our youngest. He quit screaming at her and me. He was actually nice. I went through surgery for removal of the tumor, two months later had a D&C, two months later had a hysterectomy. All that time I figured we had finally arrived. Two months after I healed, he almost immediately reverted back to his old way and nothing had changed. I gave up at this point. I figured there was nothing left for me and this man I met really was my reward.
Thus began another episode in my life that I wish I could take back. Never in all my days, could I have ever imagined what this man did to me, too. When he realized that I was attracted to him, he did everything you could think of to wear me down. It was bad enough all the years with my husband seeking attention and hating his life with me, but this man, who is very seductive, and very masculine, just messed with my emotions. He teased me with sex, but nothing happened, because he knew I had the morals. I didn’t want to lose my children’s respect and just didn’t want some cheap affair. I was too stupid to realize that if he wasn’t get sex from me he was getting it elsewhere. He’s a womanizer but I knew nothing about all that. He sure took me for a ride. I was a challenge and nothing more. He wanted to win.
Even as I write about it, I can feel those feelings of angst and helplessness at the hands of someone, first my husband, then this friend. I prayed for truth in my life for so long. God gave me the truth I craved, and it wasn’t what I thought, and now I don’t know what to do with what I got. I can’t go back, as my husband said I ruined him financially and turned the kids against him, and I can’t go forward because of a few legalities. So I’m trapped right now, and it keeps me bound. The men in question moved on to do what they wanted, but made no provisions for me. So I was left to figure it out. I know it could be worse. But it shouldn’t have been this. It has to be more that Mars vs Venus. How could they not feel something?
I never thought this would apply to me, but many have suggested that my husband was jealous of me. I couldn’t understand why, but maybe it’s because I can feel very deeply and he can’t. I’m to the place where I don’t even want to ask, because I probably wouldn’t get a straight answer. My husband didn’t outright lie, but I think he did through omission. The man who wants me to be friends, hesitates before he answers, like he has to think of an answer without committing himself to anything. He, too, would talk about values, morals, integrity, but manipulated me to get money and I find out that any woman will do for what he has in mind. Where, oh where, did I go in all this? I was so lost in their maze of thinking and the fantasy world they call life. I never knew what part I was to play. As I said, no one gave me my script and I ad libbed and was always on the wrong page. I just need to figure out how to write a suitable ending.
almost_free and apt/mgr,
My relationship was orginally and jointly and verbally designed around biblical scripture with a man who had committed to memory most all important passages in the Bible. How could I not trust him, how could he not know the level of my commitment? It was what helped get me in, keep me in, and then got me out. I am a better person for it, everything happens for a reason.
I was sitting in church listening to a sermon based on Ephesians Chapter 6. Specifically in verse 12, as I sat there I realized I was battling something out of my league and it was then I turned him over to God. My faith needed clarification that I’d asked for, and I received my answer. Religion, in the hands of man, does not always deliver truth or enough truth. Religious people do not always have God’s love in their heart.
Helping to further define my spiritual role, I found (possibly gleaned from this site) more clarification of true (unconditional) love and how we are directed to deal with it. The link is,
http://members.net-tech.com.au/sggram/f182.htm, entitled the blind eye of love.
Hard to imagine anyone can be so vacant, even with knowledge, but it’s true. It is never easy to accept that someone you care for is choosing the wrong path, but I hope this might help you as it did me. I did my best, as I’ll bet most here did. You can be proud of that knowing you’ve stored treasures, awaiting you in heaven. Godspeed!
Benz
Benzthere,
I think spiritual blindness has to be very frustrating. I could never understand why my husband would point out faults of others, (me) but couldn’t see what he was doing. At that point in our marriage, I was afraid of him and didn’t want to provoke his wrath, and just prayed that God would somehow open his eyes to truth. So I think a lot of what we have to deal with is one spirit fighting another. Galatians 5 talks of the flesh vs the spirit. Those I’m around are caught up in satisfying the flesh, they forget the spirit. It’s like they just don’t want to go there, because then they will have to take responsibility for their actions. I went through the fire and feel more refined than before so all really isn’t lost. It’s still just frustrating.
DEar Apt/Mgr
That almost “compulsive need” in us to get them to admit their lack of a moral compas is soooooo frustrating. I wanted so much for my son to SEE what he had done to himself by HIS behavior (put him self in prison for a “life” sentence, ruined any chance for him to have a good life on the outside if he ever got outside, with life-time parole, no friends left that didn’t meet him in prison, no chance for a normal family life, etc etc) but all of his “repentence” all of his “wisdom” was FAKE, there is NO WAY HE COULD GET IT—it was all someone else’s fault. It was MY fault, because I turned him into the cops when he was 17 for robberty. I was “mean and unfair” to him when he was living at home, he killed the girl because SHE DESERVED IT for turning him in to the cops for the crimes THEY had committed. On and ON and ON–his life was the result of OTHER’S bad acts, not his. He was in his own mind “moral” and “upright” Rules didn’t apply to HIM. He was SPECIAL. I OWED him an inheritence of money and things I had worked for, because I gave birth to him. I had NO right to cut him out of my will or to stop making his life in prison as “nice as possible” and I had NO right to NOT fight for his parole and NO right not to take him in when (if) he got out and so on.
The only joy he has given me since about age 15 is the FANTASY that he was repentent. Fantasy is not a moral compas. IT IS A DELUSION on my part, and I am no longer tricked, conned or deluded about him. HE IS tricked, deluded, and conned by HIMSELF that I owe him anything. His problem, not mine.
The psychopath DEMANDS that you have a moral compas and live by it, and DEMANDS that you do NOT expect the same from them. NOPE, “ain’t gonna fly”—or as we say down here in the South, “that dog won’t hunt.” Frankly, I’m not going to feed the dog any more! It can make its own way in the world without my “help” (read: Enabling). I’ll get my own closure, I HAVE MY OWN CLOSURE. That is all I will EVER get, and it is all I NEED. I just didn’t see for a long time that it was ALL I needed. Now I have it. I was only frustrating myself thinking I needed him to admit his problems, or my mother to admit her problems (enabling) but I CAN VALIDATE IT MYSELF. I don’t NEED THEM to validate it. THAT was so SOOOOOO empowering to finally GET IT myself. ((hugs)))) to you