It is likely you are reading this because a sociopath said “I love you” and you believed him/her. You also probably thought that when the sociopath said “I love you” he/she used these words as you do, to express a sense of intimacy, passion and commitment. However, what a sociopath says and what a sociopath does are so different it can be crazy making.
In the aftermath of a relationship with a sociopath, former romantic partners are left to wonder, “Just what was going on in that person’s mind?” “What was he/she thinking?” Many people have written in asking, “Did he/she really love me?” and “Do you think he/she loves that other person now?” It is the second question many find most disturbing.
In 1943, Dr. Abraham Maslow in his classic paper, A theory of human motivation, declared that psychopaths lack the capacity and motivation for love. “The so-called ‘psychopathic personality’ is another example of permanent loss of the love needs. These are people who, according to the best data available (9), have been starved for love in the earliest months of their lives and have simply lost forever the desire and the ability to give and to receive affection (as animals lose sucking or pecking reflexes that are not exercised soon enough after birth). ”
Contemporaneously with Maslow, Dr. Hervey Cleckley described psychopaths in The Mask of Sanity and developed a set of criteria for their identification. According to Cleckley (criteria #9), psychopathy is associated with “pathological egocentricity and incapacity for love.” He declared “The psychopath seldom shows anything that, if the chief facts were known, would pass even in the eyes of lay observers as object love.”
Cleckley also maintained that an “absolute” incapacity for love is even found in those with an “incomplete manifestation” of psychopathy, who lack the full disorder. Writing in 1956, Drs.McCord and McCord disagreed with Cleckley and Maslow. They described psychopaths as having “a warped capacity for love” stating, “there are indications that the capacity, however under developed, still exists .”
My guess is that the McCords got fooled just like you and I and a recent paper shows us why.
Dr. Barbara Gawda at Maria Curie-Skldowska University Poland studied the “Love Scripts” of sociopaths. Love scripts are simply ideas about love that a person has. These ideas include how people fall in love, and what people in love are supposed to do.
Dr. Gawda showed a picture of a man and a woman hugging to 60 sociopaths in prison, 40 prisoners without disorder and 100 university students. She asked all participants to write a story about the picture and to imagine themselves as one of the characters.
The sociopaths stories were significantly longer, more detailed, and more self-centered than the other two groups. Contrary to expectations then sociopaths do not lack love schemas. They are perfectly adept and perhaps more adept than most in talking about love. The findings of this study jive completely with my own clinical experience. That is, over the years many people I knew to be sociopaths told me about their love experiences. Their stories were impressive and had me believing that they were capable of love.
If clinicians, scientists, lovers and family members rely on verbal reports, they will never come to understand the lack of capacity to love that characterizes sociopaths. Cleckley reached his conclusions about psychopathy and love only after observing their actions over a number of years. He also said this,
“In a sense, it is absurd to maintain that the psychopath’s incapacity for object love is absolute, that is, to say he is (in)capable of affection for another ”¦ He is plainly capable of casual fondness, of likes and dislikes, and of reactions that, one might say, cause others to matter to him. These affective reactions are, however, always strictly limited in degree. In durability they also vary greatly from what is normal in mankind. The term absolute is, I believe, appropriate if we apply it to any affective attitude strong and meaningful enough to be called love, that is, anything that prevails in sufficient degree and over sufficient periods to exert a major influence on behavior.”
References
A theory of human motivation. Maslow, A. H.; Psychological Review, Vol 50(4), Jul, 1943. pp. 370-396
McCord, W and McCord, J (1956) Psychopathy and Delenquency New York: Grune and Stratton, Inc. page 13
Love scripts of persons with antisocial personality.Gawda B.
Psychological Reports 2008, 103, 371-380.
This study compared the scripts of love among 60 prison inmates diagnosed with Antisocial Personality Disorder and those of 40 inmates without an Antisocial Personality Disorder diagnosis but low antisocial tendencies, and a control group of 100 adult students in extramural or evening secondary schools without Antisocial Personality Disorder traits. The study focused on emotional knowledge about love of the group with Antisocial Personality Disorder, as they present lack of capacity for love. The study was done to examine how they perceive love and how much knowledge they have about love. All described their reactions to a photograph of a couple hugging each other. The content of these scripts, analyzed in terms of description of actors, their actions and emotions, and length of description, was compared among the groups. The scripts of love by antisocial inmates contained more actors’ feelings and strong emotions, as well as more descriptions of actors’ traits, their actions, and presumptions. The inmates with Antisocial Personality Disorder showed more focus on themselves when they described love than the other inmates and the controls.
Dear Vision,
GOOD GOING!!!! One step at a time! One day at a time! Even one minute at a time sometimes! Keep chanting the mantra!
I do hope you get your money back, but it sounds like he is hoping that when you get your money back, he will be able to put you back into his harem. LOL Boy, is he in for a suprise!!! (((hugs))) Stay strong.
Vision,
I too got some cash from my P shortly after I left him.
it was kinda funny, because I made him put it in my dad’s parking lot paybox. But he only did it so he could try to see me and when he failed to get what he needed, he quit giving me money.
So, I’m worried that you will not get money if you don’t respond properly (he told me those exact words). But I’m not sure what to tell you to do. Maybe, look vulnerable, like you are thinking of taking him back whenever you get money and then grow cold when he stops giving you money.
Dear OyDrover,
Thanks a heap! Today is another milestone for me…..
He is on the scent, sniffing out my changes, so I need to be stronger and I will be calling out “Help!” when i need it from you all….
I know what I need to do, Like Apostle Paul said “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak”.
Hey….I needed that hug…..Hug back…..
what is the life span of a P/S/N? this in-humane love-less creature? how long can they keep up this act? no sleep, all sex, play, fun, keeping up the image, etc, etc. i know they don’t have a conscious (sp?)….do their batteries ever run out?!?!?! …….were these creatures put on this planet to test people or make others lives miserable?….
Sky,
I thought about playing him til I got my money but that didn’t work.
He just kept me in control and never had it…..So there I was hanging on while my heart was still involved…..
There is another saying” Nothing ever perplexes an adversary so much as an appeal to his honor”
He claims to be religious and I know he is very superstitious…When he borrowed the money, there was a “sign” that related to his faith…..I pointed it out and applied it saying that now I knew he would pay back since look, here is this sign……Seriously……I know he believes in it.
Plus his honor, the feeble belief he has in his honor, will drive him to give it back….No honor over lies of love, etc but oh ho, when it comes to paying back……..different……Also, the fact that I told him that those who do bad things to me always have bad things happen to them….and it wasn’t me who did them but God, Allah…….will repay……
Hey Oxy, you are right bout that harem!…hint…..
But if all said and not done, then I will cut it lose and be done with it…..although it angers me……
Missing something that the P has?….whatever you need to get back from a P…make sure you play their game. you’ve got to LIE, manipulate them like they do you; then get what you need, and get out.
i found a ring, from my jewelry box, in a box on his dresser – when i went back to see him several months ago. i stole the ring back from him. boy did i feel like a snoop for looking thru his things. what had i become. what level hadd i stooped to.
this is the first guy i didn’t trust. he taught me not to trust. i was snooping, looking at his tele, ckng things….
if i haven’t learned anything else…WHEN YOUR INTUITION SPEAKS, LISTEN!
In 1943, Dr. Abraham Maslow in his classic paper, A theory of human motivation, declared that psychopaths lack the capacity and motivation for love. “The so-called ’psychopathic personality’ is another example of permanent loss of the love needs. These are people who, according to the best data available (9), have been starved for love in the earliest months of their lives and have simply lost forever the desire and the ability to give and to receive affection
Well, from my experience, P is largely genetic. Because I gave all my children much love/care and acceptance. I taught them love and empathy and they had it. And they were all good kids….two of them thru their teens. [One was ‘mouthy’ thru her teens.] And all three of my kids lack empathy and do not care about what they do to me either. Their character is primarily like their P fathers. And…two of them were raised with him NOWHERE in their lives…..so for me – P genetics has won.
Twice betrayed
I believe you, that the p genetics win out….my ex P boyfriend has a son who is disturbingly showing signs of being P despite being brought up by the mother who is not..even my ex says of his son ‘he never talks…he is too quiet’ its like they have no bond with each other…but they are both P and have nothing to say to eachother…Ive seen them together and its just like one actor showing another actor, there is not hugs, no love no feeling…its all image and looking and copying and cold as ice…in fact it wa the first red flag I could not avoid, it was the reason I started to pull back my energy…
to everyone, especially early on…this has been a great post! I read everythig and I so related to the bad teeth, neanderthal brow, mechanical but varied love making techniques…I caught him chatting with internet woman and what he had posted to her was….Sex to me is an art form, I can go for a long time in various postions and to me this is okay as long as we are both getting pleasure, i would be happy to meet you anywhere at anytime and enjoy sex with you….the woman responded well …yeah great but I’m looking for someone who cares about me….sorry …see ya
I printed out the conversation and stuck it under his nose when he came in from work…guess what he said? I did not meet her, i was only chatting, that means nothing……He flatly denied any wrong doing…..and every day for the previous year he would say like clockwork every morning as he opened his eyes in the morning…he would pull me close and say “I love you my love” and I just melted, because i wanted to believe it so badly…..but it was all bullshit…
Stayingsane: Yeah for me….I believe in the genetics. Because that is my experience and I’ve had two P X hubs and three P children by them. What I raised was three great sweet kids….only to see them become uncaring, selfish, narcisstic adults that I hardly know. In fact: Every day I try to figure this out….before I went NC I could see small ‘flashes’ of what I had raised. It makes me feel like I need to ‘shake it off’……’wake up’ from this ‘bad dream’ but it’s no dream….these are the people they have become. Just is unbelievable. Even my second P ‘X hub’s mom said: “if someone had told me he would become this bad…I never would have believed them.” Both my P X’s dads were P’s. People: It’s genetic, I tell ya. And when/why it hits certain ones I do not know.
More proof: my son has two sons….one is just wonderful, smart, well behaved, very kind, just loved my all. He’s a great kid. [he just cringes at his brother and his behavior]
The other: a terror. Cruel, cons and lies, deceives and my son said he could do this at two years old. He’s cruel to animals and loves to pull legs off frogs, hurt his dogs etc.
Both these kids- same mom/dad and raised together in the same home. So: My money is on the genetics on these people.
Yeah: I relate to your XP boyfriend’s behavior. My x hub had the same behavior….could not understand why I left/divorced him over his chronic cheating [and abuse]…..he said: “It’s just ‘raw sex’ why are you so upset? You are my wife.” Ahem.
skylar,
> You cannot try to contemplate their reasons from the perspective of a rational adult human.
Nobody is perfectly rational. One can try to contemplate their reasons just as one can try to contemplate irrationalities of anybody else. Of course it is much safer to contemplate their reasons from the distance 🙂
Frankly, I have a sociopath in my life but that person is not the one who hurt me the worst. Non-sociopathic people may be quite abusive and very irrational as well.
> What I’m trying to say is that what may appear like self-defeating behavior, isn’t self-defeating, you just didn’t get what their real goal was to
> begin with.
Well, one doesn’t need to understand the goals of someone else in every detail to see if that someone is getting what he/she wants or not. It’s sufficient to look if that person is happy or not. If not, that means that either circumstances are unfavorable or the behavior of that person is self-defeating.
> Those principals are:
> I should have everything and no one else should have anything.
> I should take everything because if it was given, that means the giver didn’t want it, so now I don’t want it either.
It looks like the life script of my younger sister.
I didn’t call it sociopathy until recently, but I knew that she is a bad person for nearly a decade, since she was in her teens. The interesting thing is, as far as I know I’m the only person she can be honest with to some degree. I think that’s because she knows that I know her, doesn’t expect me to love her, and at the same time knows that I can relate with some her experiences. So one day she may viciously attack me for hours and the next day she may try to talk with me as if nothing happened, and if opportunity arises she will try to talk through her problems with me. For me it is better to play a therapist sometimes than to brawl all the time. I mean, I would gladly have no contact with her if I could, but it is not possible right now. But this situation gives me an opportunity to have some insight into her mindset.
> The source of all of this “rational” (excuse me for using that word so inappropriately) is ENVY. The most irrational of all emotions.
Yes, I have come to the same understanding. She is envious in the extreme. Many years I thought that my sister’s main problem was her envy and imperious temper. But envy is a normal human emotion and dominance drive is normal human motivator. Everybody has them, but most people don’t become such persons. If it has grown out of any proportion in her psyche, there must be a reason for that.
> How does this apply to love? Easy, he doesn’t want your love
My sister talks a lot about love in our conversations. She doesn’t have to, since she doesn’t expect it from me. As far as I understand she thinks that I’m incapable of love. Sometimes she uses that her belief to present herself as better person than me. By the way, when she does so in our private conversation that is rather quiet and peaceful, it is quite irrational because she doesn’t gain anything from it. Probably she does so to present herself as better person than me in her own eyes. After all she already firmly knows that I’m not going to agree with her in that respect. But it means that she is not indifferent to moral questions, she has to come up with some reason to justify her sense of entitlement in her own eyes.
Sometimes she talks about her disappointments in her relationships when she feels unloved. When I try to point out that she caused this herself by treating another person badly she instantly comes out with some excuse of that behavior, with some explanation why that person deserved such treatment. But it seems to me that her disappointment is real and she feels really hurt. She just refuses to see that she can’t regularly mistreat another person and be loved by that person.
And she talks about loving the person she mistreats. She doesn’t have to tell me that. I couldn’t do anything about it anyway even if I believed her, and many times during our conversations she told me terrible things about the same persons she claims to love. It looks like she doesn’t really see that it can’t be both ways. For her abuse is not incompatible with love. It looks like for her abuse is a legitimate expression of love, but only when she abuses another person, not vice versa.
So I disagree with you that sociopath doesn’t need your love. I would say that sociopath needs to be loved, preferably by everybody whom they like or “love”, and to abuse the persons who love them. They’d like to abuse everybody else as well, but this is optional in most cases while the former is a must.