Here at Lovefraud, we’ve heard thousands of horror stories of marriages to sociopaths. Thinking about these unfortunate involvements, it seems to me that there are three types of romantic relationships with sociopaths. I call them the Marriage Masks, and they are:
1. Calculated exploitation
The sociopath targets an individual for the explicit purpose of exploiting him or her, using the unsuspecting partner for money, sex, a place to live or something else that the sociopath wants.
My ex-husband, James Montgomery, targeted me because I had what he wanted: money, good credit, my own home and business connections in the city where he decided he was going to make a fortune. He sweet talked me, married me and drained me, and then he moved on without a thought.
2. Passing entertainment
The sociopath finds the partner to be a suitable involvement for the present—until the sociopath gets bored, antsy, or some other individual catches his or her eye. At this point, the partner is discarded.
Mary Jo Buttafuoco described her husband, Joey Buttafuoco, in her book, Getting It Through My Thick Skull. To me, it seems that Joey Buttafuoco was one of those sociopaths who was simply looking for a good time, for entertainment. He worked and she was a stay-at-home mom, so he wasn’t using her financially. But eventually he had an affair with a teenager, then visits to hookers, then a new wife. Changing women was like changing the scenery.
3. Image creation
In order to secure a coveted place in society, the sociopath may seem devoted to his or her spouse or family in public, but life at home, behind closed doors, is another matter entirely.
Here’s an example that was recently in the news. Stephen Green, founder of a fundamentalist organization in the United Kingdom called Christian Voice, preaches against homosexuality, abortion, Islam and Jerry Springer. “The enemies of God are having their say,” proclaims the organization’s website. “It’s time to hear the Christian Voice!”
Green portrays himself as the guardian of morality in the U.K. However, Caroline Green, his former wife, paints a totally different picture—domestic violence:
He told me he’d make a piece of wood into a sort of witch’s broom and hit me with it, which he did,’ she recalls, her voice tentative and quiet. ”˜He hit me until I bled. I was terrified. I can still remember the pain.
Stephen listed my misdemeanours: I was disrespectful and disobedient; I wasn’t loving or submissive enough and I was undermining him. He also said I wasn’t giving him his conjugal rights.
Here’s the whole revolting story in the Daily Mail:
Missing: Ability to love
These categories are not hard and fast, and some sociopathic relationships and marriages may show signs of two or all three types. But however the disfunction manifests, the root problem is that sociopaths are not capable of feeling real love.
They are, however, capable of acting like they feel love—at least in the beginning of a relationship. I call it the luring stage—the period of time when sociopaths do everything you’d ever dream that smitten partners would do. They call, they want to be with you, they give gifts, they make you feel cherished. They do this until they hook you.
Then, sociopathic behavior starts to reflect the real agenda—calculated exploitation, passing entertainment or image creation. The change may be subtle or sudden. The relationship may gradually devolve, it may swing back and forth between normal and unconscionable, or it may suddenly evaporate.
But at some point, the Marriage Mask slips, and we come face to face with the truth: We are being used.
Dear Stopcalvin:
I think we were married to the same man. lol
I had 3 children with the xsocio. SAME stuff went on!
Even the part about the first child having to stay in the hospital and he wouldn’t drive me in!! OMG.
The only difference is that I don’t know if he had other women. I never thought of checking back then.
It didn’t matter, because I wanted OUT when he started
abusing the children…and I finally got him out and got divorced.
He hasn’t seen the children..and doesn’t pay support…they are 13,14 and 16.
I am SO glad that I got him out of my life. A competent mental health professional diagnosed him as a Socio right before the final divorce, when he tried to come back.
I didn’t know anything about sociopathology back then. I only found out about it when I attracted another one into my life, 5 yrs after the divorce! I’m glad he’s gone too.
My children are all loving and caring and honor students.
Bruce Lipton did studies…If you take a bad cell and put it into a good environment..you can change it.
Mission accomplished. My kids are NOTHING like him at all.
Amazing….
**GASP***
Ox? Did you just say what I thought I read you said?
Throw the weiners out in THAT weather? **shocked**
DM, weiners would not survive stepping a PAW outside the front door.
LL
Eden!!
I”M SO BUMMED!!! Please write again. I would love to get your take on it!
LL
Yes LL you are right and Ox is a jerkwad….
DM
**Sigh**
LL
Now, this is a GREAT article. Very helpful to take a look at it this way 🙂
Tobehappy, maybe you were just lucky and it was not their destiny to develop psychopathy. Maybe it could happen the next generation, or maybe the next one.
How many normal, caring parents had a psychopathic child? Many i’m afraid, but if they look at the family tree do they find any psychopath/s? Probably. But it needs to be recognised and till today it always was covered up.
Or maybe despite the suspicions it’s not genetic, or maybe most of people are carriers of the gene. Or maybe we who think in the existence of psychopaths are the crazy and the wierd ones.
I explain people what a psychopath is and most of people say “Eva, this is the description of a classical son of a bitch. What? Now are they called psychopathic instead of twisted bastards?. There are lots of them”
I maintain my theory that psychopaths will eat us alive 😀 while most of people maintain the theory that they’re just a bit bad but that they can be fixed with a bit of patience and affection.
Henry!!!!!!! I only score 28 on the PCL-R, what do you mean I am a jerkwad!???? LOL I didn’t tell you that you had to tear their little toe nails out now did I? Noooooooo!!! I just said toss them outside so they can move their bowels outside instead of inside, didn’t say you had to leave them out there for the duration! LOL
My Bud dog wanted out this morning until he saw what the weather was, then he decided he “didn’t need to go” so badly after all, toe under the bootie and he was out the door for a few minutes—in his cute little sweater! But I ain’t pickin’ up no poopie off the floor for a grown up doggie, won’t kill’em to go outside long enough to squat, if God didn’t intend for them to poop and pee outside he wouldn’t have made Wal Mart Dog sweaters for $5.
Sometimes Bud will even go back to the door to check and see if the weather outside STILL sucks! LOL
BTW wonder how the great treasure dig is coming along with EB? Wonder how many feet of snow they are having to look through to get to the ground? Hope she finds a million bucks! Then she can pay for us to all have a vacation in Florida!
OX!!
ROFLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My weiner has an “I love Grandma” sweater that we put on him. Hilarious. Kids bought it for me for HIM for christmas a few christmas’s ago. He gets a WHIFF of cold air and he does the whole manipulation shit. “I AIN’T GOIN OUT THERE GRAMMA DON”T MAKE ME” look on his face. WHATEVER! You’re GOING.
I hate doing it though. lol! Poor thing. Shivers like a battery operated Elmo.
OH well…
LL
Eva,
I agree with you, they WILL EAT US ALIVE!!!! I think probably we all have the genetic traits to some extent, but what makes one person’s genes “turn on” and them become a psychopath and another person’s genes don’t–???—just don’t know, but genetics isn’t it entirely and environment isn’t it entirely either, seems some combination of them both.
I can’t imagine that there is any family that doesn’t have some Ps in the gene-pool, and I can’t imagine that there is any family that doesn’t have a victim or two as well. I think there are genes and environments for both, and possibly one is the “flip side” of the other, those of us who are “frequent fliers” as victims may have some gene + some environmental stimulus that makes us more likely to be picked as a victim and to stay there longer. I think we see both frequently in families like mine where some are victims/enablers and some are psychopaths.
There was a researcher at Ft. Roots VA facility in Little Rock years ago who started out with a litter of puppies, and he bred the most timid to the most timid, and the most aggressive to the most aggressive for about 20 + generations of dogs and starting with ONE litter of pups he ended up with two groups of dogs, one which would eat your arse and the other which would pee all over itself trying to be subservient to you.
It seems like though with the psychopaths that they tend to pick not another aggressive person to pair with, though that does happen, but more pair with a “victim” person who may be outgoing, smart, etc, but still have an excess of compassion or empathy. So the offspring would maybe get the aggressiveness and high risk taking from the P but have a chance to get the empathetic components from the other parent so might not turn out to be a psychopath.
I do tend to think though that I must have some of the genetic material there even though I don’t think I’m a psychopath, and though my x-husband wasn’t a psychopath, still my P son has a full fledged psychopathic bent with plenty of risk taking and violence, but BOTH his grandfathers I think were “card carrying” psychopaths, and on my side there are many psychopaths back further than that on both sides. Don’t know about husband’s family further back for sure, but suspect on his father’s side as well, and I do know his mother was a very passive, enabling and abused woman picked by a very dominant male for a wife.
I’ve always been very interested in genetics and still am. In livestock, cattle, horses, and dogs, I know that aggression or quiet dispositions are very heritable. I culled my cow herd for many generations for disposition with great success. Still every once in a while a “wild one” would pop up that seemed wild from birth without any bovine “trauma” to account for the wild or aggressive temper. By the same token sometimes one would pop up that would be so tame from birth or weaning that it was practically a lap-cow. I also experimented with “imprinting” at birth and found that there seems to be some definite differences in ones that were imprinted vs ones that were not. Especially with equines (horses, donkeys, mules etc) though I think there is also with bovines (cattle). In imprinting, the animal is stroked, rubbed, breathed on, your smell put in his nose, mouth and ears as soon after birth as possible, the sound of your voice is implanted in his ears as well. I had one baby donkey that was imprinted and she preferred me to her mother, would only go to her mother for food, but seemed to prefer my companionship.
Research has shown that baby humans need touch from their mothers and mothers need touch with their infants to bond. I have seen poor bonding in teen mother/baby relationships because of the medical care given the baby or mother, or if the baby is taken away from the mother too soon. Restoring those bonds or implementing them is one very important step for medical and nursing personnel but is often neglected I think.