Unfortunately clinicians and researchers often tend to interact with a specific segment of our society and to develop their own ways of describing the problems of the people they work with. For example, there are professionals who work with clients who have “personality disorders”, there are professionals who work with criminals in the justice system and there are professionals who work with perpetrators of domestic abuse/violence.
Each of these three groups of professionals has their own lingo for describing very similar people with very similar patterns of behavior. Each group also has a different “theoretical orientation” or view of the problems of humanity.
Because those who work with family abusers often lack experience with sociopaths in other settings they do not know that family abusers are sociopaths.
Where does that leave you, a victim or family member of a disordered, abusive individual?
To spare you the task of sorting through these three distinct ways of looking at the person who created havoc in your life, with the help of The Abusive Personality, I will present here more on the work of Dr. Dutton a psychologist who understand the personality profile of abusers.
First of all, I can say with confidence that individuals who abuse and victimize lovers, friends and family members are personality disordered. As Dr. Dutton points out on page 8 of The Abusive Personality, “Because IPV (intimate partner violence) occurs in a minority of relationships it cannot be explained by social norms. In fact, normative acceptance of IPV is low in North American populations. .. When people act in a chronically dysfunctional manner that violates the norms of their culture, their behavior is attributable to a personality disorder.”
Dr. Dutton makes a compelling argument that the “abusive personality” stems from what is known as borderline personality organization. According to psychoanalyst Otto Kernberg, adult and adolescent patients with antisocial personality possess an underlying borderline personality organization. Attachment theorists also suggests an association between borderline personality disorder and antisocial behavior or even antisocial personality disorder. Dr. Dutton acknowledges that many perpetrators are violent and antisocial outside the family and many appear to completely lack empathy and remorse. All chronic perpetrators have an extreme inability to empathize with their victims and seem to only express remorse as a means of maintaining the relationship. These emotional deficits are considered to be diagnostic of sociopathy.
According to Dr. Dutton, both male and female abusers experience cyclical changes in personality that relate to abuse perpetration. These cycles, have interfered with understanding the personality of abusers. The cycles happen because abusers experience a great deal of negative emotion and they blame this negative emotion on those closest to them. After they “blow off steam” by abusing loved ones, they experience a temporary relief from these negative emotions. During the time they “feel better” they may seem like model spouses and parents.
In my opinion, there are four other characteristics of men and women who perpetrate partner/family abuse that have interfered with our understanding that these abusers are psychopathic and are truly sociopaths. These are:
1. The degree to which they cling to those whom they abuse.
2. Their high level of anxiety and other negative emotions.
3. Lack of abuse of strangers and non-family members.
4. Lack of criminal arrest for other offenses.
I want to address each of these characteristics by asking then answering the related questions people have asked me over the years.
Question #1 Does the fact that my ______________ keeps calling and doesn’t want to lose me mean that deep down he/she really loves me?
Answer#1 NO! Although sociopaths are not capable of love they are very social and most often want to count themselves in as part of a family, extended family and friendship network. If they are alone how will they be able to do what they do best which is abuse and control people? Also if they are alone, how can they use people to get the other things they want. Especially as sociopaths get older and their ability to charm others declines they tend to want to stick with those they have taken advantage of in the past.
Question #2 My poor _________ is just depressed/anxious/angry about being mistreated and abused as a child. Won’t my love and reassurance help him/her get over it?
Answer #2 NO! If your______ has a long standing pattern of abusing you and/or other family members it means something very important so listen. It means he or she equates abuse with being in a relationship, just like you equate love and caring with being in a relationship. Since that is true, your love will only make the person more abusive.
Question#3 My ___________ only abuses me and no one else so it must be my fault. Right?
Answer #3 NO! Your __________ would abuse others if he/she thought he/she could get away with it and will abuse anyone else he/she feels close ties with. An intimate relationship brings out abusive behavior in people who have a borderline personality organization.
Question#4 My _____________ has never been arrested can he/she still be a sociopath?
Answer #4 YES! Antisocial behavior is behavior that hurts other people. When this hurtful behavior is perpetrated by someone who lacks empathy or remorse it reflects psychopathy/sociopathy.
In summary, I recommend that all mental health professionals who work with the victims and family members of sociopaths read Dr. Dutton’s book The Abusive Personality. I also recommend another of Dr. Dutton’s books, The Batterer a Psychological Profile for victims of domestic violence. Order it through Amazon today with these links:
The Abusive Personality
The Batterer a Psychological Profile
Does anyone want me to try to explain what “borderline personality organization” is?
Is there anyone who still has trouble accepting that partner abusers are sociopaths?
jofary: it’s terrible to think you were in such a low state, but it is good that you make your stand.
I love your comment “spawn of Satan” LOL, that is almost exactly the response I had when I informed the narcissist in my life that she was far from an ideal mother.
Sadly the worst thing you can show them is weakness, it’s like what the smell of blood is like to sharks, it sends them into a feeding frenzy. Their behaviour when faced with other people’s vulnerability is the most revealing in my view. The savagery, the grandstanding – you have to see it to believe it.
Anyway good on you for making a stand! Keep the strength and seek the light.
stayingsane, I guess the reason why we are trying to label these people or identify them is so that we can see them.
Its a bit like someone running around with an invisibility cloak on, they are in the room throwing things here and there and we can’t see who it is and why they are doing it, only that there is a trail of destruction and misery wherever they go.
These people are the definition of TRICKY and slippery.
Hi, all:
Have returned from the British Isles and the Emerald Isle. Had a magnificent time. When I was on holiday I got called in to interview for a position that would be absolutely dynamite. I would get to wear the “white hat” again which would be a very nice change from a psychological perspective. Anyhow, I went on the interview yesterday. I thought it went dynamite. But, until the fat lady sings — or hands me an offer letter, I’m not letting myself get all agitated over the prospect of having to sell my home in this market and having to do the “long-distance” relationship thing. Anyhow, any prayers, good-luck charms, white magic, secret potions etc you can send my way to get me back to work are most appreciated.
Speaking of the relationship, things are going very, very well with the new guy. He is taking me away this weekend. When he told me the weekend away was his treat, I almost fainted. If S even sprung for a coke I would have fainted. However, since he never sprung for a coke, I never had the opportunity to test the validity of that theory.
I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to be with somebody who treats me with respect and kindness, who pays his fair share and then some, and doesn’t have to report in to a probation officer. For those who wonder if they will ever meet somebody again after being involved with an N/S/P/Cluster B, I can say with certainty that once you have processed the whole horrible experience and finally get really, really clear on what you want, what you deserve, what you need and what your boundaries are, you will find the person you are looking for. When you go through the afore-mentioned exercise(s), when you compare the list of what the new you wants, deserves, needs and what your boundaries are, and compare it to the old you, you will be staggered by how different the people you choose to get involved with and let become part of your life are.
Liane:
When I read your article, those 4 questions sum it up perfectly. So often, people on this site get caught up in assigning labels to the person they have been involved with. I’ve come to see that while the label helps us to understand on some level what we’ve been involved with, on the other hand the label gets in the way of our recovery because it keeps us from answering the fundamental question: “how does this relationship make me feel?”
Your 4 questions lead someone who is the victim of one of these creatures directly to the question I’ve posed. Also, I think Dr Hare sums it up best by making the point that it doesn’t matter is somebody has all the criteria on his list — one or two of the criteria should be enough for a person to realize they are dealing with a disordered person and make tracks away from him.
Matt:
WELCOME HOME my dear…….So, so , so pleased you are ‘finding your way’.
See….it all does work out the ‘way it should’.
Be happy, safe and enjoy your life…..your a good man!
XXOO
Hi, I’m new here and don’t know if this is the write BB for advice, but I am stuck in a very confusing abusive relationship with my wife. She is Russian and I sponsored her under the spouse visa system. She is alluring, and a practicing christian, and says all the right things. BUT she can get upset over nothing, twist my innocent comments into something totally different, repeat this to others to make me look bad, and then claim I am abusing her and controlling and manipulating. I did try to cancel her visa behind her back and then felt sorry for her and wrote to the immigration department to allow her to stay. She suffered alot from this, and got high blood pressure and suffered a bad nervous condition. This made me wonder if I was responsible for alot of our relationship problems, as she continually tells me. She never admits she is wrong, never says sorry for anything she did to hurt me, and always says she does these things cause I do them to her! She has been clingy, which is sorta appealing but stressful at times. She seems to lack natural empathy and can torture me telling me I am crazy, my mother is crazy, it is genetic etc. and after having relationship counseling together she managed to convince the therapist I had mental problems and she had none! Problem is I do have some issues but I worry about her, showed her compassion every time I wanted to leave her and decided to stay with her, and she never seemed to reciprocate..
She does all the wifely things though, but I am scared of her.
Recently we had problems and I said I wanted to withdraw support for her visa (bad thing to do, but I am but a mortal). She started to get really nervous then left home and didn’t come back,
Now I am begging her to come back and she is treating me as the manipulative controller. This is all too confusing….
Dear Dude, She definitely sounds like a sociopath to me!Run run Run from her! She is already messing with your mind, and causing you to “second guess” yourself.I think you should withdraw support for her Visa. She will only use you, suck you dry,{as they all do} and the minute she has what she wants, ie, a Visa, money, marriage to you, a nice job maybe, she will milk you dry! Your life will become a total nightmare.They are born actors,but you are right to be sared of her.She does NOT love you, she is using you She is Gaslighting you{please look this term up ,o r ask OXy or one of the older LF members to explain it to you}Letting you think YOU are the crazy one! These people, Narc/sociopaths} are expert actors, they can play the dutiful wife, christian, etc as long as it suits them. ITS ALL AN ACT!!She is trying to reel you in like a fish! RUN RUN RUN!!and dont look back! They are evil,they do NOT have our interests at heart, they are self serving parasites! Geminigirl.
Matt,
I am so, so happy for you..and what a new life you are having…I strugled during 13 years of a 20 years marriage. I decide to end up because I had no other choice. After the separation I found out a lot more about my ex s (as usual in these cases) and have been struggling to heal in the last 7 years. A couple of months ago I found this site..and boy it has helped me a lot. I have done so much healing in the last 2 months which I could not have achieved in the last 7 years. All the knowledge I have acquired in here is already making me feel a completly different person. I lost a lot with the separation (financially) but I have managed to recover everything in double. So financially I am Ok and now I am also getting OK emotionally..but I still have no desire to meet a partner. I had a few attempts but I have not found anyone who makes me feel like sharing my life with. I do not know if I will ever have this desire again but it does not matter..I am feeling comfortable as it is right now. Leave your address and we will visit you..ha ha
Matt:) I am thrilled to bits for you!xxx
I am in a what might be called an isolated space at the moment, getting to grips with what I thought was or would be ‘loneliness’ (which actually feels more like PEACE, I think I had something mixed up there) I have stopped chasing my tail with people who make me feel bad and it’s funny because getting off the rollercoaster of trying to have relationships or be ‘loved’ by certain types of people has brought everything into perspective. I find that those who are true good friends are STILL true good friends, that I dont NEED anything that cant be found in myself, and that right now, not forever, I am content and kind of excited about how being me on my ‘own’ will unfold. I too have no desire for a partner right now… and that’s really okay. But when I do I want to choose to be with a human being who treats me with respect and kindness, just like you have you star!x
I want to be the sort of person who can bring something good into a relationship too again:)
BUT! It is so wonderful to hear about how well your relationship is going and that you got out and had a wonderful break and a job waiting for you when you got home!(fingers crossed and lots of white light and all that coming from this camp:)xxx
Dude,
– RUN!
– Regain your sense of self
– Regain you self-esteem
– Protect yourself financially HARD!
– Get new phone, don’t answer old one.
– Move.
Disconnect from the fantasy; she is an emotional vampire, and pretty devoid of real human emotion
Actors. Actresses. Self-absorbed, confident, all about them.
Stroked your ego at times. Sex was wild at times.
Abuse, using you, and lack of showing real love is self-esteem crushing ALL the time.
“seems to lack natural empathy”
What kind of empathy do you expect ever to have in a relationship with her? fake artificial empathy?
Compare what you currently think your self-worth vs. your sense of self-worth before the relationship.
Then shake your head as to how you could have been so stupid, lick your wounds, pack, GTFO, and don’t look back.
(geminigirl – totally. the emotionless self-absorbed are ACTING when they say things to you like “i love you”, but then asking for money, sex with others, lying to you.)
Go NYD!:)xx