By Mary Ann Glynn, LCSW
One of the most confusing things people grapple with during and after a relationship with a sociopath is wondering if any of the “love” was real. It’s a total mind f—.
You think of the beginning of the relationship in which your partner was the most romantic person you ever dated — how attentive he was. (I’ll refer to male sociopaths, but they may be female as well.) He may have even been thoughtful and empathetic if you confided in him about someone or a situation troubling you in your life. He may have remembered each occasion with wonderful gifts.
You remember times being part of family and friends as a couple, even when things started to get bad. You may have felt secure and proud when he seemed to be an attentive father or generous neighbor. You think of the time last week when you both glowed and felt proud over an accomplishment of your child. You think of a time not long ago when you laughed together with friends over dinner, or, when you made up with electric sex. You have in your memory times when there seemed to be genuine caring and thoughtfulness.
What is love?
Love is not chemistry. Love is not a feeling of attachment. Love is not romantic feelings. Love is not the high feelings you experience at the beginning of a relationship when it is new and super-affirming by the good feelings you get and the best selves you’re putting forward. Love is not a “feeling” at all; it is an action. Love is the ability to first feel compassion or empathy for another, and then act to meet their need, even before your own. Think of what you would feel for a crying child. You would feel their pain, and this would move you to try to comfort the child, even if you are weary and would rather be relaxing.
Since a sociopath is lacking empathy, and, therefore, the ability to love, what was going on? This statement isn’t entirely true as a sociopath may feel compassion or empathy for something which s/he sees as an extension of themselves, e.g. a child, colleague, friend, pet, even a spouse if s/he never challenges him or needs anything from him. These things do not threaten his sense of control or the image he likes to put forth in the world. But the minute you have a need or a conflict to resolve, which is what every normal healthy intimate relationship requires, what semblance of compassion he may have will go right out the window. Protection of the way he needs to see himself, or whatever he is hiding, is his priority. Everyone and everything else is sacrificed at the altar to his in-control, blameless awesomeness.
Often what happens is that at the beginning of the relationship, when he appears to be more engaged and romantic than anyone else you’d ever been with, can be mistaken for love. Then you get addicted to the intense sexual fireworks, which will release large amounts of oxytocin, the hormone that causes attachment. So, you’ll become very attached early on, believing that he feels the same close connectedness as you. He may be very turned on and very sex-centric at first, and/or is deliberately being manipulative, knowing consciously or subconsciously that sex will attach you to him. Then, after that perception has been firmly imprinted with a particular idea about him — he’s a great, caring, sexy, smart guy — it has the power to put a veil over the red flags that follow after.
The biggest mistake
I think the biggest mistake that partners make is to think that a sociopath operates in the same way they do. Sociopaths look for partners who have a larger than average dose of the qualities that will make a good relationship work: compassion, trust, loyalty, and the ability to love — someone who will think the best of him, feel for him, and jump backwards through hoops of fire to tolerate his behavior in order to make the relationship work.
What partners don’t get is the way a sociopath’s mind works. For him, sex does not have emotional connection like it does for you. He can’t feel your pain or your wounds like you do his. He can’t respond to your need if it doesn’t correspond with his own. He trusts no one. He isn’t honest with himself and can’t be honest with you, period.
Ask yourself, how much has your sociopath been able to feel compassion/empathy for you or your needs, and respond? That tells you how much you have been loved. Realizing this is a bitter pill to swallow. Love isn’t something you show only when it’s easy, convenient or gets you something. If someone is truly loving you, there is no question in your mind about it.
Oops! Meant “porn” above, not “open”. Must have been auto-complete. OMG–is anyone else feeling scattered and crazy all of the time?!
🙂
i appreciate the definition of love. This really helped me. thanks.
“Love is not a feeling of attachment. Love is not romantic feelings. Love is not the high feelings you experience at the beginning of a relationship when it is new and super-affirming by the good feelings you get and the best selves you’re putting forward. Love is not a “feeling” at all; it is an action”
It is so true what you say about ‘thinking the S operates the same way as you do’. That has been my downfall all these years… Thinking i could make him understand how he made me feel, thinking he cared about making the marriage work and be healthy.Thinking he suffered like i did.
I realized recently he doesn’t care AT ALL about these things because it’s not hurting him and he’s not bothered by it at all. I am no longer falling for his ‘token gesture’s’ as evidence that he does care – I realize I am just conditioned by his lack of care.
I think the porn addiction is a given because they have no respect and compassion for anyone. They are selfish and it’s all about them. To the question is it easier now that he is out if my life? Absolutely it is so much more peaceful and drama free. After I got discarded I went through many stages of denial, hurt, anger, sadness and finally acceptance. I totally accept now that the marriage is over. I do feel almost guilty of letting him abuse me for so long. But the truth is that it tooke to be discarded by him to realize this. The hardest part of all this is that he kept telling my son that he had no other choice but leaving because I am a “crazy psycho bitch”. But of course my son who is 18 knows better than to believe something like that . He know that his father is a sociopath and we cut if all contact except through lawyers. Having minor children might be different but just provide them with nod loving parent and they will see the truth. To be honest these last 7 or 8 months have been a battle but every day it gets easier and again no material asset is worth being abused and mistreated. Today I am thankful for the coworker to have an affair with him. She did me the greatest favor in the world. Because of her me left me and I found myself again. My son and I will be ok no matter what. He can live in his misery full of porn, emptiness and so on. One day he will have to answer for his actions and it will not be pretty .
I wish my husband’s computer were impounded! That way the hardrive would be checked;I’d love to know if he is addicted to porn! I only know of one time for sure that he was looking at something he shouldn’t have been looking at.
Blossom, you can bet on it. These guys are all the same–self-centered base individuals. Ugh.
Every day of my life since I heard the words “I never really loved you, not in the way a man loves a woman”….something inside me recoiled, and crawled into a deep dark place.
In 15 minutes, he booked a flight to Europe, spent two weeks hammering at me to empty the bank account for him, and left.
That was 3 years ago. I kept him in our company, paid him, listened to him, and slowly began to pull away, however in truth, and not until very recently did this concept fully sink in. My life changed forever on a dime, in that moment.
It was crystal clear, but the pain that I became a prisoner to in the years I spent as his wife, and then his bleeding prisoner, was unreal.
I picked up the phone and very quietly but emphatically fired him, called him to the carpet on everything he did, even though he denied it all, blamed it on me and asked me to not hurt his new lady and her kids by making him financially bankrupt. I could care less. There are three little words that keep me sane….”YOU DID THIS”…
I remember days with no light, weeks with darkness, months where everything I valued in life crawled to a halt and simply stopped. I had to rewire the love mechanism inside of me to accept this.
And most importantly, to accept that I dreamed an ideal of a man in my head so that in reality I could suffer the indignities he flung at me in everyday living.
If there is anything we can learn as a group, as individuals, each suffering to understand, to find some light? It is that they do not feel what you do, and find peace with that, let go. Walk back into the light and reclaim those parts of yourself that were you before him. Do not let this man or woman steal the sunshine you so deservedly should walk in.
Build your life. God it hurts, so deep. Yes it does. But to all of you from me, you can understand this and move from it.
HurtTerribly…
Thanks so much for sharing. Your written word is wonderfully expressive and in many ways, mirrors my own thoughts and feelings.
In knowing that they do not feel what we do is truly the peace we need to let go. And yes, it is terribly difficult. But we can come out much stronger, much wiser!
carolann
I was with a man for 11 years..who cheated 5 times of that I know of..last timeit was 2 years ago when we bought a house and he wanted a child..in the mist of my euforia he wnet behind my back with my friend..I wanted ti die…after 2 weeks she moved in and after 3 weeks he called me talking bad behind her back ..wanting us back again..its been 1 year now he has called, promised and been so kind..but I saw through him this summer nad found the strenght to confront him..He dissapeared and ignores me now 3 months…what kind of person does this??? not one day goes by that I ask myself how can a peson do this..his new love is a narc-.–she is the same as him…he always talked shit about her…they look so happy and are together all year..he has changed with her..as far as I see anyway…can they change if they meet someone new?? I am crushed
Maybe they last longer because they have a mutual admiration society going, but one will work hard to do exactly the same thing to the other. Its their modus operandi.
My ex husband spent his entire life doing this and I never knew this until AFTER he left, when all the well meaning friends came forward.
Of course you are crushed. You should be, you were hurt. Im sorry. I’d love to hear an expert weigh in on relationships between sociopaths. It sort of reminds me of grifters who scam together, that kind of thing, they search for higher highs, and they love it, until one of them scams the other.
yes they are the same..she has lived her life cheating and using men as he has women…so they came together…I am still shocked because I never tahught he would choose such a woman…the other woman he cheated with were highly educated and loving as I have found out later on..this one is the mirror image of him..depressed, suicidal and cold.-a lonewolf as he is..I have tired to contact him just to get a closing on all this he has ignored me 3 months now…I would never know what makes him do this….
Very well put. It sounds like you need this site as much as I do. Keep checking in. It’s really weird, but since I found this site last week my life has improved tremendously. It’s like I was lost and couldn’t find the path to get back to living. I had tired of trying to find the path and had shut down. I was not living but felt each passing day go by and think “I’m closer to death.” Then, the day before yesterday I was out and about, dressed in my working clothes (old jeans, old shirt) with no makeup and everywhere I went people were laughing, smiling, talking to me, and these are people I’ve never seen before in my life (I live in a big city) and will never see again. It’s like my life changed overnight. I was letting that sicko control me and ruin my life, but finding a community of fellow former prisoners has helped me so much. Note: ALL OUR STORIES ARE BASICALLY THE SAME!!!! Hang in there sister. Make a conscious effort to get the evil out of your life and start living a good life with purpose again.
Hurts Terribly,
What an eloquent expression of his evil and your pain. But how brave you are. You dug deep and did what you knew was right. And did not allow yourself to be swayed by his manipulations. You are really an example of the strength inside all of us. Thank you for your insights.
Thank you for your words of inspiration. I can tell you I argue, I have a running internal dialog about how I handled this. I feel that I let my family down for so many years, by allowing us to be a prisoner and watching my children get hurt in the process. It comes with a price, and that is the balancing act to stay sane. I would have said to you 12 years ago I would never consciously do anything to hurt my children, and in the process of all this I did. I made a horrible choice in partner, partly because I am a very trusting loyal, loving partner, and also because I put hubris ahead of those kids. Wanton hubris. I wanted to be loved so specially, so uniquely, that rare kind of love I looked for all my life. My goodness it was rare indeed. To be tortured by a psychotic sociopath. I have to be honest, to hide my part in the complicity is to deny that it existed. Every day I work with both of them, to understand the loss, the abuse, the reasoning, and to get them to understand that I am fully aware, I AM HERE NOW. One child is in therapy, finally. The other has a real love hate connection with SPath and me, he doesn’t want to give up the dream of the man he idolized. I work on him in bits and pieces, and he is growing into a strong beautiful young man, all I can hope for. But I will be with them, helping them until I am ASBOLUTELY sure they walk into the light, and embrace themselves with love.
You probably feel as I do that you could recover so much easier if there weren’t children in the middle of the mess. That’s what I feel most badly about, what he did to one of my kids, molestation and verbal/psychological abuse. I will never get over the guilt. However, she seems to have moved on. She seems a lot more insecure than she should be, but I think she’ll build a good life eventually.
You’re doing the right thing, focusing on getting them to a good place. One book that I bought for my daughter is Dr. Phil’s Life Code. If you haven’t read it, you should. Also, “The Sociopath Next Door” is a real good read. I can identify these parasites now and have none in my life, but I sure wish I knew then what I know now.
Keep the faith. Hopefully if you look back you can see how much you’ve recovered and that might give you hope and strength for the next stage of the journey. I learned to knit and that really helped, and I take classes in random subjects just because.
I am getting her the book, and thank you for the reading materials and support. Its funny what we “choose” to do! I smiled from ear to ear, because I started taking random classes 🙂 I like being with people again, I have to form an identity outside this miasma, and learn to be with people. I struggled a long time with thoughts of terrible unworthiness, and really had trouble coping with being a part of the human race.
I take the classes of course, in subjects I love, books, spiritual wellness, I train 4x a week pretty hard, run 3 miles a day, but its more about re-integrating socially. It seemed a very hard thing to do, its like you walk in a room with a giant scarlet “S” on your chest. Its starting to fade, I have to keep trying.
Thank you, for posting and for the support.
Wow, it’s really too bad we don’t live close together. What you went through had to have been identical to what I went through because I feel the same way. I isolated myself almost completely for three years. I met a really nice man who treated me better than any man had since college, but he turned out to have wandering eyes and last winter I found out he’s very, very heavy into porn, hard-core stuff, so I broke up with him and haven’t talked to him since. Needless to say that relationship actually did nothing for my self-esteem and I shut down again. It’s hard to maintain any kind of relationship when your self-worth is nonexistent from all the abuse you suffered. I can’t say I’m much better but I’m keeping myself entertained with all the stuff I’m involved in. I know life is short and it’s important to be happy, but you have to heal first and learn to treat yourself good, which also means not associating with mean people and it’s a long lesson just learning what their characteristics are when they are like chameleons and are predators, so shutting down to figure this out might be essential. We were hurt in the worst way and bandaged ourselves with isolation while the wounds healed. But, we will have the scars for the rest of our lives. Ne pas?
I find I keep coming back to this article to remind myself that what I had with the Spath was not real to him at all. I have heard that my Spath has quit smoking, gives his money to his new interracial girlfriend (of which he was totally against when he was with me), shows affection toward her, is getting his “act” together, and looking for better employment. All of the things he would not do with me he is doing for someone else in just a months time after throwing away 7 years. If it were not against the law I would kill him just for hurting me and making me feel like my feelings don’t mean a thing. I know, my feelings never meant anything to begin with, but still.
I will always maintain NC with that man, but I will never forgive him for doing such a horrible thing to someone who loved him so completely. I know I am better off without him and I even feel better without him. It is just so hard to believe that after all the years of wanting him to do “the right thing” and the moment he discards me he begins to do what I always asked him to do.
I just feel like a piece of trash tonight and am just mystified that someone would do such a thing to another human being. I was so darn good to that man, to good if you want to know the truth, and it was all for naught. Just…..WOW! Love…..I can’t seem to get that right and when I think I have it figured out……it turns out to be totally fake.
kataroux,
It is hurting you to hear that your ex is “getting his act together” finally.He really isn’t.It’s just as fake as the relationship that he had with you.As soon as he starts getting bored with her,he’ll start slipping.Right now everything is new and exciting.Especially because he either knows or is pretty sure you’re hearing about!That excites him!So what can you do about that?! Show him you could care less!!!
Blossom:
I know he is fake and everything he does is fake but it does piss me off that he “seems” to be so happy by just walking away from the life he had with me. I know that he will never be truly happy in life but that does not make me feel better…lol. I don’t want to think about him anymore but the back of my mind tries so hard to understand that it is a constant thought. I know he knows I am getting word about his “happiness” because he is telling crap to my ex-husband.
I am trying to move on with my life and figure out who I am. Today makes day 8 of NC and I feel good about it. I honestly don’t ever want to see or talk to that man again. However, it still makes me feel like a huge piece of garbage. I guess I will never understand.