by Quinn Pierce
The other day, in one of my counseling sessions, I was recounting a story about some family members who still interact with my ex-husband, despite my requests that they respect me enough to not have any contact with him.
I was no longer angry or annoyed by their behavior, I had since realized it is much easier if I lower my expectations for some people in my life and distance myself from others. But, I was curious about their inability to stop contact with my ex-husband even after knowing everything he has done to my family.
The Inexplicable Bond
It led me to wonder: Why is it so difficult to detach from a sociopath?
It seems as though it makes no difference if some people know the truth about what damage a sociopath has caused, they are still eager to maintain some kind of connection. At first, this was very hurtful for me, but over time, I’ve come to accept that I can’t be responsible for other people’s decisions, and I cannot take their actions as a personal attack.
For one thing, a sociopath, such as my ex-husband, can form strong bonds with those just outside their inner circle by presenting themselves as a respectable, caring, even adoring and genuine person. This was what people around us believed for many years. When we divorced, it was just too inconceivable for some of my family and friends to accept that the person they knew was actually a monster.
It would mean questioning their own ability to see past someone else’s polished exterior. Not many people are willing to admit they had such a huge lapse in judgment. I actually understand this to an extent, because I know how foolish I felt after learning the truth about the man I had married- and stayed married to for over fifteen years.
Denial: The Easier Choice
Also, it’s easy for sociopaths to ”˜shine their light’ on people they don’t see all that often, and that is an addicting quality of a sociopath. If my ex-husband wants to put someone on a pedestal, he will figure out just what that person’s greatest emotional need is and then exploit it in a manipulative way that makes him look like a hero.
For those of us in an intimate relationship with such a person, that trait is what we hold out for as we wade through the sea of negativity that surrounds the remainder of the relationship. It’s like a drug, but only enough to keep you addicted.
My family members may actually prefer to believe he is the person they want him to be, because it is much more comfortable than giving up that praise and having to deal with my much less enjoyable reality.
Responding To Other People’s Pain
The final reason I came up with (and I’m sure there are many more) is that those of us who are not sociopaths have emotions such as compassion and empathy and we are capable of feeling bad for people who appear to be hurting.
My ex-husband still cries regularly when he wants sympathy for not seeing his sons as much as he thinks he should. Others don’t realize it has nothing to do with a father’s love for his children and everything to do with the type of father he wants to portray himself to be to the outside world.
I can honestly say that I am guilty of this, as well. Just after my separation, I agreed to allow my ex-husband to visit my boys every day after work. I pushed aside my anger, fear, and resentment, because I still believed there was an intrinsic love that all fathers must have for their children that was instinctual, if nothing else.
Reality Check
I later learned that he was more interested in checking on me every day, making sure I wasn’t involved with another man, and making sure I wasn’t poisoning my children against him than he was in spending time with his children.
The visits soon tapered off, leaving my children wondering why their dad didn’t come by to see them anymore. I’m sure I made up yet another excuse to soften the blow from his apathy.
Redefining Relationships
Detaching from a sociopath is definitely a complicated, messy, and unnatural process. In a sense, we have to accept that there is a population of humans who lack humanity. It is a frightening realization and an even more frightening reality.
Who wants to walk around knowing there are people walking by them right at that moment who have no empathy, shallow emotions, and use manipulation and abuse as a means of controlling those they proclaim to love?
So, I can understand, to an extent, why some people in my life refuse to accept these facts for what they are. As I said, I cannot be responsible for their decisions. I can, however, be responsible for mine. As difficult as it is, I choose to keep a more superficial and distanced relationship with those I was once close with, simply because I cannot allow myself to be around unsupportive and unhealthy people.
No More Excuses
I spent half of my life making excuses for someone who was going out of his way to be hurtful and deceptive. In order to be healthy, I have to honor myself, and that means not making excuses for anyone else, even if it means grieving the loss of a once close relationship with a friend or relative.
I would rather lose a friend or two than the parts of me that I worked so hard to recover.
Thank you, very nice article. It’s been 6 years since my divorce.
We had two children who are now adults. Time has healed my heart in many ways, yet my kids’ father continues to manipulate them with money offers; he also continues to use them in order to check up on me. It is sometimes difficult and stressful when either of our children visit because if they fly here, I have to drop them off in the driveway of his home. He will often come out on his porch with hand on hip and stare me down while I sit in the driver’s seat trying to back out to the road. Also, I have to be guarded about what I divulge to my kids about my health, money issues, my schedule, my comings and goings. It could be passed along to their father inadvertently. They do not realize how toxic he is because they are young and their dad is so manipulative.
Yes, after our departure from them, there still remain issues of which we need to pay attention and there will be those in the family with whom we may need to lessen contact or revise what we are willing to divulge to them. Sad that such toxic people can keep dishing out their poisons, but we have to deal with it. Thank you.
The best lesson to people who are uncaring to the person(s) who has been violated in a number of ways by a sociopath, is to cut off association with the so called “friends” and family who are stupid enough to carry on with them. It is best to drop them like a hot potato. Believe me, it will come back to haunt you if you don’t. IF they ask why, tell them. Or just write them a nice card and tell them why you have to depart from their company.
I have an ex-boyfriend that will sleep with family, friends, coworkers and even my employers to get information. They have gotten mad and even sociopathic like him towards me as a result. I used to wish he would drive off a cliff, only the last employer he slept with has Hepatitis C. So he got what was due him.
Karma baby! I can’t wait for Karma to catch up with my wife. After the horrendous things she did, if I could pick the Karma coming her way, well, lets say I wont go there. To divorce a man because he is sick is jut plain silly.
I am sure the No Contact advice is hard for everyone but is there anyone who has had to have NC with their only child? There is a difference when it is your own flesh-and-blood, who you carried for nine months and raised. I know that it has to be this way but I can’t cut out my heart. I can truly say I know how it feels to have a broken-heart. I actually can feel pain deep in my heart. It is so hard to comprehend that your own child cares nothing for you….
heartbroken, i have 2 that want me dead. i understand ur pain. its been yrs and yrs. its a heartbreak no one can understand without experiencing it. but NC is the way to to go. one child writes me on fb, i ignore the disgusting filth she means to hurt me. if she were to call again, i wudnt talk to her. ive tried and tried. she doesnt want to go on. she can live in her psychosis. i cant live there anymore with her.
peace, my sister. i wish u peace.
I could not imagine. You must be a very strong woman. Peace is what you need, adn if you keep strong, peace is what you will get.
After reading Women Who Love Psychopaths (Sandra Brown) and Dark Souls (Sarah Strudwick) I thought long and hard about this question, then I realized that the mask was made for ME.
The man himself CANNOT bond, he can only attach. He doesn’t have the correct brain processing or chemical make up to love, bond, respond emotionally. He cannot love. However, Love is reflection. So my sociopath/psychopath cannot reflect properly, if at all.
We know this to be true because of the cognitive dissonance created by our attempts to bond with a ppath/spath. I have in fact, on a chemical/neurological level attempted to bond but couldn’t. My body recognized the problem with hippocampus and amygdala processing in his body and my body tried to mimic the brain that I attempted to bond to. I ended up with PTSD, the improper processing of the amygdala/ hippocampus on a normal brain. (I got all the other crap too like gas lighting and mind blasting, but you get the point.)
So where does the mirror image come from that we see in the ppath/spath? HE can’t reflect. He can’t love. AND the image was custom made from OUR needs, OUR desires, OUR hopes. . . .
His mask, the thing he hides behind is OUR projected perfect man image.
When we try to cut loose of it, we find so many positive reasons to keep it/ him because we want it so badly. BUT it isn’t HIM we want. It’s OUR projected image that we want. In fact I would say that we NEED the image because it is an innate part of us, like our own male side. To let go of it is to let go of half of our self.
We can heal very quickly acknowledging the difference between what is us and what is the spath/ppath. I want and love ME!! I have pursued ME for 22 years, with a true and undying heart. Little did I know!! I love the mask, it is ME!! I take it back inside me and I am whole. It NEVER belonged to my husband. THAT sick monkey can go. I will no longer allow myself to project that good image onto him again.
Now, I am on to protecting my goodness. I cannot simply assume that everyone needs or deserves my goodness, acceptance, corroboration in assessing their personality. I need to work harder on seeing people for what they are, protecting myself, and making sure those I love earn the respect, love, goodness from me.
I so want a different life. Without him. He’s involved in the middle of my business. If I pull him…the pin out of the company, I cannot afford to replace him. I have to attend meetings with him where he belittles me in front of others, continually chides by “lack of direction”, and does little else. Every once in a while he tries to cozy up in skype for an “US” chat.
I worked hard to get him out of my life. This man ruined his children, ruined me financially, and abandoned us. He also is involved in a very public romance with a famous european artist, and in our circles, I feel embarrassed professionally.
I tried running him out last year. I thought I had it done and beat it. He turned around, and did someting that would bring the whole business and my life to its knees. It was tit for tat, you wanna eat with devil, get a long spoon.
With every fibre of my being, with tears pouring down my face right now, everything he stands for is the antithesis of the growth I have made as a human being. He makes me want to vomit, literally, and my reaction to him is vile. Hot and cold chills, anxiety attacks, nightmares.
I cannot tell you the amount of meditating I am doing to find a peaceful resolution. I pray every day, for his departure, for the universe and the law of karma to do their job.
I want to walk free. Not just be attached for moneys sake. I am even thinking of trying to sell my company and begin a new career at 53. I feel desperately worn down because I believe in the “no contact” rule and cannot seem to get his stinking tendrils out of my business.
Why, why do i have to put on a public face to keep a company running? I feel like I have been forced, since his departure, to simply be a mute in the direction of my own life.
After working that hard to get him out, he found a way back, and you know what? My creativity is at a complete standstill. I spent 12 years with him in my head, and now its as if he’s still in the same office, where he used to corner me, for hours, making me listen to his violent diatribes.
I put a white light around me and this house, and I pray. I feel awful saying these things. I am a proponent of so many pro positive ways to get an spath out of your life, and when i did I got stuck. I screwed up.
Hurtterribly.
i wud walk as far away and as quickly away from that business as i cud. nothing is worth ur peace. nothing. give it to him. go on food stamps. move in with ur mom. idk. but RUN. get YOU back. u so deserve it.
Heartbroken and Ain’t-
It’s been almost 6 years since my son asked, “Now that I’m independent, what do I need you for?” I saw him once since then.
A couple of years later, when I was told I had cancer, I decided to let him know. Fortunately, it turned out to be nothing too serious, and I’m fine. But he’d told me about his take on a girlfriend’s Mom having cancer surgery and not letting her daughter know. His opinion was that the Mom didn’t love her very much. So when I had to go for treatments, I looked him up. I didn’t want him to hear “third person” as his girlfriend had, and doubt that I loved him. I wasn’t going to pander to the worst son he could be. I thought the son I adored was in there somewhere.
He had one word for me, “Leave.”
The reality of “no empathy” struck me at my core and I realized that there was simply nothing even resembling love inside the child I’d nurtured and adored. He was as vacant as an empty shell. He had become just like his father.
Since then, I’ve learned to accept that my son is lost, not physically, but emotionally. The impacts of his father’s abandonment and psychopathy outweighed my love. And today, I would not be able to trust him even if he had a change of heart. I don’t think there’s a greater pain than losing trust in a child you love.
Having no contact with a lover or husband is a piece of cake compared to having no contact with a child. I’ve been through both. Even though you realize that no good can possibly come of subjecting yourself to their abuse, extinguishing the dreams and hopes of “family” from the child who grew in your womb is excruciating regardless of how cruel the child may have been.
Wishing you both the peace and comfort of knowing you did the best you could, and the best you knew how to do.
Sincerely,
Joyce
i dont think my daughter is a spath, but she is psychotic. and i must have done something, either wrong — or not right anyway. that is wat kills me. its not just one child, its 2. the other one is not under psychosis rly but he is deceived.
nice.
Just a general throwing it out there question for everyone……I have read somewhere, several times in discussions somewhere that Psychopaths tend to not have any BO, like armpit body odor. Spathtardx had none……zero, nadda……..A friend of mines X Spath, two different ones, had no body odor. I KNOW I have read others stories and observations about this. I’d be interested to see id anyone else on the blog can agree with this!
D2
My wife had none either. Strange, I never really thought of it.
Phillip…….I am SO very curious about this. I can’t tell you where exactly, another Spath site or blog I’m sure, but everyone was just shouting it out!!! “mine didn’t either!!!!”
I can tell you right now, he is the first man I’ve ever been with who had no smell to his arm pits.
When I mentioned this to a fellow spath friend she almost dropped the phone. OMG Dorothy! He had NO B O!
Now that you mention it…neither did mine. Hmmmmm…..
i rly think its a brain chemistry thing. the same area probably controls sweating and typical emotions/behavior. its a sub-brain function, like breathing. so basic we cant control it. these spaths are damaged at the CORE.
my baby daddy spath has no BO, nor bad breath…even wen he got morbidly obese, it was only rare and certain areas stank as he didnt rly sweat.
the NPD/BPD i was with had little BO either but his breath often was yucky. however he wud go for days without a shower and by then he would need one in certain areas also, not bad, but it wud have been nice if he’d shower; more becuz he didnt change his clothes either…weird hygiene habits –>like, duh. he’d tell me, i dont smell. i’d be like EVERYone needs to shower daily. I WAS doing it, gee.
but wait, oh right, my needs were unimportant. he didnt want a shower, so damnt he was NOT taking one.
shithead.
OK fellow posters!!! Keep jumping in with this missing BO, and I am referring to UnderArm BO. I think it has something to do with them having no fear and little if any neurotic self conscious awareness.
I am specifically referring to NO Underarm BO in spite of not using deodorant. Spathtard had a TERRIBLE diet, ate candy ALL the time, ate junk food, etc…….
of course all the meals that Mommy made him were fairly decent but other than that?? Not so much. They say that diet and hormones……all of that affect your BO but I know that especially when I get a nervous energy thing going on …….I STINK!! I don’t use deodorant as a matter of principle and I stink sometimes. I like it and I like the smell of a man’s underarms……animal musk like.
Sorry if this is TMI!! HE LOVED the way my arm pits smelled. HUGE turn on for him..
I am glad this site exists,,,although I am sorry you all have had or are going through your pain,,,I have been away from sociopath for a short time,not even a month but the final straw was drawn when violence came into the pic. I am trying to maintain NC, however,it is hard,,I miss him sometimes,even though I know it’s no good,it will never be anything but bad.And like someone on here said,Karma baby!!! that dude has lots of bad crap comin’ his way,,,anyway I wish all of you the best and healed hearts soon!!! And me too!!! 😉
Pammyk-
When the yearning is at its worst, just remember, it’s your brain chemistry trying to make you feel loved again. It will get better the longer you stay away!
Joyce
I spent 23 years with a sociopath and it has been 2 days after all these years of drug abuse stealing from companies he has 2 social security numbers so he also collects unemployment under both and works You can not imagine what I have been trough, and know I am left completely empty depressed and can not even put a sentence together. My adult children barely speak to me. And yet yes the yearning comes daily because know I am left unemployable
and poor and feel like a child abandoned on the side of the street. Pathetic right!!! where do I begin I am 54 and feel like just ending it all
hon, i am not very employable and get food stamps and live with a friend who loves me–for free. i am 49 AND have 2 kids to support somehow. u have company in ur sad boat u are in. it will be worth it all if u stay away from him and the mess there and go no contact. it will get ok and then even pretty good, ur life.
just dont give up. no matter what the circumstances look like. u deserve a good life and u can have it, it just takes time.
u dont yearn for him, u yearn for ur life back. that life was hell tho. dwell on that, the hell. till u can just let go. the little good u may remember was a complete facade anyhow.
Thank you aint, I have had noone to talk too, what happen to me that I would take this behavior all these years feel
Have you figured it out I know I have a crazy father and just think crazy is all I know!!!
u can overcome ur crazy father or any other craziness in ur life. u dont have to be a victim. u can rise above it. u have incredible strength to have survived this long. u can survive the spath.
start thinking sane. no more crazy thinking. dont allow urself. make urself think sanely. thats a good start.
You need to fight back. Turn your spath into the IRS Criminal Investigations concerning his 2 social security #’s. Give them all the information, fight back. I was 58 yrs old, wiped clean of everything, including my clothes, and no job. I had to get a job,find a place to live with my
invalid mother. He left me 10,000 for the rest of my life, while he was selling the marital home for 255,000,and never paid a tax return for his company for over 14 yrs. I called the IRS and now it is his turn. Remember, the IRS restitutes
the victim. Remember, build your own life. Your children
will encounter his wrath, and they will see you were right.
I responded back to an email he sent me with a picture of us. Within hours he went from wanting me to telling me how negative I am, to telling me he has to get away from me because our relationship is so unhealthy – he turned the whole thing around. He did preface the whole thing with acknowledging he yelled and insulted me a lot, but he can’t stand that I point out all his faults. So he had to act as though he broke it off with me. Please tell me, does it really matter in cases like this who is breaking it off with who? I think at this point its just important to stay away. I had no contact since before New Years, I don’t know why I allowed myself to fall into this trap. I thought if I told him what he did wrong, he’d want to apologize or find a way to make it better. But he has no idea how to do that because he’s delusional.
Em
i was with ur man’s clone, i rly think so!
run hon and dont look back
CUZ
Ur
RITE
He IS delusional
(my bf even used the same words urs told u, rly kinda freaky…!!!)
I found this article very interesting. Even though it starts out about them, it ends up being about us. I’ve been NC for 2 years and there is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about him. He changed everything for me and it has been something that I can’t seem to overcome. The reason being is that he was the first person I (thought) ever truly connected with. I’ve not met anyone since I last saw him and that has been as difficult as there is no distraction and I feel unwanted and unsuitable for anyone else.
I’ve been to therapist – even one that took his side but I’ve stopped that for the time being.
I am hoping that someday, I’ll be over him and over these feelings. That I’ll meet someone who is decent, honest and has some integrity.
Shelby333
Shelby, I understand where you are coming from. Even though you have come to terms with terminating the unhealthy relationship that comes from being with a sociopath, it is often difficult to forget the intense connection that drove you to that person to begin with! When I start to go to that place in my mind, I read my journal that laid out all the sick things he did to me…..and then I know I made the right choice…
this is a great idea, to list all the sick things. i list them in my mind, but always forget most of them, never all together. yesterday i thot of another one i hadnt thot of b4. wen i was there i constantly railed at the injustices, cud have told u all of them, instantly. i was hot under my collar all day every day. i am not easily controlled and i was letting myself be and i HATED IT.
the thing is i was saddened wen remembering the trauma, yesterday and i dont want to remember them and list them. its too hard right now. to read over the list would be heart rending. but someday i will be able to do it.
i am starting to rly believe that all the good was a facade. and that article about the mask he wore that was ME really…my reflection that i loved. becuz i am a good person (not good like Jesus, but not disordered anyway). i am able to love and be loved. someday.