When he came to see me he parked his spaceship just around the corner, out of my line of sight.
He must have.
There were so many strange things he said. Out of place. Out of context. Out of the blue. Like an alien being who didn’t get humans or life on earth at all, but who was trying to understand. On an intellectual level, he knew enough to use for personal gain. But deep down, he didn’t get it …
… because there was no deep down.
I now know that the bizarre things he said were ‘tells.’
Instead of questioning him–or running screaming from the room–I made jokes out of the weird things he said. Or I patiently answered his questions, as if I were talking to a child or a tourist on his first visit from the Orion Galaxy. Or I saw him as a sensitive man who was trying to understand me and himself and love and this crazy, crazy world. Or something.
But I should have run screaming from the room, because the man was telling me he was a psychopath.
Last year I read the article “10 Signs Your Man Is A Psychopath,” and it said this: “A psychopath will sometimes blurt out something odd about himself, apropos of nothing. Like you might be cooking dinner and suddenly he blurts, ‘I’m crazy you know.'”
I’d heard plenty of things like that. I had come to think of them as “Spaceship Moments.” Here are just a few of them. He said each one without the slightest hint of humor:
Psychopath: “Why do we have sex?”
Me: The way he asked caused me to reply “Do you mean you and I...or the entire human race?”
P: He shrugged his shoulders and said, “I dunno — anybody!”
P: “What’s the difference between being in love and loving someone?”
Me: “You can love your mother or your brother, but you’re not in love with them, right? When you’re in love, it’s different.”
P: Looked dumfounded and said, “That’s bullshit! Really?”
P: “I’m a pervert, you know.”
Me: “What? You’re the least perverted person I’ve ever known!”
P: “I’m a pervert.”
P: “We sure do get along great for two strangers, don’t we?”
Me: Struck speechless.
P: “I’m a vampire.”
Me: “You can’t be — the sun is shining!” or “I guess that makes me a fang-banger!”
P: “No, really — I’m a vampire.”
P: “I’ve never been depressed in my life. I can’t even understand it.”
P: “I’ve never felt stressed, ever. I don’t understand this ‘stress’ thing at all.”
P: “I can’t really say that I’ve ever felt fear.”
I understand these things now, and even get a laugh thinking of a couple of them.
But there is one thing he said, many times, out of the blue, that I will never, ever laugh about, and it is this (he said this with a straight face, dead serious, while looking me in the eye):
“Some people aren’t capable of love, you know.”
It never crossed my mind that he was talking about himself.
Related Posts
My ex once said that he would like to cut off my feet so I couldnt run away! Thought it was creepy at
the time…butconvinced myself it was ok!!!
That’s scary! Isn’t it strange how we’re able to make these things OK? Even if the guy looked at me and said “I’m a psychopath” I would have laughed it off.
OMG! I was Told the very same thing, but he also said he would hide them under his bed.. Funny, haha, at the time. . Is your ex from the OC? We might have the same guy..
Never heard the distinction between loving someone and being in love before “her”. She made the distinction to define our relationship. She is a Sociopath who has taken me for way to long a ride.
Interesting. We can be ‘in love’ with someone before we really know them. In fact, science says it takes 1/5 of a second to fall in love. It’s a state filled with hormones and neurotransmitters. Eros love (‘in love’) is love that is about romance, passion, and sex. Important for a couple, but not so much with your mother or brother. Agape love is when we love someone even knowing all their faults (or at least think we do) and admire them, respect them, and desire to protect and support them. Ideally, a couple has both of those. Thank you for your comment. Best wishes.
Spath tells me about his trip to the strip club with his x brother in law and follows it up with the comment,,,,,,” I don’t think P**** (x wife, one of them) ever did find out about THAT one”.
Spath: ” Im very curious about people”.
“I really don’t like people very much”
When I asked him if he would rather spend more time with “p”, (his drinking playmate and buddy he spent most of his time away from me with) he said “no……I want to be with YOU, I don’t even really like “p” that much”.
Really Spathtard? You best little drinking buddy/ friend you don’t even like?? WTF?
Told me his ex wife P**** gave him 15 minutes for sex, on Saturday mornings only and took a shower immediately after. Sounds like a willing sex partner to me.
He doesn’t like people very much? My mom always said that when someone tells you something not so good about themselves, believe it. I seem to have forgotten that, but I will do my best to remember it now. When we believe we’re with someone who loves us, that context makes us take what they say and somehow twist it around and make it fit.
“I’m very curious about people.” Did he ask you to take him to your leader? ;-)
no but he DID call me “EARTHLING” a lot!! :)
Earthling?! LOL
I’ve heard it phrased this way………….”when someone tells you who they are, believe them”.
Yes, that’s it. My mother changes everything around. One time she told me “a penny saved is worth two birds in the bush.”
OMG!! A bird in the hand is worth all the tea in China!
I had just finished writing a scientific book and was wondering what my next project would be. He said to me in a completely serious manner: “You ought to work as a callgirl, you look so attractive, despite your age.”
Amazing, Gabriella! One night mine smiled and said, “You know what? You could make a lot of money as a prostitute!”
i’m not sure if my mother’s third (and by now an ex) hubby was a P. When thinking now he had some traits too. He’d say to me: “you’re a nice girl. that’s not always good. i’ll teach you to drink and to be more “bad”. i’m going to find you a good boyfriend.” and so on…..
he was a compulsive talker. he’d talk even in his sleep. there was a time i couldn’t listen to him and after a while my brain would just switch off. i’ve spent two years with them before i decided for NC. one night, around midnight, he rang at my door. i was paralized, didn’t even dare to call the police. few years later he rang at my door again. i had moved into new flat. before he rang at my door, he’d ask his palls to find out where i live. i didn’t let him in the building but he kept waiting outside untill someone opened the main door. he than rang again and has spent in front of my door some 30min permanently talking. when my neighbour opened his door to see who is talking and ringing at my door he than left. boy i was again afraid to call the police.
Who was he talking to outside your door for 30 minutes? Himself? Creepy. He gained unauthorized access to your building by entering with someone else who had the right to be there. He knows you do not want him there, but he finds out where you live by asking his pals and shows up anyway. It sounds like stalking to me. This man scares you, so much so that you won’t call police. Maybe that means that you should call them next time.
Best wishes.
An alarming realization is the harm done to children by psycho’s. I observed a psychopath father allowing his son to use drugs in his presence, without him showing any concern about the young adults health. Though the psycho father does not drink, he would buy his son 48 beers per weekend, reasoning the kid is an alcoholic anyway and that is what makes him happy. This man is so candid, he distant himself from the kid’s upbringing and blame the mother for being useless.
This senario is a replica of efemeris’s. Psychopaths clearly use executive cognitive functions to do evaluations. Can it be true that the thread of victimization in psychopaths is so general and ruthless?
Yes, it is true. Their thread of victimization is general and ruthless. No one is exempt. We are all nothing more than objects to them, objects they care nothing about and that they manipulate in unconscionable ways. Sad but true.
hi admin.
some o f the highlights i can recall the psycopath saying:
“my daugter tells me often that i have no heart”….
” i don’t feel quilt”
” i have no empathy ”
” i have a problem with emotions so i use boxes”.
“I take life as it comes, i do not anticipate, so dont anticipate either”
In the late stages of the supposed relationship when i was very close to diagnosis he asks me ” how you define love ” i look bewildered as i had to give this explanation to a mature adult so i start explaining the basics as ” when i care deeply for somebody , i want to protect him/ her, i want him to be happy, i am sad when he is sad , happy when he is happy , i empathise deeply with, i sacrifice some of my needs sometimes for him/her e.t.c , you know the normal things about what love is… and he looks at me shocked and he says: “no… this is not love , this is passion, it is impossible that you feel all these feelings for all the people you love…” and i say ” well , i do…, what about you ? and he says : “for me love is when i feel good with somebody, so only you and my daughter i love” then i ask what do you mean by ” fell good” and he says , “like even if i was in an isolated planet alone with you , i would not want to kill you” .Yes ladies and jentlemen , i have heard all these crappy BS and i was trying to comprehent and analyse this word salad instead of immediately runing for the hills.
Now i understand that me and probably the majority of people did not leave earlier because these ‘tells” were scarce and just came out from nowhere while all the rest manipulative and fake atitude was in full force for the most of the time.
And one more for the cherry in the cake: after i had figured him out and he proudly accepted the diagnosis he said “sometimes with some women when i got bored in their precence or by their nagging i wished that they would be immediately dead”.
good ? i will return later if i recall more.
Love to all of you who survived this craziness and will become wiser and stronger for sure.
Reality
Ah, you reminded me of a bunch more, so I added them to the post. Wow, those were some big clues your P gave you! If only we had known…
Your definition of love certainly wouldn’t have surprised anyone who’d ever experienced it.
His definition of love is a new one, though, isn’t it — “even if i was in an isolated planet alone with you , i would not want to kill you.”
Good ones. Thanks, Reality. You’re right, we didn’t run for the hills because these statements were few and far between, and when they happened we made them fit into what we thought was the bigger picture. When the P told me he never felt depression, stress or fear, I just thought he was an extraordinarily lucky and strong person.
“I have a problem with emotions, so I use boxes”…………………………………..to dispose of the bodies.
Mine was a Prince Charming, he knew exactly what to say…always. My ex-husband had been abusive and I had told him about it and he had registered it in his mind and it all came out when he wanted to hurt me.
At the beginning his real P self ONLY came out when he was drunk and he had had a bad day at work. He would also say things like:
I like to observe people, or I like to know EVERYTHING about a person, I’m curious like that
I have never felt depressed, I don’t understand it, its for weak people.
I NEVER feel regret about the things that I’ve done.
I have a goal in my mind and I don’t care how many people I have to kick to the side to get there;
and the best right before his mask completely fell off was:
If you are smart, you will run and leave, because I will really, really hurt you.
I always thought his comments where because he was drunk, or that his curiosity sparked from the fact that he is a scientist and maybe his brain worked differently, or maybe that because he is from another culture he was taught not to show weakness, I always made excuses…but that day I started to feel sad and scared.
I know now that that is when it turned because he had gotten bored with me because from then on he delighted in torturing and humiliating me ever more. Even after we separated he moved into the same building, and since I refused to play his game he pretended he wanted me back, but then he started treating me ever more degradingly, constantly threatening me that he could hurt me more than my ex-husband had, until I was in a terrible depression and having panic attacks.
I tried to reason with him and be friends but then I saw his real face and the hate he has for me. He told me he had NEVER loved me, and that even though we had lived together I had never been to him ANYTHING but sex. At first I thought he was angry at me because I was getting over him; it has been through months of therapy and reading blogs and books that I have understood that what he said all along was true: He NEVER loved me, and there is nothing I could have done differently because he is a P. But guess what? he has me threatened ME that If I talk to him, or look at him when I find him in the common areas in the building (and he constantly provokes encounters as he knows my schedule) while he is parading with the woman in turn, he will go to the police to file a complaint of stalking. So now even if I want to do laundry in my building I go around 1:00 a.m. when I hope I am NOT going to run into him, and I come to my apartment, lock myself inside and don’t leave except to go to work. I can’t wait until my contract is over so I can move. The funny thing is he used to look like Prince Charming to me, I always called him “my Prince” and now, when we run into each other his face is such a mask of hate that he scares me. I know that if he could he would kill me with a knife like he once told me, although at the time I thought he was joking. He said he descended from a cast of assassins and he put a kitchen knife to my throat and said “aren’t you afraid of me?” I answered of course not, you are not a killer, you are my Prince, and he got angry and told me I was boring…
He looks ugly to me now, a mixture of the devil and a rat; the thing nightmares are made of, and I now know that there is no such thing as a Prince Charming.
I’m so sorry you’re involved in this nightmare. He’s the one threatening you and making your life miserable, yet he says he will go to the police. Clearly, he’s the one who is stalking you. He moved into your building after you broke up, and harasses and threatens you in the common areas. I don’t know what I would do in this situation. I want to tell you to go to the police, but only you know the details of your situation. He sounds like a real nut job. Is there any way at all that you can break your contract early? You should find out for sure — don’t just assume there isn’t.
I’m glad you realize what he is and that there was nothing you could have done differently.
Does anyone reading this have any advice???
Good luck and best wishes!
I wish i knew what to do??
I wanted to say, I WAS so attracted to my “Prince”, I used to call him my knight in shining armor but I would say it really silly. I look at his pictures now and see a dirt bag old man alcoholic. Like his MugShot on the internet? Anyhow, I sent his picture to a friend of mine and she was like…..huh?? He looks like my Gramps!
Hi, from my 20 years of trying to figure him out, and from learning about them and their ways.
It is us that ‘feeds’ them, they put a halt to our dreams and plans, they ‘stop’ us from doing the ‘normal’ things in life, how? By their sulks, violence, they always ‘get you back’, so when and if you continue to meet your friends/work/study/watch TV you feel as though you ‘shouldn’t’ be, and you feel bad, and so you stop of your own accord. With his constant lying. What happened all my fears and nightmares became my reality. My value system turned on its head. Whatever he said, I found myself repeating it.
And he accuses me of doing the things he does and ‘thinks’. After I report him to the Garda after an assault on my daughter, a few weeks later he stage manages an arguement ( he chants what sounds like a playground rhyme, over and over) I throw the newspaper he’s reading, at him, spilling tea, he jumps up from the table laughing, rings the Gards to report my crime, a drop of tea went on his wrist. When I ask him why he did it, he says to prove I’m violent and vindictive, and I now have a stain on my character.
I wanted to sort all out in mediation ( I didn’t fully know what he is, it was early days) but I told him I wanted to go to court, not mediation, we went to mediation. When I asked him to leave the family home, and I volunteered to pack his bags, he went to court and served an interim protection and safety order on me.
It’s our intellect they use against us for their abusive purposes. Mirrors.
We will, altogether figure these low lifes out :)
My then 6/7 yr old answered the phone and said to psycho, it’s your friend Harry.
He replied I have no friends
I thought it was an awful thing to say to a child.
What a terrible story. He laughed as he called the police, which he only did to prove you were violent? He’s lucky you only threw a newspaper. And I agree, that was a terrible thing to say to a child.
After a fight, in make up mode, Spathtard comes over to “talk” on a Sunday morning,,,,,,,later as he is declaring his undying love for me AGAIN……he says,,,,,,
“Why do you think I came OVER here today?? I didn’t come over just because I was horny, I wanted to see YOU”!
AssHat
While reading this post my eyes welled with tears. I could so relate to the “tells” which started almost immediately. Because the psychopath I was involved with comes from a such an extremely different culture/religious background that is what I thought was going on.
Within twenty minutes of of our initial contact he out of the blue says”do you want to make
love?” Then not long after that he tells me he doesn’t love me, then another time” when I’m finished with someone I’m finished with them ” I had gone back to visit him and out of the blue he says that, then says I’m used to being in control, but I can see you are when it comes to us, then when I’d completely stopped contacting him he’d call and say “not everything is as it appears to be” he’d tell me his psychology wasn’t good repeatedly
I’d been robbed right before going to see him
and after my visit with him more than once
he said, I was so f…… angry when you were
robbed because I knew I wasn’t going to get
from you what I wanted (my money) I was
horrified so much so I didn’t call him on it.
Cognitive dissonance had already kicked in.
He’d get called on his lies and yet not miss a
beat and tell me how important his character
was to him and how we had to always be
honest with each other,
he’d repeatedly tell me he wasn’t a gigolo nor a gypsy.
I have not a doubt that I was hypnotized by him and I believe I know when. And it was when he told me to “look into my eyes” which I did and his response was, “I love when you look into my eyes.” By the next day I woke up and thought about him immediately and couldn’t stop. I wasn’t attracted to him at first and when he asked me to dinner I told him no. But in a matter of spending not more than at tops three hours with him over a seven day period, I left knowing I had to see him again. I thought I had never met a more honest, reliable, genuine, woman respecting man in my life! I felt if I didn’t see him ever again I’d regret it for the rest of my life. He’d worked his ‘magic’ on me through psychological seduction as at least I was smart enough not to get sexually involved with him. I thank god throughout each day that passes. Yet with all that said and done I so wish it would’ve been different. He was able to con me out of thousands of dollars promising to pay me back. I spent not more than a grand total of 48 hours with him and throughout our long distance phone relationship he was able to continue to hypnotize me. This is how he got the money. I’d put down the phone and felt utterly blissful. As though I was walking on air. I’d start to “come down” about two/three hours later. Just like being on a drug.
I still feel as though I’m suffering from cognitive dissonce and feel like I miss him and love him. The funny thing is when we were supposedly together I didn’t miss him like I had experienced in the past with other long distance partners. I so wanted to hear his voice and listen to him talk and talk and talk and that seemed more important then
seeing him in the flesh.
I, thank you for this blog. It has helped me tremendously, because in all honestly, only those who have been targetted by and then victimized by a psychopath can fully understand the utter devastation one
feels.
I still haven’t yet gotten my heart around it, and I started researching disorders starting in February, and most probably in March came to realize what he is. Read many medical texts which have helped more than probably I even know. The one which truly shed a whole lot of light on the disorder and women who are targetted and why was “Women Who Love Psychopaths.” What an amazing text.
Thank you once again.
He sounds prototypical. You reminded me, mine also said “I’m no gigolo” for no apparent reason. He was also heavy on the hypnosis, and I remember well ‘coming down’ a few hours after seeing him. I’d forget everything bad when I was with him, completely forget it, and then a few hours later it would all come back to me.
I’m sorry you’re going through this, but I’m glad to hear the blog has helped. It does get better with time and understanding. Warm wishes.
MY ex once told me that he felt a “karmic need to kill me” and that he was “the ruler of the known universe, sitting in outer space looking down on us – his pawns”. Or he told me “hey, there is something wrong in my head” or he said “well, I wouldn’t do that to my mother or brother, of course, such things you just don’t do with close family, but you are my girlfriend, and you might be scheming against me” (he video surveilled and recorded me without my knowledge in my own home after we had spent 24/7 together for 3 years…) and a million other such examples….
A karmic need to kill you? That is just scary. He was absolutely right when he said there was something wrong in his head!
Ah, I see you have a blog…I’m going to take a look at it! “After the Psychopath”
My ex P said, “Do you ever think that there are beings, like aliens, inhabiting human bodies, among us?” or something to that effect. It was so weird and so out of context when he said it. I understood years later that he was talking about himself.
Too bad you didn’t say, “Yes, and you’re one of them.”
Mine said very early in the relationship
“I don’t like women”
I said “o.k. Then you want me to leave?….”
He said “no, you’re not a woman, you’re my mate!”
It didn’t occur to me until the end that it was the women who didn’t like him, not the reverse.
He also proudly called himself an asshole. He said it had taken him a lifetime to perfect being one. Lol
When someone tells you something about themselves, believe it! I will from now on.
I have now known/run away from and (sadly) been involved with/run away from a few guys who fit the bill for psychopathic traits:
one told me he was but I thought he was joking, the other described himself as Dr Jeckell and Mr Hyde, yet i still didn’t take the hint.
Some gems:
I want to cut off your finger and wear it as a necklace
I deal in facts not emotions
I think about how to kill you sometimes
I want to cut you into pieces and paint them
I’ve done something terrible to you (and wouldn’t tell me what)
No one will ever love you
We were fighting by text, I didn’t know anything about Ps at the time. I wrote: you are sick, you are a predator (my subconscious knew) He replied: and you are my prey.
They know what they are.
They definitely know what they are.
Great example of a spaceship moment. Thank you.
When I was trying to break off with my psycho it was by email. I told him what he had done to me and the ways he had undermined and abused me. He answered saying that it was a load of rubbish and that I had the problem, but signed it “your attributed sociopath , not..”
Yes, it’s always us who have the problem. Somehow it was my problem that gave the psycho the right to victimize me. As he said, “I picked you because you were so vulnerable…that’s what enabled me to bond with you so quickly and so deeply.” TRANSLATION: “I am a psychopath.”
The sociopath I am recently breaking away from actually admitted to me that he had payed prostitutes and transsexuals for sex. I believe he only told me because he was leading up to the fact that he was hiv positive and I truly believe he returned after our first breakup only to infect me. Anyway, he did say unusual things, I finally figured out that they were hints of his true nature. I had asked him why he kept going back to the transvestites because he said he wasn’t gay. He is first response was idk. Then about a month later out of nowhere he blurted out because I liked it. He was only deflecting from his escapades of that night though. He would say things like I bet you think I’m a swinger or you don’t know who I am, or I don’t think I can be what you need me to be. Throwing the adamant I love yous in. He would also try really hard to find out my deep dark secrets and when they weren’t that bad he would get angry and frustrated and say I was holding back. He also used the skeletons I did have against me in arguments. Oh, the funniest comment came from him going to the bars and for some reason I couldnt go, yet he vehemently stood firm there was nothing wrong with going to the bar to have a drink with his friends. Yet when I was sitting outside the bar one night he told me to go home in anger and panick. I said I thought there was nothing wrong with going to have a beer. He said there isn’t but the reasons you want to have one are for the wrong reasons. Really? Then he would come running to intercept or sit with me. I’m thinking it’s because he was hanging out with the female he cheated on me with the first time around at the bar. He didn’t want anyone to spill the beans to me. He had a group of friends he hung out with as well. Going back to the singers thing he also out of the blue said his friend liked to watch. Way later I found out from a friend it was true he liked to watch people have sex with his wife. They were a sex group. I guess that’s why I couldnt go to the bar. I’m glad I hv finally come out of the fog.
I’m glad you’ve come out of the fog. That’s a great description of it. Such craziness they involve us in! Make sure to be tested for HIV, and everything else. Best wishes to you, gamedefecter.
I loved reading this! Now I see there were many “Spaceship” moments that I disregarded because I just figured what he was saying couldn’t possibly be true. Also, who was I to judge someone else’s experience?
P: My ex wife was molested by her father and brothers.
Me: How awful and traumatic for her.
P: Why? It was consensual.
Me: Sex between a parent and child can never be consensual.
P: Why not? I believe it can.
————————
P: You always make your children feel things.
Me: Yes, I want them to understand their feelings and to grow up to be self aware.
P: That’s not what men do. I try to feel. I go deep, but I can’t ever feel anything. You are asking them to do something they can’t do. It’s unrealistic. You push too much.
_____________________
P: I don’t ever get embarrassed.
Me: Really?
P: Nope.
_______________________
P: My old boss texted me.
Me: I wonder why. Is he still mad at you? I think he’s messing with you.
P: No. I am in control?
Me: What? But, he’s not ever asking for a meeting to hire you back.
P: I am in control.
_______________________________
P: But sex with her meant nothing?
Me: How can it mean nothing? She says she loves you. It means something to her.
P: It’s just sex
___________________________
P: I don’t trust anyone
Me: Really? Not even me?
P: Nope.
_________________________
P: You’re the only one who has been able to keep up with me.
Me: What do you mean?
P: I haven’t gotten bored with you.
________________________________
P: Did you check me out after I asked you out.
Me: Yes. How would I know you aren’t someone to be avoided, or a serial killer?
P: Laughingly said, “I haven’t killed anybody in years.”
That last one, sends chills up my spine. I wonder if it was a “tell” or a joke? The thing is, most people would never say that, not even in jest.
That last one is chilling! My dad had a saying I heard often growing up: “Many a truth is said in jest.”
The rest of them were truths about who he really was, as you now know. Some were probably said as matter-of-factly as “please pass the salt.”
Fritzel (as I like to call him) kept repeating to me staring into my eyes “You know I loved you, don’t you” to which I repeatedly replied “Nope. I know what love is. And this is not it ”
Another time whilst we were having dinner, Rex, his dog came close to the table and was nudging him. I patted his head and asked Rex what was the matter Fritzel gazed into space in his usual faraway gaze and said “He hasn’t had sex for a while!”
How do you respond? What could he possibly be thinking? What could he possibly mean?
Man oh man!
Whatever it meant, it’s just more proof psychopaths should never own dogs.
Ones I remember were:
P: I love you, but I don’t know why!
P: I don’t know what love is.
Me: You have no soul
P: No, I’m a monster.
Me: Do you wished that you’d had a sister.
P: No, I probably would have committed incest.
P: I have dark thoughts and I could never share them with you.
To his 6 year old child…..
P: I have no empathy or sympathy, you know that don’t you? Daddy is harsh.
Me: Why can’t you share your feelings with me?
P: I don’t trust you (this was after 10 years together)
He told a friend of his, that he’d like me to have a fatal accident, but leave our child safe.
Me: Why can you not financially support our child?
P: You will never ever get a penny from me, I’d rather go to prison!
Oh there’s many more……
I’ve been out for a good while, although healing, I’m still in a scary place. The damage is immense. Having children with these horrific individuals is heartbreaking at best.
It was all my fault apparently, I was controlling , a money grabber and a whinging whining ungrateful bitch……
P: You were great when we met, happy, confident, a yes girl, now look at you!!!!
Mmmm, go figure!
OMG, unbelievable! Thank you for sharing them here. It’s all there—he could be diagnosed just from what you’ve written. Yes, go figure…
I’m sorry you’re still in a scary place, Sweetscape. I know how painful and difficult it is. I wish you and your child all the best xx
Thank you.
It’s been the saddest and craziest part of my life ever. I thought I was losing the fight not so long ago. It is amazing the strength needed to push ahead.
I look forward to the day that I feel like a normal person again!
Too many days are still a hazy mess of confusion sadness and anger, and not many understand my world and my pain, which makes me even more sad, but I’m determined to live again.
Thank you.
It’s good you’re determined! I remember when determination was all I had. I didn’t know how I was going to get through it, only that I would. You will make it. Be patient with yourself. It seems that anyone who hasn’t been through it can’t understand, and that does makes it worse. I hope you have some support from someone. I know how important it is to be understood, and I hope you’ve found even just a little bit of understanding here. Take good care of yourself, and your child; I hope he or she is doing well.
Thank you Adelyn for your support. It’s so easy to feel alone in this. I have the support of a couple of close friends, one in particular has helped recently, they have a good background for giving me advice on how to move forward. But I live away from family, also, so it’s hard.
Reading and finding this site with some excellent blogs is a huge help. I’m on a crazy rollercoaster , but the highs and lows are not quite so drastic lately. My child is ok (I hope) they’ve seen my intense pain and have access (though very little) to the father. I have a close eye on them, but I pray the damage done by the father to me and what they saw me become, do not have any detrimental effects in later life.
I’m trying to be the best I can and there is no shortage on love and devotion for my child. I hope it’s enough.
I cannot be NC with the father due to having a child together, but it’s next to nothing, so he cannot inflict anymore pain on me.
I just try to be better each day and focus on the positive.
My anger is what I’m struggling to control, and I have anxiety and startle response. But I’m trying to deal with it.
I’ll get there.
Thanks again.
You’re welcome. I’m glad to hear you have some supportive friends in your life. Being angry is normal after what you’ve experienced; as you heal, it will subside. There’s a huge sense of injustice that goes a long with this experience, and it’s responsible for much of the anger. It’s a serious trauma you’re going through. If you need help, don’t hesitate to find a therapist, but if you do, please make sure it’s someone who understands abuse and post-traumatic stress, and also has knowledge of disordered personalities (Ps, Ns) xx
Thank you Adelyn, much appreciated.
I sought help in the beginning from someone I thought I could trust and that had the knowledge to help, but that turned out to be a disaster, as they clearly could not be trusted and I found out they were in touch with my ex in some way, texting late at night etc…..I was devastated, which totally defeated the object and knocked me back beyond belief.
I would like to see a therapist specialised in this, but I live in a small foreign country where this type of therapy doesn’t exist.
I’ve thought about on line help but not sure if this will work for me.
I will continue to self heal the best way I can with the support of friends and hope it’s enough.
It always helps to unload so thank you for listening.
I sometimes feel scared I’ll never be ME again.
x
You will be YOU again, with patience, time and healing xx
Thank you. I’m hopeful x
Me, too. Have faith xx
He says a lot of things in a very “storybook” fashion, at least when he’s trying to be romantic. It’s just all very dramatic and exaggerated. When he is “remorseful” about how he’s treated me he sounds almost dreamy when speaking, I am an “angel” and he is the “villain” of our story. The ironic part is while he tries to convince me he wants me to stay so he can heal me, the part that I focus on is when he says he just wants the me back that he had in the beginning. I feel perhaps that is the truest part of everything he said. Why? Because he wants me to believe in him again so I can support him emotionally. He wants to be “good” in order to get his needs met.
When I say something that makes him angry, I am a “user” who always puts herself first in the relationship. The strange part is the contrast between what he is saying when he wants to make amends and his response when my response isn’t what he wants.
I can remember one of the strangest conversations we ever had… I had just found out my uncle had stage 4 cancer. One of my favorite people in the world. Now, G (That’s what ill call my husband) was upset because we had been arguing, mind you… But still. We’re on our way to work together, I get the call. I tell G. This is our conversation:
G: Well that sucks. You know there’s a part of me that wonders what is wrong with me? I wish I could care, but I just don’t. I care that you care, of course.
Me: Well you don’t really know him that well. It’s not like he’s your uncle or anything.
Now we are driving along, me in silence while G goes back to analyzing our relationship out loud, what we can do to improve it, where we went wrong..
G: What are you thinking about?
Me: I’m thinking about my uncle.
G: Can you at least think about me, for a minute? Would that be too much to ask?
Unbelievable! It sounds like he’s truly unable to think of anyone but himself. And he wants to heal you? From what, himself? I’m sorry things turned out this way for you; I know it must be difficult to deal with.
Oh, and the thing is G seems so loving of me when he talks about his love that I feel guilty because I’m leaving him. He readily admits he has no connection with anyone else, says he doesn’t even care about anyone. I don’t think he even knows what he is. Sorry I’m going on, I’m still in the stage where I haven’t actually left yet, where I waver between the certainty that he’s a sociopath and wanting to believe he just has an anger problem that can be fixed. He has put his hands on me, but not actually hit me, humiliated me, broken my things, etc. But it does happen in arguments, he admits to an anger problem, we’re going to counseling together, and the therapist admitted that people who have bad childhoods really do sometimes have uncontrollable anger. Also, he really is a good man in some ways. He works and supports me. I don’t think he would ever cheat, he does help with housework. I don’t even ask. I’m just trying to figure out if it’s fixable or if he really is a monster. He says the cruelest things but he says it’s out of anger and he literally can’t control himself and that I don’t help because I won’t stop an argument. I’m only a year into this thing and I don’t want to stay. But I don’t want to leave feeling like I bailed. Can you help me decipher? Examples of other things he has said
_There’s nothing wrong with you going fishing, but you have to go to the extreme. You want to go all day. I don’t care if it’s only once every few months. There is no sense in doing something that long. A good compromise would be to go 2 hrs every couple of weeks. Anything else is selfish.
– Your family are pieces of scrap. It’d be one thing if they were better people but they’re not. You can go see them but I’m not. And how often are we talking here anyway?
-Your a selfish person and that’s the reason why you have no real connections with anyone and all the people in your life treat you badly. It’s no wonder your daughter ran away.
On me saying maybe I should ask his ex girlfriend her version of the story, his being that she used him, after being bated into it by him telling me I always put myself first and accusing me of using him, his reply:
Maybe I should ask your birth dad if he really molested you as a child? Or maybe you seduced him? You are a slut, after all. His justification behind that was that he shouldn’t have said it and he went too extreme but he was just trying to show me how it felt to have something painful brought up to him like me implying he would lie about his ex.
He talks about his love for you, but love is in a person’t actions, not their words. Would you know it if he didn’t say it? Someone who loves you will act like they love you, not just say they do when they need to repair some damage or guilt-trip you into staying.
Holy cow, his remarks to you about being molested were so incredibly callous and cruel. That topic is absolutely off-limits in any argument about anything. I’m sure that hurt you deeply.
Teresa, forget about what kind of diagnosis he has. This is my diagnosis: He has no empathy at all. None. That is ALL you need to know; it’s more than enough of a reason to stop throwing good after bad and move on. He’s completely self-centered (narcissistic) in a pathological way. Whether someone is psychopathic, narcissistic or has asperger’s, the thing that causes the damage in their relationships is a lack of empathy. Please read this blog post: EMPATHY: What It Is and Why You Need It
If you can’t be vulnerable with someone there can be no emotional intimacy, which means there is no real relationship. There is no excuse for him to use your most painful past experiences to retaliate for anything, ever. There is no way you can feel emotionally safe and cared for with this guy, and you will suffer damage from his behavior. A bad temper is not his problem. It’s a symptom of something else, something much bigger. I realize you’re only married a year, but I can’t even express the visceral reaction I had when I read what he said to you, and along with the rest of it, whatever disorder this man has is one that makes him unable to have a real connection with another human being. You will never have a mutually fulfilling adult relationship with this man. I’m sorry to have to say that to you, but from what you’ve told me there is nothing else I can say.
I wish you the best of luck.
Oh, take a look at this page: REBOOT
Other things G has said
-I’m ruining your life. You should leave me (but gets violently angry when I talk about it)
-I thought I loved you. The truth is I wanted to love you. But I don’t even know what love is.
-I have never cared about anyone besides myself.
-My cousin thinks we’re close but she and her whole family could die in a fire and it wouldn’t really effect me.
Listen to what he’s saying—he’s telling you the truth about himself. He also tells you these things by the way he acts. There is nothing there for you, nothing that you need. Are your emotional needs being met in this relationship? That’s the main purpose of relationships. Do you feel love, supported, valued, respected, listened to, understood, and appreciated?
Thank you so much for listening. I have felt utterly alone and have been wrestling with so much guilt. I know that sounds ridiculous but it’s so hard to explain how close I felt to him before they got so out of control. He truly makes me feel like I’m wrong a lot. Ill say something or ask for something that seems validated and he is just so good at turning things around. I know I need to get out. The sad thing is, I still love the man I thought he was. Thank you for being there
You’re welcome. You may want to read this article, to help put some of what you’ve been experiencing into words:
Invalidation: I Refuse to Have This Discussion!
You will love the man you thought he was. It takes a long time for our hearts to catch up with our heads.
Teresa, please listen to Adelyn’s advice.
He’s clearly telling you in words and actions. There are a lot of similar comments to what mine made.
Save yourself, walk away.
Take care.
Thank you, and I will. It’s hard to describe why I’ve stayed this long. But I appreciate the support and I don’t have it in me to stay honestly. I am emotionally depleted.
You didn’t stay too long; you stayed until you were sure leaving was the right thing. It’s not a small or easy matter to end a marriage. I’m very sorry yours ended up like this, Teresa.
There were a lot of hints. A lot of them. A lot of Spaceship Moments. He several times actually told me he had sociopathic traits; told me he had to MAKE himself feel. But also insisted he could feel, so long as he made himself feel.
I usually rationalized that as him just being extreme; trying to act tough. A result of all the abuse he’d suffered growing up.
Told me he didn’t know how to miss people. That sometimes he’d notice the absence of someone, but didn’t really understand what it meant to miss people. (And it was kind of true; he rarely – if ever – said he missed me when we were apart.)
Said he couldn’t remember faces very well; that within a month or two he forgot what people looked like.
When having the hypothetical romantic discussion about being in a life or death situation, and vowing I’d give my life for him if need be, he bluntly said he wouldn’t take a bullet for me. Said he wouldn’t take a bullet for anyone. Because his own life was too valuable.
Seriously. He said that. I’ll never forget it.
He thought MY brain was strange because I had such “vivid” memories of people, and vivid memories of emotions. He couldn’t understand why a memory could still leave me happy, sad, or upset years later. He said I was strange. That I must just be fixated on things. It really seemed to baffle and frustrate him……but ultimately I know there was nothing wrong with me. He’s the one who couldn’t feel the way a normal person feels.
He often said he hated people.
He sometimes told me he had a switch in his brain; that once flipped, he stopped giving a shit about a person. And then he was done. Clearly I should have heeded THAT warning. Can’t get more blunt than that.
Told me he never regretted anything.
Never felt embarrassment.
There were so many little things like that…so mind blowing as I look back on it now…
An important thing I’ve learned from all of this: when someone tells you something about themselves, believe it.
One of mine thought it was OK to physically hurt people. I would have had freaking church bells going off in my head if only I had my experience then!
Another, more subtle one, asked me why marriage exist. He genuinely couldn’t understand, and only the logical explanation that it’s so relatives don’t have sexual relations by accident, seemed plausible to him. Obviously, such things as love, caring and attachment didn’t seem like a good reason.
“You need to celebrate their death” – a comment to a person who just told him that their grandfather passed away.
“If only I had the ability to eat as much as I want without getting full (basically eating non-stop) – that would be so much fun.” hmmm, I’m sorry but even the epicurean lifestyle and all the food in the world wouldn’t fill your emotional void on the inside, buddy.
The list could go on and on….
Good ones, Lilia! So absurd, and they show a real lack of empathy and emotion. Thank you for sharing them!