Obviously you are not sure he/she is a sociopath. That knowledge is an ‘awareness’ not a ‘knowness’, if that makes any sense. One recognizes sociopaths emotionally at a soul deep level. Once you realize (assuming it’s true) that every emotion of your partner was a calculated and staged fraud you will be set free forever.
The Path Whisperer
An exploration in sociopathy
I was in a blind daze for 20 years, sadly. Escaped from a sociopath dad, to jump in the sociopath frying pan marriage. My father, for example, had no conscience about openly cheating on my mother all his life, verbally and physically abusing her, while appearing the most charming and wonderful guy to the outside world. I lived in fear of him growing up, and was conditioned to never say “no” to a bully. He also confused my sense of trust and sanity, because he inappropriately had me sit in his lap all my life, into adulthood (21-y-o), was so insanely possessive and overprotective of me re. opposite sex, while also putting down and mocking my femininity in adolescence. Women, ALL women, to him, including my “Madonna” mother who never left the house except to work, were whores plain and simple. No exceptions, and he treated all that way.
Fast forward to my marriage. My ex had a diagnosis of a personality disorder and I got a confirmation of his behavior in a therapist’s office described as sociopathic, as he tried to disarm me and gain my trust by feigning concern for our kid, while convincing me to fork over all my savings during our separation. In retrospect, I know he never loved me, just used me to adore and worship him, to control me, to have a checkbook to freely write checks from (yes, mine), to boost his image to the world of a normal family man. I want to puke when I remember his put downs, calling me names, telling me I smelled, locking me and toddler child out of the house to assert dominance and, then, his horror and disgust when I returned with a cop.
During divorce, he used every manipulation tactic in the book to make me stay. Intimidation. Pleading. Harassing. Lies to his and my lawyer. Delays. Ugh and I felt SORRY for him all along, and GUILTY that I was leaving him, and AFRAID that I couldn’t make it without him.
Today . . . 2 yrs after papers signed and sealed. He sends a b-day present to me via our daughter. A week later he offers his “services” to cut a fallen tree in my yard. Yes, I can say “Trojan Horse!” — this man only cared about controlling and exploiting me all my married life. Only cared about one-upping me, being dominant and bigger while putting me down and making me small and stupid and smelly. Idiot. NOW do I look that stupid to think he wants to buy be a b-day present and help me with my tree, when he forgot my birthdays during marriage and refused to help share food expense for our daughter when I approached him this summer.
Thanks for the reply to the above post. I hope that my long rant is acceptable, as I still clearly have a lot of anger and grief for the loss of my innocence, for being so naive and gullible, and wasting my precious youth on a loser not worth any noble feelings.
It’s amazing how many people ‘waste their precious youth’ in tragic involvements with psychopaths, yet there is no educational preparation for such possibilities. Personally it makes me wonder what percentage of psychopathy researchers, media personnel, etc. are themselves psychopathic — they have totally failed us (for decades, at the least). We should all be thankful for the internet.
Experience is the teacher, only too late. Growing up in a crazy making environment with no same adult to confirm to me that these things are whacky, I got so confused about trusting my intuition and the price is devastating. UN-learning takes me forever too.
I have never felt comfort in knowing that he never cared about me never loved, that it was all a sick and sad charade for him.
Without knowing anything more about you and the situation beyond than that one sentence, I would say that you don’t want to. Comfort isn’t the right word, though, it’ more like complete freedom.
One of the ‘fringe benefits’ of a colossal romance-with-a-sociopath disaster (though I should note that there are millions of individuals who are happily married to, or who think they are happily married to, or who find the misery normal, married to a sociopath) is that there comes a point in which there are absolutely no coulda-woulda-shoulda’s, no if-only’s, no why-did-he/she-chose-his/her-insanity over me, no lingering open emotional wounds. Emotional scar tissue yes, PTSD yes, but no regrets over the end of the relationship — because in fact there was no relationship and never could be.
Putting on my headshrinker’s outfit I’d suggest that you explore the possibility of a parent, particularly the opposite sex parent, being a sociopath. Or perhaps that you partner wasn’t in fact a sociopath. Sometimes that’s merely a charge-of-convenience, a kind of get-out-of-a-relationship-free-card.