The Confusing Pain of Loving a Sociopath

Four years ago I fell deeply in love with a sociopath, although loving a sociopath is an antithetical statement, since it’s impossible to love someone you’ll never really know. I thought I was extraordinarily close with this hilarious, smart, generous, ambitious individual. I thought he shared emotions, stories and secrets with me that he had kept hidden from the rest of the world. I thought we had a celestial connection and when he went down on me it was a spiritual experience for all parties involved. We were not only lovers, we were forever best friends who hung out at every possible moment. There was no withholding of information between us. I was incapable of not being naked around him, literally and metaphorically. He invited me to be 100 per cent vulnerable and I was. I didn’t hold back my feelings. I fully opened up at his whim.

Which made it way easier for him to manipulate me. The more exposed the subject, the easier they can be psychoanalyzed, molded and taken advantage of. The more truthful they are with the sociopath, the less truthful the sociopath has to be with them. The more infatuated someone is with their persecutor, the more the persecutor can make everything about themselves. I was deeply in love with the persona he had invented, which meant I was often blind to his non-stop deception. Friends would warn me that they didn’t get good vibes from him and they suspected he wasn’t as great of a guy as my heart falsely imagined him to be. But they weren’t obsessively concerned because he had also managed to trick them into believing he was simply a fuckboy.

But in actuality, he was a mastermind whose focus was puppeteering me 24 hours a day, 7 days a week until I finally escaped his grasp, which took many, many tries. Sociopaths are persistent with maintaining control over their subjects, yet before you attempt to exit the relationship, they appear to care very little about you, which is to say the least, confusing. They’re also paradoxical, bewildering and infuriating. You can’t figure them out. As hard as you try, it’s a hopeless endeavour. Their duplicity is too large to unweave, dissect and broadcast. You will never really know who they are and the disorientation they create within you by their conflicted behaviours is all apart of their plan to make you feel crazy, irrational and in desperate need of their saving. When you’re under hypnosis, you don’t see how they’re a walking contradiction. I have learned over time that I was never going to get answers, and the consistent flip flopping in their mood and interest and behaviours only added to my pain. What do I mean by this? Well…

For example, sociopaths are liars

They’re professional fabricators. They have been trained in the art of perjury. They do not waver in the stories they construct, which they forge in every area of their lives. They mislead you about what’s happening with their career. My ex-boyfriend was stealing money from colleagues but I was told that his newly founded company was just financially successful. They distort their relationships with others. He would refer to distant acquaintances or friends of friends or not real people as good pals. They even alter mundane situations like what food they purchased at the store. He said he bought milk. So¦ where is it then? Then there was the bigger scale stuff like how he felt about me. I was the love of his life, who he often called a bitch. I was the only one he wanted, minus his ex-girlfriend, who he was still dating when we started sleeping together.

But they also demand complete honesty from you

They’ll give you a phony middle name, but if they discover that you potentially fibbed about what time you left your house to meet them, they will unleash a wrath upon you like you have not seen. They are permitted to bullshit you until the end of days, but if you also play the game you’re not even aware they’re playing, well, you’re in trouble. You have committed a serious crime, even if your misstep was completely innocent. One time I had forgotten that a past partner of mine was going to be at a party we were going to. Upon our arrival and my sociopath seeing the ex in question, he flipped out and accused me of bringing him there to toy with his emotions. I told him it had genuinely slipped my mind. He didn’t care. He yelled at me for weeks.

They’re charming and likable

They’re skilled at keeping their rage behind closed doors. My friends weren’t obsessively concerned because they couldn’t see the full picture. I didn’t divulge what happened after we left that party and returned to his apartment where he lived alone, so how would they know? All they saw was a dude who was excellent at cracking jokes, making intelligent conversation, and complimenting every single person he encountered, including me. That was another weapon in his arsenal. Flattery. He inflated my ego in order to inflate his own, since dominating me made him feel like a winner. He thought I was brilliant, funny and simply perfect, unless I crossed him.

But they also don’t have any close friends

Yet, even with this charm, he rarely hung out with anyone that wasn’t me. He avoided social gatherings with his good pals. If I had plans with others over the weekend and I met up with him on Monday, I could guarantee that when I asked What did you do this weekend? he would either say Nothing. I stayed at home or I got a drink with this guy Peter and of course Peter either didn’t exist or hadn’t spoken to him in a year. The few superficial friendships he had were not like mine. He didn’t spill his soul to his close buds. He didn’t spill his soul to anyone, except me, and with me, he spilled a fake, processed soul. He only became more isolated as time went on. He wanted to keep all people at a distance, so they couldn’t question his ongoing fraud.

They’re possessive and manipulative

He was amazing at seeing continuous potential to restrict my thoughts, feelings and actions. If I made small talk with another man I would get a lecture later on about how I clearly didn’t respect him because I was throwing myself at other guys right in front of him. If I wanted to go to a comedy show he would rip into every comedian on the lineup to the point that I would voluntarily choose not to go (mission accomplished). He would demand that I take my birth control pills at home instead of when we were out and I remembered because our sex life is private. If I was worried that someone was mad at me he instantly agreed that he was the only person on my side and I should stop talking to them. Anything to isolate me, govern my every movement and turn me into a robot. And one of their best manipulation tools? Tears. Every time I wanted to leave, the waterworks would arrive. The only emotion he usually felt was anger, unless I was attempting to break free.

But they’re also unreliable and distant

The most perplexing part of his personality was that he would sporadically cancel, reschedule or have no desire to see me at all in a week. Most of the time he couldn’t breathe without being in my presence but then occasionally he would suddenly be unavailable because work was nuts and he didn’t know when we could see each other next. This disinterest was the polar opposite of his typical attitude which was another mind game he enjoyed playing. He would make me feel rejected, unwanted and pathetic so my need to see him would grow. I recall one time he refused to spend time with me for almost four weeks, when we were in the same city and still in a relationship. Again, apparently work was nuts. When I eventually ended things since he no longer loved me, he instantly came running back. He couldn’t live without me. He called me 15 times in 30 minutes. He begged me to come over. This is the classic move of a sociopath. As soon as they feel they’re losing their grip on you, they go into survival mode.

They’re egotistical and lack empathy

Sociopath is a synonym for narcissist. That is what the majority of their intentions come down to you. They’re massive sense of entitlement. They manipulate others, then act distant, then lie, then reprimand you for lying, then insist that you spend most of your free time spooning with them, because they truly believe they’re god. They are capable of this huge masquerade because they’re geniuses at least in their deluded view of reality and anyone who gets to chill with them alone is lucky to do so, although they would never admit this. They couldn’t care less about the feelings of others, which is why they cause pain so casually. Their needs are above everyone else’s, including the people they love. They want their partners to be happy, but only under their terms. Happiness as defined by the sociopath in the lead. That is rational joy.

But they’re also amazing at sex

Oddly enough, although they couldn’t care less about others, they make superb lovers, not because they want their partner to experience pleasure, but because their partner experiencing pleasure means they’re skilled at sexual intercourse which is a talent they value in themselves and others. A talent they associate with power and attractiveness and superiority. They get good at cunnilingus so they can hold that over their prey and use it to beat out their competition. I definitely found that my feelings for him grew every single time we had sex. He was observant and took notes and applied my requests quickly and accurately. Amazing sex is wildly addictive and the better a sociopath is at seduction the better he is at romantic manipulation. They go hand in hand. It wasn’t until I bought a mind-blowing vibrator that I was truly able to tell him to fuck himself. It took a long while, but my god, did that feel good, literally and metaphorically.