Almost Divorce Part 34- All you need to know about sociopaths

This series is  published no less than once a week on Thursday’s.  Or you can start at the beginning here

A timeline can be found here.

This post could also be titled,  Living well is the best revenge.

Let’s see where were we? Oh yes, darkness to day.   It’s August 25 2010 and I am numb with grief.  Life must go on as it always does when things come to an end, and as I stumble through it  my mind is racing with thoughts of PJ.  Realizations are hitting me both in a slow creep and a massive stab to the heart.   My body has been trained to  melt with lust when it thinks of him and my heart was so hopeful that things were going to be ok.  It’s a combination of;  Ok then, let’s pick ourselves up and move on, who was that masked man, and OMG WTF just happened to me.   My soul needs to make sense of this, but as Tab told me, Sociopaths don’t make sense.  I am alternating waiting for the other shoe to drop in his return and explanation and knowing that he is never ever ever ever ever ever coming back.  Yep, mission accomplished, I am thoroughly mind fucked.   I go through all the stages of grief, sometimes weaving in and out of one to the other and back again.   I can only assume since he is choosing not to prove his innocence as quickly as possible that he is indeed guilty.  But of what? Which things were lies and which things were truth?  And then the hits start coming, sometimes it’s many in a day, sometimes it’s not for a few days.

The first hit: He owns a hand gun. He knows where I live. He has talked about putting me in his pit and joked on more than one occasion about chloroform.  I don’t feel safe. That is such a great feeling to have when you are sleeping alone in a 5 bedroom house. At least I had benefit of an alarm system, a dog and good friends. Nothing like the first thought of your ex being concern that he is going to actually harm you. That felt great.

My previously mentioned emergency counseling session with Tab yields the following nuggets and to do’s.

• I have to create an answer I can live with
• I need to remember what I know about me, just because he did this doesn’t mean I’m not who I am.
• I have been violated and it is simply just not fair
• Suffering tempers us, ruin paves the way for transformation.  In hind sight this is absolutely true and I would not be where I am in this moment, if PJ hadn’t done what he did.  I am a better woman with a better marriage.
• My wondering=he wins.
• Maybe he truly was just that afraid.   I have to find the pieces that fit.

So a few short days after he is gone I sit down one night and put on the BGP.  I  have spent 48 hours spinning and in reviewing the last few weeks before he vanished it is clear to me that the end was near and he was leaving clues. It is clear even that short time later that he   is a sociopath and is likely married or at the very least has a girlfriend.  So many little things all fit together and make sense now.  My heart was in ruins, I wondered if I would have to go back to my husband simply because I would never be able to trust another man again.   That sure sounded like a solid plan to reconciliation. That last sentence is sarcasm in case you people haven’t figured out when I’m kidding yet.  I was pissed because I have more work to do and I’m fucking tired of doing work on myself. It is hard and exhausting. Some part of me promptly rejects the sociopath explanation because I don’t want it to be true.  I  know now that it is. I’ve come to that conclusion and acceptance of the conclusion. I have forgiven myself and Paul Jay Mathis.

By the  third or so day the reality of the situation and what it may have cost starts to set in.   I haven’t asked my ex if he is  still interested in reconciliation because we were HOURS away from divorce when all of this went down.   He may not agree to go back to marriage counseling, he may not agree to anything. I could be looking at a zero sum game here and I don’t even know what I want to do yet.

Here are some things I learned about Sociopaths based on my internet reading and one book I checked out of the library. I want to say the premier author on this subject is Martha White, but I’m not writing a term paper so I’m not bothering to look it up again. The information I found was very enlightening and helpful. And also very scary. I have an real life PJ example I could give you for almost every one of these things. Many of these are direct quotes from my reading.

• 1 out of every 25 people are Sociopaths, scary isn’t it.
• Sociopaths have no conscience, they cannot distinguish between right and wrong.
• They don’t EVER actually feel remorse or bad about what they do, they learn to fake it along with faking other emotions like sadness or love.
• They are often VERY good at faking it, often enigmatic, beautiful, sexy,  successful people.
• They know when they are doing it that they do not love you, they are incapable of love.
• They are certified monsters, once their magic has had its effect there is only you and GOD left to pull out of that hole. TRUE DAT.
• They are not working with all their marbles, but often you feel like to admit such is to admit you are  missing marbles too. This one totally explained why I felt CRAZY all the time when I was with him.   He once told me,  Oh i’m crazy doll, you know that.  It was August when he told me that.
•  Knowing that  you will always return to them is what gives them a kick.
• They keep asking for another chance
• Control is their drug, it drives them it is like cocaine in their system and they need a victim.
• They are pathological liars, who are impulsive and tend to be alcoholics or drug abusers
• They claim crying
• In the back of your mind you know something is wrong, very wrong
•  Do you think you’re in a never ending cycle of pain, where you feel as if you can’t free yourself of the relationship?  Why yes, thank you very much I do!!!!
• You love him, can’t live without him, but being with him is one of the greatest tortures you’ve ever known.
• Vulnerable, single or divorcing/ed women are their PRIME TARGETS!!!!!!!!
• They have antisocial tendencies
• They can’t hold down a steady job.
• They suffer from low self esteem.
• They have been the victim of many situations, if not all
• They want you to feel as low as they feel about themselves and worse
• Being with them is mental horror and abuse
• If you are lonely and needy you are a big target, you are the only one who udnerstands him now
• Seldom admits they have a problem
• Low grade sociopaths start around age 15

So here is the deal. I am going to finish up this post about PJ and  then we are not talking about him again.  At least not in detail.  We are going to focus on my reconciliation and then we will be done with this story.

I cried and thought my way through September, October, and  November about him.  The first Tuesday in December 2010,  I was walking into or out of work, and I was having a conversation with God.  As my feet hit the pavement I was demanding that GOD bring him back and make him look me in the eye and give me an explanation.  I got home from picking MiniMe up from Girl Scouts that night to an IM  informing me that PJ had shown up in  Skype.  I almost puked, but I held it together long enough to have a knee jerk reaction and request him as a contact, with a simple It is about time comment.  Roughly 3 days later he accepted that contact request and then NEVER HAD ANYTHING TO SAY.  I was told, but did not see that he actually went into chat one day and cammed up. I was told he was given a less than friendly reception from those that knew him.  I had told more than a few people what happened. I started my 2nd chat career out of chasing PJ into chat that December.   And I didn’t get out again until  right before Memorial Day 2011. I thought about him every single one of those days and wondered if he was lurking in chat and watching me.   The Big Guy happened in that time  space and he was my rebound online relationship. As in replacing old memories with new ones, rebound relationship.  I will not be giving any details about  The Big Guy or any insight into that relationship or my feeling about it or him.   I will simply tell you that my 2nd chat career ended when I….recognized that I wanted to be done with all of the bullshit and actually start some serious work to heal properly, decided to end it with  The Big Guy when it became apparent that he didn’t understand no meant no and didn’t care to bother owning his actions.  The same night I ended it,  The Husband found out about him, but he understood that The Big Guy was merely a symptom of chasing after Paul.  We came away from that set back  and that part of our story in is our past.   I’m a very lucky, very grateful woman.  I could be in  dead in a pit right now. Instead I am very much alive and writing this blog for your entertainment and education.

Living well is the best revenge and I am most certainly choosing to live well

More to come soon Lovies.

Related articles

• Psychopath Vs Sociopath (mademan.com)
• Sociopaths and Psychopaths: Can They Be Cured? (robertlindsay.wordpress.com)
• Sociopath – are you one? (insideasanemind.com)
• Love and Illusion: You Could be Dating or Married to a “Social Sociopath”: How Would you Know? (prweb.com)