Married to a Psychopath?
Your dream of being happily married, to overcome loneliness and have a life-long love partner is significantly sabotaged when you discover that you are married to a Psychopath. The most determined and loving partner will be challenged by such a relationship. We can guarantee that none survive without a guide. Marriage to a psychopath can not only sink your hope for the love relationship that you need and hoped for but can drain your own inner strength, energy ad love. It is hard to to develop anxiety and fear as one realizes the kind of harm psychopaths to to love relationships and the people they love.
Guide: We highly recommend you commit to a consistent meeting, preferably weekly, with a registered psychotherapist who understands this journey of marriage to a psychopath and can provide needed insight, a listening partner and support for your own emotional stability. Your journey is puzzling, dangerous and exhausting. Our role as experienced psychotherapists is to provide that support for the journey.
Plan to meet every week with your therapist or participate in a supportive group group with people who understand life with a psychopath. Your emotional survival and the survival of your marriage depends a lot on at least weekly good quality professional support. We expect we can be that professional who is supportive, insightful and who is fully appreciative of the hazards involved with this kind of marriage.
Psychotherapy: Our role is to provide the individual coaching/psychotherapy that will help you to survive your marriage to a psychopath to work toward eliminating any abusive behaviour. You will need to be firm but loving, strong but not threatening to survive and sustain this marriage.
To discuss this option phone George Hartwell at (416) 939-0544 or Anna Wolanczyk at (647) 712-4848.
Guide: We highly recommend you commit to a consistent meeting, preferably weekly, with a registered psychotherapist who understands this journey of marriage to a psychopath and can provide needed insight, a listening partner and support for your own emotional stability. Your journey is puzzling, dangerous and exhausting. Our role as experienced psychotherapists is to provide that support for the journey.
Plan to meet every week with your therapist or participate in a supportive group group with people who understand life with a psychopath. Your emotional survival and the survival of your marriage depends a lot on at least weekly good quality professional support. We expect we can be that professional who is supportive, insightful and who is fully appreciative of the hazards involved with this kind of marriage.
Psychotherapy: Our role is to provide the individual coaching/psychotherapy that will help you to survive your marriage to a psychopath to work toward eliminating any abusive behaviour. You will need to be firm but loving, strong but not threatening to survive and sustain this marriage.
To discuss this option phone George Hartwell at (416) 939-0544 or Anna Wolanczyk at (647) 712-4848.
Q and A re Marriage to a Psychopath
Do Sociopaths/Psychopaths need love?
Sociopaths do feel and each and every sociopath still has a little child inside that feels and needs love. The Sociopath, however, will have trouble trusting love, receiving love and keep feeling loved. And they will have trouble receiving and retaining love.
That little child within the sociopath may not feel loved even if someone does love them. Or the feeling of being love may be temporary and then fade away. This must be very painful to that little child.
Everyone needs love. True. Some people's love bucket leaks. They can't retain the feeling of being loved. They cannot remember experiences of love later and draw upon those memories.
So, yes, Sociopaths needs love. But they may not retain the feeling of being loved for long. But they may and do ‘test’ you to make sure you do love and won’t run away.
Eventually they will begin the receive love and begin to be capable of giving love. The quality of the spouse/friend/partner to achieve this is quite high.
Do Sociopaths/Psychopaths need love?
Sociopaths do feel and each and every sociopath still has a little child inside that feels and needs love. The Sociopath, however, will have trouble trusting love, receiving love and keep feeling loved. And they will have trouble receiving and retaining love.
That little child within the sociopath may not feel loved even if someone does love them. Or the feeling of being love may be temporary and then fade away. This must be very painful to that little child.
Everyone needs love. True. Some people's love bucket leaks. They can't retain the feeling of being loved. They cannot remember experiences of love later and draw upon those memories.
So, yes, Sociopaths needs love. But they may not retain the feeling of being loved for long. But they may and do ‘test’ you to make sure you do love and won’t run away.
Eventually they will begin the receive love and begin to be capable of giving love. The quality of the spouse/friend/partner to achieve this is quite high.
What causes one to become a Psychopath?
As a therapist my focus is on personality variables based on a person's upbringing. In order to answer as a Christian therapist I need to add another term into our understanding of the person, or, in fact, I will use three terms: the Rational Brain - conscious verbal intellect, the Emotional Brain meaning the source of our decisions based on past social-emotional experience and the human spirit which I call the Intuitive Brain.
No one understands the role of the human spirit but doing so is essential for understanding the Psychopath. The human spirit makes us human and without it we are more like an animal.
The human spirit needs to be nurtured in order to mature and it can only do so through consistent love received through consistent trust channels called, in Psychological research, bonding or attachment. More than half of us have damaged bonding and, as a result, a crippled ability to love and bond to others.
Psychopaths, and likely Borderlines, have the most extreme wounding in the area of bonding and attachment and with it an almost absent ability to love and bond to others.
Their ability to receive love is broken. Their ability to hold on to the love they receive is broken. Their to trust in the love they receive is broken.
Therefore, their human spirit has not been nurtured and has not grown. Without nurture they are left in a deep emotional immaturity. Spiritually - in their emotional core - they are like infants.
The less loving, nurturing human contact from mother, father, family and village, the less healthy attachment, the less love retained, the less emotional growth of the emotional core (human spirit) the less there is adult empathy. Without empathy there is an absence of compassion - the basis for adult morality. This means that there is more risk of evil, cruel behaviour without any sign of conscience.
Psychopaths are very immature infants (emotionally) with little or no adult conscience (which is rooted in empathy) because they are incapable of it. Their rational brain can be brilliant which makes them very dangerous when linked to no empathy or mature conscience.
This is my humble attempt to explain psychopathy within this model of personality. Let me know if you have any questions. In this view bonding is the core area lacking in the childhood of the psychopath.
As a therapist my focus is on personality variables based on a person's upbringing. In order to answer as a Christian therapist I need to add another term into our understanding of the person, or, in fact, I will use three terms: the Rational Brain - conscious verbal intellect, the Emotional Brain meaning the source of our decisions based on past social-emotional experience and the human spirit which I call the Intuitive Brain.
No one understands the role of the human spirit but doing so is essential for understanding the Psychopath. The human spirit makes us human and without it we are more like an animal.
The human spirit needs to be nurtured in order to mature and it can only do so through consistent love received through consistent trust channels called, in Psychological research, bonding or attachment. More than half of us have damaged bonding and, as a result, a crippled ability to love and bond to others.
Psychopaths, and likely Borderlines, have the most extreme wounding in the area of bonding and attachment and with it an almost absent ability to love and bond to others.
Their ability to receive love is broken. Their ability to hold on to the love they receive is broken. Their to trust in the love they receive is broken.
Therefore, their human spirit has not been nurtured and has not grown. Without nurture they are left in a deep emotional immaturity. Spiritually - in their emotional core - they are like infants.
The less loving, nurturing human contact from mother, father, family and village, the less healthy attachment, the less love retained, the less emotional growth of the emotional core (human spirit) the less there is adult empathy. Without empathy there is an absence of compassion - the basis for adult morality. This means that there is more risk of evil, cruel behaviour without any sign of conscience.
Psychopaths are very immature infants (emotionally) with little or no adult conscience (which is rooted in empathy) because they are incapable of it. Their rational brain can be brilliant which makes them very dangerous when linked to no empathy or mature conscience.
This is my humble attempt to explain psychopathy within this model of personality. Let me know if you have any questions. In this view bonding is the core area lacking in the childhood of the psychopath.
Why do People say that Psychopaths do not have Feelings?
Of course psychopaths have emotions. We all do. Psychopaths just do not show the normal range of empathic emotions.
Empathy is the basis for mature moral behaviour. When the failure of bonding is extreme so are the consequences in emotional maturity.
A psychopath did not have sustained loving relationship in the early years to create healthy bonding and healthy emotional growth. This becomes more and more obvious as the psychopaths get older. While other people gain some degree of empathy, Psychopaths just do not get to that stage of development. Their emotional core - the human spirit - has not been nurtured enough for them to grow and mature to that stage.
Of course psychopaths have emotions. We all do. Psychopaths just do not show the normal range of empathic emotions.
Empathy is the basis for mature moral behaviour. When the failure of bonding is extreme so are the consequences in emotional maturity.
A psychopath did not have sustained loving relationship in the early years to create healthy bonding and healthy emotional growth. This becomes more and more obvious as the psychopaths get older. While other people gain some degree of empathy, Psychopaths just do not get to that stage of development. Their emotional core - the human spirit - has not been nurtured enough for them to grow and mature to that stage.
Why do Psychopaths lack love in their relationships?
Imagine yourself as a small baby reaching out for contact with mother, father and others. All you want is recognition - “I see you.” You feel connected if mother and father recognize you, acknowledge you and see you.
The child who feels acknowledged, recognized and seen by the caregivers in the family has security to stay open to love, to connecting with others, to being open in relationships. The child who does not feel acknowledged never gains the security to remain open to love and connection.
Love is avoided. People become a source of anxiety. Love becomes a threat of rejection. The child now withdraws from love.
Now if the child is loved, he or she will lack the security to trust it and receive it. One becomes defended, walls go up.
I call the part of us the gives and receives love the human spirit. This is the true person in spirit form what inhabits the body and mind. That human spirit is also like a little baby at first and grows as it is nurtured with love - love that comes through the attachment and bonding with parents and caregivers. But, what if it is not loved?
If the nurture never reaches the human spirit? If the human spirit never grows, never matures. This is the secret of psychology: without love the human spirit never matures - never matures into the capacity for adult love relationships, never matures emotionally and, therefore, never gets to the emotional growth level where empathy is seen.
So the reason why sociopaths lack the ability to love is a result of bonding and attachment factors in childhood. The research in attachment starting with John Bowlby and has blossomed from there. John Bowlby's work challenged Freudian psychoanalysis and brought our attention back to early childhood and the love experience of the infant.
That is the key to understanding the sociopath/psychopath and why their ability to love is deeply crippled. If it was possible to reverse all the above that would change but that, is a major project.
Imagine yourself as a small baby reaching out for contact with mother, father and others. All you want is recognition - “I see you.” You feel connected if mother and father recognize you, acknowledge you and see you.
The child who feels acknowledged, recognized and seen by the caregivers in the family has security to stay open to love, to connecting with others, to being open in relationships. The child who does not feel acknowledged never gains the security to remain open to love and connection.
Love is avoided. People become a source of anxiety. Love becomes a threat of rejection. The child now withdraws from love.
Now if the child is loved, he or she will lack the security to trust it and receive it. One becomes defended, walls go up.
I call the part of us the gives and receives love the human spirit. This is the true person in spirit form what inhabits the body and mind. That human spirit is also like a little baby at first and grows as it is nurtured with love - love that comes through the attachment and bonding with parents and caregivers. But, what if it is not loved?
If the nurture never reaches the human spirit? If the human spirit never grows, never matures. This is the secret of psychology: without love the human spirit never matures - never matures into the capacity for adult love relationships, never matures emotionally and, therefore, never gets to the emotional growth level where empathy is seen.
So the reason why sociopaths lack the ability to love is a result of bonding and attachment factors in childhood. The research in attachment starting with John Bowlby and has blossomed from there. John Bowlby's work challenged Freudian psychoanalysis and brought our attention back to early childhood and the love experience of the infant.
That is the key to understanding the sociopath/psychopath and why their ability to love is deeply crippled. If it was possible to reverse all the above that would change but that, is a major project.
Dealing with anger in the psychopath
The Psychopath has a lot of underlying hostility - which is anger transformed into hatred.
They can be vicious, mean, destructive and abusive in their rage, and suspicions. Just being in a love relationship is a big trigger for them of distrust and fear of betrayal. This behaviour will discourage any but the most loving and mature persons. You will require love for your spouse - a love so steady that it survives episodes of extreme abuse.
These nasty outbursts of rage/hostility surface when there is any hint, possibility or suspicion of rejection. They will look like they were intent on destroying you.
They may try to destroy your relationships with family, friends, mutual friends, church, job, and children. You name it and they attack it.
The Psychopath is quite capable of this kind of attack before you do anything. They are so suspicious of possible abandonment.
This marriage is difficult to sustain and difficult to survive. Outside support of an understanding professional is essential for those who intend to make it work and have the strength and love to do so.
Psychopaths have poor emotional control, that results in expressions of irritability, annoyance, impatience, threats, aggression and verbal abuse, inadequate control of anger and temper, and acting hastily, even when the consequences may be harmful to them personally.
Psychopaths do not function in terms of future consequences to themselves or others. They just do not seem to be aware of the future when emotion is the present.
The psychopath’s inhibitory controls are weak, leaving them highly reactive to perceived insults or slights. Whenever they are narcissistically injured they will react badly.
The Psychopath has a lot of underlying hostility - which is anger transformed into hatred.
They can be vicious, mean, destructive and abusive in their rage, and suspicions. Just being in a love relationship is a big trigger for them of distrust and fear of betrayal. This behaviour will discourage any but the most loving and mature persons. You will require love for your spouse - a love so steady that it survives episodes of extreme abuse.
These nasty outbursts of rage/hostility surface when there is any hint, possibility or suspicion of rejection. They will look like they were intent on destroying you.
They may try to destroy your relationships with family, friends, mutual friends, church, job, and children. You name it and they attack it.
The Psychopath is quite capable of this kind of attack before you do anything. They are so suspicious of possible abandonment.
This marriage is difficult to sustain and difficult to survive. Outside support of an understanding professional is essential for those who intend to make it work and have the strength and love to do so.
Psychopaths have poor emotional control, that results in expressions of irritability, annoyance, impatience, threats, aggression and verbal abuse, inadequate control of anger and temper, and acting hastily, even when the consequences may be harmful to them personally.
Psychopaths do not function in terms of future consequences to themselves or others. They just do not seem to be aware of the future when emotion is the present.
The psychopath’s inhibitory controls are weak, leaving them highly reactive to perceived insults or slights. Whenever they are narcissistically injured they will react badly.
A psychopath is defined simply as an anti-social personality disorder in which three or more of the following seven conditions are present: irresponsibility, deceit, recklessness, indifference to the welfare of others, a failure to plan ahead, aggression and irritability.