Hi all,

I havent posted for a while but have still been reading daily and thank you all for your ongoing insightful posts that are helpful to know I am not alone in my experience and to understand (and see through) the behaviour of my Psychopath partner. I have just been through a short (in my experience with my Psychopath) classic Psychopath cycle of devalue, discard and now in the luring stage one more and I thought it might be helpful to some of you if I posted about it.

After my period of NC earlier in the year I returned to the relationship. The NC was broken by him, with persistent contact that I ignored for a while but eventually succumbed to and was treated to some classic Psychopath luring. He reflected to me the things he clearly knows attract me, emotional contact and signs of love (although as usual fell short of actually saying that word). In that time he kept his disgusting sex habits and drive to a bare minimum, but did make it clear that my performance in the sexual arena was essentially to any significant reconstruction of the relationship. At the time I cycled between falling for the fantasy and being able to stand back and see his total manipulation of the situation and me. Having done so much reading including this and other forums it is easy to see the patterns in his behaviour, sometimes it is scary how similar his actions and words are to the descriptions from other "victims". Obviously I didn't "fall for" this act of his, but yes it still had a powerful pull and I digressed back into the relationship, although I do feel like I am more in control with my new and growing knowledge.

After a very brief lure, the mask slipped rapidly. His sex requirements started to increase in quantity and abusive quality until he demanded I perform acts he knows I have steadfastly refused to do. I knew giving in to his sex demands would just make him increase his requirements of me in other abusive ways, a Psychopath will always push you beyond your limit and the goalposts will always move. I knew that giving in would just make reduce my own self esteem and that he would actually never be happy and this gave me the strength to just say no. At that stage I really couldnt have cared less if it meant the end of the relationship altogether, although I know how dreadful NC is and how insane I would feel.

My refusal lead to the inevitable devalue phase. He was verbally abusive with horrible insults and statements totally designed to get me where it hurts. But it was predictable, sometimes to the level that I could predict the very next insult he would throw my way. Yes it still hurt. But unlike every other time I have been through that I knew his abuse was a carefully planned manipulation and the things he was saying were not in fact true reflections of me. It was like I had some new inner strength where I didnt need to value myself through his perception of me. The devalue phase was relatively short, sometime in the past he has spent months treating me like absolute crap while I bounce around trying to be a good girl and feel utterly confused about his irrationality. This time I probably behaved very unpredictably to him, to me I felt like everything was inevitable so there was no point to playing his game.

He went into the discard phase by just becoming non-contactable. I put in some minor effort to maintain contact but wasnt overly stressed by the discard as it was entirely what I predicted and gave me some time out. I figured if he was done with me, well, good for me :-) and if not then nothing I did would really determine when he would wish to be reinvolved. I am very sure he engaged in some other sexual relationships during this time, and fairly sure they were not rewarding to him. He is getting older, only really interested in women who I would class as difficult catches for him, doesnt have much to offer and cant maintain his mask for very long. He contacted me a little, mainly to place the blame of the NC onto me, and I pretty much understood that of course he would say that, as nothing is ever the Psychopaths fault. I generally felt little panic or craziness that has been a heavy feature of NC in the past for me. There were a few days where I had that up and down, low concetration, high stress, feeling crazy thing, but overall it was bearable and I could stand back from it and understand exactly what was happening.

We are back to the lure phase. He got bored with playing around pretty fast. He is being charming again, but at the moment it feels quite different to me. I don't feel obsessed with him anymore and I don't have a need to please. I feel like my own person. I don't really care what he does with other women, if he is still playing around then that's someone else to bear the brunt of his abuse. I dont feel pressured into things I dont want to do anymore, I am not scared to say no. Perhaps he will bore with this fast, as he can only manipulate me when I let him. I feel strong within his crazy.

I still have an illogical thought that I can "help" him, even though all the information on Psychopaths says they can never be changed. I think he knows very well that he is not normal (perhaps even knows he is a Psychopath) and I dont think he likes it. He seems very anguished by his behaviour sometimes.

Sorry for the length of this post. I just wanted to share my experience of the Psychopath cycle and how having a total knowledge of it and how he will behaviour has been so helpful to me. At the moment I dont feel a need to initiate NC, but should that happen (in my mind this is the only long term outcome for a relationship with a Psychopath) I am ready for it.

I totally understand how you feel. At the end of our relationship I behaved just like you.
It takes enormous strength to leave, and I can only hope that you will find it within you.
Hell I wouldnt wanna believe the truth even after what he'd done to me... Its incredible. I always though the relationship with a psychopath is like a relationship with a child. You love them no matter what. Its crazy.

Almost the worse of it is, not only is leaving very very difficult, but it is often not just a one-off that you need the strength to achieve - you have to stay strong to stay away and, if you are not yet ready for that, you go through it all repeatedly.

I found with no contact that I could just about find the strength to stay away from him but for me the killer was him contacting me.

I guess I found it even more difficult to believe he could bother to do that without any emotion. I would keep confusing it with it being a sign that he did cared.

Having said that, I think it is a little easier when you can see what they are doing - I only found out about Psychopaths after it was over.

I wonder if it would have helped to have known about Psychopaths earlier?

I am not sure it is a question of loving them whatever, I think it is maybe more about chasing the dream? But with ever-reducing returns.

Thanks for you comments.
Smokey maybe you are right. Maybe it is about chasing the dream, and as it becomes more and more clear that it IS a dream it becomes easier to let go. But that might be optimistic too, maybe its not easier, just more clear that it is an inevitability. I am sick of investing myself in this relationship, and when I'm not investing something in it i just feel guilty and crazy. I hate Psychopaths so much. I hate watching him manipulate both myself and other people. I wish all Psychopaths would fk off and leave us regular people to live life.

Aside from my personal involvements, I so often wish that whenever I read some horrific story in the papers about some inhuman act someone has perpetrated on another sentient being, whether that is a person or an animal, and of course we know the Psychopath link between cruelty to both.

I thought I would write a follow up, it's good to go back and read how I was feeling 4 months ago.

After the post above was written, things were fine for a few months, where "fine" means regular general disrespect and abuse of my time and emotions, but no real pushing of my limits or threats of abondonement. We went away together, and with me isolated from family and home for a number of weeks his abusivness increased exponentially. He started really pushing my sexual boundaries and being very abusive in bed, and I stood up to him and said "no" a few times. Unlike regular people, who might ask for something insane in the bedroom and get refused and make do with the happiness they have, he was non-accepting of direct refusals and very verbally and emotionally abusive. He was controlling where I went, how I spent every second of the day down to when I was allowed to go to the toilet. Everything that went wrong was my fault, little inconveniences were made into major problems that I supposedly caused and then I realised he was basically using me for money as well. He borrowed a large sum (always having me pay bills and never paying back) and when I reminded him he accused me of being obsessed with money. It was not a fun holiday and I was so glad to be home.

He ignored me for a few weeks on return, then hoovered around for a while and convinced me to go away with him for a few days. On that trip he spent every night staying out incredibly late with another woman (supposedly business). At the time I really needed his support and would have liked some advice and help on a work issue, but he made himself unavailable and showed me how unimportant any actual need I had was to him.

At Christmas time he was horrible. Making me feel guilty if I didn't give him a really nice present (which I did) and then didn't get me any gift, stood me up 3 times in a row then asked me to make a large financial investment that would have many benefits to him and none to me. When I refused, he started no contact himself. As it happened, his NC started exactly a year after I walked out on him. I am sure now that he set this up, the entire hoover, reestabblishment of the relationship and gradual devalue was probably planned by him to end with a final discard on the anniversary of the last time I broke with him. He was just sucking up as much as he could of me emotionally, sexually and finally financially until his grand discard.

It has been about 6 weeks of almost NC, he tried to reconnect after 3 weeks but only took a few texts to start abusing me and I didnt bother replying. I cannot see any point in any contact whatsoever now. If he has any sort of decency at all he won't contact me again, but as his status as a Psychopath is pretty definite, I guess I can expect he is not done forever with trying to control me. I still feel sad, still feel like I should help me/"fix" him/love him despite his flaws. But this is completely ridiculous as logically I know he cannot change his patterns, he cannot love, he cannot even care for someone else. He desn't understand friendship or love as anything other than something to abuse and manipulate with. I am having ups and downs, but overall this 6 weeks is easier than this time last year and I am steadfast in not wishing anything to renew. I am working on strengthening and loving myself and my life without him.

The last 9 months of going back to his game has been a waste of my time, emotion and money and possibly a health risk sexually. I think I did need this time to feel confident in my diagnosis of him as a psychopath, to see his actions through the lens of viewing psychopathic behaviour and see how futile any hope or dreams I had actually were. I feel sad about NC but that IS the ONLY outcome for your relationship with a Psychopath if you are to maintain any of your own sanity. Things will NEVER change, it will always be his way, his abuse and the complete destruction of your sanity, identity, esteem and good nature. Once you completely understand that there is no point to having any contact with a Psychopath.

Have you told him that you believe he is a psychopath?

NotCrzy,

Reading your last two posts, I think the pattern for the "Psychopath" in your past life is one of playing at BDSM with him being the Top and you the Bottom.

Even 14 years later, I remember very clearly Mr. Who's strong desires that later turned into demands that I be submissive in just about all ways. Because of his weight and his diabetes, he was a loss sexually because little who wouldn't, so that increased his desire for me to play the submissive Bottom.

Yes, he pushed my boundaries, but because he couldn't get little who to perform without ViagXX, I had the upper hand.

He liked to talk about rape and when he was hot and bothered he would do the rabbit on/off thing. At one point I told him in very clear terms that I would not listen to any more of this rape stories, let alone allow him to hop on and off and he became very abusive. I did not relent.

He started packing his things (he lived in another country), and loading his car. I just sat there and allowed him to pack. At one point, it must have dawned on him that I wasn't going to do the "Oh please, oh BIG master, oh please stay," thing and that he was entirely free to leave.

I do not like being blackmailed and I don't react as most people do. I simply fold up the crap and call the play. He realized it and then did the "Oh, I was so wrong please forgive me," thing, which DID work with me. I was incredibly STUPID not to follow up on my initial intuitive and right on feelings.

He learned quickly - as all psychopaths do.

I am glad you are on the mend.

Nan