Right. Theoretically, a sociopath can have a true, lasting, and correct intention to honor the bonds of marriage. You don’t have to feel a certain way in order to have the capacity to be faithful or to meet your obligations in life. If you are a sociopath, though, you do have to have morals that aren’t based on emotional connection or anticipated feelings of remorse. There has to be something concrete upon which to found your intentions.
I’ll add my two cents. Since I’m home from work sick today.
It is not entirely true that a sociopath doesn’t “feel” things whether it’s empathy, remorse, compassion, happiness, etc. We do in fact experience the same sort of feelings that others do, it’s just much more shallow. It may come much more slowly, last only briefly, and then the experience might fade from our memory all together.
With the tough talk on this thread about getting the heck out of dodge it shouldn’t be hard to imagine why it is difficult for us to feel any sort of compassion or remorse for you. Most of us, whether sociopath or psychopath, don’t just grow up with a lack of “feelings”, we grow up with a lack of an understanding of the experience of feelings. It profoundly effects our behavior in negative ways, not because we are intentional mean-spirited, but the illusion that everyone else experiences things in the same way we do.
And everyone is guilty of that much - believing that everyone experiences things the same way they do.
It’s like attempting to convince someone who has always been blind that the flower they’re holding is purple. If you have never seen the color purple, you can not conceptualize it, it makes no sense whatsoever.
If you were, for example, to do something damaging to a person who suffers from this disorder you are now dealing with someone who will not understand that the offense rose from anger, a heat of the moment decision, or brief moment emotional instability. They are going to perceive this as a intentional action, with all the force of cool premeditated informed consent. I am not claiming here that a sociopath doesn’t have a hot temper or emotional instability, but that it’s so fleeting that it doesn’t figure into the equation (i.e. it doesn’t stick). Finally you have to deal with the reality that all those hurt feelings you display, crying, shock and the like, are considered an attempt to further manipulate the situation.
It is inconceivable for us, in most cases, that someone can actually be damaged by behaviors long term.
But more important then anything, the thing everyone passes over because it doesn’t directly effect THEM, is that we also don’t experience happiness or joy or excitement like most people do. We get nothing “emotional” out of anything we do. Whether it’s truly helping someone at the end of their rope and deep in despair or, reducing someone to tears. We are aware that people get satisfaction doing these things, so most of us get caught up in chasing satisfaction we may never get. That’s where the risky behavior figures in.
All because we’ve been told our entire lives that we have to be this way, and feel that way to be normal. It would have been far more productive to say, “Hey it’s ok for you to be in this situation, but here are the drawbacks and the things you will need to be cautious of”.
You might try, if you’re running into road blocks, to explain the reasoning behind your actions that provoke her. Otherwise she might think you’re intentionally trying to manipulate her or deceive her. It’s worked for my husband and I for 10 years.
And if someone did attempt to go behind my back to take my children away, for any reason… Well, lets not go there. I strongly discourage that.
