Your partner  (lover, husband, friend, parent, coworker) seems genuine. They are not mean and hurtful all of the time, because of course, if they were, you’d never be with them in the first place, and you would have left a long long time ago. No, they are good people, so it seems. You’ve invested time, feelings and even money into this relationship because they were kind and decent at some point. Your lover was loving and romantic in the beginning and still can be sometimes… so there’s no way s/he could be a sociopath!

The truth is, we serve an important purpose in narcissists’ lives (providing sex, love, attention, money, clothing, shelter, a job, food, or prestige, etc) — so much so that they really do treat us well or with kindness and “love”… but it’s not the kind of love that lasts throughout the ages. It’s not the kind of love that makes dreams come true. Rather, it’s a fake love, one that they most likely don’t feel in the same way we do. We are satisfying a need for them.

And that is what makes it so difficult to believe they are cold-blooded planners!

The End of the Sociopath Relationship

Once we no longer serve their needs, they can and will turn on us. It’s impossible for them to hide behind the mask day in and day out, so slip along the way. They turn on us with an unkind word, a temper tantrum, snapping at us, lying to us, even flirting with another woman even though they declare their undying love for us, and we get hurt. “How could s/he say something so mean and hurtful?” you cry to yourself. Because they have no moral boundaries.

In the end — if we love them to the end — they will eventually discard us in the most awful and brutal way. They do not care. It may take a long time if we serve their needs. The countless loving things that were said at an earlier time in our relationship? Those things don’t matter because they were not said with genuine love.

This is why the end can be so brutal. Sociopaths can be dangerous — not so much physically although that is a factor but emotionally. This is where they shine: emotional and psychological abuse. Sociopaths can be callous. On the other hand, they may leave without so much as an unkind word but we are suddenly alone wondering what just happened.

There are many ways narcissists and sociopaths leave and plan our demise.

What matters most to you and me is that we learn to see a sociopath or narcissist for what they are: cold and careless. And after we are done crying over the loss of what we thought we had, we best learn from this, let go and don’t let ourselves get sucked back into a narcissist’s or sociopath’s toxic world or anyone else’s for that matter.

Did you find a sociopath to be a cold-blooded planner? I’d love to hear your story in the comments below.

x o

andrea