Confrontation

Is not something these guys handle well. I finally could take no more, as the cracks in my denial were breaking down. Everything on the list is something that at one point or another, I had tried discussing with him.

Why would he make promises, and within 24 hours, break them? Why would he make plans with me, and then some "excuse", usually bullshit, would arise and subsequently, he'd end up breaking plans? Why would he say he'd be calling, coming over or seeing me, and blow me off? Why would he not answer me, if I called? Why would text be ignored? Why when I did something for him, he wouldn't acknowledge it, or thank me? And that's the short list.

And why, when I would try to discuss it, would he stonewall me, get defensive or somehow blame me? When I found the list, I felt somewhat vindicated. Here was a social worker who for 25 years had studied the personality disordered, and now not only were his behaviors listed in black and white-but even given a label. I don't know about you, but if someone showed me a list of my wrongdoing and labeled it "sociopath"-I'd want to clear the air real quick if I wasn't.

I emailed him the list. I don't recall how we ended up on the phone-if he called me after receiving it, or I contacted him to see if he had-but we ended up on the phone where I was pretty much on fire. I demanded that he talk to me about this. I was pretty freaked out-basically saying "What, are you really a sociopath? Look at this. How can you deny this?" He went on to say that he wouldn't talk to me right now, because I was "too angry." He said that from prior experience with his ex-wife and others, that talking right now while I was so upset was just going to lead to bigger fights and that "we will just end up hating each other more." He remained calm and continued to say that he DID want to talk about it with me, just NOT RIGHT NOW.

I managed to calm down enough to say "Ok, I won't yell. I will remain calm. But I want to discuss this now." He got angry and told me to not "patronize him." He absolutely refused to discuss this with me, and as you see, blamed my anger and upset as to why. I simply wasnt calm enough. He started to get loud and said "I am not that bad. Wait, okay, I have been this guy to you. Do you think I WANT to be this guy to you? I don't know why I am. I've been worse to you than I have anyone else, and I don't know why. When I figure it out, I'll let you know." He then texted me and said "Man, this is hard, because I never showed you any good side of me. I need to think about this because I just seem to screw things up more, whenever I open my mouth"-or something to that effect. Said "I have something to do, but I will call you in an hour."

An hour later, he TEXTS me again, with another excuse, with him needing time to think things over and to figure out a way to explain. Basically did everything he could to avoid, evade and blow off all I was saying. There seemed to be some admission that he did many of the things on the list-but with the explanation of "I don't know why." There wasn't an "Im sorry." There wasn't a shock or seemingly being appalled like "OMG, I can't believe this, a sociopath? No no that's not true, let's get together and really talk this out, it really bothers me that you think this, yes, I've been a jerk, but blah blah...." In fact, even in the FACE of his behaviors....he CONTINUED to do what he always had done. Controlled the argument, wouldn't talk to me when I NEEDED to, blamed my reactions and my anger for why, said he'd do something and didn't do it, avoided, skirted and just didn't seem to care. Even went so far as to blame it on some alter ego, as opposed to taking any real responsibility for it......was defensive and certainly showed no sense of remorse or upset that it had reached this point.

Believe it or not.....this was not the end with us, either. He really got me convinced that it would be better to discuss it when cooler heads prevailed. Again, he had me feeling as if I was over-reacting. I just found a list of traits of a friggin' SOCIOPATH-and he fit them ALL-yet, I'm OVER REACTING. Like I said, if someone was saying I was a sociopath.....Id be a lot more concerned than he ever showed. All the talk of "I really care about what you think of me" seemed to fly out the window, when I seemed to think he was a sociopath.

Even with that-I still wasn't convinced at the time. Amazing, isn't it?