Hey, welcome to Fluther.
I think you are right to be concerned, especially since people who have known this guy longer than you have are giving you warnings. What his father said is especially worrisome. Do you trust these informants?

How long have you been with this guy? Have you asked him why his friend and even his father would say these negative things about him? See if he can come up with a reasonable explanation for that.

I’m approaching your question through the lens of having dated a sociopath. They are definitely very adaptable and know just how to charm you so that you do not see their true face. I’m not saying that your boyfriend is definitively one of these people, but it’s a possibility to keep in mind.

Welcome to Fluther. Sounds like they are telling you this person is a sociopath. Sociopaths who are intelligent often have the capacity to be exceedingly charming, but it’s only to win trust and manipulate someone so they can then take advantage of them. I totally agree with @bookish1. If you proceed at all, do so with great caution. Otherwise, you may come home some day to find your lover boy has left, and so have all your worldly possessions.

What are red flags? Any signs you see that this person has no sense of empathy for others, or for you. Manipulative behavior. Here’s a good article on 10 definite red flags. Since you’re already romantically involved with this guy, I hope the murmurings of those cautioning you turn out to be some sort of jealousy on their part. But all to often, where there is smoke, there is fire. Don’t let yourself needlessly get burned.

If even his father says this Run for the hills!
Is this the convict?

@judi yes hun!

Oh, I didn’t realize you were the same jelly-asker as in the ex-convict question. Um yes…. run!
Best of luck and peace to you.

Also, gaslighting, or denying the reality of evidence and of your experience, is one of the hallmarks of an abusive partner. Please be careful.

@bookish thank you so much. I think he is a sociopath. I’m already out, just trying to heal. The emotional damage has already been done and I am trying to pick up the pieces and gain my sense of self back. I wish i knew this earlier.

The best revenge is a life well lived.

@ruby85 : Glad to be able to help. Remember, it is not your fault that you became involved with this guy before finding out his true nature. Don’t let this one bad experience ruin your ability to trust. The fault lies within him, not you. Peace.

@ETpro Thank you so much. The more i learn the better it is for me to cope. I was always blaming myself and truly believed i messed up. It seems as though he shows empathy for his family, even the ones that abandoned him.

I humbly thank you both! @Judi @bookish1

Sounds like a narcissistic, passive aggressive sociopath.
Don’t fall for the old ” I can change hom if I love him enough” bullshit.
Lose this guy ASAP before you get sucked into the vortex of insanity that is certain to unfold if you get involved.
He’s the poison dart and you are the hapless little creature that is about to get zapped with his toxic arrow.

@Coloma: I was waiting for you to chime in here. Looks like she’s already parted ways with this guy, luckily.

@coloma im glad you said something because the funny thing is i felt like i was crazy when i was with him and questioned my own sanity from time to time. I would post to find clarity and i would have people blaming me, siding with him etc. But then i found out about sociopathy, narcissist and it helped a lot. I relapse at times but i knows its an effect of the emotional damage they cause. I thank God for getting me out of that. I had no idea that people lik this existed and that so many have dealt and encountered them.

@ruby85: I am curious (just as a curious person and also because in learning from you, it can help teach me/us) what your boyfriend did and how he acted that got you to realize for yourself that he was bad news and how you ended the relationship.

To answer your question more broadly (in a way that might be helpful to other people who could come across this some day), abusive people try to make you dependent on them.

They want to isolate you from your friends, family and support structure, so that you won’t have anywhere else to go. This can be accomplished by creating fights between you and these people, spreading lies, using religion as a weapon, or just making it difficult for you to ever see or interact with them (e.g. no we can’t go to your brother’s wedding).

They try to control you physically by monitoring your mechanisms for communication like your cell phone, the internet, or limiting your ability to drive so you can’t travel to see other people. It’s common for abused women to not be allowed to renew their driver’s licenses for example. This is often done through a climate of suspicion (“you’re cheating on me”) where the controlling behavior is explained by false suspicion. Be on the lookout for guys trying to set up patterns of controlling what you do , how you dress, and what you say (e.g. “you look like a whore wearing that”, or “don’t ever talk to me while I’m watching football”) especially guys who are quick to be suspicious or jealous. These are big red flags. In a healthy relationship, your partner will encourage you to be who you are and support your personal growth, not try to inhibit that.

They will try to destroy your self esteem (“Nobody else will ever love you”, “you’re fat”, “you’re stupid” etc.). Then they build your self-esteem around themselves.

As @bookish1 mentioned beware of Gaslighting. Where the abuser trains you over time not to trust your own memory.

Then there is the cycle of abuse where they abuse, and then apologize, you reconcile, and then they reoffend. This repeats. You feel trapped because you have no one else to turn to, you’ve been alienated from your friends and family, you can’t easily talk to anyone about how to get help, they are in complete control of your life, and for some perverse reason you love them, hoping that things will get better.

As suggested in the other thread, it might be a good idea to volunteer at an abused women’s shelter. You could help out some women who are in a very difficult spot in their lives, and build up a lot of self-worth, not to mention how good it feels to help those in need. You also might hear some of their stories and might pick up on some of the similarities between the victims and yourself in terms of the way they respond to abuse. It might go a long way towards helping the healing process.

@jca he eventually revealed himself becoming a completely different person and enjoying the pain that he was causing me. I felt isolated and alone because he had turned everyone against me to justify his abusive behavior. I didn’t know at the time that i was being abused. I tried talking to family about his behavior, i tried talking to him, i tried reminding him of all the lies and promises he told me but he was nonchalant and unresponsive. I received the silent treatment most of the time when i pointed out the things that he lied about and he felt pressured. When i would agree to not put pressure, then he would respond by saying “no more silent treatment from me” That was what he used to control he. I then began walking on eggshells and started losing my sense of self. I became submissive in order to not tick him off or to be abandoned by him. He simply didnt care, didn’t want me around and had everyone sympathizing with him about how he was having a hard time telling the “one he loved” that he wanted to be single. There a lot that he did but i briefly explained it in my other thread http://www.fluther.com/157690/why-would-he-choose-to-hurt-me-rather-than-tell-me/#quip2689549

I was an emotional mess and its scary to look back and realized that all this chaos happened in 1 month after he came home. There were a lot of red flags i overlooked and i know so because compete strangers are able to point them out to me. I accept responsibility for that.

Yes. The prison thing was probably the first red flag.

@judi it was the first but i didn’t look at him as a prisoner, i looked at him as the boy i went to school with. he took advantage of that knowing that i wouldn’t suspect anything mentioned above and he was right because i was completely oblivious.

Hmmm…seems the father is manipulating etc too?
Runs in the family, inherited trait?
People are not born bad..that is taught to them by someone…perhaps the father?
In any case it definately is a flag.
Check with a counsellor on how to approach this boyfriend..to find out also the “why” you seem to be attracted to bad boys?
Remember people CAN change for the better too.
You need to evaluate IF this boyfriend IS ready to make that change and whether you will support him in seeking therapy to go about that.
( many meetings) but can be turned around given the right partner( mature).

@Inspired_2write honestly, his father is the only one in the family with integrity, while the other members advice was for me to stay with him and have patience. They weren’t shocked at his behavior and that alone meant that his behavior is common. He wont change, i just wasn’t able to see who he really was until after i had fallen for him. I am not attracted to bad boys, the false self he created (which wasnt bad) is who i thought he was and who i fell in love with. Had i known that what was described above was his true personality, i would have never given him the time of day.

@Inspired_2write, you obviously don’t have a child with a mental illness. Some people ARE born with borderline personality disorder and no matter how wonderful, loving and caring their parents are they end up self centered, narcissistic, and have an inability to express empathy. It’s not ALL nurture when you’re fighting nature.

We can debate these issues on this site forever pros and cons , in the end the decisions rest with you, not us.
This is just a platform to air out lots of opinions.
Some are usefull and some not so useful .
You are free to pick and choose and develop a solution suitible for you alone.
We just gave you more information to think on thats all.
Good luck.

@Inspired_2write : Yeah, I agree with @Judi. If you accept the existence of sociopaths, you pretty much have to accept that some people are hardwired to not be capable of empathy.

@ruby85: I truly understand how painful it is to fall in love with someone’s false projection. I still miss my ex sometimes even though intellectually I understand that I never really knew her, just what she allowed me to see of herself :-/

@bookish1 I’m s sorry you had to go through that, i wouldn’t wish that type of pain on anyone!

I think it sounds very weird that these people are offering you advice on your boyfriend.

Use your own instincts and judgement.

red flags would be if he started controlling how you dress, wear your hair, who you see. If he started cutting you off from your family and friends. Those are signs of an abuser.

People’s advice are welcome because as one person you don’t know everything and it’s through advice that you gain wisdom. Now it’s up to me if I want to heed them or not but I completely welcome all advice and information.

I guess this is why they say love is blind. Parents saying negative things about their kids is a huge red flag for me.

Just an FYI – The term “sociopath” is an antiquated term. The accepted term in the field of psychology is “psychopath.” And this should not be confused with antisocial personality disorder, which it so often is.

@livelaughlove21 : Hm, I didn’t know that. Do you know why ‘sociopath’ is outdated? Looking at the root words, I figured that both terms described the same condition but from different perspectives (the individual psyche versus society).

@livelaughlove21 According to Wikipedia, both words are still in use and the selection of one over the other may relate to whether one believes the primary cause to be nurture or nature.

Walk softly, and carry a sharp tanto.

Actually I thought it was the opposite, with Psychopath being outdated and the preferred term is now sociopath or ASPD.

@bookish1 @ETpro “Sociopath” isn’t completely obsolete now, but it’s no longer used in psychiatry and it’s on it’s way out elsewhere. Sociopathy nor psychopathy are actual diagnoses in the DSM, but both have the same “symptoms” and psychopathy is the only one with an accepted “diagnostic” tool, the PCL-R. I don’t know why, but none of my psychology professors use the term sociopath, and my forensic psych professor (a PhD that makes it her business to know the research) ensures us that “psychopath” is quickly becoming the new accepted vernacular. I wouldn’t rely on Wikepedia for much of anything, to be honest, especially in a regards to a field that’s constantly changing.

@Coloma, neither sociopathy nor psychopathy are synonymous with ASPD, though way too many think this is the case (even some in the field still). They are similar, but the biggest difference is that ASPD is defined by observable behaviors while sociopathy/psychopathy is defined by general affect, which is it’s not in the DSM. If anything, sociopathy could be considered an antiquated term for ASPD, but that’s still not totally accurate. It’s difficult to say since neither term in question is truly defined by the DSM, but this is what they’re teaching in graduate psych programs these days.

1% of the population meets the PCL-R cut score for psychopathy, and 15–25% of the prison population. ASPD affects about 2% of the population, but 75–80% of the prison population. Many criminals have ASPD, but the truly psychopathic criminals have the potential to be the worst of the worst.

@livelaughlove21 So how can you distinguish the difference?

@ruby85 Between psychopathy and ASPD?

@livelaughlove21 Yes, since they seem interchangeable

@ruby85 They’re not. There’s overlap, as there is when comparing many psychological disorders, but they are separate conditions. However, it’s completely possible for someone to be psychopathic and have ASPD.

Psychopathy:
– Superficial charm/glib
– Shallow affect.
– Unreliability.
– Untruthfulness and insincerity.
– Lack of empathy, remorse, guilt, or shame.
– Antisocial behavior without apparent compunction.
– Poor judgement and failure to learn from experience.
– Pathological egocentricity and incapacity to love.
– Specific loss of insight.
– Unresponsiveness in general interpersonal relations.
– Fantastic and uninviting behavior with drink, and sometimes without.
– Suicide threats rarely carried out.
– Sex life impersonal, trivial, and poorly integrated.
– Failure to follow any life plan.

ASPD:
There is a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by three (or more) of the following:

(1) failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest
(2) deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure
(3) impulsivity or failure to plan ahead
(4) irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults
(5) reckless disregard for safety of self or others
(6) consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations
(7) lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another

@livelaughlove21 Thanks for the education in these matters.