I said I thought he was a psychopath and that’s what I’m going to call him, since I won’t be referring to him by name.  I’m relatively sure he has called me much worse.

This is Hervey Cleckley’s list from The Mask of Sanity. Section Three, Part III includes this list and discussions of the items in it.

1. Superficial charm and good “intelligence”
2. Absence of delusions and other signs of irrational thinking
3. Absence of “nervousness” or psychoneurotic manifestations
4. Unreliability
5. Untruthfulness and insincerity
6. Lack of remorse and shame
7. Inadequately motivated antisocial behavior
8. Poor judgment and failure to learn by experience
9. Pathologic egocentricity and incapacity for love
10. General poverty in major affective reactions
11. Specific loss of insight
12. Unresponsiveness in general interpersonal relations
13. Fantastic and uninviting behavior with drink and sometimes without
14. Suicide threats rarely carried out
15. Sex life impersonal, trivial, and poorly integrated
16. Failure to follow any life plan.

This is how I think my psychopath compare’s to Cleckley’s list.

Superficial charm and good “intelligence”:  When I first met him he was polite and I thought he was a little nervous (his eyes darted back and forth, so I thought ‘nervous’) but he seemed normal enough.  While he didn’t seem incredibly smart he didn’t seem to be lacking in intelligence.  He brought his kids with him, I thought maybe so he’d have an exit strategy, but he seemed to be a devoted father.  He had been laid off and was just called back the week I met him.  The first few weeks he was pleasant and attentive.  He made it a point to see me when he didn’t have his kids and later when he did have them.  He called or texted when I didn’t see him.  He was sweet and kind of goofy and nice.  He wasn’t charming the way some other guys are, but more like a teddy bear.

Absence of delusions and other signs of irrational thinking:  He wasn’t delusional or irrational.  Later I would think of some of his statements as irrational, but I wouldn’t be sure if he was just saying these things to be contentious or if he really believed them.  Do delusions of grandeur count?

Absence of “nervousness” or psychoneurotic manifestations:  These were absent as far as I know.  He only seemed nervous twice in the entire time I knew him.

Unreliability:  He didn’t seem to be unreliable at first.  There were some hints, pertaining to debt, early on, but that didn’t seem unusual for a person who had been unemployed.  After we were engaged his unreliability increased steadily, especially concerning money, but also with the sharing of responsibility and emotional support.  Before we were engaged he drove from work to where I broke down when it was 14 below, so I could sit in his warm vehicle while I waited for the tow truck.  A couple years later I asked him to come help me with a flat tire – he was three blocks away, in my house, and he laughed at me.

Untruthfulness and insincerity:  These were things that seemed to increase after we were engaged.  Looking back, I think that they were happening from the beginning without me realizing it.  At first started to notice him exaggerating things when I knew the facts.  I noticed partial truths when he talked to other people.  He started embellishing the stories he’d already told me.  He looked me in the eyes and promised to pay me back, at $20 a week, the $833 I loaned him to fix one of his cars.  I borrowed against my house, and he stopped paying after the first $40.  This would also fit under ‘unreliable’, I suppose.  He lied about doing things at work that other people saw him do.  He got a personal loan without telling me before we were engaged, which didn’t bother me very much, but he got another one after that he didn’t tell me about.  He tried to tell the tax-preparation people he hadn’t got his tax return yet when the return had been taken against a debt.  That’s when I found out he lied about not using the tax-preparation company.  Right before he left he took money out of his 401K without saying anything, and then lied about how he spent it, at the same time he lied about moving his things out.  When I said I wanted some of my things back that he had he lied at least 16 times in five minutes.

Lack of remorse and shame:  He wouldn’t apologize or accept blame for things he did.  Guilt trips, even his mother’s, would not work on him.  In one of his army stories he shot and killed two men and he was proud of the fact he didn’t feel guilty because he was just following orders.  He bragged about putting his ex’s things out on the porch and locking her out, and about ruining her things.  He never seemed to regret any of his words or actions.  He was not ashamed of not paying his debts or being caught in a lie.  He wouldn’t acknowledge the lies at any time.

Inadequately motivated antisocial behavior:  His antisocial behaviors included deception (lying and manipulation), irresponsibility, being passive aggressive, failure to plan ahead, and a lack of consideration for others, especially the feelings of others.  These behaviors escalated both in his personal life and at work.  A list of passive aggressive behaviors can be found here.  Out of this list he increasingly exhibited: non-communication, avoiding/ignoring, procrastinating, obstructing, ambiguity, sulking, making excuses, victimization, blaming others, withholding, and learned helplessness.

Poor judgment and failure to learn by experience:  He had to have a big SUV with poor fuel efficiency but didn’t think about being able to pay for both the loan and gas money without sacrificing elsewhere.  He had been paying child support during several jobs but didn’t consider that a 30% raise would increase his child support payments at the next review.  He definitely didn’t consider that when he bought the car.  He’d had accounts turned over to collections, but wouldn’t pay a small monthly amount on a doctor’s bill to avoid it going to collections.  He did learn that I would help him with gas money and food money if I wasn’t short for paying my monthly bills.  He didn’t learn to manage any better when I stopped.

Pathologic egocentricity and incapacity for love:  Part of what Cleckley says is:

“In a sense, it is absurd to maintain that the psychopath’s incapacity for object love is absolute, that is, to say he is capable of affection for another ill literally no degree. He is plainly capable of casual fondness, of likes and dislikes, and of reactions that, one might say, cause others to matter to him. These affective reactions are, however, always strictly limited in degree. In durability they also vary greatly from what is normal in mankind. The term absolute is, I believe, appropriate if we apply it to any affective attitude strong and meaningful enough to be called love, that is, anything that prevails in sufficient degree and over sufficient periods to exert a major influence on behavior.”

What love he might have had for me wasn’t strong or meaningful enough to make him spend time with my son, or pretend to enjoy the museum so I could have a nice time, or to sympathize with me in a time of loss.  I witnessed his love for his children not move him to do things he didn’t enjoy himself; he spent hours and hours with the one who played baseball, but sadly wouldn’t spend a fraction of the time one-on-one with the one who didn’t.

I noticed changes in him over time – his attitude and his behavior – but it wasn’t until it was over that I realized my psychopath’s ‘love’ for me, as demonstrated by his treatment of me, was directly proportional to the amount of money I spent on him (and how much I fed him).

General poverty in major affective reactions:  I think this is the case.  He just didn’t seem to have any.

Specific loss of insight:  In psychiatry insight refers to the ability to recognize one’s own mental illness.  I’m only sure he would not think anything in Cleckley’s list applies to him.

Unresponsiveness in general interpersonal relations:  From personal experience I say this is him.  In retrospect most of his kind gestures towards others seemed to be of benefit to him, making him appear to be nice, kind or generous.  He rarely showed appreciation or said ‘thank you’.  He usually said ‘you’re welcome’ when he thought he should be thanked.  I used to think him saying thinks like ‘my girlfriend made me this awesome blanket’ was his version of expressing gratitude, but I know now it was more accurately bragging about what he managed to get from me.

Fantastic and uninviting behavior with drink and sometimes without:  He never had more that two drinks at a time in my presence so I don’t know about his behavior with drink.  He said once he got in trouble when he drank too much, so I assumed he was probably a mean drunk rather than a funny one and didn’t encourage him to drink.  Was there uninviting behavior without drink?  Drinking cider the night before his nephew’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese for the express purpose of being able to expel noxious fart clouds at the party, I think, would qualify as his best example.  To his dismay, all the farting took place the evening before.  His kids and I suffered terribly.  He was still amused, though, because we suffered terribly, and he completely lacks the sense of smell.

Suicide threats rarely carried out:  He didn’t threaten suicide as far as I know.

Sex life impersonal, trivial, and poorly integrated:  I’m just not going to discuss sex.  My son will be happier that way.

Failure to follow any life plan:  Yes.  Apparently something like six years is his maximum commitment to anything aside from his children.  If he has a life plan, it is to win the lottery.  I know he has goals, but he doesn’t have the means to obtain them.  The goals he talked about were all related to having expensive things he could not have without working hard and saving, or winning the lottery.

At the end of the list I think he’s more likely a psychopath than not.