One of the (many) problems with having been in a relationship with a psychopath is that you only have a vague idea of what was true and what wasn’t. Psychopaths are liars and they lie pathologically. Knowing what they are calls in to question things that wouldn’t have been questioned otherwise.
There is very little that I undoubtedly believe in what my psychopath told me. I’m confident of his date of birth, and who the members of his family are. I believe he worked at most of the jobs he described, and I believe some things that were corroborated by other people. The rest is all very questionable at best.
The psychopath talked about being in both the army and the national guard, but was never very clear as to which one was the setting for for a particular story. He claimed that while he was in the army he took a driving course in which he excelled, which got him a job driving a general. The general chose him not only because of his driving skills, but also because he was arrested by the military police for punching out a lieutenant.
When he was not driving the general his job was running a repair garage. As the general’s driver he was allowed to eat at ‘really expensive’ restaurants, with or in close proximity to the general, because he also functioned as the general’s heavily armed bodyguard. The psychopath spent long enough in Germany for his job driving the general to be able to purchase a car there which he enjoyed driving on the Autobahn. He showed me a knife he bought in Germany as a souvenir, but made a point of telling me he was disappointed because it was made in China and he could have gotten one just like it anywhere.
The psychopath was required to go with the general to other countries, including Korea. In Korea, the psychopath saved the general’s life by pushing him into the car in the demilitarized zone when shots were fired from North Korea. The major who was also with them was angry that the psychopath did not protect him as well, but the general told the major that the psychopath’s duty was to protect him alone. During these trips to other countries the Psychopath was ‘officially’ at various bases in the United States and that’s all that his military record would reflect.
The psychopath sewed a cut on his own leg closed with a fish hook to avoid having to repeat a field exercise. He was disappointed and confused when he was assigned to be in charge of a repair garage because he had been trained for ordnance instead. His ordnance instructor was “a man by the name of Timothy McVeigh”, and yes, he meant the Oklahoma City bomber.
The psychopath also claimed to have shot and killed two men in a car trying to drive into Fort Knox by the back road while the sergeant in charge was inside the guard station frantically assembling his weapon, because he chose to clean it before his shift was over so he wouldn’t have to do it later. The psychopath claimed he didn’t feel at all bad about killing the two men because it was his duty and he was trained to shoot first and ask questions later. When I asked if he had to go see a counselor or something similar he said he didn’t. I asked “not even group therapy?” and he said, “well, yeah, there was group therapy” but he only went once or twice because he didn’t feel at all guilty, and the group was full of whining guys who couldn’t handle their duty. This was one of the stories I was told not to bring up in front of his mother because he never told her about it. Later on, while criticizing my son’s need for therapy, the psychopath completely forgot he’d told me he went to group therapy, and when I brought it up he said it “didn’t count” as therapy.
The psychopath liked to tell the story of how he was working as a bouncer at a local bar, and even when he wasn’t working he’d hang out there and “help out behind the bar” when it was busy. One night there was a fight or some disruption and the bartender called 911 and was upset when he was told the police wouldn’t be there until later. The bartender called back and said “never mind, I shot him” and the all the police then arrived right away. Later versions of the story had the psychopath himself calling back. The joke on the internet ends with the police saying “I thought you shot him” and the caller saying “I thought you were busy”, but the psychopath insisted this really happened and he was there.
The stories above were repeated by the psychopath several times each, and the were told almost identically. On occasion he’d change a few details, like being the person to call the police back, when he was telling them to other people. If I commented on a story, for example what I would have said, he’d incorporate it into the story saying “and then I said —” and continue on with what seemed to be his script. If I didn’t comment the next time, the story would be the same. If I made the same comments several times in a row, they would actually become part of the story. Why would I do that? Because the stories were boring by the time I’d heard them three times.
Some stories he only told once, for example, another event psychopath didn’t discuss with his mother was the one about how he impregnated a lesbian couple because they each wanted a child. One of them had a girl and the other had a boy. He claimed he brought it up to me that day because he’d seen the couple and met both the children. His eyes were doing their side-to-side movement, so he was scheming. He said the reason he didn’t tell his mother was that she would be all “oh boy! more grandchildren!” and would insist on bothering the women and giving the children gifts and sending cards.
While the psychopath’s stories were always questionable, there were plenty of other lies that didn’t cause immediate suspicion. Details, omissions, slight exaggerations, and ‘facts’ that seemed to be corroborated by others weren’t as obvious, and neither were the things he said in passing. I expected some ego-boosting exaggeration or downplaying of his negatives, but I didn’t expect to have to later question almost everything.
The earliest lies I detected were the ones that I could attribute to ego preservation, like when I saw a facebook message to one of his friends, saying we’d gotten a house that we were fixing up. I’d already had the house for over ten years. I could see how he might feel better about himself by saying that, so I didn’t confront him.
Some lies, like when he said he didn’t use one of the tax preparation services, I didn’t detect until years later. At the end of the relationship it was obvious that he was lying regularly, without any concern as to whether I knew it or not. He started contradicting things he’d said previously. He started lying to others in front of me, flaunting his lies and expecting me to be silent. Each time I confronted him he would deny the lie, replace it with another (often repeatedly), change the subject, elaborate on the lie, or just ignore the fact that he’d been caught in the lie.
When I said things were called into question that wouldn’t be otherwise, that covers just about everything. Should I continue to believe his first ex-wife was mentally unbalanced? That the mother of his children cares more about child support money than her children? That every job he lost was someone else’s fault? No, no, and no.
The pathological lies continue on with his smear campaign, the only difference is that instead of lying to me he’s lying about me. He will always have people who are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, who will pity him and support him, and who will, if they dare to not pity or support him, be cut from his life as if they never existed. That is, unless they can be used as the subject of more lies for more pity from his other supporters.