It's all a lie. Honestly.

Yeah. Most of the psychopaths who become the unfortunate guinea pigs of research were found in prisons. Most experts on the disorder contend that psychopaths lack impulse control. Well, so do most habitual criminals. So is the lack of impulse control truly a feature of psychopathy, or it a characteristic some psychopaths have that made them criminals?

True, not every psychopath is a criminal. And that goes both ways. Even those who do commit crimes, even some of the more heinous ones, aren't psychopaths. Point in case... Dahmer, Gein, and Chase.

Yeah, it doesn't surprise me either... But there was one movie... Schindler's List. They didn't state he was a psychopath, and he cried at the end of the movie, but a few well-learned doctors and historians suspect the real Schindler was a psychopath. And I suppose you could count Dexter, but he isn't a real psychopath. I admit, there are some instances in the show that make me smile in recognition of my own mentality. But starting into the second or third season, he started growing emotions, and it was just... sad...

Perhaps. And I don't really mind that, because I understand most of that line of thinking comes from the media. It's the folks who blatantly disregard all reason and quickly resort to mudslinging that aggravate me. Imagine if most of the world was the Westboro Baptist Church and you were gay...

I'm going to jump in here again, to speak about whether you're a good partner for your wife...as mentioned in the OP. Its great to have a couple who's deeply in love with each other, but the whole concept of love is hard to pinpoint. What's easier to pinpoint are people's needs. After a couple lives years together, what really matters is how compatible they are and are their needs being met. Its not like you kidnapped your wife and she doesn't have a choice in her life. I remember reading in one of your threads, your wife actually keeps you in check sometimes. You also said in one of your threads, you have preferences for some people even if its not a loving feeling coming from you. You're obviously smart, therefore you don't want to mess up this partnership and you must know what makes your wife content and what makes her mad - you're a psychopath but you're not dumb or incapable of common sense.

So let me ask the simple questions - is your wife happy? If she's not happy with something - are you willing to negotiate? Does she care for you despite your diagnosis? If she were to make a list of pros and cons...would the pros be greater?

Thanks, Lynn. She is happy, and that's what matters in the end. Maybe I need to step away from "psychopathy" and all that it implies and just be me for awhile. I believe that the more I know about myself, the more ability I have to control and manage the behaviour. On the other hand, the propaganda and the sense of futility is frustrating.

I am willing to make negotiations and often do. Most of those I can't discuss in detail because conversation of such nature would be inappropriate on the forum, so you'll just have to take my word for it... If she were to make a pros and cons list... I don't know. I'll ask her.

My belief (not held by many, I am sure), is that love is not the most important thing in a relationship or meeting of minds......

More important is loyalty, respect, honour.......these are not emotions, they are values.

And Michael, I am quite fond of you, despite the fact that you might not feel the same way, and I couldn't care less. I do not need you to be fond of me in order for me to be fond of you.

I do not subscribe to the idea that you have to 'love' in order to be 'loved', because everyone's version or ability to love cannot be measured.

Take care, dear one.

Michah

Who needs love? A relationship is a business ... That's as deep as my relationship theories go. Clearly, that's something I need to work on... Thank you for your input, though. I appreciate it.

M. Scott Peck, M.D., In The Road Less Traveled, speaks of love thusly:

His perspective on love (in The Road Less Travelled) is that love is not a feeling, it is an activity and an investment. He defines love as, "The will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth." Love is primarily actions towards nurturing the spiritual growth of another. Love cannot be sustained by mutual dependence; rather, love between two parties is made stronger when they are completely independent of one another.

Peck seeks to differentiate between love and cathexis. Cathexis is what explains attractions to the opposite sex, the instinct for cuddling pets and pinching babies' cheeks. However, cathexis is not love. All the same, true love cannot begin in isolation, a certain amount of cathexis is necessary to get sufficiently close to be able to truly love.

Once through the cathexis stage, the work of love begins. It is not a feeling. It consists of what you do for another person. As Peck says in The Road Less Traveled, "Love is as love does." It is about giving the other person what they need to grow. It is about truly knowing and understanding them. http://www.whale.to/b/peck_h.html

You know Micheal, anyone here could write all of what your saying here.
How many here at PC alone wonder about being capable. "Real" is a goal that all hope to achieve and desire and like you don't understand. Do you think that me with all my bottomless empathetic ways is oh so much better off?
I struggle too and I also have those that present me as a social pariah of some kind. So just because you may have a lack, well, maybe I have a lack too. I often have my emotions get in my way. I was thinking about you, and I think, well, at least he isn't crying his eyes out or feeling such a loss of somethings I really loved.

Do you really think even men with all the emotions in the world make the best husbands? There are plenty of women that are unhappy. Maybe the fact that your very intelligent and can intellectually learn how to care for a woman, perhaps that is all your wife needs. And some guy tells her to run, well whos to say she doesn't end up with some man that has emotions and yet he mistreats her. If you don't mistreat her and you provide for her and she is safe, do you have to feel depth to that?

Obviously there is something about her that you want in your life. As long as you don't have any intentions of harming her and you can control yourself and respect her, whats wrong with that?

I know that you may wonder if you can do this thing called life in a normal way, but your not alone in that. Your certainly not stupid and you do say that you know right from wrong, so if you use your intelligence to keep yourself on the straight and narrow so to speak whats wrong with that?

Your not the only person that has your issue, but perhaps you can use your intelligence to over ride what ever is lacking. Every human being has something lacking and we all compromise. And you don't have to be a psychopath to have people pick on you. You see thats what most people don't understand, we all get picked on one way or the other.

Open Eyes

I have been doing a lot of thinking Michael. You talk about control and how that seems to be important to you. However, no matter how someone is designed, and no one is perfect, everyone has some kind of issue by the virtue of being raised by parents that are never perfect.

You have, by your intellect mastered some important social graces and affects that help you to somehow gain control, you may think to fool others. But in all honesty, that is what most people do, grow to learn the appropriate affects that will gain them access to moving through life gaining some kind of control or respect. But if you take the time to read in the different forums, many members of PC struggle with how to be and function in life around other people and interact with them and learn how to be accepted or appreciated. And the reality is, you can please some of the people some of the time, but never all the people all the time, all everyone is unique.

I don't really see any member signing their posts, respectfully yours, well, that is what you used to write, until your recent rub with your neighbor. But what that original signiture expressed was a welcome of respect and honesty. Most people don't do that unless they are in a business transaction where long ago they learned how to end a letter properly. So you are expressing your intelligence and your ability to control social graces. And there are people that have the emotionalities you don't have that will not allow themselves to express general social graces.

In my last post I talked about how everyone experiences rejection of some kind, and they even reject themselves and isolate and become angry at society and other humans. Humans are no good they decide or they are not worthy to relate. Just look at all the different members and how they express themselves and their experiences with others that lead them to believe they should isolate, run, or reject humanity altogether. If you see that, you will realize that what your posting is pretty much the same sentiment, with or without emotionality.

Control? I thought about that and what makes me determine who pleases me. I always like honesty and I always appreciate those that take time to think of my situation or issue and express a thought. So just by your intellect and ability to learn the social needs of others you can gain control without emotionality. The one thing you have to make sure you do intellectualize control over a desire to harm, and the truth is we all have to do that. I myself have sooo much anger for my neighbor, but I cannot go and punch him out or act out something that could release my anger. No I have to practice control, which may be harder for me than you because I still suffer emotionally from that family's negligence.

I suppose you can curtail that because you dont have that extra emotionality that can be constantly robbing you psychologically. Perhaps you would do better than me in working the legal system through your intellectual capacity without letting emotionality get in the way. So just because you have a lack, doesn't mean you have less power or social strength.

And as I think about my partnership with my husband, I enjoy his ability to be honest and see my needs and respect me. He is an emotional being and he did screw up and cause me years of struggle. So there you go, you may have done better and intellectually kept control of yourself and the relationship. Perhaps you have abilities of control that you don't recognize. As I mentioned once before, many politicians are psychopaths because they have recognized the power of intellectualizing the social graces that the masses like and see as a strong structure they can follow. And the intellectual side of these politicians can masterfully get a decent structure actually in place.

Anyone can be a social porria, all one has to do is make a mistake or not fulfill the needs for the whole of society somehow. But as history proves, these social graces can be restored and forgiven whenever someone finds a way to rise above.

I think you would do yourself a great dis-service to let some neighbor control your anger and feelings toward the whole of humanity. That is a intellectual test for you, and your not stupid, so you can overcome that. You can probably do that better than someone who takes that opinion in emotionally. So don't sell yourself short and judge one as all.

Thanks, Open Eyes. I am concerned, probably more than I should be. Much ado about nothing... I feel sort of bad for responding to your lengthy and insightful missive with such a terse response. But you're right that I should stop... complaining. And I don't want to dwell on it any more. My wife is happy with me, and I should be grateful for that.

you are speaking exactly what i know about myself.. the thoughts are fleeting, and i never linger there.. but you said it. thank you.

I dont undersand what you are trying to say.

You're welcome. They're fleeting for me as well, and it's hard to express it in words. I try to relate it to something I know and can observe outside my self, like the experiences of someone I know or a character from a book or the television, or even just an idea. It helps me get a better grasp of it. It might help you too.

Me? Which part?