20 Signs Your Spouse is a Sociopath

Wondering if you’ve got a sociopath spouse?
Odd things going on, stories not matching up?
Walking on eggshells?
That’s how it was for all of us…

Sociopath spouse in the house? This is difficult to see and a hard realization to land on. What’s amazing is how common it is to wind up with a sociopath spouse. If you’re calling them a “narcissist” keep reading: there’s only one monster. What we call them matters less than knowing what that monster truly is and how to save ourselves.

This predicament of finding ourselves entangled with a sociopath spouse is not something that happens because there’s something wrong with you. It happens because these monsters exist. And absolutely everything is wrong with them.

Normal Normally Means Trying

This might sound like shirking responsibility or blaming the partner in a situation instead of accepting our part. – Sure. If that suspect-spouse were normal – but they aren’t. A sociopath spouse is as far from normal as anyone – or anything – can get. This is the one time in our life to step away from taking responsibility. Only they are responsible for what they are and what they do.

It helps to know, there are distinct and unmistakable signs of a sociopath-spouse. They’re specific and clear. Though when we’re in it we’re not so sure. I’m here to reassure you.

Sociopath Spouse in the House?

ink drawing of a man, a narcissist, a sociopath

Among all of us on this earth who’ve been hijacked by one of these nutters, there’s not a single one of us who jumps straight to thinking, omg, he’s (she’s, they’re) a sociopath!

The first thing we do when something goes wrong is wonder if we did something wrong. Then, we look for a resolution. Which we finally seek by looking for answers in evidence and proof of things they’ve done and said.

We All Want Proof of What’s Wrong

We want and need to prove to ourselves that what we find weird and odd is weird and odd. – So we can fix it! – It’s normal for humans to fix and resolve things that are painful or create conflict in a marriage. Without knowing what’s really wrong, we can’t fix what’s broken.

As normal humans, we tend to first look at ourselves as potentially “the problem”. I pray you all go beyond looking at yourself because when entrapped by a sociopath, what’s broken is not us.

The foundation we stand on in life, which we never gave a thought to previously, rises into awareness for its soft and squidgy feel rather than its solidity.

What they do confounds us. Please believe that our reactions, thoughts, and feelings to what they do signify that they’re a sociopath. It’s their behaviors and words and what they are that is the root cause of our turmoil. – They are the only reason any of this happens.

As we respond to their energy, words, and actions the signs of a sociopath spouse show up in our thinking, feelings, behavior, and in our emotional and mental state. – Let’s talk more about the emotions they stir up within us as the proof of what they are and work back around to them.

Afraid To Ask, Embarrassed Others Will Know…Something

When we find ourselves even slightly unsure and wondering… hmmm why did he say that, we can feel reluctant or afraid to tell friends or others about what we’re experiencing. instead, we wait.

You don’t need a mental health expert’s diagnostic confirmation of their mental state to know what you’re living through. What we care about is the hell we’re facing and taking our lives back.

Once married to this “man”, I remember shying away from friends and my usual social and faith activities. Even on my own I hesitated to participate and withdrew. Taking the yet undetected sociopath spouse I’d been hijacked by along with me was extra nerve-wracking. It was something I couldn’t put my finger on… but: I felt uneasy, embarrassed and scared others would see something weird about him, about me having married him, about the whole darn thing.

And yet, I had one friend who said, you light up when he walks into a room. I remember in the back of my mind feeling weird about that… It was an indefinable emotion. I couldn’t put together the words to describe it even to myself. – It was a vibration of worry, of embarrassment, a hesitant uncertainty – an insecurity. My body had set off a fundamental warning alarm and I didn’t know how to recognize the alarm.

Alone On An Island In Hell

When we’re wondering if we’ve hitched ourselves unknowingly to a sociopath or narcissist spouse, we feel alone in it. We think we’re the only one to have ever done this…stupid, scary thing. This is a normal feeling.

Concrete proof is what we want. Our focus sharpens on the little things. We want to know who called them at 3:00 AM. You might ask them what they’re doing in the bathroom for an hour and a half in the middle of the night – with their phone.

Did you ever dare to ask why the gas tank – that you just filled up – again – is empty two days later? And why didn’t they fill it back up? Our frustration over their refusal to get a job, talk about bills, or make plans for a holiday needs to be resolved. We have every right to resolution.

Many People Marry Sociopaths: Sociopaths Marry Many People

For all of us who were asked by a well-meaning friend, co-worker, family member, or neighbor, wow, why didn’t you just leave? Or think to ourselves: what does it say about me that I married this weirdo…? Why didn’t I just leave…? Let me make two points:

1) Join the Club of Gorgeous Humans Hijacked by a Nutter

It turns out – after going through it myself and guiding others through it since 2014, that I have no less than 12 acquaintances and friends who’ve also had this same kind of nightmare invasion into their lives.

A few years ago, in the same week, two long-time friends reached out to me. They didn’t know one another, but each was seeking support in their horrific predicaments with what they’d come to realize was a sociopath spouse. A third friend from childhood contacted me around the same time seeking my help with a sociopath sibling – who is also someone’s spouse.

2) Leaving Is Not the First Thing We Do

As we’re wondering what’s going on, let’s be real, none of us are going to leave the first time they say something strange or come home late. We’re not even going to end things the fifth time this happens.

This is normal and the way it goes when under the influence of the sociopath because of the effect of their presence on our minds.

10 Signs Our Spouse is a Sociopath: Proof In Our Feelings

A Sociopath Spouse Affects How We Feel

Embarrassed
Alone and neglected
Confused
Explaining things to ourselves
Making exceptions… it’s okay, I’ll just ____.
Rationalizing their behavior
Frustrated
Working harder than ever
Exhausted
Lonely
Sad

Embarrassed Confusion Leads to Rationalizing and Explaining…

Confusion is the theme of a marriage to a sociopath. This is deep confusion that changes our world. This is the natural effect of deception. It eventually deepens into a kind of mush. The foundation we stand on in life, which we never gave a thought to previously, rises into awareness for its soft and squidgy feel rather than its solidity. We’re living in mush-land. Nothing is certain. Dependability, stability, and security are out the window.

Your experience is valid. There’s nothing wrong with you. There is everything wrong with them.

Security isn’t on our minds when we have it. When it drifts, slides, or falls away in its place is panic and a sense of danger. We do – our bodies do all they can to bring that security back.

As humans, we must feel safe. We reestablish our sense of safety while under the spell of a sociopath by rationalizing and explaining to ourselves what’s happening and what they’ve done. – This is normal. There’s nothing wrong with you doing this, this is a natural mechanism within our bodies.

…Leads to Frustration, Feeling Alone and Neglected…

Having the same argument over and over and over and over… Until you stop arguing. There you are, standing alone, the “argument over”, but nothing resolved. You feel that you’re in it alone; ignored, dismissed, and neglected.

…And Takes Us to Sad, Making Exceptions, Working Harder and Exhaustion

Things have to be taken care of… As responsible normal humans, we dig in and get it done. we work harder, try hard, and pick up the slack of their emotional, and practical absence. What it comes to is, we’ve never worked so hard in our lives, and exhaustion is the theme. We…are sad.

And – we know that these rather inventive and maybe sensible explanations and rationalizations don’t quite fit. That’s the truth. So – why do we continue in this thing? Because we perceive it as a relationship, them as real people – and we’re married! In a rarely stated or recognized reality: We remain because we’re under the spell of a sociopath. And, we are sad.

But one day, one day…It will end.

Schedule guided recovery sessions here.

10 More Signs Our Spouse is a Sociopath

Remember my two friends who reached out to me within one week to talk with me about their suspected sociopathic spouses? Here’s how they described being married to their spouses. If this resonates in even the tiniest twinge, chances are Mr. or Ms. Right is completely wrong-in-the-head and possesses the abnormal brain of a sociopath.

He doesn’t want a wife, and what he needs is a mommy.
He has a kid that he didn’t tell me about before we got married.
Being married to him is like trying to build a life on a roller coaster.
He orders me around the house.
I think he’s bipolar or mentally something’s wrong…Autism, past trauma, something.
He accused me of threatening him when I suggested he get his own car insurance.
When we first met, he was so charming and paid so much attention to me.
We sleep in separate rooms.
He put us in major debt and hid it and blamed me when I found out.
Months ago, he quit working; once in a while, he pretends to look for work.

A Sociopath Spouse is a Hard Reality to Accept

As my friends talked with me over the next months, I witnessed each of them grasp a wisp of the truth of what they were in, but not fully grasp onto it. – Just as my clients do, as all of us do.

In one moment, they’d get a snip of insight, make a tiny shift in perception about their sociopath spouse, and then bob back up to the surface of “normal”. The reality that we built in reaction to them, the rationalizations and explanations are (temporarily) reapplied to make sense of it. This is normal. It’s too much to take it all in at once. Way too much.

It takes a lot to see them without the sugar-coating smeared all over their disgusting selves when we first met and believed them. We have only one lens to view it all through in the beginning. Our life lens of goodness, trust, and love is our toolbox for interpreting the behavior and words of a suspected sociopath spouse. Now, let’s take on an added tool kit.

You and Your Experience Are the Proof

Please don’t discount your own experience and your gut instincts. Be sure not to dismiss anecdotal proof. We don’t need a diagnosis of these nut bags to know what’s up. – Have you ever considered how researchers and medical types come up with the topics and conditions they decide to get funding to research and categorize…?

No disease or condition ends up in a medical or mental health diagnostic manual or journal without masses of regular people experiencing it first.

You don’t need a mental health expert’s diagnostic confirmation of their mental state to know what you’re living through. What we care about is the hell we’re facing and taking our lives back. – You are enough. Your experience is valid. There’s nothing wrong with you. There is everything wrong with them.

Take Back Your Life

You’re worthy of far better than a sociopath spouse. To restore our lives we must learn a new language, and find a new lens to see it and interpret all of it through. Taking on a point of view rooted in trusting our gut, believing in ourselves, and giving ourselves the benefit of the doubt in essential. This can only be done gradually and deliberately.

To see them more clearly strip away – one by one – all the things that we assume are true about them. The things they said, and we believed – and what we added to that, painting them as normal.

I can help you do this… Latching onto these skills, shifting perspective, and making unimaginable discoveries are what goes on in recovery coaching with me. Together we build your new toolbox and hone a lens of truth so that you step into your freedom.

Schedule guided recovery coaching.

Here’s to REAL True Love and Happiness!

Breaking Up With Evil: Five Women Tell Their Stories

Breaking Up with Evil, by Jennifer Smith on Amazon and Good Reads

Breaking Up with Evil: Escaping Coercive Control on Amazon

Five women’s true stories of being ensnared hauled through the confusion, lies, fear, and pain, and breaking away.

Told in their own words, they leave nothing unsaid. Find validation and see new glimpses of the truth as they share their stories… Stories that could be any of ours.

Time to Thrive!

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