Finding Your Penguin in Life Part 3: Avoid Sociopathic Liars and People Who Hang Themselves With Their Own Rope

Avoid Sociopathic People and Liars

A number of people I talk to wonder why it is so hard to get an apology out of adult when they do something wrong.  Sometimes, it’s hard to get an adult to own up to that they make mistakes.  Adults remind me of my eight year old grandson, because when I correct him about something he did wrong, he will get mad at me when he is the one that did the wrong. 

Many people have been in a marriage or a relationship with a sociopathic person.  When that type of person is wanting out of the relationship, usually because they are cheating in the marriage or in a relationship with another woman or man, they will start up fights and arguments, and then blame you for the argument, saying, “See we never did get along that is why I’m leaving you.”  “The children would be better off if we get a divorce since we fight all the time.”  I don’t know any family where children are better off without both mother and father in their life.  It’s part of the sociopath’s way of getting out of the responsibility of the relationship, rather than accepting the blame of not making the relationship work.  Next, the sociopathic person will sometimes put God in the picture, and say, “God never put us together or this marriage would work.”  Than they are justifying their actions in God’s eyes.  James Dobson has a good series I heard on this back in the 1980's that helped me understand better a person who gets into an extramarital affair. 

King Saul rationalized his disobedience to the prophet Samuel, by saying that he did not kill the animals because he wanted to sacrifice them to God, when God had said not to let any of the animals live. We don’t know if Saul really wanted to sacrifice the animals to God, or wanted to keep the spoil of defeating the enemy for his own self.  The difference between Saul and David is when David was called out by a prophet for his sin, he fell on his face before God and asked God for forgiveness, where Saul justified himself.

But Samuel replied: "Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. 1 Samuel 15:22

Typically, a sociopathic person will only make it through one counseling session if he or she will go at all, because when they realize that they have to work on problems, and it’s not all you that has the problems, then they won’t go back to a counselor.  Here are characteristics of a sociopathic person; he/she may have some of them or all of them.  

• "The key characteristics of a sociopath include: (1) having no conscience, (2) inability to treat others as human beings, with feelings and rights and (3) inability to learn from experience, from life. One result of this last is gross immaturity, though it may be hidden unless one knows the person well. A sociopath behaves as if he/she were the only person in the whole world and as if everyone else just existed for their benefit and had no existence in their own right. (4) Sociopaths treat other people as toys and hanker after the power to control and hurt their 'nearest and dearest'. (5) Many are monumentally self-important: they may pretend to be millionaires when in reality they are sliding towards financial disaster. (6) Habitual dishonesty.
• Sociopaths are charming at first and may seem charming and normal to everyone around them. But they have an almost scary need for control. They will isolate you from friends and family and you will be tangled in your web before you know it.
• He/she will charm his/her way into your life and heart, then take complete advantage of you - your emotions, your finances, your intellect. He/she will make you think you are the crazy one. Your friends will see right through him. He cannot hold a job and will probably commit crimes - theft, fraud, forgery, and spend time in jail or prison. He will abuse drugs or alcohol. He may abuse you."

One of the reasons, I’ve decided to write about this is the number of men and women I know that have gotten in relationships where a person becomes cold and indifference.  It is hard to understand how a person sears their conscience against love, but it does happen. 

Judas lived day in and day out with Jesus, but he continued to steal from the money bag and did not grasp that he was living and walking with the son of God.  God created the whole universe with Jesus, why would money be so important?  Judas failed to turn his problem over to Jesus.  It’s says the devil prompted Judas to betray Jesus.  It’s because Judas gave place/opportunity to the devil, three years prior in stealing.

The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus. John 13:2

He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it. John 12:29
and give no opportunity to the devil. Ephesians 4:27

When I was growing up, I had deranged neighborhood boys in junior high who if I was walking in the dark in my neighborhood would try to tear my clothes off.  I’m a good kicker in the right spot so I did not have to report it to my dad or the police.  With one of my neighbor boys, I also had problems with him lifting my girlfriend and my dress up when we walked up the stairs at school.  When my friend and I reported it to the teachers, the teachers would not do anything about it.  We were not allowed to wear pants back then to school.  My friend and I got together and decided we would beat this boy up.  Right after he tried to lift up our skirts and was laughing about it, we cornered him in a stairway where he lifted our skits up, I kicked him and she hit him with her heavy purse.  We got him crying and he never bothered us again.  Two juveniles tried to steal a woman’s car at work and she kicked them in the right spot and the police did catch those juveniles at my workplace, and she did not get her car stolen.   There are times in life; I’ve taken matters more into my own hands when it comes to handling difficult people. 

The other neighborhood boy with the deranged behavior grew out of this stage in high school, but the stage he never grew out of was being a sociopathic liar.  We were best friends growing up, but I could not handle his lying.  At his mother’s funeral, he came up and apologized for being such a jerk in trying to tear off my clothes, and I appreciated that because I can rarely get any apologize out of any adult.  His brother told me at the same funeral that he had problems with him lying so he did not grow out of the lying.  Many classmates came up to me at my high school reunion to find out if he was lying about certain things he said.   It’s just like the story of Chicken Little saying the sky is falling is that many things my neighbor boy said are truth, and I confirmed they were truth to our former high school classmates, but he told so many lies in a course of his history, everyone quit believing anything he said was true.

I had a girlfriend who was my bestfriend since first grade, but then in sixth grade she started stealing my clothes, and would lie that her mother had bought them for her.  I would have a headband missing from my desk, and then she would be wearing it in a few days.  One time she wanted to borrow a belt out of my locker and she said that she did not find the belt in my locker, and then she was wearing my belt in two days.  I called up her mother and told her I wanted my things back.  Her mother told me that she did not want me hanging around her daughter.  I told her mother, “Fine, I don’t need a girlfriend who is a thief and a liar.”   I forgave her and tried to be her friend later in high school, but I found she had other behavior problems.  Later as an adult, she called my mother’s house to get my phone number, and I spoke to her and she admitted to me that as an adopted child her mother was very jealous of her relationship with her father and she believed the dysfunction in her home contributed to her lying and stealing.

Dysfunction in homes can contribute to people’s problems with becoming a sociopathic liar.  People are sometimes like race horses.  Race horses can have behavior problems and will kick you, pee on you, and they will also turn and put their rear end in your face.  My sister-in-law used to work at a thoroughbred racing farm.  In my last blog, I talked about the motto of “to live and let live” when Christians accept others with unconditional love the way God does.  God will let us hang ourselves with our own rope.  We see that with Judas as far as letting Judas keep the money bag.   Saul was another one who continually disobeyed God.

I like the story of the race horse Seabiscuit.  Seabiscuit only ran fast when he wanted to.  Before Seabiscuit became a great horse his trainer Tom Smith realized that every time he ran he would fight the exercise rider.  One time he told the exercise rider to let the horse have his way.   The rider dropped the reins.   Then after he let the horse have his way, the horse had nothing to fight about any more.  The horse went back to the barn, and the trainer Tom Smith gave Seabiscuit a carrot.  From that day, Seabiscuit trusted and loved his trainer.  That was the day that Seabiscuit became a great horse, because he started running for the joy of running.  Smith had previously worked with wild Mustang horses, and was truly a "Horse Whisperer."  Seabiscut was not a happy horse, circled his stall and would not eat, when Smith first started training him.   God gives us a free will to do what we want to do.  When we realize that our way does not work, then we come back to the trainer (God), and realize that God will show us how to run the race of life with joy, not by being beat with a rod.

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2

As Christians, we share the gospel with people which are the words of eternal life.  We don’t have to beat people over the head with the gospel, and expect people to follow us and change their ways.  Only God can change hearts.  Like Jesus, we present God’s word, and it’s whosoever will come to the river of life let them come drink. 

On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." John 7:37-38

Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Isaiah 55:1

Transference

A single divorced man made a comment in his first marriage, he felt like he was married to his dad.  In his second marriage that ended in divorce, he was his dad.

Definition: It is common for people to transfer feelings from their parents to their partners or to children (cross-generational entanglements). For instance, one could mistrust somebody who resembles an ex-spouse in manners, voice, or external appearance; or be overly compliant to someone who resembles a childhood friend.

When we have been damaged by a spouse due to unfaithfulness or damaged in our childhood from our relationship with our parents or watching their relationship we can transfer on to our new spouse the hurt of our past.  I thought it was projection, but I believe it is transference.   

I noticed that for awhile when I would visit my new in-laws and go back in the bedroom to get alone with the Lord and read my Bible, there was an oppression that came on me in that bedroom.  Apparently, the ex-wife isolated herself back in that bedroom to get away from everyone, and then there was a projection that I was doing the same thing.  People fall into the trap that you are like the ex-wife or a person’s mother, when you are an individual and your own person.  This is transference of feelings of how you saw the relationship modeled by your parents. 

When you are building a car model its building a representation of a real car.  Marriage is a respresentation of God's love for his Bride the church.  Some Christians only model the behavior or image of the relationship their parents had.  Christ laid down his life for the Bride, and a wife is to respect/honor her husband, and follow his authority. We are not to fall in the trap of following the behavior of our parents.

Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. vs. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; Ephesian 5:24-25

It’s not hard/impossible to respect and follow a man's lead, when like Seabiscuit you can trust your trainer and that person has your best interests at heart.  If a trainer/man is constantly beating you over the head or your back all the time about what you are doing wrong, or physically abusing you, it’s very difficult to enjoy running the race of life or the relationship of a marriage.