As I have talked with people who have been touched by a sociopath one thing has remained consistent. We all have had expectations, expectations that are unrealistic. What we expect from these horribly flawed, very sick people is that they will, at some time, understand their behavior and correct it; make everything right and whole so that our lives can go on as planned. What we crave is our lives before they were invaded and destroyed by these unfortunates who take without remorse. We crave for them to understand the damage they have inflicted on others, the emotional, financial, physical (in the case of violent sociopaths) and social damage they have caused. We crave apologies, restitution, we crave for it to be fixed so that we can then resume life as we knew it!

In reality it will never happen. The sociopath has one goal, it involves none other than the sociopath, it involves the sociopath getting what he or she wants without regard for consequences, lives hurt, damaged or destroyed. It involves the sociopath creating a safety for themselves, usually short lived, but in their minds stability and safety. It involves using others to gain that fleeting sense of safety. For the sociopath achieving this comes about through a complex manipulation of lies and deceit. Consummate actors, the sociopath can be whatever they need to be at the moment, the affable kind hearted groomer conniving and breeding familiarity to separate the intended target from what it is the sociopath needs to meet a goal they have set.

Once familiarity has been established, a false one sided trust (the sociopath never trusts anyone) the door is opened for the process of destruction to begin. At first the sociopath treads lightly, testing the waters gently. Never making to much of a spectacle about what they are trying to accomplish, slowly whittling away at the victims life, abusing the victims kindness and caring. Eventually, as the sociopath progresses and heightens the game the behavior becomes more brazen, more daring. It is now a survival game, a game in which the sociopath tests not only his or her skills in manipulating the victim, but in how well they can manipulate and get their false needs met.

When the victim questions, and they do frequently question, they are gaslighted, told it is their imagination. If the victim still has any power left, they may argue that something is wrong and want explanations. When the sociopath encounters this power they seemingly short circuit, they unleash torrents of violent verbal, physical and emotional behavior. More manipulation, more cunning. They attempt guilt, threaten suicide, blame for their not being loved and cared for, all attempts to manipulate. Playing an end game, a game designed to destroy the person they have targeted and win. Winning to the sociopath is everything, it is the final prize, the coup de gras. Their winning takes many forms and can be deadly for the victim.

When the sociopath senses the end is near they quietly escalate their sickening plan, they may subversively prey harder and harder destroying their victims last shred of sanity while actively grooming another victim. When the sociopath has either met the goal set or realizes the there is no more to be had they make plans to move on. Moving on involves someone to move to however. Sociopaths never function independently, they must have a source, like the ultimate parasite they need something to feed off of, to give them sustenance. I was the victim of what professionals have termed an ¨ëxtreme sociopath.¨ Extreme sociopaths are those individuals who maintain an assault on a victim over a long period. In my case it was twenty-three years.

When I review those years I now see the grooming that took place. The targeted grooming that was subtle at first then escalated over time. The sad lost puppy who was a victim of circumstance was what I was presented with, the lost little boy in need co caring and concern. The act had been played before, it had produced places to live and well meaning friends who cared and hoped for good outcomes. In actuality it was nothing more that Bob's game, his game of seeing how much he could get and how often. It ran the gamut, from needing a place to live, to drinks at Club One or Faces. He gloated over how he never had to pay for a drink because he would flirt and get men to buy his drinks in exchange for dancing and a kiss. I now know that dancing and a kiss was probably the tip of the iceberg. Bob had lived with a series of people before I came along, each arrangement ended but I never really knew why, he always told me it was because of ¨them¨ and I never questioned any of it, at all. I was told story after story of why things never worked out. He was never very concrete though. I heard from others to tread very lightly with Bob, that he should not be trusted, that he was bad news. I paid no attention, I maintained that what I saw and what he presented to me when we were alone was the truth. It never entered my mind that it was all a lie, a fabrication and theatrical performance to get his needs met. In the end that's all it was, a performance. In the end it was nothing, it had always been nothing.

Like something out of the movie ¨Gaslight¨ my life was invaded and manipulated until I had nothing. When it became clear to Bob that there was nothing further for him to gain and more for him to lose, he began his online search for a new target. He had done this in the past. He had left once before but came back when he was denied an insurance license in Tennessee. In hindsight I now know that he also figured his target was not going to be willing, so, with nothing there he returned. He was comfortable again, as long as a sociopath is comfortable they will not move, but if they are uncomfortable and lacking what they need then they move. Bob had the perfect situation, he did whatever he wanted in a double life. A secret life of people I didn't know, nor would I ever have wanted to know. After he left in 2012 all of his life began to open up, the deceit, lies and people he frequented appeared. His active sex life and interactions online became discussion as his acquaintances told me what he did and how he behaved.

Bob had to keep me isolated. He had to keep me friendless and hidden. The risk to Bob was to high, if I ventured away he risked exposure. If he was exposed then he knew I would take action. He exposed himself inadvertently in the summer of 2012, I was asked by him to go into his email, there I found videos of Bob masterbating, he had shot them on his cell phone and was sharing them online and apparently, frequently, on twitter. Of course now I knew why he was spending so much time in the bathroom in the morning!

There were many times in twenty three years that normalcy, or my sense of normalcy was shattered by Bob and his behavior. The final culmination for me was the health problems caused by the stress of living with someone you didn't really know and the frequent realization that you didn't really know them, what they were capable of. Slowly a timeline in my head began to take shape and clarity began to take hold. What I wanted in my relationship with Bob, what I had always perceived and hoped I would have with Bob would never be. There was never a foundation, sociopaths don't build foundations, they live in a house of cards, lies, on a murky, muddy terrain. Nothing maintains for very long, the need for constant movement and disarray is so great that the sociopath cannot and never will have any kind of meaningful stability or relationship.

In the end Bob had taken everything, he tainted what he did not physically take from me. He made sure he lived up to the words he angrily yelled at me one day, ¨when I leave you I will leave you with nothing.¨ I am lucky to have my life, I do know now that it was in great danger. It took me a long while to see that, it took constant reiteration from professionals that I was in grave danger to break the denial I had.

Are the expectations still there? Yes. Does a part of me hope on a daily basis that my expectations will be met? Yes. People who don't understand being in an abusive relationship with a sociopath find it hard to understand the feelings that accompany the loss felt. They have never experienced the complete emptiness you feel when you realize that something you experienced had no meaning, no base, no substance, that there was never love. There was love, but it was one sided love and it always involved being let down by the sociopath always hoping for a better outcome, a change, It always involved wanting what would never be because it was always always failure.

I have heard from Bob many time in the last six months, ¨why can't you just move on.¨ The answer is that I am a human being, I have feelings, I have emotions, I have values, I have morals. When a sociopath says move on it simply means I have a new victim, someone who, for now, can provide me with what I need. The sociopath knows full well that if that stops they will just pick up and head on into another sick parasitic existence with another victim.

What is hard about expectations is that they are real. What is hard about expectations is that when you want to see them come about in the worst way they don't. What is hard for me about my expectations right now is that I know they will never be. I will never experience Bob in any other light. He will remain the same being. I will never see all that I thought he could be and all I so desperately wanted in my partner and lover. Twenty three years of my life is gone, I am dying from End Stage Liver Disease. I falsely spent twenty three years with a man I loved, a man, like any other who had his flaws, just as I do. I did not though ever expect to be dying and alone and still hoping my expectations would be met by the man I lived with and loved for so many years.

My favorite quote is from Maya Angelou, for me it sums up how we live our lives, are we respectful and mindful of our actions and words, are we good companions in the world and do we offer of ourselves selflessly,

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

― Maya Angelou

No one can fully understand what another person has endured during their lifetime. No one can fully understand the pain of someone else's journey. No one can comprehend the ending of almost one quarter of someones life in a fleeting moment because they challenged their lovers behavior and asked why they needed to shoplift. No one can comprehend living for nearly a quarter of ones life with someone who never took responsibility and blamed everyone else for all that was bad in his life. No one can comprehend living with someone who blocked out large periods of their life as though they didn't exist. No one can comprehend living with someone who suffered from psychotic depression and the accompanying rage.

No one, NO one, can understand the terrible feeling of wanting a loved one to see what they have done and how they have made someone they said they loved feel, NO ONE!

Until I die, I will always have that expectation for Bob.