My life with a psychopath partner

Psychopathic partners who often become physically, mentally, emotionally or financially abusive often start out as charming knights in shining armour.

Florence Bett talks to two women who have experienced these relationships, survived, and lived to tell the tale.

LINDA’S* STORY

“I was in a relationship with a psychopath for one year. I was 29, he was 33. My son was four.

“He and I first met in March 2014. I’d just had a car accident. My son was in the car and we were both shaken. Psychopath swooped in and took over the situation; he dispersed the crowd, had the car towed and got us home safely. I fell in love with the idea of having my own hero.

“We fell into a relationship a few days after this incident. I had my reservations about him from the get-go – he was very broke, always talking about going for a ‘ka-small meeting’ and big real estate deals worth millions. He couldn’t afford to buy us anything; I even used to M-pesa cash to his mum in shagz. He didn’t have his own identity. I got a bad vibe when he was around my son. But I was so enamoured by him that I ignored the unsettling feeling in my heart.

“We became intimate three months in. I was trying that 90-day rule of holding off on sex, thinking it would weed any madness, but sex didn’t change the game for anything. To be honest, I was lonely and wanted to have a normal family of my own. He was in the same boat. I asked him to move into my house three months after getting intimate… then I discovered he had rent arrears for over half a year. I was being a supportive girlfriend.

“I first noticed he was cuckoo when he’d insist on picking me from the CBD so we could commute back home together. I was doing evening classes for my degree at the time. At first, his checking up on me felt so romantic. Then it became smothering. I pointed this out to him and he lost it! From then on, it was a fight every night. Fights about how I am ashamed of being seen with him because he is broke, how I am cheating on him with my lecturers and classmates, how I’m a slut, how I am speaking ill of him with my girlfriends and co-workers, how I don’t treat him like a man and respect him enough...  We’d fight until 3am in the morning.

“After these fights, he’d go silent and walk around the house with a wounded look on his face. I’d feel guilty then I’d forgive him. Then we’d fight again and I’d forgive him. This pattern played out for six months.

“I knew I had to end relationship after we had a violent fight. I’d stayed out late one Friday evening having dinner with my friends. He was in the sitting room waiting up. He shoved me around.

“We broke up twice: First time was after one of those 3am fights. I’d been out on a date with an old crush and he’d somehow gotten the CCTV footage from the restaurant and my text messages from Safaricom arranging for the date. It was too much to deal with. I asked him to leave. He refused. I told him I’d leave instead. He physically and aggressively restrained me; he wouldn’t let me move past the front door. I managed to slip away and hide in the loo with my phone, calling for help, telling my friends to come with the cops. He ran away. But because I was too afraid to admit defeat, I took him back a month later.

“Second time was via text. I was out of the house. He left late in the night when I came back with the cops.

“We later got caught up in a battle of furniture and electronics, never mind that most of them were mine. In the months after, he sent me chunks and chunks of messages insulting me and my ‘bastard son’. I blocked him. I’m still seeing a therapist to deal with the baggage.”

SHEILA’S* STORY

“I was married to a psychopath for four years. He and I met in church in 2009; he was a pastor. I’m from a Christian family so it was only natural that I was attracted to the same.  We dated for only a year then we got married. I was 21 at the time. He was 29.

“He was a thoughtful and romantic lover, always knew what rabbits to pull out of his hat to keep the relationship thrilling. What made it even more exciting was that he never asked me what I wanted – he quietly observed then surprised me. I loved it!

“I noticed the red flags from early on in the relationship but I ignored them. One thing is that he was very dependent on his mother, and he was depressed. We never talked about either. I remember when we were planning the wedding; he disappeared for a week. I couldn’t reach him on phone. He later called me to tell me he went to his mum’s place because he couldn’t handle the pressure. During the pre-wedding Kikuyu ceremonies, he was disrespectful in addressing my parents.

“The first year of marriage was bliss. Things started to fall apart when his mum died the second year into our marriage. She was hit by a bus. We never talked about the grief that ate into him. He quit his job and spent his days lazing on the couch. He didn’t take the initiative to look for work or go for the interviews I’d called in favours for him to get. We’d already had our first child, a daughter, and she was the apple of his eye. I returned to work. I took care of everything in the house, including the rent. I’d become his mother. He didn’t value my hard work. He’d say things to make me feel insignificant, like, ‘I know you love me too much to go leave me.’ Or, ‘You don’t have anywhere else to go.’ His words destroyed me. I never confronted him. Whenever I’d go meet my friends, he’d call me off the hook to find out where I was and who I was with, even asking to speak to them so he could confirm if I was telling the truth. It pissed me off. “Throughout 2012 and 2013, he was in and out of 11 jobs, burning bridges as he left.

The last straw was in late 2014. I was eight months pregnant with our son. I was out visiting friends that day with my sister. I ignored his usual calls. When I got home in the evening, he called me into the bedroom to talk. He told me not to talk back. He spoke loudly and angrily for 15 minutes, saying how I don’t respect him and how we can’t have two men in the house. ‘You can pack and leave if you want to.’ When I went back to the living room to where my sister and house help were, he followed me and asked sweetly, ‘Babe, can you pass me my phone charger?’ That flip of personalities frightened me. There and then, I knew what a psychopath he was.

“I left a few weeks later, when he was out of the house. I went back to my parent’s home. He’d call me every day after. Sometimes he’d be remorseful and apologise, the next he’d be vulgar and threaten to deal with me and my family ‘perpendicularly’. I reported him to the police.

“I’m still living with my parents. I know I need professional help to return to the woman I was before I met him.”

***

Three types of psychopath relationships

CALCULATED EXPLOITATION

You have something the psychopath needs. He will get into a relationship with you for the sole purpose of getting his hands on these things – money, a place to live, your own house, inheritance, business connections, means of transport, medical cover, access to power, access to a normalcy in life he never had.

He will play to your rules to make sure he keeps you happy. He will refuse to break up with you. When he’s wronged you, he will guilt trip you into forgiving him and taking him back. He will move on to the next target only after he’s sucked you dry.

PASSING ENTERTAINMENT

He is looking for a good time now: He impulsively takes you on road and shopping trips outside the country; he will party hard with you, spending boatfuls of cash in one night; he will want to have wild and unsafe sex with numerous partners; he will do drugs and drive his car fast. He isn’t concerned with knowing the real you.

He will start to get bored when you point out his recklessness and ask him to slow down. He will get angry and blame you for putting a stop to enjoying the fruits of his hard work, saying you don’t want the best for him. Your common sense is the reason he’ll discard you for the next target.

IMAGE CREATION

You are part of a grand scheme. In public, he is the ideal partner: he is charming and intelligent. He will hold your hand and the small of your back in public; he will offer his coat when it’s raining; he will make grand public gestures of romance; he carefully shows his vulnerability to the world, making others believe you are his rock; he praises you in front of others.

But he is someone else behind closed doors: he is erratic and prone to emotional outbursts; he lies and manipulates you into feeling that you aren’t good enough; he makes sure your life revolves around him; you can’t seem to win his real love or approval. You feel that you don’t actually know him. He’ll leave you because you threaten to shatter his public image.