I know a guy who is basically never dating less than 3-4 women at one time with one living with him, and all are lied to. Thats the ones I know of, I’m convinced there are flings and that he is even supporting children and woman(he isn’t a drug addict but blew through a 100K settlement in months) on the side because he is always desperately scrambling for money. I’ve started to wonder if he isn’t using these women for money, when breaking up with one spoiled a plan he had to have her loan him 5K he tore into her verbally so bad it shocked me.
He has been stabbed and slashed, fled his home because two women were looking to hurt him, I have been amazed at his clockwork like precision when scheduling time with these women, it sounds like a joke but he could probably be with two women in one night at the same time and they would not know. It approaches pathological in my mind, he often seems exhausted and depressed(or maybe I am boring ;)) and he comes asking me for money, even to the point of asking me to give him cash for my groceries and he will buy them using his credit card and other shit that gets annoying. His ex’s try to ask me to talk to him, they cry to me about how he wronged them, some are crazy or as pathological about infidelity as he is. Their drama goes on online too on facebook, often a ex will post me shit about him.
Funny thing is he is admired by most people I know, the example everyone wants to aspire to. I don’t understand it at all.
I knew someone similar to your acquaintance but not nearly as bad. Like you, I had a difficult time trying to figure him out until I realized his motivation was unimportant. What was was important is that he poisons personal relationships and since I try to avoid poison, I avoided any personal relationship with him.
Agreed, sounds like time to detach. He is going to have to go through a “rock bottom” scenario before he’s at the level where you could help him–and probably not even then.
I knew a man who was married but always had a mistress on the side and a warm bed in every city he travelled to. I do think he was a sociopath, but his particular motivation was to prove that he could do it–that he was smart enough, suave enough, and didn’t have to follow rules.
He was a real asshole. I wish I’d never known him, my life would be better.
Off the top of my head, I can think of two people I know who behave in this way. One friend of mine admits that she feels a need to inject chaos into her life and that this need is somehow linked to the death of her sister when she was a kid. This woman is married and has kids, but also cheats on him in pretty high risk ways: she has affairs with people from her work some of whom call her at home, she does a lot of clumsy sneaking around that almost looks like she wants to get caught.
Another woman that I have known since high school also behaves in really risky cheating. She seems to like the danger of almost getting caught. Oddly enough, when we were in high school, her dad was a serial cheater and I remember how much it upset her.
I suspect, though, that this is basically his way of getting high – drama and danger. And he’s also avoiding real intimacy, which may be another one of his goals.
The “deal” is that it is a form of addiction, just like alchohol or crack cocaine. For whatever reason, having sex makes them feel wanted or empowered or good about themselves or whatever. They don’t care about the person or the actual act of sex. It’s all about the conquest, getting away with it or just having someone else desire them.
The problem, like with any addiction, is that they tend not to care about much else. Friendships, work, money, even marriages all come a distant second to fullfilling their addiction. And like any addiction, the source of their addiction becomes less fullfilling over time. But they still keep trying to recreate that moment.
It’s like a funny drunk at the party. Everyone thinks his wacky shennanigans are hilareous…to a point.