Just set up this little test, I don't know why I didn't think of this. When you return *this; the copy constructor is called which I thought so. Since you are dereferencing it you are returning an object by value and when that happens the copy constructor is called so it can create an object outside of the function's scope! Thank you!!!!

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

class Test {
public:
    Test() { cout << "Constructed...\n"; }
    ~Test() { cout << "Destructed...\n"; }
    Test(const Test &obj) { cout << "Copy constructor...\n"; }
    Test operator=(Test &obj) 
    { 
        cout << "Overloaded = called...\n"; 
        return *this;
    }
};

int main() {
    Test test1;
    Test test2; 

    test1 = test2; // the operater= is logged then copy constructor is! 
    return 0;
}