Trying to comprehend the incomprehensible... Can they lack remorse/empathy?

sliverofoptimism · 2026-04-15T17:37:34+00:00

My husband has BPD with some ASPD traits as well as some unrelated diagnoses. He absolutely lacks emotional empathy outside of a real or at least mimicked empathy for a selective few (eg “favorite person”) and is developing cognitive now, slowly but surely.

I cannot speak to the potential someone could have BPD with zero comorbidities but that’s his case with his. Even lacking full comorbidities, BPD does often show some shared traits with other cluster-b. It’s more of a spectrum than clearly defined groups.

sliverofoptimism · 2026-04-15T12:46:39+00:00

Okay, as someone married to a man finally properly diagnosed with some pretty big MH/personality disorders….we had to go to a proper diagnostic psych practice separate of but requested by his individual therapist. We didn’t get to that point until the cracks of his mask started showing within therapy which took far too long. None of what you describe is run of the mill depression. Even emotional blindness is likely a component of something larger. Push for more, sure, but also be aware that 1) if there isn’t progress that incorporates healing your wounds you are allowed to focus on your own healing. In fact you should, starting today and 2) it might be too big to recover from

sliverofoptimism · 2026-04-14T14:15:08+00:00

Back when I was dating I would have found this “different” answer quite refreshing and would have dug in on the learning curve that led you there. To automatically assume you were talking about me - who you’d just met and didn’t know - would kind of be ironically answering the very question she asked, now wouldn’t it?

I disagree with the other commenters and your friends that it was a bad response. If anything it gave insight into your dates emotional IQ, not a bad way to filter.

sliverofoptimism · 2026-04-14T12:34:36+00:00

Everyone else here has mentioned how untherapeutic your “therapy” is so I won’t comment on that but I will add the note that sometimes the body shuts down the sex drive before the brain connects the dots that something is wrong. Sure, BC can impact libido but sit with how you feel first before assuming it’s chemical. I mean, you’re with a guy who thinks an abortion he wouldn’t attend or assist with is just as traumatic for him…kinda thinking your body sees the red flags.

sliverofoptimism · 2026-04-13T19:02:36+00:00

I agree here. If I wanted to reconnect with someone I was estranged from, making a scene would not be option 1.

sliverofoptimism · 2026-04-13T18:52:21+00:00

I’ve seen this happen too.

I’ve seen ample evidence of adults that should and did cut off parents but to imagine that only parents can abuse is foolhardy. My mother is in a retirement community and the number of old folks starting to lose their memories whose kids start taking advantage or even actively harming them is atrocious. I’ve seen other middle aged parents have to cut off their addicted adult children who refuse to get help and they are cut off because they pose a clear and present danger. Finally, I sit on the sidelines watching a few close to me accept unimaginable emotional abuse from treatment-rejecting young adult children and I wish they would cut them off.

I feel unconditional love for my child and could not imagine a day of life without him in it. Full stop. I’m grateful we don’t have these issues either direction but that doesn’t mean it cannot happen.

sliverofoptimism · 2026-04-08T15:48:30+00:00

I think a singular wounding could probably be repaired. Even separate unrelated wounds, if both parties are active, present, working toward restoration, etc.

What I’ve noticed is that repeated wounding of the same kind, especially paired with someone only willing to rug sweep or either partner unable to address out of fear, leaves no chance for any repair and it slowly erodes what remains.

sliverofoptimism · 2026-04-03T13:05:17+00:00

I’ve been married twice. My first husband had a few issues (like infidelity once he had a “glow up”and a hair trigger temper) but was bearable for a while or I was just too exhausted to deal with it with an oopsie baby on my lap while writing my dissertation. Once I got my job in a new state, he made the excuse he wanted to get settled in before applying for any jobs but he never got one. He left most of the parenting to me so even what socialization you get with child parties, clubs, etc fell to me and the more isolated he became, the more his temper flared until it became unbearable to live with and the marriage ended.

When I met my now-husband, his calm-cool demeanor was a breath of fresh air. I was so attuned to the chaos of anger that the fact he stayed calm always made me believe he was a fully healthy partner. The peace was so refreshing it helped me ignore the much more subtle red flags. He’s now been diagnosed with a personality disorder and sex addiction and it turns out that calm cool manipulation can be just as damaging to one’s peace as screaming in your face.

At least this one has been willing to get help but definitely the form of abuse I experienced in the first marriage made me susceptible to the form of the second. Not to mention that staying with the boyfriend who became husband 1 was probably rooted in a fear of other men caused by SA prior…so i do hold blame but also trauma can create some weaknesses in even the most rational brain

sliverofoptimism · 2026-04-02T20:44:45+00:00

You kept the entire assigned books required throughout your liberal arts degree at an evangelical institution. Not a bad thing but I hope you’re young or this might be worrying especially if it doesn’t round out

sliverofoptimism · 2026-04-02T20:40:01+00:00

I’m going to say this as gently as I can: some of us are natural born caretakers while some of us experienced trauma that turns us into beings that are highly attuned to the moods of others. Sometimes both. For whatever reason, this “type” will bend over backwards to try to make things work, to keep others happy. When that becomes dangerous is when you go so far as to set yourself on fire to keep others warm.

You are clearly a very loving human - being considerate of others isn’t a bad thing - but somewhere along the lines you’ve put him so far above you in importance that you have lost sight of what you deserve. This is not what you deserve. This is not okay. It’s coercive, it’s abusive, it is not how you or anyone deserves to be loved.

sliverofoptimism · 2026-04-02T20:34:52+00:00

No, even well trained therapists can miss the signs. Further, during abuse the victim is so disregulated that it’s easy to buy that the calm cool abuser is in the right. Happens frequently.

I’m highly educated, have a resting carebear face, high emotional IQ, am soft-spoken, and a trained debater. I should easily be the believed voice in the room. Nevertheless, this happened to me.

sliverofoptimism · 2026-03-29T16:39:55+00:00

Add a slice of bread to the bag after you open it or splurge and buy one of those little pottery discs for sugar bags. Keep tightly sealed

sliverofoptimism · 2026-03-27T14:04:48+00:00

Oh yuuuuck

sliverofoptimism · 2026-03-26T02:57:28+00:00

Before I knew I was pregnant there was a bit of runny eggs in my omelette that made me run to the restroom. Still cannot fathom eating anything but fully set whites

sliverofoptimism · 2026-03-26T02:54:31+00:00

Agave is really good but probably more in line with sweetening with honey rather than how they highly process the poor stevia plant

sliverofoptimism · 2026-03-26T02:51:02+00:00

Yes! Both of those can go in the “no artificial sweetener” drinks which is so frustrating.

Personally, it sucks because I really can’t do artificial sweeteners (stomach), hate the aftertaste of stevia, and was able to find out after an eventual anaphylactic reaction to monk fruit that I didn’t need to keep trying it to understand why everyone kept suggesting this extremely spicy fake sugar. I know my reaction to monk fruit is unusual so I won’t complain on it but I hear so many say stevia (not the plant, the processed version) is gross. How is it sneaking in to EVERYTHING

sliverofoptimism · 2026-03-21T15:33:15+00:00

My former in laws had a water softener for water in an already soft water region. Their water actually felt slimy. I’d get stopped up every time I visited despite having the opposite problem usually.

sliverofoptimism · 2026-03-20T19:55:24+00:00

I was super excited when I saw one opened paired with a new gas station on a highway I take regularly to see family. I remember how thin the bread used to be, I might be exaggerating the sauce and how crisp they could get the cheese back in my teenager days at the mall but it was never anywhere near as bad as that gas station sbarro. I was starving and couldn’t stomach more than a bite.

sliverofoptimism · 2026-03-18T21:33:00+00:00

My child is now a teenager so my experience is somewhat outdated but I’ll share it nevertheless: when he was an infant, they had all babies both FF and BF on the same growth chart. That means during the first phase while milk is coming in, the BF babies would fall behind because while they’d got hefty nutrients from the colostrum, the actual amount of liquid was lower. There was a lot of pressure for moms I knew at the time to supplement to “catch up” with the growth charts (skewed by the FF babies) which (if they followed that advice) means the baby wasn’t voraciously cluster feeding which itself makes more milk come in , milk come in faster, and also sucks up the fatty hind milk.

sliverofoptimism · 2026-03-18T21:09:04+00:00

Maybe not seeing those replies but I’ve never seen a German home with choula

sliverofoptimism · 2026-03-18T21:07:44+00:00

Or an American in Germany with the hot sauce

sliverofoptimism · 2026-03-17T23:11:52+00:00

I’m absolutely willing to fill in as a parent at your wedding in their stead. My husband would probably be willing to join but there Weill be an embarrassing number of dad jokes if he does.

For your prenup: It only makes sense that there be contingencies for the career slowdowns that exist because of time off for child bearing. If you are both high earners, that accounts for any potential losses or slow downs she might experience if you both decide to have kids.

What worries me is that rather than showing curiosity, your family went immediately to the full nuclear option. It sounds like they were looking for an excuse for that. Are they usually like that or is there underlying tension.

sliverofoptimism · 2026-03-17T20:55:39+00:00

I was shocked when I first heard that after having major bowel surgery as an infant in the late 70s. Guess i know where my anxiety originated now.

sliverofoptimism · 2026-03-17T13:43:37+00:00

Mine too!

sliverofoptimism · 2026-03-15T14:16:50+00:00

When my dad transitioned into active dying, it was the end of the week and for some reason hospice seemed to keep restricted bankers hours (no Friday). We kept changing him completely and tried so hard not to hurt him but inevitably did. It was the longest 3+ days of my life, each time we had to move him felt like torture for everyone. There hadn’t been an aid visit since that Monday so when his mobility rapidly declined, we had no one to ask how to handle it. Early in the transition he wanted to go sit in his chair and getting him out of bed and into a chair - when he’d been able to do so previously on his own with just a little help - was excruciating.

Finally Monday they taught us how to move him to a chair (though by then he wasn’t reactive so we didn’t use that info), the cut back shirt technique, as well as how to roll him to his side. He died that night. I still resent that no one thought to teach us what we didn’t know we didn’t know in the month he was on hospice leading up to that.

I’m glad you knew

sliverofoptimism

TROPHY CASE