Steph

I think that this would be an excellent video topic, but not if it only discusses the perspective of the person dealing with a sociopath. Up to 5% of the population might be a sociopath (it is hard to tell as it is often difficult to detect) and people that are a sociopath might not realize it as they are simply unaware of their differences with other people. When I look online I have quite some sociopathic traits, but I find it hard to find ways to deal with it and still be effective at personal development. This is partly because almost all material online discusses only how to recognize others that are sociopaths and how to deal with them (often simply by getting away from them). If Leo would shoot a video on personality 'disfunctionalities' from both perspectives (the person 'suffering' from it and the person 'dealing' with it) in relation with personal development, it would be really useful to many people (including me).

Hi there. First of all, I appreciate your honest post. I think that as a guy it is not strange to have more need for sex than women. However, as Finding Peace states, sex is not the same as love. She might have a different idea of love and of how it is expressed. I struggled with similar issues (i.e. me wanting more sex with my partner) and when I talked to her about this I realized that sex does not have the same role for her as an indication of love as it has for me. What I found really useful is to read the book of Chapman - The 5 Love Languages. It is really clear on this fact that people interpret love in different ways and see different things as expressions of love. For you love might be physical contact / sex, but for her it might be having quality time with you or talking openly with each other. What I would really suggest you to do is to talk to her, specifically on what love means to her. You will most likely see that you interpret love and your relationship very differently than she does, which is not strange. What is important that you realize this difference in perspective and that you respect each other's needs. What I would then also suggest is for you (both) to read the book and see if it helps you. It really gave me great insight and it might help you both and your relationship as well.

@MIA.RIVEL Thanks for your response. You are right that I need to accept and love myself in order to not need the validation or thrill of cheating anymore. In this way it is indeed a kind of drug. But on the other hand I think that my problems are deeper rooted in that I lack empathy for people, especially my partner. I simply haven't realized enough how much I can hurt people, and if I did realize that somehow I couldn't feel the empathy or guilt well enough to stop the hurting behavior. I do realize more and more that I really want to change my life for the better. I have seen that my old way of doing things made me unhappy, and that staying as I am now will keep on making me unhappy. But even though I realize it cognitively, I don't always realize it emotionally in order to prioritize this above anything else (such as my job). I guess that I need to look deeper into what makes me truly happy, why I searched for validation and thrills that have proven to make me unhappy, and how I am going to achieve this goal of changing my mindset and my behavior. I feel that the best way for guidance in this is to talk to people, be it my therapist, my partner, my close friends or family, as well as supportive people here on this forum.

Dear readers, I am new to the forum and I would like to share my situation with you and ask you for advice. I would really appreciate it. I feel that I have a very big and complex problem, based around a strong feeling of inadequacy and a subsequent need for approval from everyone. This feeling of inadequacy, or lack of self-confidence, is probably based in my childhood where I found out that I was the weird, smart and ugly kid. I thought girls would never like me, but in adolescence I found out that girls can like me and I started to run from relationship to relationship. However, next to that I went for every opportunity to cheat with virtually any girl that showed interest in me. I was compulsively looking for approval and a boost of my self-esteem. This way of life made me feel unhappy, which made me search for more thrills, which made me cheat even more until it spiraled out of control. Last year my ex (with whom I cheated) told me that I might have an STD from her. I was forced to tell my current partner. This shock was huge for her. For me the confrontation was of an intensity that I never imagined, because I just never thought about how it would be if my horrible acts came out. I suddenly felt that I should leave my old self behind and together we decided that I would go to counseling and that I would work on myself in any possible way, through journaling, meditation, reading about psychology, etc. However, another facet of my confidence problem is problem avoidance and my inability to share my feelings. Forced by my partner I told two close people about my serial infidelity and together with these people we decided to keep talking about my problems, but this faded away because I stopped approaching them afterwards. I slipped back into my old habits of problem avoidance. I went to counseling, shared my infidelity experience there, but after that I focused the counseling on my general confidence problem. I do meditate and read about psychology, but I am not sharing my feelings with my partner, at least not when I am not forced to. And even though I haven’t cheated for over a year, I don’t know how I can be sure I won’t do it again if the opportunity arises. Now I feel that I never want to cheat again, but I just can’t imagine a situation in which I have the opportunity realistically. The thing is that I feel that my problems are manifold and very big. I still lack confidence, still avoid conflict and hide my feelings, I still search for approval from people and I backslide into my obsession with my job and my ignorance of my personal problems. My partner suffers the most because she expected me to change, but somehow I lack the empathy to care for her feelings as much as for my own issues (which is another facet of my problem). I am now just desperate. I feel that I should redirect my counseling and not avoid these deep problems, but when my next counseling meeting comes in a month I might think otherwise and hide in my shell again. What makes me most desperate is my experience with this backsliding, my inability really to change and to become a more open person without such terrible things to hide. In summary, I am desperate that I will never really change. Has anyone of you gone through such a massive desperation? Have you struggled as strongly as me with falling back to your old habits? If so, how did you break through this? If you have any idea of what I am going through, or if you have any advice, please let me know! Thank you very much for your attention.