I knew from my experience in working with couples that every marriage has two sides. However, it’s easy for therapists to over-identify with the client when we only hear one side of the story. Certainly each partner contributes to whatever turmoil and conflict exists in a relationship. But once I began seeing some of my clients’ male partners in

I wondered whether these men got some sort of perverse pleasure out of the pain and suffering they were causing their partners. Were they, in fact, sadists?

The men in the relationships I was looking at were different. They appeared to love intensely, and in many cases they had been in a long-term relationship with one partner.

But the man I was attempting to define was often genuinely responsible and competent in his dealings with society. His destructive behavior was not generalized, as was that of the sociopath. In fact, it was very focused. Unfortunately, it was focused almost exclusively on his partner. He used for weapons his words and his moods. While he tended not

Finally, painfully, I came to the conclusion that I could no longer stay in our marriage without totally giving up myself.

He was not a clear-cut sociopath, narcissist, or sadist, although some of these elements were often present in his character. The most dramatic difference between this man and those described in the psychological literature was that he was capable of engaging in a long-term relationship with one woman.