I think they are miserable. That was my impression about my ex psychopath, as well as that of the man she had an affair with (whom I befriended after he dumped her). Psychopaths may think that they are superior to normal human beings because they are not restricted by what they regard as human weaknesses (compassion, empathy and the like), but they must feel as outsiders to the human race. They cannot experience any of the joys that normal human beings derive from their emotions (such as love, true friendship, etc.) and they get bored very quickly. My ex psychopath always wanted more, and was never content with what she already had, and that made her miserable. She envied many people and hated nearly everyone she met, which made you wonder if she was a misanthrope -- not exactly the picture of a happy camper!

No I don't. I believe other than anger all emotions are very muted. I think about it like when you put your head underwater. No joy and no misery. Their range of shallow emotions is very limited. From what I understand my ex P is living from couch to couch, hungry, dirty, and broke. The OW said how she felt sorry for him and how miserable he is living like that. Nope. He is not miserable. You and I would be miserable. But not a PSN. They certainly prefer life to be easy and like it better when they are living well, but living in the gutter is just part of their lives. They don't miss their previous partners or previous lives in a similar manner that a non-disordered would. I do think they can feel anger but only because something or someone is getting into the way of their wants. Would we be miserable not being able to experience the real human emotions...joy, sadness, excitement etc.? Well of course. But they cannot be miserable or sad about something they have never known. Just another say...maybe it is an easy day and maybe it is a hard day....but just another day, another game to get their ego strokes.

I don't know, I am still confused about this one. My ex was in misery, I witnessed it with real life scenarios, but on the other hand, he used his misery to cover up his lies and for me not to find out who he really was. He used my empathy for his turmoil into his gain. Maybe he was void of emotion, and just played the part well, I guess I enabled it by feeling sorry for his situations. Given his dismissal of me once I found out, I truly feel like he has no feelings, so how can he truly be miserable. Like I said, I am still confused.

Everything was "ok" to him. Nothing bad or good. No thrill. No excitement. Just blah. And he would always say "it's just a day" like you said Live.

I think they are miserable in that they cannot achieve the only sustained state of happiness that exists within human experience--that of bieng satisfied or content. XP recently pronounced himself joyful and capable of love, to me, in an e-mail. It is true he was joyful in moments, but not ever capable of love. Love is a sustained and sustaining state of being in which all of one's desires are fulfilled and quieted. It is a sense of completeness with all that is. This can be a state of peace and harmony with a partner, or a state of peace and harmony with self, God, the unverse, or nature. In any case, it is a sense of oneness, completeness, and satsifaction. It is a lack of noisy, angsting desire.

Not ever, with P, not in our greatest moments of joy, did he ever experience one moment of sustained or sustaining love or contentment. He was constantly on his phone or computer, sexting other women. At most he could go half an hour without ditching into a bathroom, an adjacent store, returning to the car, trying to hide behind a salad bar, going in the house to put the clothes in the dryer, and taking an hour to do it, masturbating to his private porn collection of a woman friend while I took a bath, getting up after I was sleeping to indulge in cyber-cheating. Before I was on to him, he sexted another woman nonstop in my presence. I joked I was going to take his phone away because he never stopped texting. He even interrupted sex with me to sext his ex.

This is not a picture of happiness. This is a picture of the most desperate misery, a state of being incapable of love, peace, contentment, always jonesing for something else, never happy with what they have. If you look at the paintings depicting the tortured souls of Dante's Inferno, you see the soul state of a psychopath. They are in hell, burning in the flames of unfulled and unfulfillable desire. They are in a state of eternal discontent and misery.

Mine would turn on the tears at the drop of a dime. Thought he wore his heart on his sleeve. He would also be very excited about certain things. He could be happy and animated beyond understanding and usually in front of other people. He appeared to feel things more so than the average person. But at home during quiet times very blah and hard to read unless he wanted something. This is because he knew when to put on his game face and when he could just be. So while he portrays misery very very well especially to get a response from others, he does not really feel anything that is not related to his game play. I keep saying.....he is not human. That's why is it easy to maintain NC.