 A slightly clickbaity title but it is a question I received is my boyfriend a sociopath. Let's figure out if we can get to the bottom of this. So I received a great question and it's from someone who's in a relationship and they're wondering why can my boyfriend not show himself emotionally to me, why is he so reluctant to be vulnerable. So we'll read out through this question together and hopefully it can help you as well if you're going through something like this, could be your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife who is reluctant to show themselves emotionally or even if an emotional issue comes up in the relationship they run away they can't handle it they avoid it. So here's the question it says is my boyfriend a sociopath. So I've been in a relationship with my boyfriend for about a year and a half and when we get on really well for the most part there is a major problem. He's so reluctant to show how much he cares for me he pushes me away all the time. I just get the feeling that if I was gone from his life he wouldn't be affected at all. When I talk to him about this I get nothing back he closes up and gets very frustrated and uncomfortable. It drives me crazy that he won't just talk to me and tell me what he really feels. So I'm beginning to wonder if he is even capable of feeling emotion at all. He's nice to me and respectful but never truly sensitive and vulnerable. His work comes before me I think it takes all his attention and I feel that he only makes room for me on his schedule. We are all we are so different I sometimes wonder if there is something wrong with him. Is he a sociopath? Is he capable of feeling emotions? And while I want to make a life with him I don't know if I can continue to be in a relationship where there is this much distance between us. I feel like I desperately need to be loved on a deeper level and without this love I don't know if we can be happy together. Okay so what I'm going to talk about here is it's great that you're asking these questions. You may be asking the wrong question though and what I mean by that is you're wondering is my boyfriend a sociopath. Now the chances are that he's a sociopath to be honest are quite low. There are sociopaths you know people who have gone through life experiences and have become a seeming complete loss of empathy. There are psychopaths who are born that way. What's far more likely is and it's going to be helpful for you in this situation is something called attachment styles. So if you can start to understand what attachment styles are it will make your life 10 times easier. Okay attachment styles what do I mean? You can have there are three different types of attachment style and everybody has one of them. Okay now your boyfriend sounds like he may have something called an avoiding attachment style. So that is somebody who in their early childhood they were in a relationship with their parents and as a child obviously you're very vulnerable you can't fend for yourself at all but you reach out to your parents to have your needs met and the parent is not attuned to your needs at all. Okay they and those could be you know practical needs physical needs fine it could be enough food to eat it could be a shelter warmth it could be medical needs it could be anything like that but also emotional needs which is more common. So you have emotional problems or emotional fears or things that go on in childhood you reach out to your caregiver or your parent and the parent does not respond does not meet your needs okay. Worse again they might even ridicule you for having those needs so not attuned at all. So what that person learns then in childhood is relationships don't work okay they have a depth to them emotionally these people with avoiding attachment styles but they've learned that to reach out to another person is pointless it doesn't work and I need to rely on myself. So things you could look for for a person you know how can you tell if someone has an avoiding attachment style how can you tell if you have an avoiding attachment style someone who devalues relationships they're not a priority in life they're very very independent they keep their partners at distance they can let them get a little bit close but then push them away very strong boundaries sometimes they can be mistrustful of people especially people who are emotionally you know show themselves emotionally they are very close to people who are close to them very loyal to people who are close to them so if someone actually does manage to form a relationship with them they're very very protective of that relationship. So under difficulty you know with emotion expressing emotion and being intimate so it sounds maybe possibly that that is what you're experiencing here what you're partner it's not the door psychopath or sociopath or anything like that more than likely if they were a sociopath for instance you would probably know it by now because I think you said you've been together for a year and a half and the chances are if the person was a sociopath they would have shown themselves they would have shown a level of cruelty and the cruelty will be followed by a complete lack of remorse or empathy okay and that would have shown itself by now so he's very respectful he's very you know considerate to you but there is that lack of emotional depth that you're experiencing that speaks to perhaps the avoidant style now there are two other types of avoidant style or of attachment style everybody wants the secure attachment style the secure attachment style is everything's okay in childhood you had your needs but when you reached out to have those needs met or understood they were met or understood with compassion from the primary caregiver or parent okay so you learn that yeah relationships work I can rely on other people I can trust people and then that goes into subsequent relationships in in that person's life if they're securely attached the final one then is perhaps and this could be something that you might want to look at maybe is something called an insecure attachment style so insecure attachment style is kind of between avoidant and secure so in childhood your needs were met some of the time but some of the time they weren't so what happens is you develop a need and a desire for intimacy and relationships but you feel like you can't rely on them okay they're not consistently there for you so what happens with that well what is the the signs of someone who might have an anxious attachment style that would be things like if you're in a relationship you find it very very difficult to let go of a relationship you crave intimacy in relationships sometimes you suppress your own needs you're obsessed with a relationship the partner is always in your head sometimes you play games in a relationship or you might get jealous a lot at a time okay you play games and so like to test the other person to see if they really do love me so again you can see it's all about I need the relationship I want the relationship but I feel like I can't trust the relationship so the point of this video is an answer in this question is to make your life easier in this relationship all you need to do is understand the avoidant attachment style because let's say you have an anxious attachment style and you're with someone who's avoidant you will perceive their avoiding the attachment style as rejection of you and really it is nothing to do with you it's more to do with that person feeling like it's not safe or what is the point of me being intimate I've tried that in the past so it develops a greater sense of compassion for your partner and also compassion for yourself the work for you on a personal level here might be to figure out what your own attachment style is and your work in the relationship is to try and understand what his relation his attachment style is and how that could influence you so in a conversation with him it's probably not going to work if you're asking for intimacy or a level of emotional vulnerability okay that's probably going to be very very slow in coming with someone with an avoidant attachment style what would be probably better would be to discuss with him what his childhood was like what his past was like and help him understand where this is coming from and how it makes you feel there's nothing at all wrong with what you're doing in terms of wanting the intimacy with him because on the deepest level he actually still wants the intimacy there is he's not a sociopath it's very unlikely he's a sociopath far more likely is that he has a depth to him emotionally it's just that he feels like I tried that in the past and his defense mechanism is independence okay I learned to be independent because there is no one that's going to help me once that happens in childhood it's difficult to to change that style okay because it's so deeply ingrained in us but if you're in relationship with a person like this for a long long time and that's what you intend to do you're going to need to understand this because otherwise you'll feel like you're beating your head against a brick wall and it will drive both of you crazy okay so think about that okay what is his attachment style it's never a rejection of me or my love it's more about his coping mechanism his style of coping and how he learned to cope with life and over time with compassion you can start to break down those barriers a little bit but it is important for you to have expectations about what that's going to be like it will be a slow process he's not going to open up automatically overnight it's going to take time and if you can can be can be compassionate with him and yourself in that process you will find that you grow emotionally steadily over time okay so let me know what you think of that hopefully it helps other people too who may be going through this if you would like to work with me you can just send me a message you the link is below and also maybe subscribe to this channel like the video and all those things it helps me reach more people so thank you for watching this video and hope it helps and I'll see you next time