Unless you're a glutton for punishment, get rid of him and move on. Some people are masochistic and enjoy being the victim and thus stay in the kind of a relationship you described so i have to ask. If not, move on. He will never change.

Well by no means do I want to be together with him again. I'm just struggling with believing that everything really had been a lie. Although all of this really did happen, before I'd known about any of it the relationship was pretty serious to me. He was the first man I've ever seriously thought about having a family with in the future. He keeps telling me now that although everything else had been a lie, his feelings for me were not...that he really is that guy that I fell in love with....just with a severe problem with selfishness and he's trying so hard to change. And he really did have a hard life growing up. His mother died of heart complications when he was just 1yrs old. Up until the age of 6 his dad was leaving him in crack houses and other evil places like that. His mother's brother would go over to his dad's house and find him in a diaper having been there alone for days and eating cereal off the floor. His dad's brother believed in witchcraft and would put him in the center of a pentagram and have pagan rituals with him in the center. And when his mother's parents adopted him, his aunt told me it was out of obligation. and with his grandma being a drunk and his grandpa working constantly, my ex was a very neglected child. His aunt and uncle confirmed all of this with me. He tells me this lying and selfishness has been a way of life for him for so long, and he's constantly lonely and miserable. He tells me that yes, in the beginning he'd used me to leave his ex and for a place to stay, but that he really did fall in love with me. That there were a lot of times that he was unhappy with me, but others where he really felt truly happy...and at times I'd made it so he didn't feel alone which was rare for him. See, this is hard for me, because the guy that I remember wasn't so bad at all. He'd want to spend all his time with me. We'd go out and I'd buy alchohol and play poker together and just have a blast and dance around my house just the two of us. We'd play strip stratego and fall into bed together laughing. We'd discovered chicken nuggets with hot sauce were really like cheap hot wings and we'd veg out together watching movies. Have shaving cream fights or just stay up late talking about nothing. I loved this guy. And I know that I should KNOW that with everything he did to me he couldn't have felt the same...but damn, really? I want to believe the crap he's telling me just because I want to feel I was special to the guy that was so special to me. He tells me that (other than the people he cares about) that he truly HATES people. That if he ever sees someone doing better than him that he wants to squash them. He'd told me that at times he'd trying doing this to me. That although my family had problems, that there was so much love between us and he was jealous of that so he'd told me my family was disfunctional. Now he's so regrettful of the way he's treated me, because it brought about losing me. He's telling me that he had planned on telling me the major things he was lying about after this huge birthday he had planned for me, because he knew I'd find out eventually and wouldn't stay. He'd admitted that he wasn't planning on telling the whole truth, just the things that I would be sure to find out.
He would always say things to me that now I can't get out of my head. My friends and family never really liked him, and would always interfere and cause drama between us because they thought he was bad for me and full of it. He'd say that he just so badly wanted to take me up to the mountains with him...live in a little cabin on a farm and just get away from everyone...including his family. Does that mean he really did care and knew that I would eventually find out about him? Guess I'm just really not ok yet. I don't really enjoy this struggle in my head and I think I just need some sort of definitive answer without having to give him another chance and believe this...and then finding out later that he never really cared...just as his ex-wife found out. He says things were soo different with her and they could never be like that with me, but my logic tells me this is just him knowing that I want to feel special to him...but he's right. I don't know what else to do but hope that someone sees this and has had a similar experience or has some good advice....things are kindof cloudy for me right now. Even with all this evidence, could he really be this guy with extreme behavioral and emotional problems. Does he really possess the ability to change, or to let anything everyone is telling him sink in? Is he really a lost cause? I would never try with him again, but I so want to believe I meant something, and that someday he really could become a good person. Please someone help.

There are many ways to look at this situation...but the outcome is the same. Whether he really meant what he said on occasion (that he wanted to tell you the truth or part of it, that he really cared for you, that you weren't like his wife, that he really was abused like you want to believe, etc)....the facts are the same...this guy is really damaged and ill, and you being in his life isn't going to fix that.

I am reminded of my passion for being there for someone I love like you seem to love this guy. Love is a two way street. Also, love doesn't fix someone, they fix themselves. I have to remind myself, and maybe you should too.

Whether this guy is a sociopath isn't the issue is it really? Isn't about whether it was real? And apparently it was real to you. That is obvious. What isn't so clear is if it was real to him. And maybe it was at the time, but I doubt based on what you have shared that it changes anything at all.

This man is not a nice man. Even if you laughed and shared and loved. Sometimes people are damaged and they aren't fixable.

You can't fix him. Maybe sometimes he had feelings for you...but he is broken.

It doesn't matter if he is a sociopath or not, it doesn't make a difference. It matters what he has done. If someone whose name you think is John calls you a retard, does it make a difference if his name was Peter in reality?
A bad example, but you can probably catch my drift