I'm a Psychopath

I met my now ex girlfriend more than a year ago. We met on a sex website.

It wasn't meant to be serious, but we ended up falling for each other. While she was younger than me, she still had a sexual past that was extensive compared to mine(and I'm no saint). She had done it all. Anything you can think of she's done it.

This always bothered me to an extend, but I looked the other way and pretended it wasn't a big deal. She also insisted in maintaining friendships with some of the men she had sex with before. This really bothered me, and I was very vocal about it. At one point, she decided she wanted an open relationship. She had done this in her past. I had not, and naturally was uncomfortable with the idea. While we were fighting and arguing about this, she went behind my back and engaged in sexual activities with another man.

I retaliated(very immature) by doing the same with a female friend and called it even. We managed to work through this and stayed together agreeing to be monogamous and not see other people. Over time, the relationship was great on the surface. She became the perfect girlfriend, but I secretly cheated on her with multiple women for months. I had a really hard time trusting her, and assumed that she would cheat again sooner or later, but at the same time, I loved her and wanted to have a life together.

This didn't stop me from cheating, and I kept secretly doing it for months until my conscience caught up with me and I broke up with her. I confessed a few days after, and she was devastated. Seeing her suffer so much makes me feel like the lowest scum on planet Earth. I never intended to cause her this much pain.

The problem is that while I was cheating, I never thought about this. I would lie straight to her face and make up reasons for being late, or not answering the phone. She had 0 idea what I was doing since she trusted me blindly. I would do my dirt then come home to her and sleep like a baby. It's as if the part of me that cheated was a different person from the one that loved her and wanted to marry her. I would never mix the two, until my conscience caught up with me recently.

She asked me how I was able to do this, how I could lie straight to her face and not feel bad, how I could come home and watch a movie with her with the sweat from another woman still drying on my skin and not feel like I was doing anything wrong.

I don't know the answer to that and I think there must be something seriously wrong with me for me to act that way and feel nothing in the moment. Only recently did I start to feel bad when I broke up with her and told her what I had done. I am very remorseful and I miss her a lot, but still think breaking up was for the best because I think i would never have gotten comfortable with her sexual past.

What's wrong with me?

Sounds like several factors are at play here -- I don't think you're a psychopath because you wrote that you feel bad and expressed remorse. If you were truly a sociopath or psychopath, you would have no qualms about cheating on any woman and would get a sadistic pleasure of knowing you fool the woman you cheat on.

One reason could be that you have a co-occuring issue; you may like to engage in sex to numb yourself of another on-going issue you have which could be related to depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, porn addiction, something else that you compulsively engage in to avoid feeling pain.

Another reason is that you could just be emotionally immature and insecure about yourself, and for some reason, cheating makes you feel more mature and secure with yourself.

Another reason could be that you don't have a lot of friends (I don't know your gender) so the lack of social support and a social network means you seek out sex as a way to fill that void in your life?

You could just be impulsive and have unrealistic expectations for the role you want your sexual partners to fill in your life.

You could be angry and sad about your life in general, and the sex website and cheating is a way to feel better about yourself?

There's a million and one reasons why you did all of that cheating. Have you ever done counseling before? Maybe explore the reasons why with a therapist. But I don't think you sound like a crazy person. I think you sound like a lost person who is sad and wants answers.

First of all, I don't think you're a psychopath. From what I know, Psychopaths don't have the capacity for remorse or love. The fact you feel remorse, and acknowledging your wrongdoings is a good thing. Those are the first steps towards change imo and it seems like in asking " what is wrong with me" that's what you want to do, and for that, I don't think you're a terrible person.

As to you not knowing the answer. It seems like you do somewhat, you mentioned yourself that you had difficulty trusting her after her cheating. So much so that you assumed she would revert back to her old ways if you haven't already. Maybe the feeling of distrust gradually built up. Perhaps that's what compelled you to cheat and keep on doing so? As well as contributing to justifying what you were doing.

I assume you never completely trusted her before and after you continued cheating on her? Maybe exploring the explanations for your actions can help unpack what went wrong and to not repeat those same mistakes again.

you said you never fully trusted her after her cheating. Did you ever vocalize that to her? Your distrust? And the second time you cheated, was it something that happened spontaneously, or was it on your mind? If the latter, again perhaps that was something that could of been vocalized to your gf or a proffesional?

Anyways, if you want help unpacking the explanations to your actions, and discovering what went wrong. This is something a proffesional could help you with.