sociopath how do you protect yourself and your family

[RENEE COOPER]

I have been with my Fiance for going on 7 years, he has a son of 15 and I have a daughter of 15. When I met him his son and two step sons were staying with him at his parents house. His son used to call the two step sons loosers and make them wash dishes while he watched T.V. He would also play one up against the other constantly so that there was always fighting. Measures were taken to change the situation, this lead to my Fiance's son getting his mother to lay a false charge against me to get rid of me. She took all three children back and subsiquently the two stepsons have lost any chance of receiving an education. The grandparents took the son back on the mothers request. We have made an effort to get through to the son, but have not been successful. He shows no remorse for any of the lies he has told and actually goes out of his way to repeat things he has been told not to do. He has gone around to all the family and friends and told them terrible stories about us to a point where we have been excluded from all family affairs.

When another girl went to stay with the grandparents he became sweet to the point of sickening towards us and told my daughter that he intended to stay with us. The charge against me had not been dropped so he would have to stay where he was until he was 16. He retaliated by becoming obnoxious to us whenever we saw him and he started tormenting my daughter at school. He then started asking the other girl when she was moving out and told her that she had no right to be there.

We have tried taking him to a professional who eventually lost it with him as he keeps changing his story and lies all the time, his behaviour got so bad that we started avoiding him. The professional asked him if he even had a heart or was he mentally challenged and told us that she has never met such a selfish, selfcentred, egotistical person, he shows no remorse for his actions, and does not want to live by a set of normal rules.

His mother has dissappeared over seas leaving the rest of us to try and sift through the rubble. We have been advised not to have anything to do with this boy, but I feel that would be failing a child. The words sociopath and psycopath have been used to describe his behaviour and I am starting to believe them.

Is there anything I can read or do that can help?
Am I being too optimistic?

[KBeth]

My stepson(age 14) has show similar lack of remorse and/or willingness to apologize EVER. He had an incident two years ago at school: He got frustrated in class, broke a pencil and threw it at the teacher. Even when his parents met together with the principal, school counselor and the teacher involved he still REFUSED to admit he'd done anything wrong, as if they were all making up the incident to be mean to him. The school was very concerned about his lack of remorse and so we started private psychological counseling which continued weekly for two years. But we felt the psychologist was completely ineffective. (I think she listened to stepson talk about his hobbies, but never approached any deeper issues). To this day he STILL continues to deny he ever did anything wrong or ever threw the pencil. He had another incident last year(I posted about previously, with no reply) which got him weekly sessions with the school psychologist...also ineffective. But this is a pattern he follows outside of school as well: My stepson perceives everything is always someones else's fault, he never does anything wrong, ever. When he gets in trouble (or even just has a bad test grade) he says everyone is out to get him or they "hate" him. It is very tiresome. And discussions we've attempted with him always end up with him angered and refusing to speak/respond in anyway. I feel this boy has ALOT of anger built-up because it occasionally comes out at inappropriate times. After years of trying, my husband feels helpless to turn things around during his every-other weekend visits. And his mother(who has primary custody) is oblivious to stepson's problems...she actually exhibits alot of similar behavior herself. His inability to take responsiblity for his actions makes me very uncomfortable. Are these sociopathic tendencies?
What can WE do to possibly help my stepson? Counseling has been ineffective(nor would his mother agree to it again w/o some sort of dramatic behavioral episode to justify it first). I actually fear he may become explosively dangerous if he continues to stuff all his frustration in this manner. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thank you!

[RENEE COOPER]

It sounds to me as if your stepson has problems dealing with things he has done. Ours does them intentionally. Since my last note we have asked the mother to help. She was horrified to here what her son had been doing to us. He retailated by getting my fiance's parents to turn on us. We are now dishoned by the family. Strangly enough it is a relief for us as most of his nonsense included the family. His mother has taken a hard line on this and sided with us and agrees that her son has been playing everyone including her and is cross that nothing was done to sort out this problem before now. She is overseas and is too far away to do anything about it. I wish you luck with your stepson as it is not easy and as long as he is not intentionally going around telling untrue stories to get his own way and make you look bad or to try and get rid of you are should be okay

[KBeth]

Glad to hear you have had some progress in your situation. Though I am sorry to hear it has negatively affected your family life so much to get there. I wish you luck.
I agree my stepson is unable to acknowledge negative(or even positive) things he's done. I worry most that the anger he feels with his deeply-rooted denial is not being vented...ever. He's just stuffing it continually. And it was his unrelenting denial and total lack of remorse that raised red flags to his school officials twice now. I see subtle glimspes of his anger, but usually as overreaction to some other unrelated situation. And when that happens he just ends up in trouble for his inappropriate overreaction, with no resolution of what may have truly caused him to "snap" momentarily in the first place.
He never talks about ANYTHING besides video games or TV shows. He has never asked any questions about significant life events(such as his parents divorce or his childhood battle with cancer at age 2). And when such topics have been brought up in the past he freezes and will not speak or respond at all...like he's invisible. Or he will get very angered and cry. To me, it seems odd for a child never to question events around him. But perhaps I place too much of my own personality in my expectations for his behavior? Does that make sense? Thanks for listening.